Vanished Without A Trace (14 page)

It took two days for Alon to gather the information about Deborah, the social worker. He had a software program that could help in finding every detail about an individual. He entered Gideon’s office with five pages about Deborah’s life. Gideon joked that it would take him more time to review the documents than the time Alon spent in gathering them. Deborah's life story would not embarrass any decent criminal. She was divorced ten years ago. The divorce was accompanied with many complaints that she filed with the police about her husband. But eventually, it became clear she set him up just to remove him from the house. She got the house and her husband got the children. Since she got her social worker’s certificate, she went from one job to another. At the beginning, she found a part-time job in the municipality of Ramat Gan, and from there she was moved to a full-time job in Tel Aviv and was not efficient there either. She received the most complaints from clients. Gideon buzzed Alon’s room and asked him to come to his office. When Alon entered Gideon’s office, he found him
flipping the pages and reading back and forth. "It has been one week and you haven’t finished reading yet?"

"I have a problem with this investigation. I have a feeling this guy is mentally ill and invents stories. Tell me, honestly, do you think we should give the money back to the lady?"

Alon pursed his lips. "I don’t know. But Karina said Deborah was the one who last saw the woman whom we are looking for. Maybe after we investigate Deborah, we will know if we should continue or not."

"We can make her give us the information we need. Your charm can absolutely help us here." Gideon said.

Alon looked at Gideon in surprise. "What’s the connection with my charm and Deborah? Am I a gigolo?

Gideon handed a paper to Alon with a home address. "This is your new residence. Karina insisted to pay at all costs just to find Julia. Actually, it’s not a bad place, it’s in Rosh Haayn. One fence separates this house to Deborah's house. The fence is not so high, which can help you build a relationship. She is divorced and busy in the chat rooms, if you know what I mean."

In any other situation Alon would have disagreed, but it had been days that he was sleeping in his friend
'
s house after Natalie had thrown him out of the house, so no matter how unpleasant the task was, he needed a house to stay in, at least until he found a good apartment in Tel Aviv, or until Natalie would repeat the mistake of her life and take him back again.

Alon settled into his new furnished apartment. He had to admit that it was not so bad. Although it was not in Tel Aviv, the city he loved so much, it was a refreshing change, a kind of a short-term vacation. The apartment was built on a hillside. No one lived at the back of his house, so when he sat on the manicured grass yard, he could look and contemplate the beauty of nature and mountain landscape, rather than the busy and dirty streets that were the usual in Tel Aviv. As he arranged his clothes in the closet, he heard a woman calling over the fence, "Hello!"

He came out from the bedroom and looked at the woman, who was in her fifties or older.

"I'm Deborah, the neighbor next door."

"Nice to meet you." Alon went out to her and shook her hand warmly. He was glad that she made the first move and couldn’t believe in his good luck.

"I heard that you live alone," she said.

‘Oh, oh’, Alon thought. She was definitely nosy. It was good for his mission.

"Yes, I divorced a year ago, but we just finished all the bureaucratic procedures." He lied without thinking too much.

"Are there children?"

"No. We didn’t have any."

"Well, I will not bother you to get organized, but feel free to visit me whenever you want. I’m alone too."

Alon looked at her when she returned back home, wondering what she meant when she invited him for a visit and whether she saw in him a prospect of a relationship. Based on her age she could be his mother, and based on her looks - she could be his grandmother that was already buried ten years ago.

The next day, he thought it was time to enhance his connection with Deborah
.
He did not want to rush but he also wanted to move forward with the investigation and get it done as soon as possible. In the evening, he came to Deborah’s house with a sugar container.

"I hate to be a rude disturbance but I forgot to buy sugar and I feel like drinking a cup of coffee, and coffee without sugar doesn’t taste good, I think." He said with a smile, hoping she would offer him a cup of coffee and not just sugar.

"If you want you can drink coffee with me here."

"No, I do not want to disturb."

"You are not disturbing." She opened the door and allowed him to enter.

