The Motive Read Online Free Page A

steps and a circular area on the first floor behind the front door. On either side of that structure, the adjacent homes would have to be completely rebuilt. The one on Glitsky’s left as he faced the wreckage, which must have been slightly windward last night, was nothing but a burned-out skeleton. The former gingerbread house on the right was a gutted shell of broken-out windows and charred, peeling timbers. On either side of
those
houses, the adjacent homes yawned vacant and bereft—more broken windows, open front doors, obvious water and fire damage. Cleanup crews were spraying and sweeping all over the area. Teams of axwielding firemen jabbed and poked through the various wreckages, locating hidden hot spots for the hose crews.
    Glitsky finally moved away from his car. Muted activity hummed all around him as he crossed down to the IC’s car. Hoses still snaked to fire hydrants. Two engines remained parked back to back in front of the middle home. Three trucks lined the near curb. The coroner’s van was double-parked by the engines near the middle of the street. Most of the onlookers had dispersed.
    On the bumper of a car, a man in a white helmet sat holding a steaming cup in both hands. Glitsky, introducing himself, thought the man looked like he’d just come from a battlefield—and in a sense he supposed he had. Slack with fatigue, the IC’s face was blackened everywhere with soot, his eyes shot with red.
    After they shook hands, Shaklee said, “My arson guys are still in there with Strout.” John Strout was the city’s medical examiner. “And your guy. Cuneo?” he added.
    “Dan Cuneo, yeah.” Glitsky lifted his chin toward the houses. “All I got word of was fatality fire.”
    “You don’t know who lived here?”
    “No.”
    “You know Paul Hanover?”
    “No kidding?” Glitsky looked at the house. “Was he inside?”
    “Somebody was. Two people, actually. From the sizes, a man and a woman, but we won’t know for sure who they were for a while.” Shaklee sipped at his drink. “They’re not identifiable.” He paused. “You haven’t heard?”
    “Heard what?”
    “They were dead when the fire started. Shot.”
    Glitsky’s eyes went back to the house.
    “The gun’s still in there,” Shaklee said. “Under the bigger torso.”
    “Paul Hanover.”
    “Probably.”
    “And his girlfriend?”
    “That’s the rumor. You can go in.”
    Glitsky blew a vapor trail, hesitating. Finally, he shook his head. “That’s all right. I’ve seen enough bodies to last me. Better if I didn’t step on Cuneo’s toes. It’s his case.”
    Shaklee shrugged. “Your call.”
    “Yeah.” Another pause, a last look toward the house. If anyone else from homicide besides Cuneo had drawn the case, Glitsky would have gone inside. “I’ll catch him and Strout downtown after they know a little more what they’ve got.” After a last glance at the destruction, he met Shaklee’s eye and shook his head at the waste and loss.
    Crunching over broken glass and charred debris, he started walking back to his car.
    The only time Abe and Treya Glitsky had ever seriously disagreed was before they got married. The issue was whether they would have children together.
    Both of them had survived the deaths of their first spouses, and had raised their respective children as single parents. Treya had a teenage girl, Raney, and Abe already had two sons, Isaac and Jacob, out of the house, and Orel at the time he met Treya with only a couple of years to go. Abe, fifty-two then, figured he had already done the family thing and done it well. He didn’t suppose, and really wasn’t too keen about finding out, whether he’d have the energy or interest necessary to be an active and involved father again. To Treya, in her mid-thirties, this was a deal breaker, and the two broke up over it. The split had endured for eleven days before Abe changed his mind. Their baby, Rachel, was now nearly two and a half years old.
    This