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      “Any of you know his phone number by heart?”

      “He’s listed,” Lisa said.

      “Did Chris and Lindsey hang around you guys or did they have their own set of friends?”

      “They hung around us sometimes,” Heather said. “Sometimes, me and my boyfriend would double with them. But they tried to be alone as much as possible. I don’t know much about his friends.”

      “Did Lindsey ever talk about knowing a deaf girl?”

      “Dead?” Brian asked.

      “Deaf,” Lisa snapped. “Like you can’t hear.”

      “Huh?” Brian joked.

      “Get serious, Armor. This isn’t the time,” Marc scolded. He looked back at Decker. “She never mentioned any deaf girl to me.”

      “To me either,” said Heather.

      “Any friend of Chris’s deaf?”

      Blank stares.

      “So none of you heard a thing about Lindsey after she disappeared.”

      They all shook their heads.

      “Did Lindsey ever talk, even jokingly, about running away with Chris?”

      “Lindsey may have dug the guy,” Marc said, “but she wasn’t the type to do something like take off. She had lots of plans for the senior year.”

      “What kind of plans?” Decker asked.

      “The prom. Varsity cheerleading,” Heather said.

      “She was really into cheerleading,” added Lisa. “And modeling. She wanted to be a model. She certainly had the body for it.”

      “I’ll say,” Brian said lecherously. The other kids gave him reproving looks. The boy blushed.

      “Lindsey seemed to be a nice girl,” Decker said. “Considerate of her parents, not wanting to hurt their feelings by going with Chris. Enthusiastic about cheerleading. Anybody want to add anything?”

      “She was a doll,” Lisa said. “Not real heavy on the gray matter—”

      “Like you are?” Brian said.

      “Shut up, Armor.”

      Suddenly Brian became enraged. “Will you quit picking on me!” he screamed, turning crimson.

      The room fell silent. A minute passed, then Brian let out a hollow laugh.

      “She was a great kid,” he said in a cracked voice. “She was nice to everyone … even me.”

      “She was real sweet,” Marc said softly. “The world could use more positive people like her.”

      Decker had to admit it; she didn’t sound like a prototypical runaway. No evidence of heavy drug use, she didn’t seem to hate her parents, she had a supportive peer group and was involved in school activities. It was beginning to smell like an abduction. Which meant either the boyfriend was involved and Decker would have a substantial lead, or the boyfriend wasn’t and he was up shit’s creek without a paddle.

      Decker folded his notepad and distributed his cards.

      “If any one of you thinks of something that might help, give me a call.”

      Lisa squinted and mouthed the word “Decker.”

      “You got a daughter on the intramural track team?” she asked.

      Decker nodded. “You know Cindy?”

      “Not personally. I just remember this long-legged redhead named Decker who competed last year. Ran like lightning. She should go into the Olympics or something.”

      Despite himself, Decker swelled with parental pride.

      His watch said 6:15. Hard to believe that he’d been in there for over an hour and a half. He was supposed to meet with the rabbi at eight, so he had plenty of time to fix himself dinner. But he wasn’t hungry.

      A nice girl disappears and turns up a corpse, murdered gruesomely. The scenario suppressed his appetite. Making matters worse, the case had little to go on.

      It became all too clear to him why he had transferred out of Homicide. Any victim was better than a dead one. True, he’d seen his fair share of assholes getting blown away in sour drug deals and junkies who kicked themselves. The memories didn’t keep him up at night. It was cases like this one that left the bile in this throat.

      A nice girl.

      He thought of his own daughter. She was safe, he assured himself. She was careful. But the words seemed empty. Careful wasn’t enough.

      His daughter. Alone in New York.

      He took out a cigarette.

      He’d call Jan the minute he got home. Cindy and Eric living together? He thought that was a fine idea.

      6

      “Very good,” Rabbi Schulman said, twirling gray wisps of beard around his index finger. “You’re making very good progress.”

      “Thank you,” said Decker.

      The Rosh Yeshiva closed the chumash—the Jewish bible. They were learning bible in the rabbi’s study, a spacious, wood-paneled room that reflected the warmth of its host. The picture window revealed a tranquil evening, the foliage dappled with moonlight like early morning frost on a winter’s landscape. Decker felt a spiritual calm, even though the circuitry of his nervous system was pushing overload.

      “Study next week’s portion and we’ll go over it together. Use the English of course, but try to look at the Hebrew also. Remember what I told you about looking for the shoresh—the three-letter root—in the word.”

      “I will.” Decker stared back at his open Bible and began shuffling through back pages, not quite ready to call it quits.

      “And you’ll be spending Shabbos weekend with us?” the rabbi asked.

      “I’m planning on it. Thank your wife again for her hospitality.”

      “I will do that. And Zvi Adler wants to have you over for Shabbos lunch. I think it would be nice if you accepted the invitation.”

      “That’s fine.”

      “Sarah Libba would have called you, but she’s exquisitely shy, so Zvi asked me invite you.”

      “Tell him I’d be delighted.”

      Schulman stood, his posture as rigid as a T-square. He sensed Decker’s jumpiness and went to a liquor cabinet.

      “A shot of schnapps, Peter?”

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