They sat in the garden and Alon found himself fabricating stories. He explained how difficult the divorce process was. At first, he thought it would be easy for him if he would move to another apartment, but now he realized that moving was the hardest part in the divorce. It drains the person, it leaves him hollow.

She listened, she felt that he really needed her and she was able and willing to help him, "Feel comfortable talking to me about everything. I'm divorced too. At first it hurts, but then, it could be a convenient arrangement. I am a social worker, so you're lucky that you have a neighbor like me," she giggled. "I noticed that you didn’t leave the house the whole week."

Alon was shocked, ‘she sees everything’, he thought. Deborah noticed his surprised face and understood she was caught in the act. "It's not that I’m following you, I'm on vacation right now, and the house where you live was empty for a long time, and now I hear voices from there, so I know there is someone there."

Alon was comforted with the fact that it wouldn’t be difficult to extract information from her, she loved to talk. He hoped he was right, but on the other hand, he should be cautious, she should not suspect anything.

Three days later, she invited him for a Friday dinner. He was happy about the opportunity to talk to her and extract the things for which he was forced to rent the house. To buy her trust, he told her lies about his break up with Natalie, things that were not supposed to be told to anyone but close friends. Deborah felt that she found a friend. When he ran out of his semi-true stories, he found himself making up stories… he started to talk about his parents’ life. This time, they were apparently divorced, and he grew up with his father. It was something that probably made him fall in love with older women. His wife was also ten years older than him. He lied, and continued with his lies with Deborah’s active encouragement, who was sure that there was a big chance for a romance.

A month had passed and Deborah started to push him toward the bed, a possibility that never crossed his mind in any way, at least in his conscience. There lingers a thin line between work and conscience, with additional fear that he would be impotent for the rest of his life. However, all the tricks to extract information about Kowalski did not produce anything.

20

The next day, when he arrived at the office in Tel Aviv, Gideon asked how things were moving and if he got something significant.

"A lot, I must admit," Alon said sarcastically, "Within one week, my parents managed to divorce after thirty years of happy marriage, I managed to marry and get divorced, I began to fall in love with older women and I’m standing as a bridge between this and reality, but
about Julia, I’ve heard nothing. I do not know how to open a conversation about it."

"I think I have an idea," Gideon said, "a newspaper article about Moshe Kowalski." Gideon called his friend Amos.

"Amos, this is Gideon speaking. I need a small or a big article about Moshe Kowalski this coming Friday."

"Moshe Kowalski?" Amos asked.

"Yes."

"What will I write about him? There is nothing interesting to write about him. Everything that could be written would be considered irrelevant. Kowalski belongs to yesterday’s newspaper," Amos replied.

"Do a survey of the ten richest people in the country… a philanthropist…I don’t know… Do something."

"Philanthropist is good, it’s always contemporary. Kowalski is an absolute philanthropist. Why do you want this?"

"I will tell you by chance." Gideon lied. He didn’t have any intention to tell any writer of any newspaper, especially Amos, about the ongoing investigation involving Kowalski, although he cast doubts on the credibility of the story. "Fixed!" Gideon told Alon.

Friday morning, Alon sat at Deborah’s house flipping the newspaper and found the article where the list of philanthropists was written. The picture of Kowalski took the glory
.
What a story, it warms the heart, Alon thought. The article matched the target, but he had no courage to spread the fishnet on Friday.
Only on Saturday morning, when he was having breakfast with Deborah did he gather the courage he needed He flipped through the paper as usual and went into the bathroom to turn on the tape recorder. He put it in his pocket and went into the living room. Deborah was busy arranging breakfast.

"Why are you so busy with the newspaper all morning?" Deborah commented.

"I’m reading an article about people who contribute to the community, you know, it’s very heartwarming. You surely understand this. After all, you chose a profession that speaks entirely about contributing to the society".

Deborah nodded in agreement.

He read her the names of the people on the list and focused on some of them to prepare the ground without arousing any suspicion. There was no response from her. "Tell me honestly, do you really think that the money they contribute was from the bottom of their hearts? What are the chances of inviting a beggar like me or like you to eat dinner or to their fireworks party?"

