Jonathan nodded. “I understand.”

Hershfield stood. “I have a couple of very important depositions this morning. In the meantime, it is in everyone’s best interest if your family refrains from talking to the police unless I am there during the questioning.” He turned to Decker. “I’m sure this isn’t the case with you, Lieutenant, but a few of your renegade comrades have played it pretty loose with Miranda.”

Decker was expressionless. “If you say so.”

Hershfield laughed. “And you’re planning to contact your fellow brothers in blue?”

“I’d like to take a look at a report or two.”

“And you’ll keep me abreast.”

“I’ll do whatever I can, Mr. Hershfield.”

“So what happens if your findings put you in conflict with your family obligations?”

“Yes, I’ve thought about that.”

“And?”

“And…” Decker looked at his watch. “And I think it’s time to go.”

4

It was still early, and the detectives weren’t in yet. Decker left his name and number with a desk sergeant and on the squad room’s phone machine. If no one called his cell back by nine, he’d just show up and deal with it in person. Hannah needed to settle down and so did Rina. Jonathan drove them into Brooklyn—traffic mercifully going the other way on the bridge. When the van got to Eastern Parkway—a main thoroughfare in the borough—things took on a familiar focus. It had been ten years since Decker had been here, but he had gotten to know the streets fairly well because he had been searching for someone in the area.

A missing kid, actually.

History repeating itself?

Maybe. That wasn’t all that bad. That kid had turned up alive.

As they passed the avenues—Forty-second, Forty-third, Forty-fourth—Decker was surprised by how many people were up and about. Gaggles of bearded men—most of them bespectacled—dressed in black woolen suits, white shirts, and black hats, with their side locks, called payot, bouncing off their shoulders as they moved with quick strides down the sidewalks. The boys and teens were miniversions of the men except for the absence of facial hair. There were also dozens of kerchief-headed women bundled in coats pushing prams while trying to contain the multitude of children who surrounded them. Some had as many as ten children, the older daughters assigned the role of mother’s assistant to their younger siblings. There were groups of school-age girls, toting enormous backpacks (some things were the same world over), garbed in parochial uniforms—long-sleeved white shirts, blue skirts with hemlines way below the knee. Their legs were encased in opaque tights, heavy coats on their backs.

The air was nippy now, so the thick suits and woolen coats and stockings were not only modest but also practical. But Decker knew that when summer arrived with temperatures soaring into the triple digits and 90 percent humidity, the Chasidish attire wouldn’t alter much. The exterior coats would be gone, but still they’d sweat into their long-sleeved clothing, drenched and itchy with dark circles of perspiration under their arms and around their necks, faces moist in the muggy air. Yet they’d accept their lot, endure the heat and the humidity, wearing the discomfort like ill-fitting shoes.