Motive by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online Page B

admired the Buddhists and their ability to move on.”
    Retrieving the glass, he gazed toward his kitchen.
    I said, “What was the third topic?”
    “Pardon?”
    “You said she talked about three things when she was—”
    “Divorce,” said Richard Corey. “As in she wanted one, sooner the better. No reason, no warning, nothing I’d done. I guess all three added up to the same thing: She was feeling trapped and wanted out. Was it hurtful? At first, but then she’d drop it so I basically tuned her out.”
    I said, “What changed that?”
    Corey shifted his weight. “I need to talk about that, huh?”
    Milo and I sat there.
    “Okay, what changed is that I thought
I’d
found someone so when Ursula started in for the zillionth time, I said sure, let’s do it. That really threw her. She got pissed, stomped out. Maybe she figured out I was bluffing when the next day she told me she’d hired Fellinger. I said sounds like a good idea and hired Cohen and the rest, as they say, is marital anti-history.”
    “The stress points you mentioned—”
    “Petty stuff we could deal with. I get pissed because she hasn’t sent in all her order forms, she gets pissed because I haven’t informed her about accounts receivable. Ridiculous stuff, we’d have a snit, make up, move on. But this was different. I
found
someone. Someone I thought I might develop something with. So when Ursula started doing her bullshit divorce routine and I told her fine, it was like a … runaway train. Was it stupid? Probably. But Ursula and I remained friends and frankly that was always the good part of our relationship, the friendship. So getting rid of the other stuff was almost a relief. And the business kept rolling. Better than ever, if you have to know, we had our best years since the divorce.”
    Milo said, “Speaking of which, where’s your place of business?”
    “You’re looking at it,” said Corey. “Both of us worked out of our houses. Cuts costs, keeps us out of each other’s hair.”
    I said, “The person you found—”
    “Is no longer in the picture,” said Corey. “I realized that soon after.” He laughed. “A Buddhist, how’s that for irony?”
    “Someone you met in the course of doing business?”
    He looked at me. “Good guess. But please don’t ask me more, she’s a good person, I don’t want to screw up her life. Now, is there anything else you need to know about Ursula? Because I still have to figure out how to tell my daughters their mother’s gone.”
    All business, now. Eyes Sahara-dry.
    Milo said, “We could tell them, sir.”
    No answer. Corey’s face had gone blank.
    “Sir?”
    “Yeah, I guess so. You actually do that? With kids?”
    “When necessary, Mr. Corey.”
    “I don’t want them to think I punted …”
    Milo said, “Up to you but we can tell them we insisted on notification because it’s an open homicide.”
    Corey scratched his beard. “You think? Okay, sure.”
    “Soon as we’re done, I’ll call you and you can come over to be with them.”
    “You think doing it this way will be easier for them?”
    Milo said, “Nothing makes it easy but we’re old hands at notification, Mr. Corey. Unfortunately.”
    “Put it in the hands of the experts … like I do with my shipping agents and my drivers—fine, let’s do it. Because I have to tell you, guys, I wouldn’t take your job on a bet. No offense.”
    “None taken, sir. Is there anything else you can tell us that would help figure out who killed Ms. Corey?”
    “If I knew the names of the guys she dated I’d give them to you. It has to be one of them.”
    “We’ll check it out,” said Milo. “You think of anything else, let us know.”
    We got up. Manly handshakes all around. Corey’s palms were as dry as his eyes.
    At the door, Milo said, “Oh, one more thing, sir. You verbalized permission to access your phone records. Could you put that in writing, please?”
    Corey’s eyes slitted. “You’re serious? I’m