The Motive Read Online Free PDF Page A

delicate, West’s fragile packaging all but disguised a ferocious will and laser intellect. Completely at home in polite society, raised to an old standard of born-to privilege mixed with a heightened sense of civic responsibility, she was in her bones a pragmatic, skillful politician, now somewhere in her late fifties. Playing somewhat against type, she talked the good talk about believing in getting her hands dirty if that’s what it would take, whatever it was. And that had gotten her elected.
    This morning, Glitsky was discovering firsthand that it wasn’t all talk. “I just can’t accept any part of it, Abe. The Paul Hanover I knew—and I’ve known him for thirty-five years—did not shoot his fiancée, and then himself, and then burn down his house. That is just not what happened.
I can’t accept it.”
She stabbed the open flat of her desk blotter with a bony index finger. “I don’t care what the medical examiner rules.”
    Glitsky wasn’t going to fight her. At least not yet, before he knew anything. He assumed she just needed her hand held. “I don’t think John Strout is anywhere near making a ruling,” he said. “It’s just the usual media madness, filling that awful silence they hate so much.”
    West’s mouth went up in a tic of appreciation that vanished quickly. “I think it’s more than that. They were, and I quote, ‘police sources.’”
    “I heard that, too. Saying they couldn’t rule out murder/suicide. Which, in all fairness, they can’t. It might have been.”
    Glitsky reserved judgment as he always did, but if Strout eventually came to this conclusion, it wouldn’t be a shock. At this stage, it certainly looked like it could have been a murder/suicide. But he wasn’t going to press that argument with the mayor. “I don’t blame you for being angry at the stupid reporting, but it’s not like we don’t see it every day. If you want, I’ll see to it you’re informed with every development. Then you can call the press conferences yourself and maybe even have some fun.”
    But fun wasn’t on the mayor’s agenda. Impatient, she was shaking her short bob of gray hair, a quick birdlike movement. “No,” she said, “I want more than that. That’s why I called you here, Abe. I want somebody I trust working on this. This cannot be what it seems. I will not have Paul Hanover’s name slandered over something that he didn’t do.” She asked abruptly, “Do you know Dan Cuneo?”
    “Sure.”
    “What do you know about him?”
    Glitsky knew he did not like him. He guessed that the feeling was mutual. Cuneo had never worked in homicide under Glitsky, and worse, a couple of years before he’d actually accusedGlitsky of collusion with Dismas Hardy for trying to deflect a murder rap from one of Hardy’s clients. But West didn’t need the history lesson about him and Cuneo. “Marcel Lanier says he’s okay. He makes his numbers.”
    “My, what a ringing endorsement.” West’s bright eyes stayed on Glitsky, waiting.
    His mouth went up a fraction of an inch—a pass at a smile—and he shrugged. “I don’t know him personally. If I can ask, what about him?”
    “The latest version of the news I’ve seen named him as the police source. He’s the inspecting officer on this case. I think he’s a hog for press and he’s already jumping to conclusions. I think he’s the wrong man.”
    After a minute, Glitsky nodded. “Would you like me to talk to Lanier? Maybe he can assign Cuneo a partner, although I hear he likes to work alone.”
    “I’ve heard he can’t keep a partner.” Kathy West scratched at her blotter. “Actually, Abe,” she said quietly, “before I asked you to come up here, I called Frank Batiste.” This was the chief of police, Glitsky’s boss, the man who’d promoted him. West’s mention of his name in this context—low-key, to be sure—marked a change in the dynamic of things. “I asked Frank who, in his opinion, was the single best homicide