"I understand they were killed with a knife," I said.
"They were. But that wasn't the extent of it." He grimaced. "To do such things to anyone is unimaginable, but to a baby…" He shook his head and seemed to gaze into a place deep inside himself.
He had the smooth dark skin common among Yemenite Jews and soulful eyes of such a deep brown that it verged on black. His hair was the color of coal and cut in short, thick curls. His features were soft, rounded, almost cherubic. He was thirty years old, four years my junior, but appeared no older than twenty-five. He was dressed in his police uniform, which was, as always, pressed to perfection.
"I think I can handle it, Reuben," I said gently.
He blinked and nodded and handed over the folder. "I don't doubt it, Adam. But what good would it do your client to know the grisly details of her son's death?"
"I don't plan on telling her," I told him, running my hand over the smooth cover of the file folder. "Not yet."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're going to investigate this case."
"I am going to do exactly that."
"After ten years? What can you hope to find?"
"I don't know. But it's the only way I can think of to help my client. And I know something the cops who worked this case ten years ago did not. I know the victims' true identities. It may lead to nothing, but it does give me reason to hope I can find out something the original investigators didn't."
"Still, after ten years…" He paused, tapping a forefinger on his desk. "You know, Adam, if you're keen on catching criminals, the place for you is in the police force."
"Why? You think if I were a cop, I'd be allowed to work on this case?"
"A case this old? No chance. We're overworked and understaffed as it is. All right, I see your point. But there are other cases, more recent cases. A man like you, who was a police detective—you belong here."
We'd had this conversation before. Reuben couldn't understand why I didn't join him in the police. I never explained to him that I had spent too long in uniform, following other people's orders. I did it in Auschwitz because to do otherwise would have led to my being killed. I did in the army because I wanted to live a free man in an independent country. But I never wanted to do it again.
"It's not for me, Reuben."
He shrugged. "Well, can't blame me for trying, can you? About the report, it doesn't leave the station. There's a vacant room at the end of the hall. Read it there, then bring it back when you're done, okay?"
"Okay. Thank you."
I rose and was almost at the door when he said, "Adam." I rotated to face him. I had never seen him look so grave. "I hope you catch this guy. Whoever did this, he needs to pay."
I found the vacant office, closed the door, and sat at the empty desk. I opened the folder and found two copies of the investigation report, one in Hebrew and the other in English. The latter was addressed to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Palestine Police Force. The CID had been the British unit that oversaw all investigations of major crimes during the Mandate of Palestine. It ceased operations in 1948 when the Mandate ended and Britain evacuated all its forces from Palestine.
I set the English version aside and began reading the Hebrew report.
The bodies of Esther Grunewald and Willie Ackerland (they were identified in the report by their false names: Esther and Erich Kantor) were discovered at nine in the morning on August 27, 1939, by their landlord, Abraham Sassoon. Mr. Sassoon was replacing a burnt-out light bulb on the third-floor landing when he caught the familiar coppery scent of blood. He followed his nose to the door of the apartment occupied by the victims and saw that the wood around the lock was scarred and gouged, as if someone had tried forcing it open. Sassoon tried the handle, but the door was locked. He knocked several times with no answer.
Increasingly worried, Sassoon went to his ground-floor apartment, got the spare key, climbed once more to the third floor, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. He found the two bodies in the bedroom. "I didn't need to check," he told the police later. "I could tell they were dead."
Sassoon did not have a phone, so he told his teenage son to run as fast as he could to the nearest police station and inform them that a murder had been committed in their building. Half an hour later, a police car arrived. The two officers ascertained that indeed there were two murder victims inside and called for a detective and a photographer.
