He hesitated. I explained who I was and that she might have information pertinent to a case I was working on. I assured him that she was in no trouble.

He sighed. "Why should I care if she were? But I do care, even after all these years. Look, Mr. Lapid, I haven't seen or spoken to Shulamit since our divorce. But I've heard that she remarried some years ago and moved to Herzliya. Her husband's name is Ayalon. If you see her…well, I'd prefer it if you don't mention you talked to me."

From a phone in a nearby restaurant, I called the Herzliya town hall and asked a sleepy-voiced male clerk for Shulamit Ayalon's address.

"I'm not allowed to give out that information," the clerk droned in my ear.

"Listen, the reason why I need to find Mrs. Ayalon is for a story I'm working on.”

"A story?"

"Yes. I do research for Shmuel Birnbaum at Davar. What did you say your name was?"

"Greenspan," he said. Then, suddenly more alert: "Wait a minute. Why do you need my name?"

"So we can cite you in our story as a helpful source—if you can spare the time to find that address for me. Give me your first name, too. Spell it out for me, so I'll know I got it right."

Prompted by the promise of negligible fame, it took Yuram Greenspan less than five minutes to find Shulamit Ayalon's address. "When do you think your story will be published?"

"Anytime in the next thirty days," I told him. "Keep your eyes peeled for it."

After hanging up, I caught a bus downtown, and there switched to another bus that conveyed me the twenty kilometers north to the town of Herzliya.

It was a small town made up of tidy streets with modest one-story houses. It took me less than twenty minutes to locate the Ayalon residence. My knock was answered by a five-foot-five gentle-faced woman with tight brown curls and sloping eyes, cradling a two-year-old boy on her hip. She confirmed that she was indeed Shulamit Ayalon.

"My name is Adam Lapid. I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes about Alon Davidson."

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't what happened next. Her face, pale enough to begin with, went three shades whiter, and she began trembling. For a moment, I worried she might lose her grip on her son. She looked terrified out of her mind.

"You're a friend of Alon?" she asked, her voice quavering. She took a small step back, arm tightening around her son.

"Hardly," I said. "In fact, I don't like him very much. I'm a private investigator, and I'm working on a case Davidson may be connected to. Do you recall a double murder of a woman and child that took place ten years ago in Tel Aviv?"

I told her a little about the murders, and she said she had a vague recollection of them.