“When was the last time you saw him?” Michael asked.
“Today,” Benny Meyuhas responded hoarsely, though now he seemed grounded and completely in focus. “This afternoon, late, just before I came to the television station. He told me to come and tell you … he wanted me to … but I couldn’t do it …” Again, sobs emerged from the depths.
Michael led him out into the hallway and toward the living room, where chairs had been set up, along with a table with a recording device on it.
“Where do you want this?” Balilty whispered from the doorway, where he was standing with a video camera. “We set it up in here because there’s a door between the rooms,” he explained. “This way it’s easy, or relatively easy, since you insisted on doing this here instead of back at headquarters, and Shorer says—”
“You people decide,” Michael concluded. He looked at Nina as she got Benny Meyuhas settled on one of the chairs and pointed the microphone at him. “You’re better at that than I am,” he said distractedly. “But I don’t want you people in the room with us.”
“That’s the whole idea,” Balilty said in a stage whisper. “We’ll be in the next room listening to every word, and we thought we’d put the camera next to the window.”
Michael nodded, entered the room, and sat facing Benny Meyuhas.
He motioned to Nina to leave, pressed a button on the tape recorder, quietly mumbled the date, time, and name of the interviewee into the microphone, then looked at Benny Meyuhas and said, “Are you ready to begin?”
Benny Meyuhas pressed his hands into his face and from behind them said, “I have no one left … I have nobody left to protect.” He sat up straight in his chair. “What do you want to know?” he asked.
c h a p t e r f i f t e e n
Y ou?” Rubin said, surprised to find Lillian standing in the doorway to Balilty’s office. “Where’s the big boss? I thought that he would—”
Lillian straightened the sleeves of the long green men’s shirt she was wearing, sat down across from Rubin, and placed an orange file on the table between them. “For the time being, I’ll be asking the questions. Do you have a problem with that?” she asked, inclining her head.
With artificial affability she added, “I’ve heard you hav nothing e
against women, but suddenly it would seem—”
“No, no, no, perish the thought!” he said with elaborate formality, a smile on his face. “I’ve always said that w better
omen constitute the
part of the world.”
“So,” Lillian said, an inquisitive look on her face, “you’ve been sent a woman, and what do you do? Complain!”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Rubin apologized. “It’s just … surprising. I had understood that … oh, never mind; as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to begin whenever you’re ready.”
“Ready I am,” Lillian said, and she pressed the button on the recording device. For a quick moment she turned her head to the back, toward the wall and the window, which appeared completely dark and was covered by a curtain; from the other side one could see everything that was taking place in Balilty’s office.
Rubin followed her gaze; his eyes skittered from Lillian to the recording device until finally he aimed a bluish, focused stare at her. “I would like to speak with Benny,” he said as if sharing a secret. “I’ve already requested permission several times. Chief Inspector Ohayon promised me that—”
“No problem,” Lillian said pleasantly. “We’ll just finish up here, and then we’ll see. By then, Chief Inspector Ohayon may be able to escort you himself.”
She gestured to the door, implying that Michael would soon return, but Rubin looked toward the door and said hesitantly, “I don’t feel comfortable talking with you people before I—” Lillian flashed him a look of anticipation, forcing him to finish his thought: “First I want to speak with Benny to make sure he’s all right.”
“Why? Why is the order of events so important to you? Do you need to coordinate your stories?” Lillian asked teasingly. Rubin chuckled, as though she had been joking, but then she grew serious and added, “Right now this has nothing at all to do with Benny. I won’t even ask about him for the time being, okay?”
“Okay,” Rubin said. “What would you like to know?”
“First of all,” Lillian said, getting straight to business, “we’re checking the issue of physical presence.”
“ ‘The issue of physical presence’?” Rubin said mockingly. “What kind of pompous expression is that? You mean, where was I and what was I doing?”
Lillian stretched her lips into the likeness of a smile and said, “The question, to be more specific, is whether you left the building today.”
“Today. You mean after … after Zadik—”
“Yes,” Lillian said with exaggerated friendliness. “Let’s say, between eleven o’clock and eight.”
“Eleven o’clock this morning?” Rubin asked, wrinkling his brow.
“Until eight this evening,” she offered cheerfully.
“Twice,” Rubin said. “Both times with permission.”
Lillian opened the orange file, flipped through several pages, and perused the information written there. “Is that so?” she asked. “And who gave you permission?”
“What is this?” Rubin asked. “Are you keeping a file on me?”
Lillian placed her elbows on the desktop and rested her chin in her hands, then stared at Rubin in anticipation, completely ignoring his question. Rubin glanced at the file and began talking. “All right. The first time, early in the afternoon, it was our security officer who gave me permission when I explained to him about my mother,” he said
impatiently. “The second time would have been around six this evening, with permission, I believe … I can’t be certain, I can’t recall if I got permission myself or whether it was my producer, or perhaps Hefetz. Believe me, I don’t remember.”
“Was this after Benny Meyuhas arrived, or before?” Lillian asked.
“After,” Rubin said after pondering the question for a moment. “Yes, absolutely, it was after he arrived. I remember, God, it’s hard to believe it was just—” He glanced at his watch. “It’s already one in the morning, that was seven hours ago, I can’t believe it. It feels like a century ago.”
“So you left twice. For how long each time?” Lillian asked sweetly.
“The first time it must have been … what, about eleven o’clock?”
“Twelve-forty-seven,” Lillian told him after glancing at the page on the table in front of her. “Precisely. You said you’d been summoned to the old-age home where your mother lives. Someone from the facility called us to confirm this.”
“Well, then,” Rubin said, “since someone called, you know it’s true.
I don’t understand where the problem is.”
“No.” Lillian shrugged. “There’s no problem, it’s just that—”
“What?” Rubin asked irritably.
“It came up in the conversation,” Lillian said very slowly, “that your mother takes digoxin, doesn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” Rubin said, perplexed. “I don’t know the exact medical names … I’m not a doctor. But—”
“They told us you went to bring a prescription for her, something urgent. Did you not? Is it not true that she needed to have a prescription filled?” Lillian asked with mock innocence. “We understand the prescription was for digoxin. If you had to ask the pharmacist for it, then you certainly know—”
“Who says I asked the pharmacist for it?” Rubin asked irritably.
“Listen, young lady,” he said—Lillian blinked but said nothing—“my mother is eighty-three years old and has serious health problems. Why don’t you verify that over the phone? Why don’t you ask them at the old-age home? And anyway, what does all this have to do with—?”
“Well, that’s just it,” Lillian said, still with the sweetness of a diligent little girl eager to cooperate. “In fact we did verify it, and what we discovered was—” She stopped as if to check her papers and secretly glanced at the curtained wall; for a moment she imagined how they would all be sitting there critiquing her performance, how
