“So the question is, how did they get to the airport?” Decker paused. “Let’s start with a simpler question. How’d they get to the shopping center? It’s about a five-minute car ride, a twenty-minute bike ride, and about a forty-five-minute walk. Say they walked home from school around three-thirty. Next time we hear from them they’re at the shopping center around five. Indicates to me, they walked.”

“Then what?”

“Then Dov made his phone call.”

“Then what?”

Decker rolled his tongue in his cheek. “Then I don’t know.”

The room fell quiet.

Decker said, “Okay. Let’s back it up. The boys get home at around three-thirty. Something’s real wrong. They know they have to get out of the house. They have to…hide out for some reason. What would they need to go underground?”

“Cash,” Marge said. “They’d need cash.”

“Okay. That brings to mind the mezuzah case that was posted on the inside of the doorframe. It was empty. Yalom knew how to post mezuzah cases correctly. He posted it the right way in his office. So why post such a big, expensive-looking case on the wrong side of the doorframe only to leave it empty? Answer: Because normally it wasn’t empty. I say it contained valuables—money, maybe stones.”

“Lam money,” Marge said. “Arik Yalom knew he was doing funny business and kept quick cash in case he had to take off suddenly. Okay. Go on.”

Decker said, “So the boys have their money. And they have their passports. They’re prepared to split.”

Marge said, “Except an hour and some odd later, Dov called his cousin from a shopping center. If I were on the run, I certainly wouldn’t walk to a shopping mall and make a phone call. I’d go directly to the airport.”

“Agreed,” Decker said. “So why did they bother stopping off at a shopping mall?”

“To buy clothes.”

“They could buy clothes with their money when they arrived at their appointed destination. Besides, you’re on the run, you don’t shop.”

“To buy airplane tickets.”

“They could buy tickets for cash at the airport.”

Marge looked at Decker. “Okay, why did they bother stopping off at the shopping mall?”

Decker said, “For transportation. They walked to the mall and found some other way to get to the airport from the shopping mall.”

Marge nodded. “You mean like they caught a cab or took a bus from the shopping center. I can buy that.”

Again, the squad room became silent.

Marge said, “It’s going to take hours to check out all the bus schedules and taxicab fares.”

“This is true.”

“We might as well skip over the transportation and go directly to the airport terminals. I’m game if you are.”

Decker stood and stuck his notepad in his jacket. “Let’s go.”