The corners of his mouth curled down again, almost to his jawline. "Zelig Joselewicz in apartment two was about eighty when the murders took place. He died in hospital from the flu three…no, four years ago. Yisrael Metzner, who lived in apartment four, was killed in 1940 when the Italians bombed Tel Aviv. Lastly, there's the couple who lived in apartment five, Mr. and Mrs. Rutte. They returned to the Netherlands. They were Dutch Jews. The murders put the scare into Mrs. Rutte. She told me she didn't feel safe here any longer, that she wanted to go back to Amsterdam. You can imagine what happened to them after the Nazis invaded the Netherlands."

I could. I had met Dutch Jews in Auschwitz, though I could not recall anyone named Rutte.

"So," he continued, "the killer is really responsible for the deaths of four people, not just two."

He finished his coffee and set it aside. A dark, muddy sediment clogged the bottom third of the glass. He crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray and brushed tobacco crumbs from his fingers.

"Did Esther have any visitors? Any men who came calling?"

"I never saw any, and it's not that I forbade it, like other landlords do. As long as you pay the rent and don't make trouble, you can do what you please in your apartment. That's the way I run things."

I scratched my cheek. "I've seen pictures of Esther. I find it hard to believe that a woman as beautiful as her did not have any suitors."

"Some men don't want a woman burdened with a child. But maybe she did have someone and I never knew about it. Natalie Davidson might know."

I asked him if I could see the apartment where the murders had occurred. He raised both eyebrows.

"What good would that do you? It's been ten years. Not a stick of furniture is the same."

"Still. I'd like to see it. Who lives there now?"

"My son, with his wife and baby boy."

"The same son you sent to call the police when you discovered the bodies?"