It was the long-distance operator.

Fuck! Now something was wrong at home. And here he was, sick with worry ten thousand miles away.

Thanks to good old fiber optics, the voice on the other end was familiar and clear. An instant wave of relief came over him. It wasn’t his mother-in-law or the baby nurse or Sammy or Jake. It was Marge.

Decker caught his breath and said, “What time is it over there?”

“Two in the morning. What’s it over there? About one in the afternoon?”

“About.”

“Yeah, I’m all messed up with the time zones. I called your hotel yesterday-four o’clock in the afternoon my time. Some indignant desk clerk informed me in no uncertain terms that it was two o’clock A.M. over there and she was not going to wake you for anything less than an emergency. I figured I’d call back later. You’ve been busy?”

“Nonstop since we arrived yesterday.” Decker took out his pad and pencil. “I take it you have some news?”

“First, a quick update on the Honey Klein case. I got a call from a Sturgis in West LA. I told him you were in Israel and he told me you should get a job as a clairvoyant.”

“Honey is here?”

“No one’s certain, but Manhattan police think so. Right after Klein’s murder, they set up a specialized team to go out to the village-a couple of Jewish cops on the force who could speak Yiddish, including one woman. The men were mute, of course. With the women, it was a different story. While they weren’t exactly chatty, some things about Honey did come out. She had been talking for a long time about going to live in Israel. Then, right before Honey left for vacation, one of the neighbors saw a thick envelope sitting in front of Honey’s house; the return address was a federal office building. She had asked Honey about it. Honey had replied that she had updated their passports.”

“Interesting,” Decker said. “Do they have any evidence she was involved in her husband’s murder?”

“No evidence. But police have got a motive.”

“Let me guess. Her husband had been abusing her and the children. She wanted to get away, but he wouldn’t let her. So she took the kids and fled.”

“You’re on the right track, but not quite.” Marge paused. “You being Jewish and all, Rabbi. Maybe you can explain this to me. Yes, Honey wanted to get away from her husband. She had been asking for a divorce for over a year, but Gershon Klein wanted to stay married. Now this is the part I’m confused about. Apparently, if you’re a devout Jew, a wife can’t get a divorce if her husband doesn’t want it. Is that true?”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“How’s that possible, Pete? We have laws in this country. Equitable laws.”

Decker was quiet. How could he possibly explain it to Marge when he didn’t understand it himself. “She can get a civil divorce, Marge, but she can’t get a religious divorce. Without a religious divorce, a Jewish woman can’t remarry.”

There was a long pause over the line. Then Marge said, “I don’t know about you, but that seems imbalanced to me.”

“Me, too,” Decker admitted. “I think it stinks. Has New York concluded how Gershon Klein died?”

“He drowned,” Marge said. “Rather he was drowned.”

“What kind of water was in the lungs?”

“It was fresh water, not seawater. They think he drowned in a bathtub. And they think Honey did it.”

“It would have been hard for Honey to get him into a bathtub,” Decker said. “Gershon had stopped bathing a while back.”

“Stopped bathing? Why? Now that couldn’t be religion.”

“It had nothing to do with religion,” Decker said. “Sounds like the guy was undergoing a breakdown. Go on.”

Marge said, “The next part is speculation but I’ll run it by you anyway. New York seems to think that Honey had intentions of calling it in as an accident. But she suddenly panicked.”

“I can see that,” Decker said. “It’s one thing to drown your husband in a frenzy of anger. It’s another thing to explain away a dead body.”

Marge said, “New York thinks she dragged the body out of her house-”

“This had to have taken place at night.”

“I would think so. Anyway, she dragged the corpse down to her husband’s office and left.”

“The body was shot.”

“Yeah, they figure Honey purposely shot the body, trashed the office to make it look like a robbery, then told everyone that Gershon was out of town in Israel.”

“Then Honey called up Rina,” Decker continued the story. “She made arrangements to be out of town when the body was discovered.” He became angry. “She chose to stay with a woman whose husband’s a cop. Got to give it to her. That took balls.”

“Or some screws loose,” Marge said. “Honey had to have been stupid to think that someone wouldn’t catch on.”

Decker said, “You know, Margie, dead bodies aren’t easy to maneuver. Drowning the guy, then dragging him into a car and up to his office…shooting him and tossing the place. That’s a lot of physical exertion for one little woman.”

“My thoughts to a tee. She must have had help, Pete. Unfortunately, the police can’t finger an accessory.”

“An accessory before the fact,” Decker said. “Someone had to have helped her with the drowning. She couldn’t have taken down a grown man by herself.”

“Unless the guy was drugged.”

“Anything in the blood?”

“Sturgis didn’t say anything so I assume the tests were negative. Unless the guy was pumped with some rare poison that didn’t show up in a normal chemical profile.”

“Honey had help,” Decker stated as fact.

“Probably. Could have been a member of her community. Maybe even one of her kids…the teenaged boy.” Marge was quiet for a moment. “Didn’t you tell me that the kids looked like abused children?”

“I was thinking out loud, but the signs are there.” Decker paused. “So they think Honey drowned him, then shot him in a panic to make it look like a robbery. Something’s missing, Marge.”

“Agreed. So all you have to do, Rabbi, is find the woman and ask her a few questions. Shouldn’t be too hard. Israel’s a very small country. I know because I looked at a map.”

Decker laughed. “It’s bigger in the flesh, Dunn. I’ll ask Rina if she has any ideas.”

If I can find her!

Marge said, “Department said as long as they paid your transatlantic way for the Yalom thing, you should look into Klein, too. Davidson was very excited about the latest developments. He’s going to ask Manhattan to kick in for some of your overseas expenses since you’re working on their case.”

“Our Loo likes things fiscally sound.”

“Our Loo’s a jerk.”

“Has he been giving you a hard time?”

“Not really. Simply because I’ve been producing.” Marge took a breath. “Are you ready?”

“Yep.”

“We finally found the airline tickets for the Yalom boys. They took a flight from LA to Vancouver. Another one from Vancouver to Toronto. Then a third from Toronto to Israel. We finally have confirmation that the boys are in Israel.”

“I’m looking for them as we speak. Nothing so far. But I’ve only been here a day. Anything else?”

“Yep. I’ve been doing a little research on our friend Katie Milligan.”

Decker felt himself gripping the receiver. He tried to quell a rush of anxiety, but it was a lost cause. “What?”

There was a moment of silence. “Are you okay, Pete?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. What about Milligan?”

Marge couldn’t understand the sudden harsh tone in his voice, but maybe he’d explain himself afterward. “It seems that Katie made some interesting recent investments for her pension plan. Namely Southwest Mines and West African Consolidated.”

“The companies Arik Yalom had invested in.”

“Pete, she bought Southwest Mines after it went bankrupt.”

Decker thought a moment. “Maybe Milligan was bottom fishing. Or it may be that Milligan had insider’s information that the company was going to be picked up and restructured.”

“And just who would pick up the company, Pete?”