"Hey hey, do not underestimate my job. I did get the chance to sit with a lot of respectable people. I'm not one of those people, how do you call it, a ‘vagabond’?”

'This is all I need, to move the conversation to the grammar,' Alon thought.

"Leave the grammar, give me names, with whom did u sit with?"

Deborah took a deep breath. "With Kowalski, for example."

"I do not believe you. Are you serious?" He stepped a little bit closer to her. "So tell me, I want to hear it."

"Oh it was just a hallucinatory meeting."

"What was that? Give me details." Alon gave her a pleading and amusing look.

"It was many years ago when a woman came to me and claimed that a certain kid was Kowalski’s grandson. She told me she visited his office and he refused to acknowledge the child. Then it turned out that she lied. She left a letter with the details about the real father," Deborah said, feeling uneasy that she mentioned the letter because she had taken the money from the envelope.

"Well, what did Kowalski do in your office?"

"He came to tell me that he was not the grandfather. He said he knew Julia, but he had nothing to do with the child."

Alon was shocked. "Why did he come to you if he did not have anything to do with the boy?"

"I was very surprised too, perhaps he was afraid that the false story would do him harm."

"What happened to the mother of the child?"

"She went to America."

‘Bingo!’ Alon thought. Apparently there was some truth in the story. "Deborah, honestly, do you think the child was the grandson of Kowalski? What does your female intuition say?"

"I don’t, but it’s really not important." She paused, and then continued, "If I did not know you, I would think that you're a journalist."

Alon tried to sum up the things in his mind. Julia told Daniel and Deborah that she was flying to America, but actually there was no such record, and she still lives in Israel but she simply disappeared. Kowalski went to the welfare office to declare that he was not related to the child; did this act not strengthen the theory that he was indeed the grandfather? According to Deborah, Kowalski did not deny he knew Julia. So it was possible somehow that he had something to do with Julia’s disappearance; she was the only woman who knew he had an illegitimate grandson. He felt he was swept up by the last conclusion, but he also needed to scrutinize it. Anyway, Alon knew he had made a big step in the investigation.

He hurried home. He felt he needed to share these new discoveries with Gideon. "I have good stuff, would you want to come over?"

"I would really love to, but I made an arrangement with my wife that we are going to a movie today."

"Forget about the movies, I've got something that will knock you down to the floor. I went looking for asses and I found the royal family - I went looking for information about Julia and I found stuff about Kowalski."

"Who's on the phone?" Alon heard Gideon's wife yelling.

"It's Alon, he has an urgent problem."

"Do not try it on me. I know that you hate going to movies."

"She thinks that I'm trying to get away from the going to the movie", Gideon told Alon, "Well, tell me the interesting details."

Alon summarized the conclusions that he reached. "Apparently there are lots of things under the surface."

"You're a genius. So we're left with a difficult question, What happened to Julia?"

"No. The difficult question is how will I run away from the apartment in Rosh-Haayn without Deborah knowing?"

Gideon laughed.

"I think I'll start to take my things out of here today, since she suspects nothing yet. Believe me, Gideon, she is dangerous. I need an additional risk at work. I do not know how to run away from her courting. You have no idea how much creativity I need just to refuse to sleep with her in the same room, not to mention the same bed."

Alon finished his conversation and was surprised to see Deborah behind him, hearing everything he said to Gideon. Before he could say anything, he felt the rolling pin on his head.

He woke up when a gold painted Thai wood carving fell from the wall straight to his head. He was happy when he realized the strong blow he got was not from Deborah.
It had been a dream.

He glanced at the clock. It was three o'clock in the morning. He had nightmares about this woman, he thought. He packed all his belongings, put them in the car and headed to Tel Aviv. Gideon would take care of the rest. He had already sacrificed enough. Oh, how he missed those moments with his girlfriend. He had to go through all these nightmares to appreciate Natalie. He arrived in Tel Aviv and suddenly realized he had no apartment to go to. He had left the apartment where he lived with Natalie before he went to Rosh Haayn.