TESS MONAGHAN HAD BEEN A HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR when her father had bestowed his single life lesson, the one piece of advice that was supposed to open all doors and allow his only child to hurdle every obstacle: He showed her how to shake a man's hand.

He demonstrated by making firm, confident contact at the V between her thumb and index finger, then gave her arm one adamant shake. "Don't wag it like a garden hose," Patrick Monaghan had said, and that was that. His daughter was ready to go forth into the world, or at least the world her father knew, where a handshake still counted for something.

Patrick Monaghan had neglected, however, to tell his daughter what to do when the intended recipient of her firm, manly handshake looked at her palm as if it were contaminated.

"I'm so sorry," she said, remembering a beat too late. "But I thought-"

"Your uncle told me your mother's family was Conservative," her prospective client said, hands clasped behind his back, just in case she made another lunge for his digits.

"Well, I think what my grandfather always said was 'The temple my family does not attend must be Conservative.' The Weinsteins are not a particularly observant bunch."

Mark Rubin didn't laugh at the old family joke. Several inches taller than Tess, which put him well over six feet, he was stocky in a robust, attractive way, and he wore a beautifully tailored suit that emphasized his broad chest and shoulders. He had black-brown eyes, a trim black beard, and the kind of blue-black hair that teenage girls tried to emulate when they went through a Goth phase, only with a shine that marked it as natural. The overall effect reminded Tess of a stuffed-sealskin otter she had been given as a child, back when such a gift would not have been regarded as a gauche act of political incorrectness.

Or perhaps she had that old toy on her brain because she knew this man sold furs for a living, and the otter had been fashioned from the leftovers of an aunt's jacket. She wondered if Rubin wore a fur coat himself, when winter came. This September day was almost too warm for his lightweight wool suit.

"Your uncle," he said, his voice stiff as his collar, "is quite active in Jewish causes. That's how we met and how he came to recommend you when he found out I needed the services of someone in your line of work."

"My Uncle Donald is active in Jewish causes? Was it court-ordered?"

Rubin frowned, although this wasn't an attempt at humor on Tess's part. Her Uncle Donald had had a short-lived association with a sleazy state senator that haunted him to this day.

"I'm not sure when he started volunteering, but I met him over ten years ago, so it's been quite some time. He's a very good man, your uncle."

"Oh," she said, annoyed and flustered by the hint of reproof in his voice, the implication that her uncle had not prepared her well for this meeting. Uncle Donald had, in fact, briefed her thoroughly. He had told her he had an acquaintance, that the acquaintance was a wealthy furrier, an Orthodox Jew in need of a discreet private detective. Modern Orthodox, Uncle Donald had clarified, not Hasidic, which was why Tess had thought herself on safe ground offering Rubin her hand.

Really, the only thing that Uncle Donald had neglected to mention was the large pole permanently inserted in Mark Rubin's sphincter.

"Would you like a seat? Something to drink? I keep Coca-Cola and bottled water in my fridge, and… well, that's kosher, right? If it's done under supervision. We could check the label for… what? A little k in a circle…?"

"I'm fine," Mark Rubin said, taking the wooden chair opposite her desk. His dark eyes scanned the room, absorbing his surroundings without comment. Tess had decorated the one-room office with whimsical artifacts to provide conversational fodder for the ill at ease, but these photographs and strange objets d'art didn't seem to be having much effect on Rubin. He didn't even raise his eyes to the "Time for a Haircut" clock, a barbershop find of which Tess was particularly proud.

Although it smarted a little now, sitting beneath that glowing clock, given the untimely circumstances of Tess's most recent haircut. Self-consciously, she reached for her hair, a stubby ponytail where a long braid had once hung. Her friend Whitney said the style made Tess look like one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. It was, like most of Whitney's tactless assessments, all too true, but Tess didn't care. She wanted her braid back, and she was prepared to live through all the growing-out stages.

The furrier did take notice of the greyhound and the Doberman vying for control of the sofa. The greyhound, Esskay, was winning, but only because she fought dirty, rabbiting her legs so her untrimmed toenails scraped the tender-skinned Miata, who whimpered piteously. Esskay always triumphed over Miata, the world's most docile Doberman.

"Are the dogs for protection?"

"More for companionship. The neighborhood's not that bad."

"Times change. My grandfather couldn't wait to get out of East Baltimore. Of course, we lived closer to Lombard Street, just off Central."

"Near the old synagogue."

"There were several synagogues in the neighborhood then."

He had a funny way of holding his neck, as if that pole in his butt ran all the way up his backbone, and Tess wondered if his rigid posture came from years of balancing a yarmulke on the crown. There was no sign of a bobby pin or a clip. Did Mark Rubin consider bobby pins cheating? Were bobby pins unorthodox? Up to five minutes ago, Theresa Esther Weinstein Monaghan had considered herself well versed in the religion practiced by her mother's side of the family. She knew a little Yiddish, could fake her way through a seder as long as the Haggadah included an English translation. But now she felt 100 percent goyish. To her visitor she probably looked like some field-hockey player from Notre Dame Prep.

"Did Donald tell you anything of my situation?"

"Only that it was a missing-person case, an unusual one that the police won't handle. He said you would prefer to fill me in on the details."

"Persons," he said. "Missing persons. Four, in fact. My entire family."

"Divorce?" She suppressed a sigh. Until recently Tess had disdained divorce work, picking and choosing her jobs. But she had lost several weeks of work this summer and could no longer afford to be fussy.

"No, nothing like that. I came home one day and they were gone."

"Voluntarily?"

"Excuse me?"

"I assume your wife's flight was legal and not suspicious, or this would be a police case."

"The police agree it's not their case," he said, his voice so low as to be almost inaudible, and Tess realized that what she had taken for coolness was an attempt to keep strong emotions in check. "Me, I'm not so sure. I went to work, I had a family. I came home, I didn't. I certainly feel as if something has been stolen from me."

"Was there talk of a separation? Had you been quarreling? It's just hard to imagine such a thing happening out of the blue."

"But that's exactly what did happen. My wife left with my children, with no warning, no explanation. She simply disappeared the Friday before Labor Day, right before school started and just as my business was picking up."

"Early September is your busy season?"

"No, but many of my customers get their furs out of storage in the month before the high holidays, just in case."

"Would the Orthodox wear fur to shul on Yom Kippur?" Tess had no idea where her mind had dredged up this odd fact, but she felt as if she had just pulled off a sophisticated thought in a foreign language. Score one for her.