“Maybe kidnap isn’t the right word. Maybe the right word is rescue. I keep going back to the pictures of them that Elsie had on her bookshelf. Maybe she just thought that Bertram and Kathrine should be together and she was going to make it happen.”

“Friar Lawrence to Romeo and Juliet.” McAdams shrugged. “Could be.”

“Let’s say Elsie had all her ducks in a row—the passports, the tickets, the money—she had all this planned before the mess with Pauline. Then Baer shows up, forces Elsie to help bury Pauline … Elsie knows she’s about to escape. She’s in the process of taking Kathrine, which could be construed as kidnapping even if Kathrine was willing to go with her. Elsie’s not about to go to the police. But she does want Pauline’s body to be found. If the DNA is his, I think that we’ve got enough circumstantial evidence to arrest him.” Decker waited a beat. “Maybe not to convict him, but we can possibly hold him long enough to convince Elsie to come back to the States and make a statement.”

“Why would she do that?”

“We can strike a deal with her … tell her we’re not prosecuting her for kidnapping Kathrine or for helping Baer or anything else like that if she’ll tell us what happened to Pauline. Maybe then she’ll want to come in and do the right thing.”

“You have a lot of faith in humanity,” McAdams said.

“I hedge my bets,” Decker said. “I expect the worst and hope for the best.”

WHEN THE BLOOD mixture came back containing Brock Baer’s DNA, the case was catapulted into action. The first step was to find the man—a lot more difficult than sending out a BOLO and waiting for the information to come rolling in. Ten days of fruitless searching: sending out countless emails and checking out wire services and making numerous calls to numerous agencies. The man was a ghost. Decker tried to remain positive, but the frustration was mounting and the clock was ticking. Six months until retirement sounded like a lot of time, but cold cases are often measured in years, not days.

McAdams hung up the phone. It was eleven in the morning. “Well, that was a bust. The perp was named Brad Bayer.”

Decker push the end button on his cell phone. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“Not important. Just venting. What’s up with you?”

Decker said, “Guess who I just got off the phone with?”

“Santa Claus?”

“Almost as good. Mila and Kurt Lanz’s private secretary. His name is Joseph Jager and he speaks English very well. We actually could communicate.”

“That’s always helpful. So where are the Lanzes this time? Nepal? Djibouti? Kathmandu?”