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what he knew with any other investigating officials without any particular emphasis. “I can say it was probably a woman—we found what might be a bra strap under her—but that’s all I’d be comfortable with for the time being. Again, Strout’ll tell us soon enough.”
    “So what does it look like we have here? The news said murder/suicide.”
    Becker nodded. “Might have been.”
    “So you’ve seen this kind of thing before? Where somebody kills a partner, then himself, but before he does himself, he lights the place up?”
    “Sure. It’s not uncommon.” He seemed to consider whether to say more for a moment, then shrugged as though apologizing. “The relationship goes bad, somebody wants to destroy every sign of it.”
    “Any sign that this relationship was going bad?”
    Becker’s eyes scanned the floor area. “You mean besides this? Maybe. Cuneo talked to Hanover’s daughter-in-law.”
    “When did he do that?”
    “She saw the fire on the news and came by here last night. Seems this Missy had just finished redecorating this place to the tune of maybe a million dollars of Hanover’s money. Maybe he wanted to leave a message that it all meant nothing to him. But I will tell you one thing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “It wasn’t her.”
    “What do you mean? What wasn’t her?”
    “She didn’t do the killing. I told Cuneo, too. This might not be any kind of a proof that you could use in court, but if it’s a relationship gone bad, there’s two things here. First, if she does it, it goes down in the bedroom, maybe even in the bed.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Because that’s the center of the woman’s life.” He held up a hand. “I know, I know, it’s not PC, and people will tell you it’s bullshit, but you ask anybody who’s spent time at this kind of scene, they’ll tell you. If it’s a crime of passion and it’s not done in the bedroom, it’s not the woman.”
    “Okay,” Glitsky said. “What’s the second thing?”
    “I’m afraid it’s another non-PC moment.”
    “I can handle it,” Glitsky said. “What?”
    “Women don’t shoot themselves very often to begin with. And if they do, it’s not in the head. They won’t disfigure themselves. It just doesn’t happen.”
    Suddenly Glitsky thought back to the suicide of Loretta Wager, the former senator from California who had been his lover and the mother of his daughter Elaine. She had shot herself in the heart. Becker was right, he thought. These were both indefensible sexist generalizations that no doubt would collapse under rigorous debate. That did not stop them, however, from being potentially—even probably—true.
    “So you think it was Hanover?”
    “I don’t know. Cuneo seemed to take it as a working theory. The gun was kind of under him.”
    “What do you mean, kind of?”
    “Well, here, you can see.” Becker reached into his inside pocket and withdrew a stack of photographs. “My partner brought these over to the photo lab as soon as they opened. They made two copies and I gave Cuneo the other, but I’ve still got the negatives if you want a set.” Shuffling through them, he got the one he wanted. “Here you go.”
    Glitsky studied the grainy picture—shadows in darkness. It was a close-up of something he couldn’t recognize at first glance.
    Becker helped him out, reaching over. “That’s the body there along the top, and the end of the arm—the hand became disattached. But you can see there, up against the body, that’s the gun.”
    “So not exactly under him?”
    “No. Just like you see there. Kind of against the side and tucked in a little.”
    “And he was the one in the back here, by the hall? Beyond where the woman was?”
    “Yeah,” Becker said. “What are you thinking?”
    “I’m just wondering, if they had hoses going in here…”
    “For a while.”
    “Okay. I’m just thinking maybe the gun was on the rug and the force of the hose hitting it pushed it back against him. Tucked