"You didn't? Because it sure sounded like you did." Paula grabbed her pencil and folder. "You'll have to excuse me now. I'm rather busy."

"All right. But you didn't answer my earlier question: Is Anat Schlesinger working now?"

"Actually, she's off for the day," Paula said with icy satisfaction. "And don't ask me when her next shift is. I don't think I should tell you."

"How about giving me her address?" I said, guessing the answer but trying anyway. "I need to talk to her as soon as possible."

"I don't think I should tell you that either. And now, Mr. Lapid, I want you to leave. This is a hospital, not an interrogation room." She lowered her gaze to her folder, poising her pencil over the top page in a show of dismissal. But abruptly she changed her mind, her head snapping up, and pointed her pencil at my face like a sword. "You should be ashamed of yourself. That poor girl is dead, and you seem intent on tarnishing her reputation."

"I'm intent on discovering why she died."

"By trying to dig up mud, unearth some sordid secret about her life? Not that I believe there's anything like that to find. But suppose you do turn up something, what will that accomplish? It won't help Moria in any way, will it? She's beyond help. You'll only end up robbing her of her good name."

Which brought to mind the warning I'd given Gafni, that my digging into his daughter's life might lead to him learning things about her that he would rather remain ignorant of. A warning he'd decided not to heed. But what about Moria? I had failed to consider what she might have thought of my investigation. Perhaps she would not have wanted me to go rummaging through her life. Perhaps she would not have wanted the father she detested to know anything about it.

For a couple of seconds, I was seized by doubt, uncertain of the morality of my mission. But then I remembered the note. It meant that Moria was a victim, at least in part, a victim in need of justice.

I said, "Trust me, Paula. I'm doing this for Moria."

Paula let out a mocking laugh. "Oh, I'm sure. It has nothing to do with the fact that you're being paid to ask these nasty, dirty questions."

Anger, sudden and bright, blazed in my chest. I hadn't wanted this case. I'd been forced to take it. I wasn't doing this for money. I was this close to telling Paula off, but I stopped myself. Because I realized that what I'd told her, my doing this for Moria, was possibly untrue, considering the unexplained presence of the gun and the fact that one of Moria's colleagues had been shot dead shortly before her suicide. Officially felled by a robber's bullet, but perhaps not.

Which might mean that Moria would not be served by my investigation after all, though for different reasons entirely than those I'd initially contemplated.

Slow down, Adam, I told myself. Don't get ahead of yourself. There's absolutely nothing that links the gun you found to the killing of this doctor.

Yet my heart had picked up, and the tingle of excitement that often accompanied the discovery of a secret or unforeseen connection was spreading down my spine.

To Paula, I said, "I'm only interested in learning the truth."

Paula sneered. "How noble of you. Just try not to ruin a dead girl's reputation while you're at it."

I walked east on the Street of the Prophets, chased by the wind and the echo of Paula's contemptuous words. Not far from the hospital was a café. Through the front window, I saw a guy talking into a telephone at the bar. I went in, ordered a coffee I didn't want, and waited for five minutes while he blabbered to someone in Romanian-accented Hebrew, punctuating his words with flamboyant hand gestures.

When he finally hung up, I picked up the receiver, dialed 0, and gave the operator a number in Tel Aviv. In my peripheral vision, I caught the nervous stare of the proprietor—long-distance calls were expensive—and appeased his anxiety by sliding him a few coins.

"I'll keep it short," I added for good measure. "Now how about a bit of privacy?"

He grumbled under his mustache and moved down the bar. The phone rang in a small office in the police station on Yehuda Halevi Street in Tel Aviv. After three rings, the pleasant voice of Reuben Tzanani came over the line, marred by the rustle of static.

"Hi, Ant," I said, using his army nickname. He'd gotten it during the War of Independence after carrying me, shot twice and on the brink of death, to the rear lines for the medical treatment that saved my life. This despite my outweighing him by a good forty pounds.

