John Lescroart - The Motive

"You're lying! If you worked with the police here, they'd be with you now."

"Call your bank then. Ask them if I was there this morning with your police chief."

She rested the gun on her knee. "You've been to the bank?"

"To your box, Missy. Three hundred thousand dollars and Paul's ring. I told your story to the district attorney in San Francisco and got a warrant. The affidavit's under seal, but it's only a matter of time. Everyone will know it by tomorrow. If you kill me, they may know it by tonight."

Outside, they heard the rain suddenly falling with a vengeance.

Monique, Michelle, Monica, Missy put a hand up to her forehead and pulled nervously at the stud over her left eye. "They will murder my family. Don't you understand that?"

"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it. "But it can't be undone."

The two of them sat about eight feet apart. The one light by the front window flickered with the freshening wind, the power of the deluge. The gun was on her leg, but she was no longer pointing it at him. "What is your name again?" she asked.

"Abraham."

"My parents. I cannot let…" She choked on the rest.

"Maybe we can contact the CIA…"

"And what? What do they do in Algeria? Ask their Muslim brothers for mercy for someone who betrayed them? Don't you see? There is no mercy so long as I am alive."

Glitsky had come to the front of the couch and was now sitting slightly forward, in a relaxed posture, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him. "Missy," he said. "I'm going to stand up now."

She immediately gripped the gun in both of her hands and pointed it at the center of his chest.

His eyes locked on hers. "You've had enough of killing to protect your secret. That's over now. The secret is out."

"It isn't. You're lying."

His voice was calm and reasonable. "I'm not lying. You know that."

A long pause. Then a longer pause. "You said you were tired of killing, but that you had to do it. But killing me now will accomplish nothing. So I'm giving you another minute to think it over, then I'm leaving. Shoot me or not, run or stay, it's over. You know that."

He gave her the promised moment to think. Then he stood.

"Don't come any closer!"

"Now I'm going to walk around you."

"No! Don't you move! I'll kill you, I swear to God

I will."

"I don't think you will," he said. "It wouldn't accomplish anything."

He was moving up to where she sat, giving her a wide berth. She stood up, too, and took a step back. Going slowly and smoothly, never stopping, he leaned over to pick up his jacket; then putting it on, he continued past her, feeling the gun trained on him at every step, until his back was to her now and there was nothing to do but reach for the doorknob and pray that he was right.

Never looking over his shoulder, he closed his hand around the metallic orb and gave a yank, then stepped out into the downpour and pulled the door closed behind him.

Half an hour later, eight Davis city police cars were parked in the streets surrounding and in the parking lot in front of the apartment building. The rain had resumed its regular steady drifting. The police switchboard had received three calls from the immediate neighborhood in the past twenty minutes reporting what sounded like a gunshot.

But no one was disposed to take unnecessary chances. The policemen had gone door-to-door in the apartment building, rousting the six students who lived there, getting them out of harm's way. Matt Wessin used the bullhorn and informed Missy that she was surrounded by police and had sixty seconds to throw out her weapons and give herself up.

When the minute was up and there had been no response, Abe Glitsky held up a hand to Wessin and his men and, all alone, walked across the few open feet of parking lot to the front door. He stopped for an instant, drew a breath and gathered himself before he pushed.

Slumped over to her right, the terrorist, the killer, the lover, the martyr was on the couch where he'd been sitting not so long before. Glitsky took a step into the room. His chin fell down over his chest. Always professional, still and always an exception to the rule, Missy D'Amiens had shot herself in the head.

In a moment, Glitsky would turn and nod to Wessin and the routines would begin. He tried to imagine some other way it could have gone, something he might have done differently.

But it had all been ordained and set in motion long before he'd been involved. He was lucky to have escaped with his life, when so many others had not.

That was going to have to be enough.

On a sunny Saturday evening a couple of weeks into April, Hardy was driving with his wife, top down on the convertible, on the way to Glitsky's. A week before, he'd come across a CD of Perry Como's greatest hits, and since then had been alienating everyone close to him- especially his children-with his spontaneous outbursts into renditions of "Papa Loves Mambo" and "Round and Round" and others that were, to him, classics from his earliest youth, when his parents used to watch the crooner's show every Sunday night. Now, as his last notes from "Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)" faded to silence along with the CD track, Frannie reached over and ejected the disc.

"You really like that guy, don't you?"

"What's not to like?"

"I know there's something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's just that he's before my time."

"Perry? He's eternal. Besides, you don't hear polkas often enough nowadays. If you did, the world would be a happier place. I'm thinking of trying to find an Okto-berfest record so we can have more of them on hand at the house."

"The kids might kill you. On second thought, I might kill you."

"No. You'd all get used to it. Pretty soon all their friends are coming over for polka parties. You're the hostess wearing one of those cute Frau outfits. I can see it as the next big new thing." He broke into a snatch of the song again.

"Dismas."

He stopped. After a moment, driving along, he turned to his wife. "Okay, if polka isn't going to be your thing, do you want to hear an interesting fact?"

"I live for them."

"Okay, how about this? The 'zip' in ZIP code? It stands for 'zone improvement plan.' Did you know that?"

She cast him a sideways glance. "You've been reading that miscellany book again."

"True. Actually, my new life goal is to memorize it."

"Why?"

"So I'll know more stuff." "You already know too much stuff." "Impossible. I mean, the 'zip' fact, for example. Zone improvement plan." He looked over for her response. "Wow," she said.

"Come on, Frannie. Did you know that? Don't you think that's neat to know?"

"No, I do. I said 'wow,' even. Didn't you hear me?"

"It sounded like a sarcastic 'wow.' "

"Never."

"Okay, then." They drove on in silence for a moment.

"Zone improvement plan," Frannie suddenly said after half a block. "Imagine that."

Hardy looked over at her, a tolerant smile in place. "Okay, we'll drop it. But only because there's yet another unusual and interesting fact you may not know, and probably want to."

"More than I want to know about what 'zip' stands for? I can't believe that."

"This dinner tonight at Abe's? He asked me what kind of champagne to buy."

"Abe's drinking champagne?"

"I got the impression he intended to."

"Wow. Not sarcastic," she added. "When's the last time you saw him drink anything with alcohol in it?"

"Somewhere far back in the mists of time. Certainly not in the past few years."

"So what's the occasion?"

"I don't know. But it's got to be a good one."

Hardy found a spot to park within a block of Glitsky's house, and figuring he'd won the lottery, pulled his convertible to the curb. Setting the brake, he brought the top back up, turned off the engine and reached for the door handle. Frannie put a hand on his leg and said, "Do you mind if we just sit here a minute?"