She walked by his side as they climbed the stairs. Confessing her own baggage had humanized Rina in the man’s eyes. She knew that. But it seemed like such a crass thing to do. Actually, it had slipped out. Yitzchak had been dead for over a decade. She had been married longer to Peter than she had to him. He crossed her mind on occasion, but rarely when she was awake. In dreams…the dreams were always so real…his asking why she hadn’t waited for him. The guilt was overwhelming when she awoke. It made no sense, but there it was anyway. Maybe she felt guilty because in her dreams he never, ever scolded. A sharp tongue wasn’t Yitzchak’s style. In her first marriage, she had been the volatile one. Funny how things change.

Golding led her into the upstairs powder room. It held just a toilet and a small pedestal sink topped with a round, beveled mirror. She found her reflection disconcerting because in Jewish homes, mirrors were covered during the first month of mourning. Golding locked the door, put down the toilet-seat cover, and offered it to her.

“I’m fine,” Rina said. “Why don’t you sit?”

Golding didn’t argue. “I appreciate your coming here, Mrs. Decker. And so early.”

“I’ve actually been up since five-thirty.”

“You should have called me. I was up.”

Rina smiled.

Golding said, “Is that your normal time to get up?”

“It’s early for me. But I had things to do. First, I went to the police station to badger my husband into releasing to me some more photographs from the evidence room—”

“What photographs?”

“Evidence left behind after the synagogue was vandalized—and those from your son’s room.”

“The pictures of the dead bodies?” Golding dropped his head between his knees. “My father! What did he do?”

“Carter, I would never come here at a time like this and deliver bad news. Let me get this out, and then you can ask all the questions you want.”

Slowly, he straightened up. “It’s not bad?”

“No, it’s not bad—”

“Just complicated.” Golding looked up. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

There was a twist of the outside doorknob.

“I’m in here,” Golding shouted. “Go away.” The sound of retreating footsteps. He let out a bitter chuckle. “I’m too distraught to be polite. Go on.”

Rina cleared her throat. “A lot of this is conjecture, but I think this may have happened. While looking through papers and old documents for research to write his family history assignment, Ernesto found these horrible snapshots—”

“Do you think I should see them?”

“They’re graphic, but yes, after I finish my story, you might want to see them. May I finish first?”

“Of course.”