“It’ll keep as long as we have an eye on Tinsley. Besides, I’m not positive he actually served.” Decker recapped his conversation with Scott.

“Okay,” Wanda said. “So he could be a pretender like the Boston Strangler.”

“Albert DeSalvo,” Decker said.

“What’s the next step, Rabbi?”

“As it stands, we can’t say for certain that the jewelry belonged to the victims.”

Wang said, “So we’re not pulling Tinsley in?”

“Not yet.” Decker smoothed his mustache. “We’ll keep him in the crosshairs and hope that the techs can get DNA evidence from the pieces. If we can get DNA that matches up with Erin Greenfield and Roxanne Holly, then we can put their jewelry in Chuck Tinsley’s hands. That’ll take a couple of weeks. While we’re waiting, one of you should call up Oxnard and the other take Oceanside to get the details of the murders.” He exhaled loudly. “I’m exhausted. Let’s all go home and get some sleep.”

Wang rubbed his eyes. “Sounds like a good idea. Want me to put the jewelry back with evidence?”

“That would be great, Lee. Thanks.”

“So you really think you just stumbled across a serial killer?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no.”

“That would be weird,” Wanda said. “In literature, that’s called poetic justice.”

“In Jewish law it’s called Midah kenneged midah.”

“What does that mean?”

“‘Manner begets manner.’ What goes around comes around.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

TWELVE STRETCHED TO one in the morning. At half past, Decker pulled into his driveway, spent and depressed. It was his official birthday and his sons had flown in from the East Coast just to be with him, and not only had he disappeared for most of the day, he had done it on Shabbos. He wondered why he kept at it. Crime was never going to vanish. There would always be that “just one more case” sitting on his shoulder. But then there was the flip side. Why stop working, taking with you years of experience, to putter around, trying to figure out how to make yourself useful when you’re already doing something useful in the first place?

He quietly closed the car door. Rina insisted that she’d wait up, he insisted that she should not. Who knew who’d be the winner of that little bet? As he approached his front door, he saw a big manila envelop sitting on the welcome mat. He picked it up. There was handwriting on the front—a name but not his.

Gabriel Whitman.

What was that about?

He placed the key into his door, opened it, and stepped inside. Rina was up and wrapped in a cotton robe. She had her fingers on her lips, and then she pointed to the couch. Gabe was sprawled out, one foot dangling over the sofa, sleeping soundly. The two of them went into the kitchen. Decker showed his wife the envelope. “This was on the front porch.”