He said, “You’re doing this to spite me.”

Decker threw a look to Marge that said, “Let me take this one.” To Davidson, he said, “Like I told you, I’m just doing my job.”

Davidson said, “Don’t you have a baby at home, Decker?”

“Yep. A little girl-a real cutie. She looks like her mom.”

“Don’t you want to see her?”

Decker glanced up from his charts. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were sabotaging my efforts, Loo. Lucky for me, I know better.”

Davidson glared at him. Then his expression suddenly eased. “We’re on the same side, Decker. I’d like to find this family, too. I know something’s hinky.”

Decker said nothing.

“Unfortunately, hinky’s not enough.” Davidson shook his head. “Look. I know you’ve had experience in Homicide. But I’ve had more experience. These kind of cases eat up hours and I can’t afford to have two of my Dees punching in useless time, get it?”

“I get it.”

Davidson said, “Of course, you and Marge find bodies…a body-one’s enough-now that’s a different story. Then I can justify the hours.”

And then it dawned on Decker. Tug wasn’t a bad man. Tug wasn’t even a bad cop. Tug was just an administrator. The position had turned him into a bureaucrat. He was forced to evaluate cases in terms of hours clocked, and dollars and cents, instead of good guys versus bad guys.

Decker said, “I see your position, Loo. That’s why Marge and I are doing this on our own. Maybe we’ll get lucky, maybe we won’t. Anyway, it’ll be our problem, not yours.”

Davidson evaluated Decker’s words. “Just don’t wear yourselves out.” He paused. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Decker said.

Davidson turned to Marge. “Luck to you, too.”

Then he was out the door.

Marge was quiet. Then she said, “God, he’s a wily bastard. Notice how he manipulated the whole thing. Like he was doing us a big favor by letting us work on this case on our own time.”

Decker said, “Did I tell you I checked him out?”

“And?”

“People say he’s a hardworking cop. Lots of folks had good things to say about him.”

“So what the hell happened?”

“What do you think? He got promoted. They cut off his balls and turned him into a pencil pusher. Now he’s got to look at what’s expedient rather than what’s right. I think deep down inside he wants us to win. So let’s find something and prove the motherfucker wrong.”

Marge sat down dejectedly. “Find what? We’ve been over our notes a dozen times. Nothing’s clicking.”

Decker sat next to her. “We’ve got to start somewhere so let’s start with the obvious. The boys’ passports are gone, and the parents’ passports are still here. How about we check out some airline schedules. International flights. Why else would the boys need their passports?”

Marge knew that could take days without the proper papers and warrants. But Pete was right. They had to start somewhere. “What’s Israel’s official airline?”

“El Al,” Decker said. “But lots of others fly to Israel as well.”

Marge looked at her watch. “It’s too late to call the corporate offices. We could go down to the airport and try their computers.”

“All right, let’s do that. But before we do, let’s get a time schedule for the boys.”

Marge nodded. “If we heard from Dov around five from the shopping center, when do you figure the boys arrived at the airport?”

Decker was quiet for a moment. “Margie, how did the boys get to the airport? Gil’s car was in the garage.”

“You haven’t heard of cabs or a bus?”

“But why not take the car? Gil was old enough to drive. Why didn’t they just grab a car and hightail it off to the airport?”

“You’re getting at something.”

Decker raised a finger in the air. “The car was a marker. Gil and Dov didn’t want to use it, because they didn’t want to be followed. They didn’t want anyone to know who they were and where they were going.”

Marge was silent.

“So the question is, how did they get to the airport?” Decker paused. “Let’s start with a simpler question. How’d they get to the shopping center? It’s about a five-minute car ride, a twenty-minute bike ride, and about a forty-five-minute walk. Say they walked home from school around three-thirty. Next time we hear from them they’re at the shopping center around five. Indicates to me, they walked.”

“Then what?”

“Then Dov made his phone call.”

“Then what?”

Decker rolled his tongue in his cheek. “Then I don’t know.”

The room fell quiet.

Decker said, “Okay. Let’s back it up. The boys get home at around three-thirty. Something’s real wrong. They know they have to get out of the house. They have to…hide out for some reason. What would they need to go underground?”

“Cash,” Marge said. “They’d need cash.”

“Okay. That brings to mind the mezuzah case that was posted on the inside of the doorframe. It was empty. Yalom knew how to post mezuzah cases correctly. He posted it the right way in his office. So why post such a big, expensive-looking case on the wrong side of the doorframe only to leave it empty? Answer: Because normally it wasn’t empty. I say it contained valuables-money, maybe stones.”

“Lam money,” Marge said. “Arik Yalom knew he was doing funny business and kept quick cash in case he had to take off suddenly. Okay. Go on.”

Decker said, “So the boys have their money. And they have their passports. They’re prepared to split.”

Marge said, “Except an hour and some odd later, Dov called his cousin from a shopping center. If I were on the run, I certainly wouldn’t walk to a shopping mall and make a phone call. I’d go directly to the airport.”

“Agreed,” Decker said. “So why did they bother stopping off at a shopping mall?”

“To buy clothes.”

“They could buy clothes with their money when they arrived at their appointed destination. Besides, you’re on the run, you don’t shop.”

“To buy airplane tickets.”

“They could buy tickets for cash at the airport.”

Marge looked at Decker. “Okay, why did they bother stopping off at the shopping mall?”

Decker said, “For transportation. They walked to the mall and found some other way to get to the airport from the shopping mall.”

Marge nodded. “You mean like they caught a cab or took a bus from the shopping center. I can buy that.”

Again, the squad room became silent.

Marge said, “It’s going to take hours to check out all the bus schedules and taxicab fares.”

“This is true.”

“We might as well skip over the transportation and go directly to the airport terminals. I’m game if you are.”

Decker stood and stuck his notepad in his jacket. “Let’s go.”

Nightfall had brought another storm into the Southland. Between intermittent downpours, Decker and Marge walked from terminal to terminal, battling not only bureaucracy and security but dank air thick with humidity and jet fuel. The runways were awash with rain and grease forming a mirrored surface that reflected the jets like a bad Impressionist painting. After hours of questioning personnel, and squinting at lists of passengers’ names printed on dot-matrix computer readouts, Decker rubbed his eyes and decided to call it quits.

Which was fine with Marge. She’d been ready to fold up tents an hour ago. She looked at Decker. “Now what?”

Decker checked his watch. A little after ten. “Are you hungry?”

“Are you suggesting an airport coffee shop? Why don’t we skip the middleman and just inject the ptomaine poisoning directly into our veins.”

Decker smiled. “Grab a cup of coffee with me.”

“Axle grease.”

“But at least the water’s boiled.”

Marge rolled her eyes as they trudged to the airport cafeteria. A few minutes later, they were sitting across the table from each other, perched on lemon-colored plastic chairs, sipping bitter coffee out of Styrofoam cups. The lighting was harsh and Decker’s eyes were tired. He hoped the caffeine would fuel him up, keep him awake long enough to make the long drive home.