Ten days since the discovery of Juliet's body, and nothing new, either good or bad.

They'd narrowed the sex offender list down to sixteen men. Ten Jews, four Arabs, one Druze, one Armenian, all busted since Gray Man. None had alibis; all had histories of violence or, according to the prison psychiatrists, the potential for it. Seven had attempted rape, three had pulled it off, four had severely beaten women after being refused sex, and two were chronic peepers with multiple burglary convictions and a penchant for carrying knives-a combination the doctors considered potentially explosive.

Five of the sixteen lived in Jerusalem; another six resided in communities within an hour's drive of the capital. The Druze's home was farther north, in the village of Daliyat el Carmel, a remote aerie atop the verdant, poppy-speckled hills that looked down upon Haifa. But he was unemployed, had access to a car, and was prone to taking solitary drives. The same was true of two of the Arabs and one of the Jews. The remaining pair of Jews, Gribetz and Brickner, were friends who'd gang-raped a fifteen-year-old girl-Gribetz's cousin-and also lived far north, in Nahariya. Before going to prison they'd shared a business, a trucking service specializing in picking up parcels from the Customs House at Ashdod and delivering them to owners' homes. Since their release they'd resumed working together, tooling along the highways in an old Peugeot pickup. Looking, Daniel wondered, for more than profit?

He interviewed them and the Druze, trying to make some connection between Juliet Haddad's Haifa entry and home bases near the northern border.

Gribetz and Brickner were surly, semiliterate types in their mid-twenties, heavily muscled louts who smelled unwashed and gave off a foul heat. They didn't take the interrogation seriously, nudged each other playfully and laughed at unspoken jokes, and despite the tough-guy posturing, Daniel started perceiving them as lovers-latent homosexuals perhaps? They seemed bored by discussion of their crime, shrugged it off as a miscarriage of justice.

"She was always loose," said Gribetz. "Everyone in the family knew it."

"What do you mean by 'always'?" asked Daniel.

Gribetz's eyes dulled with confusion.

"Always-what do you think?" interceded Brickner.

Daniel kept his eyes on Gribetz. "She was fifteen when you raped her. How long had she been… loose?"

"Always," said Gribetz. "For years. Everyone in the family knew it. She was born that way."

"They'd have family parties," said Brickner. "Afterward everyone would take a drive with Batya and all the guys would have a go at her."

"You were there too?"

"No, no, but everyone knew-it was the kind of thing everyone knew."

"What we did was the same as always," said Gribetz. "We went for spin in the truck and had her good, but this time she wanted money and we said fuck you. She got mad and called the cops, ruined our lives."

"She really fucked us up," confirmed Brickner. "We lost all our accounts, had to start from scratch."

"Speaking of your accounts," Daniel asked him, "do you keep a log of your deliveries?"

"For each day. Then we throw it out."

'Why's that?"

'Why not? It's our personal shit. What's the matter, the government doesn't give us enough paperwork to store?"

Daniel looked at the arrest report Northern Division had written up on the two. The girl had suffered a broken jaw, loss of twelve teeth, a cracked eye socket, ruptured spleen, and vaginal lacerations that had needed suturing.

"You could have killed her," he said.

"She was trying to take our money," protested Brickner. "She was nothing more than a whore."

"So you're saying that it's okay to beat up whores."

"Well, ah, no-you know what I mean."

"I don't. Explain it to me."

Brickner scratched his head and inhaled. "How about a cigarette?"

"Later. First explain me your philosophy about whores."

"We don't need whores, Hillel and me," said Gribetz. "We get plenty of pussy, any time we want."

"Whores," said Brickner. "Who the hell needs them."

"Which is why you raped her?"

"That was different," said Brickner. "His whole family knew about her."

An hour later, they'd given him nothing that cleared them, but neither had they implicated themselves. During the nights of the murders they claimed to have been sleeping in bed, but both lived alone and lacked verification. Their memories failed to stretch back to the period preceding Fatma's murder, but they recalled delivering parcels to Bet Shemesh the day before Juliet's body had been found. A painstaking check of Ashdod Customs records revealed an early morning pickup; Shmeltzer was still trying to get hold of the bills of lading from the week of Fatma's death.

The timing vis-a-vis Juliet was feasible, Daniel knew. Bet Shemesh was just outside Jerusalem, which would have given them ample opportunity to drop off the packages, then go prowling around. But where would they have killed her and cut her up? Neither had residence nor connections in Jerusalem and the lab boys had found no blood in the truck. They denied ever laying eyes on Juliet or going into the city, and no witness placed them there. As for what they'd done with the afternoon, they claimed to have driven back north, spent the afternoon at a deserted stretch of beach just above Haifa.

"Anyone see you there?" asked Daniel.

"No one goes there," said Brickner. "The ships leak shit in the water-it smells. There's tar all over the beach that can gook you up if you're not careful."

"But you guys go there."

Brickner grinned. "We like it. It's empty-you can piss in the sand, do whatever you like."

Gribetz laughed.

"I'd like for both of you to take a polygraph test."

"Does it hurt?" asked Brickner in a crude imitation of a child's voice.

"You've had one before. It's in your file."

"Oh, yeah, the wires. It fucked us over. No way."