“It’s all very sad,” he said. “It’s easy to blame Uncle Perry, but he did live with the woman for twelve years. Gave her some sort of a life. And then he died so terribly. You know about that?”

Decker said he did. Then he asked if his cousin might have had something to do with it. Big Hersh said there was never any indication that he did. But everyone still wondered. It would probably be one of those things where no one would ever know.

“When did Hersh start acting out?” Decker asked.

“You mean acting crazy? For as long as I remember, he acted crazy. Even as a little kid working in the market, he was weird. Quiet. A loner. Then, after Zeyde died, he began acting even more crazy. He only came down to the market once or twice after the old man passed away. I’d taken it over by then. I was only nineteen, but I had enough experience. Hershie wasn’t interested in the market, only in Zeyde.”

He paused.

“Last time I saw Hershie was at the business. He asked if he could keep some of Zeyde’s fish knives. I thought that was very strange. Why would he need the knives if he wasn’t going to work in the market anymore? And I certainly needed the knives. But I told him to take what he wanted, figuring that was what Zeyde would have wanted me to say. He didn’t deplete my stock, mind you. But he did take the best gutting knives, a cleaver, a hammer, a butterfly knife, and Zeyde’s sharpening stone. Very odd.”

Hersh hesitated again.

“While he was picking and choosing the stuff, I remember thinking to myself, ‘He’s just like his mother. Only a matter of time before he goes off the deep end, too.’ Even when Zeyde was still alive, Hershie was strange. He had a weird smile, Sergeant. It even made me a little nervous. I kept waiting for him to go crazy. But he never quite did. Maybe Zeyde’s love kept him sane.”

Sane—but only for a while. Decker thought about all the fish that had been in Hersh’s rooms. He asked if Hersh—Hershie—had liked working in the fish business.