"Okay, thanks. We'll be in touch. Woody, meet me at the car in five minutes."
Deep in thought, April went upstairs to see Duke. He didn't turn around when her heels announced her presence. He was busy with his equipment.
"How are you doing?" she asked.
He pulled away from the hair he was studying and checked his watch for time. "I told you an hour. It hasn't been an hour yet," he complained.
"I can't wait. I have suspects to talk to," she said.
He softened. "Okay, pretty one, anything for you," he said with an indulgent smile.
"Here's what I can tell you now. The hair probably comes from a female. It's been dyed a number of times, probably every month, six weeks. You can see the stripes of color. As you know, hair grows at the rate of about a quarter inch a month and no matter how carefully the roots are done, there's always a color change. Type of hair, coarse, and I'd say it's probably dyed to cover gray. I can't tell you what brand of hair dye was used yet, but I'll work on it. Happily, there's a follicle on this one— enough to do DNA down the road, if you need it. But the provenance on this is not good since you lifted it from the scene." He shook his head.
"I told you CSU had another." April ignored the rebuke and considered the information. If the hair came from a gray-haired female, she had to be over thirty. It might be the cleaning lady or a guest from some time ago. If that was the case, it wouldn't help them.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"Yes, what color is it?"
He took out his color spectrum and showed her. While the single hair in the envelope had appeared to be light, like a blond or strawberry blond, or even ginger, the Duke made the head at unmistakably dark red.
"Are you sure?" she asked, disappointed.
"Yes, I'm sure. Are you okay?"
"Of course. Thanks, you've been a big help," she told him even though she hadn't learned a thing.
"You're welcome, and don't wait so long to come back next time," he said as she left in a hurry.
When April met Woody at the car a few minutes later, she was ready to search his photos for a redheaded woman, but she was not at all hopeful about finding one.
forty-one
Remy was on the sofa in the living room of Wayne's suite on the tenth floor at the Plaza Hotel when two detectives knocked on the door. Her backpack was beside her, ready to go, and she was watching the news about Alison's murder. The day before when she was questioned for hours by the police, her thoughts had been all over the place. Whenever things had gone badly for her in the past, she'd hit the road and taken off. A pretty girl with some college education and a way with food, she'd always' been able to get a job cooking somewhere.
Experience had taught her long ago that most people weren't very good, or at least weren't good for long—like her dad promising to stay off the bottle. So when things soured, she just moved on. She liked to think of herself as an actor in a movie, waiting for her real life to begin. Now the wish for a bus was strong, but she couldn't run away with so many people watching. She jumped at the knock on the door.
"Police, open up."
She pulled herself off the sofa and went to the door. Two overweight men she hadn't seen before were standing outside. They looked bloated from too many french fries and doughnuts and might have a stroke if they had to run after her. The thought that she could beat them in a race didn't comfort her.
"Remy Banks?" one queried.
"Yes. Could I see your identification?" she said with more determination than she felt.
She looked down the long empty hall behind them and considered bolting as they reached for their gold shields. She wondered if they would shoot her in the Plaza. Too late, the shields appeared, and they blocked her escape route as she studied them. "No one's here," she said meekly, as if there were the slightest chance they hadn't come for her.
"That's okay, little lady. We're going for a ride."
That was all they said. They herded her between them, like a criminal, downstairs and through the hotel lobby. She got into the backseat of a black sedan, and they drove. away with her as their hostage, not telling her where they were going or anything else. Rage and rebellion coursed through her. She wanted to kill them. At a police station on East Fifty-fourth Street, they marched her upstairs, through a space full of people, to a small room with a mirror that she knew was a viewing window. Her heart thudded as she thought of all the men outside watching her and making the kind of remarks she knew men made when they could get away with it. She didn't feel safe there at all. Since she'd found Maddy's body, time had slowed down. When she was left in the interrogation room, it stopped altogether. It seemed as if a week had passed before an angry guy who looked like a mobster opened the door.
"I'm Detective Tommy Piccaterra," he said.
"I'm Remy Banks. I want a lawyer," she replied. It was the only thing she could think of to say. If Wayne could have one, she should have one, too.
"What do you need a lawyer for?" Tommy Pic-caterra was a wiry guy with a broken nose and a sheen to his skin.
Remy glanced at his big-knuckled hands and guessed that he'd done some fighting in his time. She had another scary thought—that he was there to rough her up before the other guys came back in. "So you don't hurt me," she said.
He laughed. "We don't hurt people here," he replied, walked out, and shut the door, leaving her alone again.
After about an hour, she heard a commotion outside, and Piccaterra returned.
"Someone's coming in. We have to move," he said.
He didn't say who was coming. When she reached for her purse and backpack, he said, "Don't worry about it. Someone bring it to you."
