John Lescroart - The Motive

This gave Glitsky a sense of foreboding that he tried to ignore. "Let's take a look at the safe-deposit box," he said.

They all walked into an old-fashioned vault with a heavily reinforced door, its inner workings and tumblers open to the lobby. Traci had a set of the bank's master keys for one of the locks and she'd called in a locksmith to drill out the other one, which needed the customer's key. In short order, she was taking the box from its space in the wall. She placed it on a table in the center of the vault. It was one of the larger boxes-a foot wide, eighteen inches long, four inches in depth. It only took another few seconds to get it open.

Unwittingly, Wessin whistled under his breath.

The stacks of money-fifty- and hundred-dollar bills-was what caught the eye first, but then Glitsky noticed what looked to be a rogue bit of tissue paper stuck against one side of the box. He picked that up first and opened it in his hand. It was, of course, the ring, with the stone actually larger than he'd pictured it. Wrapping it back up rather more neatly than it had been, he put it on the table next to the box. "I guess we ought to count this next," he said.

Tuesday, two days ago, early afternoon in Jackman's office with the door closed behind him and thick, rare slabs of sunshine streaking the floor over by the windows, the wind screaming outside. Jackman is in his oversize leather chair behind his desk, his fingers templed at his mouth. Treya, on the second day of her first week back at work after Zachary's birth, stands guard with her back against the door.

Glitsky is looking on while the DA reads the 314(a) form. "I just got this thing and wanted to run it by you."

"I don't understand how this can be," Jackman says. "Didn't you tell me her Social Security number came up deceased?"

"When I checked six weeks ago, yes. But if she opened this account within a few weeks of the Hanover fire, say, or even sooner than that, the computer wouldn't have caught up with her yet."

Treya says, "She's a banker, sir. She knew it wouldn't." Glitsky adds. "She's done this before, remember. Established an identity in a new town withginned-up docs. Undoubtedly she knew they don't check names against socials. If nobody ever thought to ask, and nobody has now for ten months, she's golden. What she didn't know about were the changes since 9/11."

Jackman asks, "So what name is she using now?" "Monica Breque."

"I bet people call her Missy," Treya says. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Jackman straightens up in his chair. "We need to get her in custody. Have you talked to the Davis people? Police."

"Yes, sir, a little. And there is still a problem-I talked to the manager at the bank and got a local address that seems not to be hers. It's not fictitious. It's just not where she lives. They sent some officers around to check right away, and it was somebody else's house entirely. So we don't know where she is."

Jackman isn't too fazed by this. "It's a small town. Somebody'll know where she lives." "I'll be following up on that."

"I thought you might be." Jackman hesitates. "Abe." He talks quietly, but he's firm. "Why not have them work on the follow-up, the Davis police? Have them bring in the FBI if they want. It's a banking matter, so it's federal. And she's a protected witness. And when they find her and surround her and place her under arrest, then have them bring her down here for her trial when they're done with her. You've found her. You don't physically have to bring her in."

Glitsky is standing in the at-ease position between his wife and the DA. He wouldn't be at all surprised if they both had the same opinion of what he should do now, but he is not going to be drawn into this discussion. Instead, he nods in apparent assent. "Good point," he says.

Three hundred and fifteen thousand, four hundred dollars even.

It took them nearly an hour to count it twice and be sure. Traci left the two policemen to the work. Toward the end of it, Wessin seemed to become a bit impatient, checking his watch several times, and Glitsky learned that he was to be the speaker at a Rotary event at noon. Glitsky had loosened up by now and had become nearly voluble. He told Wessin he should have known that the chief would have some public event he needed to attend-half of Glitsky's own life was administrative stupidity and public relations. Both men agreed that if people knew, they'd never want to move up through the ranks. Even so, they both understood the importance of Wessin's speaking gig and picked up their speed. When they finally finished, Wessin still had fifteen minutes.

They called Traci back in to lock up the box again and insert it into its proper location. A next-to-worst-case scenario for Glitsky-after the possibility of her escaping again altogether-would be if they could not locate the woman in a day or two of canvassing shopkeepers and neighborhoods and had to assign a full-time person to keep watch in case she went to the bank for some cash.

But he had hopes that it wouldn't come to that. Already this morning, Wessin's task force had gone out into the town and onto the university campus, armed with their photographs. Two officers were going to the post office-they had what they hoped was a current alias, and if she'd ever gotten so much as a gas bill under that name, they could find where she lived. The French accent would stand out, as would the face. All talk of small town aside, though, the population of the greater area during the school year when college was in session was something in the order of a hundred thousand souls. If she were consciously laying low-and her years as a rebel in Algeria had certainly prepared her for that-they could miss her for a very long time, perhaps forever. And that's if she were still here at all.

Although the money argued that she was.

Glitsky and Wessin-by now they were Abe and Matt-were standing on the sidewalk outside the bank. The drizzle had let up along with most of the wind, and though the streets were wet and it was still overcast, patches of blue were showing in the sky above them. "People will be checking back in at the station after lunch, Abe. I could drop you back there now if you'd like. Or you could grab a bite downtown here. It's not San Francisco, but there's a couple of places to eat."

"I'll find 'em. You don't have a Jewish deli, do you?"

"No, but if you want deli, Zia's is pretty damn good Italian. It's on the next block, on the way to where I'm going to talk. You want, I'll show you."

It was a sad but true fact of Glitsky's life that since his heart attack and the never-ending battle with cholesterol, he rarely ate sandwiches anymore, especially freshly sliced mortadella and salami and all those great nitrates with cheese and vinegar and oil on a just-out-of-the-oven sourdough roll. But he was having one now, enjoying it immensely, washing it down with San Pellegrino water, thinking he liked this low-rise, not-quite-yuppified town, even as he wondered where the black people were.

With the improving weather, a steady stream of mostly young people-students, he surmised-passed in front of him where he sat outside on the sidewalk. He saw as many per-capita Asians as there were in San Francisco, and Hispanics, and from the evidence a thriving lesbian community-in fact, ethnicities and minorities of every stripe seemed well represented here, but there was nary a black person. What, he wondered, was that about? More than anything else, he found it odd, out of sync with the world he inhabited.

It was clouding up again as he was finishing his sandwich and his drink, and he went back inside the crowded little deli to discard his bottle and napkins. He looked at his watch. He wasn't due to meet Wessin for another twenty minutes, so he stopped for a moment to look at the display of imported Italian goods around the shelves. Maybe he'd pick up some eggplant caponata for Treya, or roasted red peppers, and surprise her. They hadn't had much romance in their lives since Zachary's birth, and now she was already back at work after the maternity leave. He should really get her something. He never thought to surprise her. He ought to change that. In fact, he should bring her presents more often, he was thinking, let her know how much she was appreciated.