you say?'
'I suppose.'
Unambiguous as it was to Cuneo, somehow Mrs. Silverman seemed doubtful. 'You don't seem too convinced.'
'No, I… it's just that I had a thought that it might have been-what's the word?-planted there.'
'Planted? By who?'
'Someone who could have gotten into the shop.'
'Which brings us back to the key, doesn't it?' he asked gently.
'Yes, I suppose it does. But then I think Wade Panos and his people might still have one, really are more likely to have one than this man Holiday, don't you think? From when they patrolled for us?'
Cuneo, suddenly, was all attention and focus. On the drive out, he had tried to dredge up from his memory all he could recall of Mrs. Silverman. Her name had stuck with him, and not just because she was a victim's spouse. He finally had remembered the name from Gerson's story about Abe Glitsky. Now when he heard the name Panos again, the connection came back to him. Glitsky's earlier use of Mrs. Silverman as a wedge to get back into homicide. Glitsky helping out some lawyers in their lawsuit against Panos. Beyond that, John Holiday out beating the streets for witnesses and plaintiffs in that same lawsuit.
Holiday and Glitsky. And by extension the lawyer, too. Hardy, the guy Blanca had told them about yesterday. All of them, co-conspirators.
And now Glitsky hitting a new low, using this grieving old woman to float the idea that the ring had been 'planted,' a word she hardly knew. Cuneo smiled and kept his tone as pleasant as he could. 'Mrs. Silverman,' he said, 'I wouldn't torture myself with all these dark imaginings, if I were you. Are you still talking to Lieutenant Glitsky about this case?'
'Just last night,' she said. 'His father, Nat, was Sam's best friend. I called him when I remembered about the ring. He told me to get in touch with you.'
I'll bet he did, Cuneo thought. After he'd coached you about your testimony. But to her, he simply nodded. 'Well, that was smart of him. But if you ask him, he'll tell you the same thing. We're so used to TV and movies nowadays, we sometimes feel there's always got to be some unlikely twist, like somebody planting evidence. In the real world, most things are just what they look like.' He came forward in his chair, lowered his voice to a near whisper. 'If it eases your mind at all, whenever and however he got the ring, John Holiday probably wasn't the one who shot your husband. But he was there, doing the robbery, getting his poker money back, when Clint Terry lost his head and panicked and shot Sam. All the evidence supports that, ma'am. That's what we've got.'
Pumped up with adrenaline, Cuneo walked up the dark driveway to the refurbished garage that Liz rented just off Silver Avenue. Around at the side door, he saw candlelight flickering on the walls through the window. He knocked once, lightly, and a bulb came on over the door. 'Who is it?'
'Liz. It's Dan Cuneo.'
'Dan who?'
But then another light came on in the window and the door opened. She stood there smiling at him. Barefoot, she wore a green terry cloth bathrobe. Her hair wasn't yet completely dry and framed her pretty face in a black halo of curls. She had a glass of wine in her hand. He became aware of the thump of a jazzy bass line, caught a heady whiff of a musky perfume and, unmistakably, marijuana. 'Did you get to arrest him?' she asked.
An hour later, Cuneo was as relaxed as he could ever remember feeling.
The bed was a mattress on the floor and he lay naked flat on his back upon it, one arm thrown back over his head, the other around the shoulders of his new lover. The music she'd had on when he got there had ended and now the apartment was silent. More incredibly to him, his own head was silent. Liz had pulled up the blanket and now lay pressed up against him, her left hand resting flat against his belly, her leg thrown over both of his. The candle cast the room in an amber glow.
'So somebody ought to tell Wade and Roy to watch out,' he said. 'These guys are serious. I mean, Glitsky's up there in the department. He's also tight with Clarence Jackman, the District Attorney. His wife, get this, is even Jackman's personal secretary.'
'And they're all in this together?'
'My boss didn't know how high up it went. He didn't want to think it went to Jackman, but it might. But there's no doubt a conspiracy here.'
'Trying to frame Wade?'
'That's what it looks like. Glitsky had this poor old lady prepped like you couldn't believe. Didn't Wade still have a key to Sam's place? I doubt she even knew what she was saying, but Glitsky sure as hell knew what he was feeding her.'
Liz came up on an elbow and the blanket slipped down to reveal the arc of her breast. 'I haven't heard Glitsky's name before around this. Although I know Dismas Hardy, of course, and David Freeman. They've been out to get us for most of the past year now. I don't know why. Wade's the nicest man. Secretary's Day last year he took me to Masa's. It must have cost him three hundred dollars. And flowers every day that week.'
'You don't have to sell me. He basically did my job for me on this one.'
'You're being modest.'
'I don't know about that. But I do know Wade had better be careful. This Glitsky is a very serious man. Wade's got to be clear on that.'
'I'll sit him down and make him listen. Except what can he do, really? That's the problem with being a good guy. You can't stop anybody until they do something to you first.'
'So maybe somebody will do something.'
'To Wade? I don't want that, either.'
'No. I mean stop Glitsky. The DA or somebody might step in.'
'I can't believe he's with the police and he's so bad.'
'I know,' Cuneo said. 'It's a problem.'
21
Motor running and heat on, Paul Thieu's car was parked across the street from Glitsky's duplex on Monday morning. When he and Treya came down their steps at a little after 7:30, Thieu turned off the engine, opened the door, and got out. Glitsky stopped, said something to his wife, and left her on the sidewalk while he crossed over.
'You could have come up and knocked, Paul,' he said. 'We would have let you in.'
Thieu said, 'I thought it would be better if we didn't talk at the Hall.'
Thieu wasn't yet thirty-five years old, and Glitsky suddenly realized that except for Marcel Lanier, he was now the oldest inspector in homicide. He recalled when he'd pulled Thieu out of Missing Persons six years ago to translate as he'd interviewed the Vietnamese mother of another murder victim. Then, as now, the face had been grave-if the man had a flaw, he was too serious. This morning, he exuded gravity.
'I was going to be driving in with Treya,' Glitsky said.
'I could take you, drop you off a block down.'
It wasn't really a request. Glitsky had years and rank on Thieu, but neither played much of a role in their connection. Thieu's brains commanded respect, and Glitsky simply nodded, then walked over to Treya to give her the news.
She didn't exactly embrace it. 'Unless I'm mistaken,' she said, 'Paul's still in homicide.' Then, 'You didn't sneak out and call him, did you?'
He tried a feeble joke. 'Maybe it's about his overtime.'
'Maybe it's about Sam Silverman.'
Last night, Nat had called with a recap of the interview Sadie had had with Cuneo. Not that the inspector's theory was any less defensible than Glitsky's. Certainly it was possible that Holiday had reentered the store with a key and then stolen the ring on another day. But at the very least, Glitsky thought Cuneo should have been open to
