The phone rang.

“How’s that for predicting the future?” Marge picked up the receiver, listened, and laughed. “It’s one of your sons.”

Taking the phone with his free hand, Decker winked. “So much for your powers of the supernatural.” Into the receiver, he said, “Yo. Hey, Sam, what’s up…what time will you be done? Sure I can pick you guys up. No prob. She’s fine. Hannah’s fine, too. How was schoo—Okay, I understand. We’ll talk later. Love you both.”

Decker hung up. Marge kicked off her shoes and placed her bare feet on the ottoman. “Did I tell you that Morrison scheduled a meeting with the feds and us tomorrow morning at ten?”

Decker was silent. Then he said, “Well, we’re going nowhere. All we have at this point is a couple of lame theories.”

“I think of them as inventive,” Marge said.

Decker smiled at his little daughter. “At least we’ve got theories. With no way to verify them unless we find Professor Geoff.”

The phone rang again. Marge picked it up. It was Paul MacPherson.

“I got Geoffrey Roberts on the monitor—his Social Security number, his tax I.D…. all that stuff. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s gonna do you any good.”

“Why’s that, Paul?”

“Last known address on his tax statement was the one you gave me in Berkeley, Marge. It appears that Mr. Roberts hasn’t filed taxes since he left the bastion of radicalism.”

Marge swore under her breath and recapped the message to Decker. Into the phone, she said, “He must be living on some income. Some pension or something. Even if he’s just living off the interest from his savings, you’ve got to pay taxes on them. Banks send statements on interest-bearing accounts to the IRS.”

“Well, the computer doesn’t have anything listed,” MacPherson said.

“Did the guy die?” Decker suggested. Marge relayed the question to MacPherson.

“Tell the Rabbi I’m one step ahead of him. I can’t find a death certificate. What you got is a phantom.”

“Thanks for trying, Paul.” Marge cut the line. “He says we’ve got a phantom.”

“Maybe Tandy knows where he is.”

“Should we ask her?”

“No.” Decker was emphatic. “If she’s nuts, she might bolt or do worse. I don’t want to spook her. We’ll tell our suspicions to the feds and let them decide if they want to question her. We’ve still got a couple of hours to handle the case the way we want to do it.”

Marge said, “From the summary Cindy gave me of her conversation with Tandy, it sounded like Tandy thought her dad was still in Berkeley.”

“Marge, someone in the English department at Berkeley had to have known him.”