"Did she tell you how serious they were? Whether they had plans for him to leave his wife?"

"Oh, they were very serious," Leah said. "Esther was in love with him, I think, though she never said so in so many words. I asked her if they were going to be together, but she said it was too soon."

"I see. You ever meet him?"

She shook her head.

"What about Davidson's wife? Did Esther ever express any qualms about sleeping with her husband?"

Leah lowered her gaze. A few curly strands of hair fell across her face. "I'm sure she felt bad about it, but sometimes you can't help yourself when you're in love, can you?"

I supposed that was true, but it still rankled. I hated the thought of Esther betraying Natalie Davidson. It changed the way I saw her. Up to this point I'd had an idealized image of Esther. She was this brave, generous soul who had taken a strange baby with her on a long and arduous journey, who had nurtured him for months and was planning on doing so for months more. Her doing something bad and dishonorable—like having an affair with a close friend's husband—had been unimaginable.

Now I saw her in a different light—not as some paragon of goodness, but as a woman of virtues and vices, of good deeds and sins.

It changed nothing. I was still determined to catch her killer. For one thing, he or she had also murdered an innocent baby, and there was no excuse or justification for that. For another, while she had betrayed Natalie Davidson and might have committed other sins I was unaware of, Esther Grunewald had not deserved to die.

"How long was the affair?" I asked.

"Two months, if I remember right."

"Were they getting along? Think back to the final two weeks of her life—did Esther say they had a fight, an argument?"

She thought for a moment. "No, I don't remember anything like that." Then her eyes grew big, making her look more like a child than ever before. "Why? Do you think this man—Davidson—might be the killer?"

"No," I admitted. "I have no evidence to that effect. I'm just asking questions."

"I understand." Leah heaved a breath. "I don't think I can tell you more about the affair. Like I said, Esther didn't tell me all that much about it, about him."

I nodded. Time to move on.

"Did Esther talk a lot about Erich?" I asked.

"All the time," Leah said, clearly eased by the change of subject. "Erich did this and Erich did that, and how cute he was when he smiled, or even when he cried."

"She loved him a lot."

"Oh, yes. Well, it stands to reason, doesn't it? She was his mother."