"The point," Glitsky said, "is that if we're both going to be working the case, and we are, we ought to be communicating. As it is, I don't know what he knows, and vice versa. I don't think he's even talked to Strout yet, so he might not even know that Missy couldn't have shot herself. Or that Hanover couldn't have done himself, either, for that matter. And taken together, that eliminates murder/suicide and leaves a righteous double."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Talk to him, tell him I'm not poaching."
Lanier's face went through a subtle change of expression.
Glitsky felt a heat rise into his face. He spoke with an exaggerated calm. "Do you think I am, Marcel?"
"No. If you say the mayor put you on it, what could you do?" Lanier came forward, elbows on the desk. "But look, Abe, it's no secret that you and her honor are friends…"
"That's not…"
Lanier held up a hand. "Please, strictly true or not, that's the perception. There's no denying it," he paused, "especially after this morning's paper, okay? Call a spade a spade. At the very least no one's going to deny you're allies, right? So one of her benefactors gets murdered and Cuneo randomly pulls the case, and next thing you know, you're on it, too, as a special assignment. Tell me if you worked here, if you were him, that wouldn't fry your ass." Lanier leaned back in his chair again, linked his fingers over his stomach. "Look, Abe, it's no secret he's not one of your fans, and I don't get the impression you're one of his…"
"He all but accused me of accessory to murder, Marcel. That's pretty much kept the warm and fuzzies at bay around him."
"Okay, sure, I see that. But you've got to admit that this thing with you and the mayor might smack him as something in the line of a personal vendetta."
Glitsky took a beat. "You've already talked to him about this."
"No, but he left a message for me this morning. Relatively lengthy. He seems to think you see an opportunity here to squeeze him out. Wanted me to know about it."
"Over one case? Last I checked, inspectors had a union. I couldn't fire him if I wanted to, not without cause."
"Maybe you'd find some?"
Glitsky shook his head. "Do you believe that, Marcel?"
"No. Honestly, no, I don't." He shifted his position. "But you might want to ask yourself why Kathy West is so personally involved here. Okay, so one of her people got killed. On the face of that, you call in the deputy chief of inspectors to honcho the investigation? Why? Unless he's your friend and you want him on it for another reason entirely."
"Which would be what?"
"I don't know. But just letting it air, Abe, she could be wanting to cover something up."
Now Glitsky's voice rasped. "And you think I'd help her?"
"No. Never on purpose. But listen to me. If you're reporting to her and not to anybody in homicide…"
"But that's what I'm saying. I'm trying to get with Cuneo."
"Still, it's mostly you and her, not you and him. If you get close to something that she needs to be concerned about…"
"Wait a minute. You can't think Kathy West is involved in the murders."
Lanier looked at the air between them for a moment, then shrugged. "Not in the sense you mean. No, not really. Though you and I both know she could be. But the real question is, Could there be some other connection between Mr. Hanover and her honor? Maybe whoever killed him meant it as some kind of a warning to her. Maybe there's an issue of, say, contribution money." At Glitsky's look, Lanier backed off, opened his hands palms out. "I'm just throwing out ideas here. But the fact remains that she might want you on this for an entirely different reason than what she's telling you, and I don't think you're naive enough-hell, you're not naive at all-to haven't considered that." Lanier was sitting back again with his arms crossed, unblinking, daring his superior to deny it.
"I don't know if I'd gotten that far," Glitsky said after a pause. "Yesterday, when it looked like a suicide, she wanted me to clear Hanover's good name. Now that it looks like somebody's killed him…" He stopped, let out a breath.
"I'm just saying, from a certain perspective, it looks a little squirrelly."
"Okay, grant that," Glitsky said, "but she's the mayor. And the police chief, as you may know, serves at her discretion. Batiste is already on board with this. With me on the case, I mean. You don't tell her no without some serious risk to your career opportunities." After a short silence, Glitsky went on. "Just tell Cuneo I need to talk with him, that's all. Share information. Between the two of us, we'll take it from there. You mind doing that?"
"No, that's fine. I'd be happy to, Abe. There's nothing personal here between me and you. I'm just the messenger. And the message has got some merit."
"I hear you. I even agree with you." Glitsky came off the wall, rolled his shoulders, took a breath. He reached for the doorknob, turned it, started to walk out.
Lanier stopped him. "Abe."
Glitsky turned, a question on his face. He pulled the door back to.
The homicide lieutenant took another few seconds staring at the ceiling while he decided whether or not he was going to say it. Finally, he said, "One thing you might want to know. Cuneo's call this morning? He didn't want it to get out, maybe especially not to you, but you've got to know." He let out a sigh, waited some more.
"You want to give me three guesses?"
The scathing tone made Lanier talk. "Maybe it wasn't the D'Amiens woman in the house. Some witnesses may have seen her leaving a little before the fire. Cuneo's thinking that if that's true, maybe she was the shooter."
"So who was the woman in the house?"
"No clue."
"And where's D'Amiens?" "Nobody knows."
"I know where she is. She's in my locker not fifty feet from where we're resting our tired old bones, Abe," Strout said. "That's where she is for a damn pure medical certainty. And as for her doin' the shooting, well, that would have been highly unusual, if not impossible. Her bein' dead an' all at the time." The medical examiner had his feet up on his desk. Behind him through the window, the barely visible morning freeway traffic was stopped in both directions. The fog gave every indication that it was going to be around for lunch. Strout was opening and closing a switchblade as they talked. "Who's the perpetrator of this outrageous folderol? That it wasn't
D'Amiens."
"Before I tell you that, John, tell me why it's folderol."
"Because I called your Dr. Toshio Yamashiru-who by the way turns out to be one of the premier forensic odontologists in the state, was called in to help identify the 9/11 victims in New York-anyway, I called him within about two minutes of getting his name from you yesterday, and he was good enough to come down here last night with her dental records and compare them to her."
"D'Amiens?"
"Well, they weren't Marilyn Monroe's." He closed the switchblade. "Same person."
"Well, wait…"
"Okay." The knife flicked open and closed four times. Behind Strout on the freeway, a car inched forward from one pane of his window to the next. "What are you thinking?"
"Have you talked to Dan Cuneo? About this case?"
"Sure. He was at the scene."
Glitsky shook his head. "No. Since then."
"Well," Strout drawled the word, pronouncing it as two syllables-way-all-" 'then' would have been only yesterday morning, Abe. But the answer's no, I haven't seen him since then. Why?"
A pause. "Nothing. Just curious."
Strout let a chuckle percolate for a few seconds. "Idle curiosity, huh? Something you're so well known for." But he held up a hand, still enjoying the moment. "But seriously, you don't have to tell me why it matters if I've seen him. Maybe it's none of my business."
"It's not that. I haven't talked to him, either, but Marcel tells me he's got witnesses who saw her leave the place and go to her car just before the fire. D'Amiens."