“I am in charge of your son’s investigation, Mrs. Yalom,” Decker said. “I have reason to believe…” He stopped himself. Stop sounding like TV and get to the point. “Your grandsons are missing. Do you know where they are?”

Tziril didn’t answer.

“Do you understand my question?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“I need to find them, Mrs. Yalom,” Decker said. “I think they could be in danger.”

Tziril looked up, then down. “I don’t know where they are. Emes, I don’t know.”

Decker studied her face. “But they were here, weren’t they?”

Again, the woman’s eyes scanned the room until they glided across her husband’s face. He moved his brows almost imperceptibly.

Decker said, “I came a long way, Mrs. Yalom, just to warn…to help the boys.”

“They are…”

Decker waited on the edge of his folding chair. But Tziril was silent. He said, “I really, really do think that something bad could happen to them. I need to find them. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“They are…here…somewhere…in Israel. But I don’t know where.”

Moshe Yalom snorted again. As much as Decker wanted to explain that he was on their side, he didn’t have time. To Tziril he said, “Can you take a guess and tell me where they might be?”

Tziril looked confused. Rina translated.

“I don’t have guess,” Tziril said.

Decker bit back frustration. “But they were here. In this house.”

“They were never here,” Tziril insisted.

The old man said, “No, boys not here. Why you say boys dangerous here in Israel? Boys dangerous in America. Everytink dangerous in America.” He picked up his glass of tea and muttered. Decker made out the words Sodom and Gomorrah.

Tziril said, “I don’t know where are my grandsons.”

“Then how do you know they’re in Israel?” Decker pressed.

Tziril held her throat. Decker remembered Orit making the same gesture. She blurted out, “They called me. To tell me…” Tears began to pour down her cheeks. She started speaking Hebrew through choked sobs. Rina listened, nodding at intervals.

Decker waited, restrained himself from tapping his pencil against his pad. Finally, Rina spoke. “They called the house a couple of days after the…the murder.”

Decker started writing. “Go on.”

“They said they were very frightened. They said they had to go into hiding, that people were after them.”

“Which people?” Decker asked.

“They didn’t say,” Tziril responded. “I asked but they don’t tell me.”

Rina went on. “They told Mrs. Yalom that policemen might come and ask them—the grandparents—questions. Lots and lots of questions.”

Decker wrote, then looked up. “Ask her…as diplomatically as possible…whether…” He leaned back in his chair and ran his hand over his face. “I’m attempting to inquire as to why the boys were perturbed.”

“You want to know, did they do it or didn’t they?” Rina said.