Tovya Blotnik!
A soft crunching sound penetrated my dread.
Footsteps on gravel?
Killing the light, I held my breath and listened.
Sleeve brushing jacket. Branch scraping stucco. Goat bleat drifting up from the yard.
Only benign sounds, nothing hostile.
Dropping to my knees, I searched for the padlock. It was nowhere to be seen.
I returned to the kitchen and replaced the flashlight. Closing the drawer, I noticed Jake’s answering machine on the counter above. The flasher was blinking in clusters of ten.
I tallied my own calls to Jake. Eight, the first around five, the last just before leaving the hotel.
One of the other messages might hold a clue to his whereabouts.
Invade Jake’s privacy?
Damn right. This looked to be a bad situation.
I hit “replay.”
The first caller was, indeed, me.
The second message was left by a man speaking Hebrew. I caught the words Hevrat Kadisha, andisha, woman. Nothing else. Fortunately, the guy was brief. Hitting “replay,” again and again, I transcribed phonetically.
The next caller was Ruth Anne Bloom. She left only her name and the fact that she was working late.
The last seven messages were again mine.
The machine clicked off.
What had I learned? Zilch.
Was Jake already gone when I first called? Had he ignored or not heard my message? Was he monitoring? Had he left after listening to the male caller? To Ruth Anne Bloom? Had he left of his own will?
I looked at the gibberish in my hand.
I looked at my watch. It was now past midnight. Whom to call?
Ryan answered on the first ring.
I told him where I was and what I’d learned.
Ryan’s breathing revealed his annoyance at my having ventured out alone. I knew what was coming, and wasn’t in the mood for a Q and A.
“Jake could be in trouble,” I said.
“Hold on.”
The next voice was Friedman’s.
I explained what I wanted, and, one by one, pronounced the phonemes I’d written down. It took several tries, but Friedman’s Hebrew finally mimicked the message on the tape.
The caller had been a member of the Hevrat Kadisha, phoning in answer to Jake’s query.
Okay. I’d guessed that. The next part of Friedman’s translation surprised me.
A number of the “harassing” calls had been made by a woman.
“That’s it?”
“The caller wished your friend’s hands to wither and fall off should he desecrate another grave.”
A woman had been calling the Hevrat Kadisha?
I heard rustling as Friedman passed the phone back to Ryan.
“You know what I want you to do.” Brusque.
“Yes,” I said.
“You’ll go back to the American Colony?”
“Yes.” Eventually.
Ryan didn’t buy it.
“But first?”
“Poke around here, see if I can scare up contact information for Jake’s crew. I might find a list of those working this Talpiot site.”
“And then?”
“Call them.”
“And then?”
Adrenaline had my mind in overdrive. Ryan’s paternalism wasn’t gearing it down.
“Shoot out to Arafat’s old compound, flash some leg, maybe score a date for Saturday night.”
Ryan ignored that.
“If you go anywhere but the hotel, please call me.”
“I will.”
“I mean it.”
“I’ll call.”
Silence. I broke it.
“What’s Kaplan doing?”
“Working on Eagle Scout.”
“Meaning?”
“Early to bed.”
“You’re sitting on him?”
“Yes. Look, Tempe. It’s just possible Kaplan’s not our shooter. If that’s the case, someone else is.”
“Okay. I won’t go to Ramallah.”
Ryan followed that with his standard.
“You can be a real pain in the ass, Brennan.”
I followed with mine.
“I work on it.”
When we’d disconnected, I hurried to Jake’s office. My eyes were drawn to the objects beside the computer. My anxiety skyrocketed.
Jake’s site was in the desert. He wouldn’t go there without sunglasses. He wouldn’t go anywhere without ID.
Car keys?
I began shuffling papers, poking through trays, opening and closing drawers.
No keys.
I checked the bedroom, the kitchen, the workroom.
No keys.
And no info on the crew. No list of names. No task rotation sheet. No ledger with check stubs. Zip.
Returning to the computer, I noticed a yellow Post-it poking from below the keyboard. I snatched it up.
Jake’s scrawl. The name Esther Getz, and a phone number four digits off Blotnik’s at the Rockefeller.
Sudden thought. Could the Getzster be the woman phoning the Hevrat Kadisha?
I hadn’t a molecule of evidence to suggest that. Nothing. Unless you count gender. And what did calls to the Hevrat Kadisha have to do with anything anyway?
Okay. Jake had intended to see Getz or Bloom or both. Had he?
I stared at the number. Calling at this hour would be futile. Rude.
“Screw rude.” I wanted Bloom to know I was looking for Jake.
Four rings. Voice mail. Message.
I stood a moment, fingers locked on the receiver.
Getz?
Why not?
Voice mail. Message.
Now what? Who else to ring?
I knew the calls were pointless, but I was frustrated and had no better ideas.
Again, the flashing cursor from my id. There. Gone. There. Gone.
Indicating what? When nothing is making sense, I often repeat known facts over and over in the hope that a
