John Lescroart - The Motive

Hardy took a beat. He'd gotten in the inference he'd wanted-that Cuneo basically just wanted to chat up Catherine, and now he was almost finished. "Inspector Becker, on that first night that he'd seen her, did Sergeant Cuneo express to you any thoughts about Catherine Hanover's physical appearance?"

As a bonus, Rosen reacted, snorting, objecting again.

Braun spoke sharply. "Overruled. Inspector, you may answer the question. Do you need Mr. Hardy to repeat it?"

Hardy, with a second chance to put it in front of the jury, wasted no time. "Did Sergeant Cuneo express to you any thoughts about Catherine Hanover's physical appearance?"

"Yes, he did." "What did he say?"

"He said she was a damn fine-looking woman." "Those were his exact words?" "Pretty close."

When Hardy got back to his table, Catherine leaned over and urgently whispered to him, "What about the ring?"

"What ring?"

"Missy's. Paul gave her an enormous rock. If they swept up everything in the room down small enough to find a bullet casing, they must have found the ring, too.

Right?"

"Maybe it was still on her finger."

"Oh, okay. You're right. I'd just assumed…"

"No. It's worth asking," Hardy said, although he couldn't have elucidated exactly why he thought so. "I'll go back and ask Strout."

"Mr. Hardy." Braun stared down over her lenses. "If we're not keeping you…"

"No. Sorry, Your Honor."

Braun shifted her gaze to the other table. "Mr. Rosen, call your next witness."

Rosen got to his feet. "The people call Sergeant Inspector Daniel Cuneo."

Hardy put a hand over his client's hand on the defense table, gave what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. "Get ready," he whispered. "This is where it gets ugly."

Glitsky's prayers were answered. It appeared that it was "only" a hole in Zachary's heart after all. It was so small that the doctor thought it might eventually close up on its own, although Glitsky and Treya shouldn't count on that since it was equally possible that it might not. But whether it eventually closed up on its own or not, Zachary's condition required no further immediate medical intervention, and neither doctor-Gavelin nor Trueblood-suggested an increased stay in the hospital for either mother or child.

So Paganucci had come out to the hospital with Glitsky's car, and Abe and Treya were back to their duplex by noon, both of them completely wrung out with the stress and uncertainty of the previous twenty-four hours. Neither had slept for more than an hour or two. And they were nowhere near out of the woods yet with their boy. There was still some likelihood that he'd need open

heart surgery in the very near term-the doctors and his parents would have to keep a close eye on his overall development, heart size, energy level, skin color-turning bluish would be a bad sign, for example. But what had seemed a bad-odds bet yesterday-that Zachary might be the one child in eight born with this condition able to live a normal life without surgery-now seemed at least possible, and that was something to hang on to, albeit precariously. At least it was not the probable death sentence of aortic stenosis.

Rachel was staying another day with her grandfather Nat. By pretending that he was going to take a much-needed nap with her, Glitsky got Treya to lie down in the bedroom with Zachary blessedly sleeping in the crib beside her. Within minutes she, too, was asleep.

Glitsky got out of bed, went into the kitchen, turned in a full circle, then walked down the hallway by Rachel's room. He checked the back door to make sure it was locked, deadbolt in place, and came back out to the living room. Outside, a bleak drizzle dotted his picture window, but he went to it anyway and stared unseeing at the view of his cul-de-sac below. Eventually, he found himself back in the kitchen. Apparently he'd eaten some crackers and cheese-the crumbs littered the table in front of him. He scooped them into his hand, dropped them in the sink, and punched the message light on his telephone.

The only call was from Dismas Hardy, wondering where he was, telling him that suddenly he had many questions, all of them more critical than the location of

Missy D'Amiens's car. They needed to talk. There'd already been a few developments in the first day of the trial that would affect him. But more than that, he needed to revisit what Abe had done to date.

Glitsky looked at the clock on his stove. Ten after one. There was some chance that Hardy wouldn't yet be back in court after lunch. In some obscure way, and despite his pure fatigue, Glitsky all at once became aware of a sharp spike in his motivation. Maybe the sense of impotence he'd experienced while unseen doctors performed tests on his newborn had upset his equilibrium. Or was it the fact that now there appeared to be a reasonable chance that his son would be all right? That sometimes a cause might appear lost, and that this appearance of hopelessness could be a stage on the route to success, or even redemption? All he knew was that it all seemed of a piece somehow. It was time to get back in this game.

And, a critical point, he could do it from his home. And in a way, conducting an investigation from his home would give him another advantage. There would be no reporters, nobody to witness what he was doing, to question who he might talk to. Rosen and Cuneo, busy in trial mode, would certainly never take any notice. Everything he did would remain under the radar, where he wanted it.

He reached for the telephone.

Hardy's pager told him to leave a number. He did that, then immediately placed another call to his own office. If and when Hardy called back, they'd coordinate their actions. In the meantime, Missy's car was a question even Glitsky had failed to ask. In fact, he realized, every strand of his failed investigation up until now had emanated from Paul Hanover-his business dealings, his politics, his personal life. To Glitsky's knowledge, neither he nor Hardy nor Cuneo nor anyone else involved in the case had given the time of day to Missy D'Amiens. She was just the mistress, then the fiancee, unimportant in her own right. But what if…?

At the very least it was somewhere he hadn't looked. And nowhere else had yielded any results. "Deputy Chief Glitsky's office." "Melissa, it's me."

"Abe." His secretary lowered her voice. "How are you? And Treya?"

"Both of us are pretty tired, but all right."

A pause. "And the baby? Tom"-Paganucci-"Tom said… "

Glitsky cut her off. "Zack's going to be fine."

"Zack? Of course, Tom didn't know what you called him." She was obviously spreading the news to the rest of his administrative staff. "His name is Zachary." Now she was back with him. "Thank God he's all right. We've all been sick here wondering."

"Well…" To avoid going into any more detail at the moment, Glitsky switched to business. "Listen, though, the reason I called…"

"You're not working, are you?"

"I'm trying to, Melissa. But you've got the computer. I'd like you to run a name and vehicle R.O."- registered owner-"for me. On a Michelle D'Amiens. D apostrophe…"

Hardy felt the vibration of the pager in his belt, but he was in the middle of an uncomfortable discussion with Catherine's husband. Hardy had originally intended to huddle with Catherine in the holding cell during the lunch recess, but had noticed that Mary and Will were the only family members who'd made it to the courtroom today, and he needed to talk to both of them. Separately. And sooner rather than later.

So he cut his time with Catherine short and was waiting at the defense table when the brother and sister got back from their lunch together. They had nearly a half hour before court would be back in session, so he walked back and said hello and asked Will if he could spare a minute, then Mary when he and Will were finished, if there was time. So, although obviously unhappy about this unexpected ambush-Will thought he knew what it was about, money, and he was right-he accompanied Hardy back up to his table inside the bullpen. Both men sat down.