He had lured Belinda out only to mow her down because Belinda was going to report his bad behavior after he had stopped “being her boyfriend.” I had the correct reasoning, but the wrong suspect.

And I was so damn sure.

It gave me pause, how fortunate it was that the law required evidence to back up hunches and intuition. One day—hopefully sooner rather than later—I’ll get a gold shield. Hasan’s arrest was one of those seminal events, one of life’s lessons that I’d carry with me long after I got used to being called detective.

A week later, Koby and I were scrunched into two coach seats on El Al Airlines headed for the Holy Land. Nervously, I rehearsed my imaginary conversations with his family. In the end, it didn’t matter. I was with Koby; I was automatically fine with them. I truly adored his kinfolk, but there were just so many of them, something I wasn’t used to having grown up as an only child. The minute we walked into his parents’ apartment, my brain went into overload.

The scene could have been a fraternity prank for rush: Exactly how many people could you cram into a tiny speck of an apartment? It was two parents, nine siblings—including twin teenage sisters who kept asking me about all the stars I see working in Hollywood—spouses, assorted cousins, and dozens upon dozens of children of all races and ethnicities. One stepbrother had married a Russian woman, another a French Moroccan, and a third had hooked up with an American dentist. His two brothers had Ethiopian wives, but his sister had married a Yemenite Jew whose father was a policeman. It was a living, breathing United Nations, but the good part was they all spoke some English. Still, their sheer number was simply overwhelming.

There wasn’t much time to sightsee, only a quick overnight in Jerusalem because everybody said I had to see Jerusalem. It was ancient and exotic and in parts very labyrinthine, but also filled with traffic and it was nearly impossible to find a parking space in city central. It wasn’t at all a war zone, not nearly as dangerous as I thought it would be. There were people on the streets, but we were reminded constantly not to drive certain roads at night; the couple of times we did, we carried a gun.

Mostly, it was hopping from one relative to another, one meal after another, everyone ending the repast with the accusing words “So when will you be coming back?” Meeting the family gave me fresh insight into my beloved. Doted on by his parents, cosseted by his five older brothers, worshiped by his four younger sisters, Koby was the favorite, the designated “pet,” and when the conversation wasn’t centered around politics—which was most of the time—it was a swap of Koby stories. The oldest brother of all ten, Yaphet, summed it up succinctly one day at the dinner table. Yaphet bore a resemblance to Koby, but was two inches shorter and twice as wide. His voice was low and gravelly, and he spoke English haltingly.