She got up with a sinking feeling that she-would never see her things again, suddenly realizing that this was probably how people felt when they went to prison. She was that afraid of these detectives. No one looked at her as she moved through a bunch of them, talking on their cell phones. Out in the hall Piccaterra opened the door to another, smaller room that had no windows or ventilation or two-way mirror. When he put her in there and closed the door, she remembered her mother locking her in a closet as a child for her own protection against her father when he was on a drinking binge. Like then, she couldn't calm down as she listened to the activity in the hallway outside. She could hear people talking, their footsteps going up and down the stairs. Her purse with her cell phone in it was gone. No one brought that or her backpack to her, and no one came to ask her questions.
By late afternoon she was hungry and thirsty and worse than that, she was exhausted but too frightened to close her eyes to sleep. She'd been up late the night before and hadn't had anything to eat or drink since the bagel and coffee at seven. She didn't know what was happening. She wondered if the detectives were too busy with other things and had forgotten her, or if they were getting her the lawyer she'd asked for. She doubted that. More likely they were trying to scare her, and it was working really well. She was terrified.
Finally, just after four thirty, the Chinese lieutenant opened the door and walked into the room. April Woo Sanchez didn't look as good as she had the day before. Her suit was wrinkled, and her face was pale. "How are you doing?" she asked.
Remy exhaled with relief. "I would have called you, but those cops took my phone," she said quickly.
"Is that so? Why would you call me?"
"You said you would help me. This is very scary," she blurted out.
"Not as scary as it was for Maddy and Alison," the detective snapped.
Remy looked at her hands. She'd expected a little more sympathy than this.
"You know Alison was murdered this morning after you met with Lynn?" Woo said.
"Yes. 1 saw it on "TV. At least you can't pin that one on me."
"That's not a smart response. You want to tell me why you had a meeting with Lynn this morning?" she said sharply.
"It wasn't a meeting. Can 1 go to the bathroom?"
"Of course, you can go to the bathroom. This is
n't prison." She opened the door, checking her watch for the time. "The bathroom is right down there, but be quick. I'm running late."
Remy was annoyed by the sharpness of her tone and shocked by the reference to prison. She hadn't expected this from the woman who'd been nice to her yesterday. She moved to the door. The stairs were right in front of her, but the detective was watching her. She couldn't run down the stairs and get away. If this wasn't prison, she thought, it was very close. She went into the bathroom, washed her face, drank some water, and returned to the little room, where the detective quickly ended a conversation on her cell phone.
"Sit down, Remy. You told me a lot of lies yesterday, and now someone else is dead," she said coldly.
"I was scared. 1 didn't want to get anybody in trouble," Remy said defensively.
"Well, you got yourself in trouble. Mr. Wilson told me about your relationship with him. 1 know how many times you spoke with Lynn yesterday, and that you visited her this morning, right before Alison was murdered. You're in this very deep so you better start telling the truth." "I didn't kill anybody." Remy started to cry. After a minute she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "What do you want me to do?"
"Let's start all over." The detective took out a pen and a black-and-white-speckled pad. "How did you come to be employed at the Wilson house?"
"I already told you this. I got into the institute." Remy looked at the ceiling, then at the door. "It takes a couple of years, and it's expensive. I knew if I worked in a restaurant, the hours would be difficult, plus living expenses in the city would be too much. I was told if I were a live-in chef in someone's house, I could have most days during the week to go to school, and cook in the evening and on weekends."
"Who told you that?"
"The admissions people at the institute suggested I call the Anderson Agency and they would find me a good job."
"Was Mr. Wilson the first interview you did?"
"Yes."
"Did you know Mr. Wilson before you went there?"
"I'd heard of him, of course. He's a legend. I didn't meet him until I interviewed for the job."
"And what happened?"
"I told you this. He promised I could work m his new restaurant." She rolled her eyes.
"What does that mean?"
"I think he only said it so I would take the job. She wanted a nanny for the children, but I never would have done that. He wanted a chef. Turned out, I did both."
"According to him, you did more than that."
"It didn't mean anything," Remy said sullenly. "A good meal is more important to him than anybody. He liked to go out and party; Maddy wanted to go to bed early. I was just his dessert." She said this coolly, as if she were a guy, and it didn't matter.
"How did you feel about that?"
"I liked him until Maddy died." Then she started crying again. "I really did like him, and I never wanted to hurt her."
"Remy, if you or Wayne hurt Maddy, you better tell me now because it's going to come out. You can't keep this thing secret."
"I didn't hurt her that way. Didn't Derek do it?" she asked meekly.
"No, Derek was somewhere else by then. What changed your feeling about Wayne?"
"He was such a creep. He wanted me to tell the kids we were going on vacation to the Plaza. He wouldn't tell them the truth." She shook her head. "I didn't want to stay there. Did you see my picture in all the papers? It was horrible. He made me look bad."
"Uh-huh." The cop didn't seem impressed.
"And then he told Andrew to fire Lynn."
"When did he say that?"
"I heard them talking on the phone last night." She focused on the detective, remembering something. "He cooked dinner for you at the restaurant, and Andrew wanted him to get a lawyer. It was all crazy."
"Is that why you went to see Lynn this morning?"
