Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag Page A

“Mayor Noble. I should tell you not to believe everything you read, but I find there is an advantage to having people think I can see into their minds.”
    “I’m sure you don’t have to be able to read minds to know how grateful we are to have you here.”
    “I’ll do what I can to help. Did you say you’d spoken with the director?”
    Grace Noble patted his arm. Maternal. “No, dear. Peter spoke with him. Peter Bondurant. They’re old friends, as it happens.”
    “Is Mr. Bondurant here?”
    “No, he couldn’t bring himself to face the press. Not yet. Not knowing …” Her shoulders slumped briefly beneath the weight of it all. “My God, what this will do to him if it
is
Jillie… .”
    A short African American man with a weightlifter build and a tailored gray suit stepped up beside her, his eyes on Quinn. “Dick Greer, chief of police,” he said crisply, thrusting out his hand. “Glad to have you on board, John. We’re ready to
nail
this creep.”
    As if he would have anything to do with it. In a metropolitan police department the chief was an administrator and a politician, a spokesman, an idea man. The men in the trenches likely said Chief Greer couldn’t find his own dick in a dark room.
    Quinn listened to the list of names and titles as the introductions were made. A deputy chief, a deputy mayor, an assistant county attorney, the state director of public safety, a city attorney, and a pair of press secretaries—too damn many politicians. Also present were the Hennepin County sheriff, a detective from the same office, a special agent in charge from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension with one of his agents, the homicide lieutenant from the PD—representatives from three of the agencies that would comprise the task force.
    He met each with a firm handshake and played it low key. Midwesterners tended to be reserved and didn’t quite trust people who weren’t. In the Northeast he would have given more of the steel. On the West Coast he would have turned up the charm, would have been Mr. Affable, Mr. Spirit of Cooperation. Different horses for different courses, his old man used to say. And which one was the real John Quinn—even he didn’t know anymore.
    “… and my husband, Edwyn Noble,” the mayor finished the introductions.
    “Here in a professional capacity, Agent Quinn,” Edwyn Noble said. “Peter Bondurant is a client as well as a friend.”
    Quinn’s attention focused sharply on the man before him. Six five or six six, Noble was all joints and sinew, an exaggerated skeleton of a man with a smile that was perfectly square and too wide for his face. He looked slightly younger than his wife. The gray in his hair was contained to flags at the temples.
    “Mr. Bondurant sent his attorney?” Quinn said.
    “I’m Peter’s personal counsel, yes. I’m here on his behalf.”
    “Why is that?”
    “The shock has been terrific.”
    “I’m sure it has been. Has Mr. Bondurant already given the police his statement?”
    Noble leaned back, the question physically putting him off. “A statement regarding what?”
    Quinn shrugged, nonchalant. “The usual. When he last saw his daughter. Her frame of mind at the time. The quality of their relationship.”
    Color blushed the attorney’s prominent cheekbones. “Are you suggesting Mr. Bondurant is a suspect in his own daughter’s death?” he said in a harsh, hushed tone, his gaze slicing across the room to check for eavesdroppers.
    “Not at all,” Quinn said with blank innocence. “I’m sorry if you misunderstood me. We need all the pieces of the puzzle we can get in order to form a clear picture of things, that’s all. You understand.”
    Noble looked unhappy.
    In Quinn’s experience, the parents of murder victims tended to camp out at the police department, demanding answers, constantly underfoot of the detectives. After the description Walsh had given of Bondurant, Quinn had expected to see the man throwing his weight around