“Lay it on me.”

“Maybe she went back to the house for some unfinished business. Maybe there was a pay dispute or something. Maybe a fight broke out and a tragedy occurred. The house was near the garden, so that was the easiest place to hide the body. And of course, Julia Schoennacht wouldn’t tell the police any of this.”

“So already you have decided that your grandmother’s killer was her former employer. It’s as good a theory as any.” Decker closed the file. “So why don’t we leave it at that. Besides, there’re too many strasses on the map.”

Rina said, “I want to know the truth—or as close as I can come to the truth. Besides, I can’t picture a wealthy, aristocratic woman dragging my grandmother into a park and bludgeoning her to death.”

“She hired a servant to do it. You said it yourself, Rina. What would be the big deal? Another dead Jew? Good riddance to bad rubbish. When was Kristallnacht?”

“In 1938.”

“So this was before.”

“About ten years before. But Hitler was already a dominant force.” Rina rubbed her hands together. “Since everything was going so well with Mama, I accepted an invitation for dinner at her house on Tuesday night—if that’s okay with you.”

“If you want to be a masochist.”

Rina hit him. “Don’t be like that.”

“I like your parents. I don’t fight with them. You do.”

Silence.

“Okay, you have a point,” Rina admitted. “Look. I promise I won’t fight. Besides, they want to see the boys. So maybe we can continue the family-tree ruse?”

“And you don’t think Mama will catch on when I start to take notes?”

“Could you be a little more subtle?”

“Subtlety is not my strong suit,” Decker remarked. “However, if I should think up the questions and you should ask them …”

“Better still, let Hannah ask them.”

“What kind of a mother would use her own daughter as a shill?”

“Not a shill—a cohort.” Rina patted his shoulder. “Detection as a family affair. I see a screenplay in the making.”

“Funny. All I see is trouble in the making.”

18

The urge to comb the streets for information was overwhelming. But I had made a promise to my father, and that was that. Even so, I devised a mental list of how I’d proceed if I were a gold shield. First I’d talk to Klinghoffner, and find out all I could about David—who he was and where he might have gone. Then I’d ask him if there had been any trouble between his students and street gangs. There were also the girls I had talked with at the high school. If anyone would know about street gangs, it would be those who lived where the hoodlums operated. I also knew street people: Alice Anne, Magenta and others of her ilk, and even her pimp, Burton. There were times I could have busted him, but I chose not to because, after some strong prodding, he had closed shop for the night. I had come by my “ears” honestly.