By now it was around seven and my stomach was sending me signals. I walked east and by seven thirty was at my regular table at Greta's, a melted cheese sandwich, a steaming cup of coffee, and my chessboard before me.
I stayed at my table for the next two and a half hours, had two more cups of coffee and a soda, and ate a second sandwich. I played one game after another, striving to clear my mind of all I'd learned over the past two days, of the possibilities that new knowledge aroused, of the case in its entirety. It worked only partly—I enjoyed brief snatches of mental liberty, in which my mind became joyously free of Esther and Willie and Henrietta and all the people I'd met and talked to during this investigation. But my mind never stayed liberated for long. It seemed intent on submerging itself in the swamp of details and facts that I'd learned, and in the questions and suppositions that those facts and details gave birth to.
What I really wanted, I realized, was to talk about the case, to voice my thoughts and see how another person reacted to them. So I remained at my table until I was the sole remaining customer in the café, until Greta had locked the door and flipped over the open/closed sign, until she'd flicked off half the lights and came over to my table.
She dropped onto a chair with a sigh. "Long day. My feet are killing me."
"You should soak them in hot water. Give me a minute; I'll hop to the kitchen and fill up a bowl."
When I returned with a large stirring bowl, she removed her shoes and socks and gingerly slipped her feet into the water. A smile spread slowly on her lips.
"That feels good. Now why didn't I think of it myself?"
"That's why you keep me around, to solve problems for you."
Her smile widened. "And you do a fine job, I must say. Even if you do eat me out of house and home." Her face turned serious. "You look tired. Sleeping okay?"
"As usual. It's not lack of sleep that's the problem; it's this case I'm working on." I told her about Henrietta Ackerland and how a hopeless missing person case morphed into an equally hopeless double murder investigation. I related to her the various steps I'd taken and described the people I'd met and the conversations I'd held with them over the past few days. I listed the things I'd learned and the open questions that had cropped up. I told her about Alon Davidson. Greta listened in silence, her wise eyes focused on my face, full of compassion and sorrow.
"The thing is," I said, "Davidson is the only good lead I have. He was Esther's lover and he hid this fact from the police. It's more than enough to make him a suspect. But until I talk to him, I won't have a sense of whether I like him for the murders, and a part of me doesn't relish the prospect of meeting him at all."
"Why not?" Greta asked.
"Because if he turns out to be innocent, or if I'm unable to reach a certain conclusion as to his guilt, I'll be left with close to nothing. No real leads. No suspects. No way to catch this killer. And I want to catch him pretty badly."
"You in a hurry?"
I nodded. "I can't take forever on this case, because I owe it to my client to tell her the truth about her son. She needs to start mourning if she's ever to rebuild her life. You think I did the right thing by not telling her?"
She pursed her lips. "Your heart was in the right place. But I'm not sure catching the killer will provide her with as much comfort as you may suppose."
It's more than I ever got, I thought bitterly, but I suspected Greta was right.
She said, "But it's not just the sense of time running out that's bothering you, is it?"
"No."
"What, then?"
"A couple of things. One is the feeling that I'm too late, that too much time has passed, that no matter how hard I work this case, how long I stay with it, or how many people I talk to, I will fail to uncover the killer. I fear the information that could have solved this case is gone along with the people who held it, or that it's buried under ten years of more recent memories, or simply distorted the way old memories often are. The second thing that's weighing on me is that for all my efforts, I'm not sure I'm any closer to knowing who Esther Grunewald really was. I'm learning new things about her, some good and some bad, but who she really was still eludes me. It feels as if her true self is just around some nearby corner, but I don't know where that corner is, so I can't turn it." I sighed, running both hands over my tired face. "Am I making any sense?"
"Perfect sense," Greta said. "You feel like you're chasing a ghost."
"Maybe you're right. Maybe that's it."
"And deep down you know that ghosts cannot be caught."
I looked at her and got the impression that the sorrow in her face was not limited to Esther and Willie and Henrietta, that some of it was meant for me. She reached her big hand across the table and laid it on mine. Her palm was warm, her fingers strong as they closed around my hand. Her blue eyes radiated kindness. "You're afraid she'll haunt you, aren't you? Esther Grunewald. That if you don't catch the killer, she will never let you be."
I swallowed hard, knowing Greta was right. I had enough ghosts haunting me already. I did not want another one to invade my dreams. The thing was, the more I learned about Esther Grunewald, the fuller her shape and character became in my mind, and the less I wanted to fail her. If I did not bring her killer to justice, maybe one day soon she'd start to appear in my dreams, like the family I'd once had and failed to protect or avenge.
"Am I that easy to read?" I asked.
"You do have an expressive face, Adam. What about the baby? Are you worried he'll haunt you, too?"
I considered her question for a moment, then shook my head. "I don't think so. Willie Ackerland is just as much a victim as Esther was, but I know almost nothing about him besides what he looked like in his photographs. My mental image of him is far hazier than Esther's. She's the one I'm worried about."
Greta squeezed my hand once and let go. My hand felt cold without her enveloping fingers.
"But you're still not done, so don't despair. Maybe something will pop up. Now let's talk of more pleasant things. Mira Roth. Tell me more about her."
I had kept my description of Mira to a minimum when I told Greta about the case, but it appeared that she had seen something in my face or perhaps heard it in my voice, when I spoke about her. So I told her a little more about Mira, how she looked, what she'd done for the Irgun, her desire to punish the killer herself. As Greta listened, the corners of her mouth curled upward into a smile.
"What?"
Her smile broadened. "I'm simply enjoying hearing you talk about her. You like her quite a bit, don't you? She appeals to you. Good. I think that's very good."
Suddenly I felt embarrassed, like a self-conscious boy caught staring at a pretty girl. "Don't get your hopes up, Greta."
"Why not? Up is where hopes are supposed to be. What should we hope for? To be down?"
"You know what I mean."
"I do, Adam. I do." Her smile had gone and the sadness was back in her eyes. "But it's all right to hope. You know that, Adam, don't you?"
I didn't tell her that in my experience hopes usually ended up being dashed.
"Do you still think she's keeping something from you?" she asked.
"Mira?"
"Yes."
I nodded. "That's the way it feels to me. Though what it might be, I cannot imagine."
"It seems odd, given how much she wants you to catch this killer."
"That's the thing I don't understand myself."
We talked some more and gradually the conversation shifted from the case to mundane things. I told her about Erwin Goldberg and the books he'd sold me. She told me about a government inspector who'd come nosing around the café, hoping to catch her using black-market food in the kitchen. "The man must have been blind. There were all these restricted items spread out on the work counter and he didn't see them. Just shook my hand and thanked me for being a good citizen."