"What? No. Why would I think that?" Gafni looked as though I'd suggested cats were capable of flight. "There was no sign of violence or a struggle. The police did not hesitate in ruling it a suicide. Here, I have a copy of their report. You can read it yourself."
The report was three pages long. It stated that Moria Gafni had been found dead in her apartment at three thirty on the afternoon of December 6, 1951, and that she had died around noon of the same day. Empty pill bottles were found by her bed. The pills had come from the hospital where Moria Gafni had worked. The police found a suicide note next to the pillow, written in the dead woman's hand, though for some reason, the message therein had not been recorded. The woman who discovered the body stated that the door to the apartment had been locked when she arrived. There was no sign of any disturbance inside. No hint of violence. A clear-cut suicide.
I put the report on the desk. "If you don't suspect foul play, why do you need a detective?"
Instead of replying, Gafni reached into his inside jacket pocket. His hand came out holding a folded piece of paper. "This is the note Moria left."
I unfolded the paper and read the message written across it in black ink. "Are you sure this is Moria's handwriting?"
"Yes. I recognized it instantly."
It was possible someone had coerced Moria into writing this note, but my instincts doubted it. The writing was precise and neat, the product of a steady hand. This wasn't written by a woman beset by roiling emotion or under a threat more terrible than imminent death.
In addition, if the note had been written under duress, or if it had been forged, the killer would have crafted a depressed and unremarkable farewell. Something along the lines of "I can't go on anymore" or "I see no point in carrying on living." Instead, the note was decidedly cryptic and its tone aggressive rather than desolate. The killer would have wanted the note to settle all questions regarding Moria's frame of mind and her decision to end her life. But what it did was the opposite: it raised questions. And unanswered questions arouse curiosity and invite scrutiny. The exact things a murderer would least want.
I read the note again, pondering its hidden meaning. "Who is the person Moria refers to?"
"I don't know."
"What about the other bit, what she regrets doing?"
"I don't know that either. There's a whole lot I don't know. That's why you're here."
I lowered the note and looked at him. He appeared to have aged ten years in the space of a minute. Grief can do that to a man. Sometimes, it can kill him too. Often this doesn't happen all at once. Rather, the sorrow worms its way into your marrow and drains the life out of your body drop by drop until nothing is left. It was possible that Gafni was in the grip of such a process and that he sensed on some level that it was happening.
He said, "My daughter and I weren't on the best of terms. In fact, we hardly had contact with each other these past few years."
"Why?"
"That doesn't matter."
"It doesn't? You're sure about that?"
"Yes, I am," he said, stressing each word.
I dropped the matter. There are ways of making a man talk when he's not inclined to, but I was pretty certain none of them would work. And I still needed to tread carefully around Gafni.
I said, "What is it you want me to do, Mr. Gafni?"
"You read the note. What do you make of it?"
"It's deliberately vague, which is strange. Moria could have named the person, but she chose not to."
"Why do you think she did that?"
"Impossible to say. Perhaps the police can find out."
"The police don't get involved unless a crime has been committed."
"I'm sure they'll make an exception if you ask them."
"Perhaps, but I don't think that would be appropriate." He paused and cleared his throat, struck by the absurdity of his statement. I was living proof that he was quite willing to ask the police to bend the rules when it suited him. He made a vague motion with his hand. "The police have enough on their plate as it is. Protecting the Knesset, for example."
I ignored the barb, recognizing it for what it was: a reflexive jab by a man unaccustomed to being on the defensive. I had no doubt he could have mustered the resources of the police to dig into his daughter's life, to, perhaps, decipher the meaning of her suicide note. The fact that he had decided not to, that he'd opted to engage a private detective instead, spoke volumes.
I looked him right in the eye and let him have it like a kick to the heart. "Maybe Moria was referring to you."
"No!" Gafni slammed a fist on his desk, making a pen jump. He shook his head resolutely, as though to emphasize his assertion. "No, I don't believe that for a second."
But he clearly did, and for quite a bit longer than a second. And the possibility, however much he wished to discount it, had been burrowing ever deeper into the nethermost regions of his mind, likely infecting his dreams and his waking thoughts as well. Perhaps that explained the heavy bags under his eyes, the haunted look within them. I could empathize. I was well acquainted with nightmares.
This was likely the reason he refused to tell me what had torn him and his daughter apart. Whatever the secret was, he couldn't rule out the possibility that it had ended up pushing his daughter to suicide. A man could go crazy doing battle with such thoughts.
"My daughter didn't kill herself because of me," Gafni said firmly. "Why would she? Last time I saw her was over three years ago."
I thought of my own daughters. How much I missed them. How their absence was a gaping wound at the center of my soul. If they were alive today, I could not imagine anything that would keep me from seeing them for three whole years. Yet Gafni, who did not strike me as a man who'd let anything stand in his way, admitted to just that.
"I did my best to improve our relationship," he said, speaking quickly and disjointedly. "I wrote to her, bought her things, helped as much as I could... I spent a lot of money, Mr. Lapid. A lot of money. More than she... The couple of times we spoke on the phone, I tried to arrange a meeting, but she wouldn't let me near. No matter how much I begged her, no matter how much I spent, she..." He paused, out of breath, a man trying vainly to cast off his mantle of guilt. "That note—I can't get it out of my head. Whenever I close my eyes, I see those three lines shining in lurid red and yellow. I need to know what that note means. I need to know why Moria wrote it. I need to know why she killed herself." His voice was rough with anger now, the raw kind an injured animal might feel. He growled the next words. "I need to know who made her do it."
"And if you know, what then? What will you do?"
He didn't answer right away. He collected himself by smoothing down his jacket lapel and lacing his fingers. "I don't know. Sometimes, most of the time, I just want to know what happened."
"And other times?"
"Other times," he said simply, "I think I'd like to kill him."
The second option was what worried me, as did the casual tone in which he'd voiced it. But at least he didn't lie to me. That made it better. It meant there was a smaller chance he'd actually go through with it. At least, that was what I told myself.