"Adam? Is that you? Why are you coming across so bad?"

"I'm in Jerusalem," I said, which was explanation enough. "I need some information."

"You're on a case?"

"Yes. I need to look at a murder file."

"In Jerusalem?"

"Yes."

"That might be tricky, Adam. If this is an active murder case, I doubt I could get anyone to show you the file."

"The murder occurred more than a month ago. Maybe it's not so active anymore."

"Is that your case, this murder?"

"No. I'm working a suicide. The dead woman worked with the murder victim."

"If you have any information, Adam, you should go to the police."

"I don't have anything. No evidence of any kind. All I've got is a hunch. I need to read the file to see if it's just that or something more. Can you help me out?"

Reuben thought for a moment. "I can try, but I'm not making any promises. Give me the name and date, and I'll see what I can do."

I told him the date of the shooting and that the victim's name was Dr. Shapira, then sheepishly admitted I did not know his first name. The way I had bungled my conversation with Paula, I was lucky to know as much as I did. But Reuben made no comment on the incompleteness of the information I gave him. He simply read it back to me to make sure he had it right, then asked me how I was.

"Fine," I said. "I'm fine."

"You were in the demonstration in Jerusalem." It wasn't a question as much as an attempt to verify a near certainty.

"How did you know?"

"I assumed as much." A pause, laden with static and unspoken questions, and perhaps also accusations. Finally, he asked, "How are you really, Adam?"

"I'm fine, I told you."

"You don't sound like it," he said, in that caring voice of his. This short, slim man with the spirit of a lion and a heart as pure as spring water. This man who had saved my life and was always there when I needed him.

I enjoyed talking to him, usually, but now I couldn't get off the phone fast enough. A terrible fear had me in its claws, a fear that at any second, Reuben would express his disappointment in me—joining Birnbaum and Greta and most of the Israeli public, not to mention David Ben-Gurion. Right then, I felt utterly alone, more alone than at any moment since I'd arrived in Israel.

Shutting my eyes, cold sweat blooming along my hairline, clasping the phone with fingers that had abruptly turned clammy, I said in a rush, "It's the line, Reuben. Just the line. I'm all right. I gotta go. Someone is waiting to use the phone. I'll call you tomorrow morning, okay?"

Before he could answer, I tore the receiver from my ear and dropped it into its cradle as though it were a piece of hot coal. I stood still by the bar, the voices of the other patrons streaming past my ears without registering, as though I were a stranger in a strange land and Hebrew was a foreign language.

You coward, I thought. You miserable, pathetic coward.

"Dammit!" I cried, forming a fist with my right hand and slamming it down on the bar like a hammer. The blow rattled my untouched coffee cup, and part of the liquid sloshed over the rim and onto the bar. Someone to my left called, "Hey!" and the proprietor stomped over, scowling. "What the hell are you doing? What's the matter with you?"

I looked at his hostile face, into his dark, distrusting eyes, and opened my mouth to explain myself to him, to plead my case to this absolute stranger. Just like I had done with Greta, with Birnbaum, and again and again during the past two days, half-consciously, with myself. But he wouldn't have understood. Not even if he despised Ben-Gurion, hated the idea of negotiating with Germany. And all the other patrons, now silent and watching, would join him in his condemnation of me.

The words died deep in my throat. I closed my mouth, my face hot with shame, and I swept my eyes across the small café, stumbling over the loaded stares of the other patrons. Without looking at the proprietor, I dug another coin from my pocket, dropped it on the bar, murmured, "I'm sorry," and staggered to the door and through it into the cold street.

With my hands shoved deep in my pockets, I hurried, almost running, further east, head angled down to avoid the eyes of passersby. My side throbbed with my haste. My heart pounded. My back prickled with the insane sense that the eyes of the men from the café were still on me. Only when I turned the corner onto Strauss Street did I pause, catching my breath.