Free The Bar Mitzvah Murder by Lee Harris

daughter.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m afraid she’s left the country.”
    â€œToday? She said she was going to London in a few days to meet her husband.”
    â€œWe checked the airlines and a Judith Silverman boarded a flight to Frankfurt earlier this afternoon.”
    â€œI see. Maybe she couldn’t get on a London plane.”
    â€œMaybe she just wanted to get on the first plane out of Israel.”
    â€œDoesn’t sound very good, does it? I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner.”
    â€œI think she may have checked out of the hotel as soon as you left her. We probably couldn’t have stopped her even if we’d known.”
    I looked at Jack. “I guess I misjudged her.”
    â€œLook, you found her. That’s what’s important.”
    â€œShe didn’t happen to mention a hotel in London, did she?”
    â€œShe just said London.”
    â€œWe’ll find her.” He smiled. “Thanks for your good work.”
    â€œUh, before you go, I’m told she’s newly married. It’s possible she has an old passport with her. She might be using her maiden name, Gross.”
    â€œGood point.” He told Jack he’d see him tomorrow and took off at a jog.
    â€œI screwed up,” I said. “I should have told him sooner. What a mess. Pretty soon all our suspects will have left the country.”
    â€œYou’re right; that’s a problem. But I’ve got a bigger problem. I’m starving. Let’s pick up Mom and Dad and that kid of ours and have something to eat.”

9
    â€œWe’re going to Masada tomorrow,” Jack’s mother said as we sat down at the table in the restaurant they had chosen.
    â€œI wish I could go with you, but my friend Mel and I are taking a tour of the Old City.”
    â€œOh, we’d love to do that. Too bad we didn’t talk to you before we got our tickets.”
    â€œI’ll get this guide’s card and you can call him,” I promised. “And you tell me how to get to Masada.”
    â€œIt’s a wonderful trip, Chris. We visit Masada in the morning before it gets too hot and then we get to swim in the Dead Sea in the afternoon.”
    â€œThat sounds wonderful. It’s full of salt, isn’t it?”
    â€œOh, yes. You can’t sink if you try. I’m glad you packed a bathing suit for Eddie.”
    â€œI’m going to swim in the Dead Sea,” he announced. “Grandma says I can stand up and float.”
    â€œWell, hang on to Grandma anyway, OK?”
    â€œAnd we’re going to do the mud,” she went on.
    â€œWhat mud?”
    â€œFrom the Dead Sea. It heals everything. I’m going to pack it on my achy knee. I’ve heard it really works.”
    â€œAnd I’m putting it on my shoulders and elbows,” my father-in-law said. “May as well try everything.”
    Why not? I thought. It’s all right here.
    When we got back to the hotel, there was a message to call Officer Davidson.
    â€œWell, she’s disappeared,” Jack said when he got off the phone.
    â€œJudy Silverman?”
    â€œInto thin air. She got as far as Frankfurt, there’s no question about that, but the trail is cold from there. There’s no telling where she is. She’s not in any of the hotels they thought she might be in. She’s got money, right?”
    â€œLots of it.”
    â€œSo she’s probably not in a bed-and-breakfast.”
    â€œI wouldn’t think so. Unless she’s trying to elude the police.”
    â€œDraw your own conclusions. She’s gone.”
    I lay awake thinking about Judy Gross Silverman. Obviously, she had come to Jerusalem to be where her father was at his Bar Mitzvah. What her motivation was I couldn’t be sure. That she was hurt because of her parents’ divorce I had no doubt. But was it possible that she wanted him dead so much that she would participate in his