that’s the only thing—”
“Do you hear her?” Hefetz said to Michael, deeply disturbed. He took hold of Natasha’s arm. “Don’t you understand how dangerous it is right now?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “After everything that’s happened, can’t you give up on that story about the ultra-Orthodox? Why are you hanging on to it? Do you really want to get involved with those people?”
“What?” Natasha said, shaking off his arm, her lips in a pout.
“Because of a sheep’s head? That’s what’s got you so uptight?”
“No, not only that,” Hefetz said. “I mean, that too, that’s pretty scary, at night, no? It’s not frightening to come home and find that thing swinging over your front door? Of course that’s scary, isn’t it? But not just because of that sheep’s head. It’s because of Zadik, too. I saw him after he was murdered. Believe me, Natasha—” Hefetz’s voice cracked.
“There’s nothing to fear now,” Michael said quietly, “since you’re all being taken over to police headquarters. Nothing will happen to you between now and the time we take your testimonies.”
“You’re taking us now?” Hefetz exploded. “We have to go to police headquarters now? We’re in the middle of—we have—” He nodded in the direction of the canteen, where the newsroom staff sat talking excitedly around three Formica tables that had been pushed together.
“We have an urgent staff meeting, there’s nowhere for us to meet since the police have—so this is the only place for us to sit and there are a few matters we have to—I haven’t even decided who’s going to run the News Department, I’m all alone now—Rubin isn’t willing to fill in for me even temporarily, says he doesn’t want any administrative jobs and there’s nobody—” Michael shrugged, and extended his arm to invite Hefetz to enter the canteen. He followed Hefetz inside just as Niva was shouting, “We can’t very well announce on the news that one of our colleagues has been arrested as a murder suspect, can we?”
“Calm down already,” Erez grumbled. “Why are you shrieking like a little girl, don’t you know anything? We won’t use the word
‘arrested,’ we’ll just say he’s been detained. But we have to report it; do you think Channel Two is going to behave in a polite and friendly manner and just leave it out of their broadcast entirely?”
When they noticed Michael among them, they fell silent. For several long seconds they stared at him until Niva, shaken and hostile, dared to speak up. “Is it true that you’ve arrested Benny Meyuhas and that he’s your main suspect?” Without waiting for an answer, she added, “I can’t believe it! You’ve got to be completely blind to see that Benny Meyuhas—he wasn’t even here, how could you?”
“We’ve got to get a few things wrapped up quickly,” Hefetz said.
“They want to take us to police headquarters to give testimony.”
“Now?!” Erez protested. “After they’ve been driving us nuts all day?
As if this trauma, this disaster with Zadik, wasn’t bad enough—what have we been doing here all day if not giving testimony?”
“What, are we suspects too?” Niva demanded to know. “Is everyone at Israel Television considered a suspect?”
Michael regarded her silently, then glanced at pregnant Tzippi, who sighed, spread her arms out on the table, and laid her head down on them. When his eyes met those of David Shalit, the correspondent for police affairs shot him a questioning look. Shalit stood from his place and approached. “I’d like to have a word with you, Chief Superintendent Ohayon.” In a whisper he said, “I’ve got to know how many—”
“Forget about that for now, Davey,” Hefetz said quietly. “Nobody’s gonna talk to you about that right now, they’ve got … slightly more important matters to attend to. Wouldn’t you say that’s true?” he asked, turning to Michael. “How long do we have to wrap up?”
“Another half an hour or so,” Michael answered after consulting his watch. “And I hope that we’ll be finished by morning. That depends on how things develop.”
“What about the late-night news?” Hefetz insisted. “You can’t take the folks from the late-night news, somebody’s got to be around for the broadcast.”
“Prepare a list for me,” Michael said. “Name all the people who are absolutely essential, but I mean essential, the ones that you can’t do without, and we’ll—”
“But that’s almost all of us,” Hefetz protested. “Erez, and the anchor and the late-night production assistant, and the researcher and the reporters—Danny Benizri and Rubin—and Niva—”
“I don’t have to be here,” Niva said.
“You draw up a list, and we’ll come for those people with the van, after the late-night broadcast. I want to see that list. As for the others,”
Michael said, “they’ll have to come with us now, no arguments.
Anyone who doesn’t come in at nine-thirty will be questioned after midnight. No problem.”
A uniformed officer entered the canteen. “Sir,” he said breathlessly,
“we … wanted …” He indicated that he would prefer to speak to Michael outside the canteen.
Michael rushed over to him. “What is it, Yigael? Anything new?” he asked.
“A couple of things, sir,” the policeman answered. “First of all, there’s this guy at the entrance to the building with a special delivery for Hefetz. They wouldn’t let him in, but he’s got this envelope in his hand and he won’t let anyone see what’s inside. He says, ‘I’m only giving this to Hefetz, that’s what they told me, the editor told me.’ So we decided to ask you, sir, if—”
“Hefetz,” Michael called out, and Hefetz hurried over. “Tell him, Yigael, let him decide,” Michael said to the policeman.
“I woulda let the whole thing go, sent the guy packing,” the policeman said apologetically, “but he was so insistent, and I thought—”
“You did the right thing,” Michael said. “In these situations you never know.” In fact he was thinking about Natasha; he wondered whether those pages meant only for Hefetz were about her.
The policeman explained the matter to Hefetz as the three progressed together to the main entrance. Michael and Sergeant Yigael stood next to the stairway and watched as Hefetz approached the mes-senger, who was holding in one hand a scooter helmet and in the other a yellow envelope, which he handed over silently to Hefetz and then made to leave. “Hang on a minute, hang on,” Hefetz called after him.
“I haven’t signed for this,” he said, but the young man had already disappeared from view.
“What’s the second thing you had to tell me?” Michael asked Yigael as he watched Hefetz holding the envelope as though weighing it. On their way back to the canteen, Hefetz began ripping it open. Michael considered asking him to open it in his presence, but the police sergeant distracted him when he said, “Sir, you’d better come with me
to the second floor, where the newsroom is, we found something—
They’re waiting for you there.”
A policeman was stationed at the entrance to the newsroom as well, while inside there were three members of the forensics team. “Yaffa will show you,” one of them told him as he walked into one of the rooms. “It’s in the third room down, in the room marked FOREIGN
CORRESPONDENTS.”
“We found it!” Yaffa informed him triumphantly. “What was it we said? That ‘every time you touch something you leave a trace.’ So here you are.” She pointed with a finger wrapped in a silicone glove at the front of a light blue T-shirt spread over a computer printer standing under the window. “You see this stain?” she asked him. “Looks brownish, right? Well, that isn’t brown, it’s red. Someone tried cleaning it but didn’t manage. Whoever it was didn’t know you need cold water in order to clean blood at first.” She smiled, clearly pleased. “They worked on it with boiling hot water, maybe from the teakettle”—she pointed at an electric kettle in the corner of the room—“or maybe from somewhere else. In any case, they tried to get rid of the stain with hot water, but all they did was turn the stain brown.”
“You’re sure that’s blood?” Michael asked, hesitant.
“I’m not sure of anything,” Yaffa answered. “That’ll only be after we run some tests. But I’m willing to bet. When someone gets slaughtered like that, there’s bound to be blood, and nothing can cover it all up.”
“With you I don’t place bets,” Michael said as he bent down for a closer look at the shirt. “Every time I’ve made bets with you in the past, I’ve felt like—hey, what’s written on the label of this shirt? This shirt is—”
“Excuse me, sir,” Yaffa dared to interrupt. “This shirt is filled with signs. You could call it a miracle. First of
