I stopped at a kiosk and bought a bottle of soda that purported to taste like oranges. At least it was cold. I drank it as I continued south to Gan Meir Park, where more of Tel Aviv's inhabitants were socializing, and where a group of young boys was kicking around a soccer ball across the expansive lawn. The children ranged from ten to twelve, and I couldn't help thinking that but for a tragic turn of fate, Willie Ackerland might have been one of them.

I thought of calling Henrietta and confessing my sins to her. I lied to you, I would tell her. Your son is dead.

I dismissed the notion. For one thing, she did not have a phone in her apartment. For another, I was just getting started with this case.

Then my mind drifted to where I did not wish it to go.

Mira Roth.

Despite her severe, angular features, I found her appealing. This was heightened by who she was—a soldier, one who was not above meting out violent punishment. Unlike Rachel Weiss, Mira would not have scorned me for breaking the fingers of a man who was tormenting her. She would have understood my actions. She would have understood me.

The man I was now was not the same man who had lived before Auschwitz, before he'd lost everything and everyone. That man was no more. Most women would not be able to understand the man I had become. They would be frightened of me; they would shy away. But Mira would not. On the contrary, she would appreciate what I had done, both in Israel and in Germany. To her it would seem right and proper and just. Maybe that was part of her appeal, that I believed she would fully and completely accept who I was.

I finished the soda and tossed the empty bottle in a trash can. The bottle banged against the side of the can, and a scrawny ginger cat bounded out, screeching at me for disturbing his scavenging.

"I'm sorry," I sincerely said to the cat, not for a moment feeling ridiculous for doing so. I knew what it was like to live off scraps.

Continuing south, I couldn't shake off the feeling that Mira had lied to me, that she was keeping something from me. I wasn't certain of it, because she'd been so forthright about everything else, including the botched raid in which she took part, and because she'd seemed so honest when I pressed her on the matter. But to my cynical policeman's eye, Mira had looked too honest, her face too controlled, her gaze too steady and level, as if she were trying hard to appear truthful.