But catching him hinged on Rivlin being wrong, that this was not a random burglary that had escalated to murder, but a targeted killing. Someone had come to kill Esther Grunewald—or Kantor, the name she had been using. She had to be the primary target, since Willie, a mere baby, was unlikely to have enraged someone sufficiently to target him.

I had to assume this was the case and act accordingly, because if it wasn't, then I had no way to investigate this case, nowhere to even begin. Sitting in that quaint café on Rothschild Boulevard, with the radio piping merry polkas, I decided that someone had come for Esther Grunewald, had come for her personally, and that I was going to find out who it was.

In my notebook I'd listed all the people Rivlin had interviewed ten years ago. I planned on talking to as many of them as were still around. But there were people missing from this list, and there was just one person who could tell me who they were.

Half an hour later, I knocked on her door. She was home. She wore short brown pants and a light-blue work shirt and plain brown sandals, the sort worn by farmers in the Negev. I stared at her legs again. They were long and slender and tanned just a shade lighter than her arms. Her ankles were slim, her feet arched.

Mira Roth did not seem surprised to see me. A small satisfied smile flickered across her thin lips, and her amber eyes glowed like molten steel in the orange sunset light that slanted in through the second-floor landing window. "Come in, Adam."

We walked the few steps to her living room. Neither of us sat. We stood a foot and a half apart, and I caught her scent. Clean and stringent and familiar. She had showered recently, using the rough utilitarian soap the government allotted to each citizen. I used the same kind. If she'd washed her hair, it had had time to dry. It was pulled back, revealing shapely ears without earrings.

"I came by to tell you you got your wish," I said. "I started working on the case."

Her smile broadened by half an inch. "Was I that obvious? What gave me away?"

"A couple of things. I started wondering why you had talked to me at all, especially about something you don't want your boss to know. Then I recalled you making sure I was a private investigator when we spoke outside the salon. It all became clear—you told me about the Salonika and the botched-up raid because you want me to find out who killed Esther and Willie."

"It appears I made the right decision. You're perceptive."

"It wasn't that hard. It's going to take a lot more than that to solve these murders."

"You can do it," she said, her tone completely earnest.