He sounded right proud of it, as if it proved that he was a down-to-earth sort, one who could do with little and not complain about it. Not that I believed he knew the first thing about how little people could get by on. After all, he had been in Israel since at least 1939, not in Europe.
Not that it mattered. What did matter was that Moshe Klinger was often away from home at night. Could he have been away the night of the murders? Moshe had no motive that I could see, but he had evaded telling me that he and his family had moved from Haifa to Netanya shortly after the murders. And I suspected his wife had not told me the whole truth about the reason they had stopped housing immigrants after Esther and Willie.
"You keep a list of drivers and routes?" I asked.
"Sure. I have to know I got everything covered."
"Do you still have Klinger's work schedule?"
I could almost hear Harel's eyebrows crank up. "After ten years? Are you kidding?"
I kneaded the back of my neck. The wound behind my ear throbbed. "Were you satisfied with his work?"
"Yeah. He did his job fine. Truth is, there's not much to excel at. It's a simple job: you take stuff from one place and drop it off at another. As long as you're on time and nothing turns up missing, I'm happy."
"What kind of man is he?"
"What kind?" Harel sounded bewildered. "I don't know. A regular kind. We weren't close or anything. Like I said, he did his job. That's all I cared about."
"No problems with other employees or customers?"
"What kind of problems?"
"Anything. He ever get angry or physical with anyone?"
"No, nothing like that." He had said this slowly, suspicion creeping into his voice. I had asked a question that seemed out of place—if indeed I was not interested in Moshe Klinger as a suspect of a crime.
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"His last day of work here. He moved to Netanya and now works for our outfit there."
"What made him leave Haifa, do you know?"
"No," Harel said. "Now that you mention it, that was the only time I was angry with him."
"Why?"
"Because he hardly gave me any notice. Look, I run things in an orderly manner here. I plan things in advance. Klinger just came into my office one day and told me he was moving to Netanya in a week's time. Just a week. I had to scramble to find a replacement driver. Lucky for him I didn't make any noise about it, or he would have been out of a job, you can believe that."
"Why the sudden move?"
"I don't know. I asked, and he mumbled something about his wife. That made me even angrier. It's a cowardly thing to hide behind your wife. You're a man, stand by your decisions."
"But you don't remember the exact reason?"
"No. Listen, I gotta ask you, what's this about? Why do you care about what happened ten years ago?"
"It's confidential," I said, knowing that I would get no more from him. "I can't talk about it, and I'm instructing you to keep quiet about it as well. It's police business. Don't mention our talk to anyone. Is that clear?"
"Yeah, yeah. I gotta get back to work, all right?"
I considered asking him for names of colleagues of Moshe's, but decided not to. Harel would likely keep his mouth shut about our talk; anyone close to Moshe wouldn't. For the time being, I saw no upside in Moshe knowing that I was considering him as a suspect.
I handed some money to the hatchet-faced barwoman.
"For the call," I said. "Can I get a coffee?"
"Ran out of the real stuff yesterday," she said, tucking the money into a box below the bar. "Chicory coffee okay?"
It wasn't, so I ordered an orange soda. It was lukewarm and flat. Something told me this café wouldn't be in business for long.
"Thanks," I said and toted the bottle with me back to the phone. I swallowed some more soda. It did quench some of my thirst. That was something.
Taking another sip, I called Itamar Levine's law firm. The same secretary as yesterday picked up.
"He just came in," she said once we got through the introductions. "Hold on a minute."
I did and soon heard a soft male voice: "Hello, this is Levine."
"Mr. Levine, my name is Adam Lapid. I'm an investigator from Tel Aviv."
"An investigator? Police?"
"No. Private," I said. Pretending to be a policeman is a risky tactic with lawyers.
"I see. What is this about?"
His voice was soft and cautious. The voice of a man who doesn't step off the curb before checking at least twice in both directions that the road is clear.
"Esther Kantor," I said.
A sharp intake of breath. "I haven't heard that name in a long while."
But from the way he said it, I would have bet the name had cropped up in his mind not that long ago.
"You worked together at Becker & Strauss."
"Yes. But why are you asking me about Esther?"
I told him.
"What hope is there after ten years?"
"More than there was two weeks ago," I said.
