A Possibility of Violence Read Free Page B

you returned to matters, you know, slowly. Maybe you’ll join a team that’s already started working. It’s a shame to waste your vacation.”
    Avraham was struck by a desire to enter the interrogation room now, at this moment, precisely because of Saban’s hesitation. He said again, “I can stay. Tell me which is most pressing,” and Saban answered, “I’m not sure. Maybe the suspect in the fake-bomb case. He’s been waiting almost five hours, and we have nothing other than his priors.”
    â€œFine, give me a few minutes to study the material and I’ll go inside. Do you know anything about the file?”
    Saban still wasn’t sure that this was the right thing to do. He said, “Not much. It’s probably a dispute between criminals, or neighbors. The question is, why a fake bomb, and why next to a daycare? A fake bomb is a warning, no? So another question is, who did they want to warn and what’s the meaning of the warning, and, in particular, how do we prevent the next crime before it’s carried out? But most important—is this connected to the daycare? This suspect, or someone else, places a fake bomb, in the light of day, when parents are bringing their children to the daycare—this disturbs me. And I’m disturbed by the thought that the next time it might be a real bomb.”
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    HE WAS SUPPOSED TO CALL MARIANKA and tell her about the meeting with Saban, and afterward he told himself that he’d call when he left the interrogation room, but in the hours to come he was in such a race against time that he forgot, and even when he remembered he simply put off calling.
    The first hour of interrogation with Uzan didn’t get him any further, maybe the opposite. There was a contradiction between the neighbor’s testimony about the limping and Uzan’s limber gait, and there were his denials, which became more and more emphatic. It wasn’t possible to locate fingerprints on the suitcase, and the forensics team didn’t find anything at the scene that could tie Uzan to it. Nor in the apartment where Uzan lived with his mother. The beat cop brought in the neighbor so she could view the suspect, and suddenly she was less certain of her testimony. “Yes, it could be him, but how can I say with certainty? Do you know from what kind of distance I saw him?” Avraham inquired about the matter of the limping, which, of all things, she had no doubts about. The man who placed the suitcase fled toward Aharonovitch Street with a slow limp. At three thirty he moved Uzan to the holding cell and closed himself up in his office in order to think, as he always did at the start of an investigation.
    He still hadn’t visited the scene, and he knew it was vital to do this soon. And he couldn’t remember whether or not there was a traffic light on Lavon Street. If there was a light and drivers stopped there, perhaps he’d find additional witnesses who saw the suspect when he placed the suitcase, or when he fled afterward. He checked if someone had questioned the owner of the daycare and the residents of the neighboring buildings about their ties to Uzan, and it turned out that no one had. In fact, he understood, the investigation hadn’t yet begun. It was necessary to search additional places to which Uzan was tied, to try and find evidence of the improvised bomb’s design, to interrogate Uzan’s mother, who’s hospitalized, but it was not possible to do all this by evening, and not by himself. And he also shouldn’t get stuck on the suspect. It was necessary to consider all the possibilities, and not only because of the doubt raised by the limp. He recalled Ilana Lis and her routine warning: “We shouldn’t come to any conclusions in advance, because then we won’t examine certain details, while looking too closely at others.” It’s possible that the man who placed the suitcase next to the