"I wanted her to know what the plan for her was. Jo Ellen loves drama. She likes it when people get in trouble."
The lieutenant got up and went out of the room. She came back a few seconds later. "Do you want something to eat?"
"I'd like a tuna sandwich, but they took my purse. I don't have any money."
"Don't worry. We can afford that much," Woo assured her.
Remy looked at the peeling paint on the ceiling. "It doesn't look like it," she remarked.
"You're a smart-ass," the lieutenant said. "You want to know what happens to people like you? They get caught."
Remy didn't like that. A few minutes later a female uniformed officer came to the door. "What do you need?" she asked.
"A tuna sandwich on rye toast and a Diet Coke for me, please," Remy said meekly.
"I'd like hot water, and would you get several Diet Cokes, please. Thanks." The lieutenant handed her some money, then shut the door. "Tell me about your relationship with Lynn and the Anderson Agency," she said.
"I thought you were in a hurry," Remy said.
"Not anymore."
forty-two
A t seven p.m. April returned to Midtown North Hagedorn and Sergeant Gelo, who'd been due to end their second tour at four, were waiting for her. Three hours into the second shift of the day was a quiet time in the unit. Most of the detectives were out. The secretary was gone. The phones were still, and no one was raving in the holding cell. April collapsed at her desk, took a few minutes to go over the paperwork on her desk, then summoned Eloise. Charlie followed so close on her heels that he could have been her shadow. April stared at him in surprise. The milk white yin of a male for whom she'd had no expectation in the personality department seemed to have acquired an expression overnight. He was smiling.
"Boss," he said with a toothy grin.
"Hey, Charlie, how ya doin'?" she asked.
"Real good," he replied.
The reason for the smile looked like a cocktail waitress in an all-night bar. Wearing tight pants and a clingy sweater, Eloise took a chair and crossed her legs. Woody, the prepster, entered without being invited, passed a mug of hot water over the desk to April, then moved back to hang out by the door as if he were her bodyguard.
"Thanks, Woody." Automatically, April reached into her desk drawer for a tea bag.
In the old days when Lieutenant Iriarte had been the boss, April and Woody had been out; Hagedorn and two monkeys had been in. Now the apes were in counterterror units, and this was the unit's inner circle. April studied her team. If she hadn't been so tired, she would have smiled; they were an odd trio. Hoping for an energy boost, she dumped the tea bag into the hot water. She had seven cups to go for good health. As soon as the tea hit the water the smoky aroma of Lapsang souchong wafted into the air.
"How did it go with Lorna Doone?" she asked.
"Name's Lorna Dome actually and she goes by the name Cherry Red," Eloise said.
"Because she has red hair," Charlie explained.
"No kidding." April glanced at Woody. "You have a photo of her?"
"It can be arranged. Why, do you need one?" Charlie asked.
"Just a fluky thought." April had looked through Woody's photographs from the Wilson house the day before. There were lots of pictures of kids and strollers, reporters, and dog walkers. Old people. One redheaded woman, young, wearing jeans and a peasant shirt, and she had long hair. Someone was checking it out.
"Lorna's twenty-three, looks like she has a heavy habit herself. Real thin with big boobs and lots of long red hair," Eloise said. "She spilled like a fountain. She was all over that Peret kid—she and two other girls. They didn't know who he was, and made him think they really liked him. It won't be a problem giving the chief what he wants. We can keep Peret's name out of it. Maybe," Eloise added. "And she told me they have a private ambulance."
April was startled out of her musings. "What?"
"She said they have a room downstairs where they put ODs. They collect them, then drive them to the ER in their vehicle and drive off. We can catch them at it, no problem. Peret was the kind of customer they don't like. He got out under his own stea
m, then crashed outside."
"This is great news. I'm really proud of you." April looked from one to the other. "Good work," she said again. Maybe she could go on vacation after all. "Did you copy the Alison tapes and get them over to the task force?" she asked.
"Yeah, no problem there. Sergeant Minnow has it. He's something of a cold fish, isn't he?" Eloise replied.
"They call him Fish for a good reason. Anyway, what did you find out about the nannies?"
"Here's where we stand on that. Charlie—"
Hagedorn cleared his throat, taking over. "There are no priors dn Lynn Papel or Remy Banks. The Anderson file indicates the Wilson house as a first-time placement for Remy. Lynn, however, was fired from her last job."
Eloise took it from there. "We paid a visit to her previous employer this afternoon at five-oh-seven. Anna Currant lives in a town house on Sixty-first Street between Second and Third."
"Another town house," April remarked quietly. She jotted down the owner's name. "Any other similarities?"
"Well, she has a daughter and son, two and six. Lynn worked for her for nine months."
"Nine months is three months less than a year," April murmured.
"What's the significance?" Eloise asked.
"The fee for placing them in based on a year's salary. The client gets credit on the next one only if the girl leaves, not if she's fired. What did Mrs. Currant tell you?" April asked.
"She told us that Lynn was attractive, competent, and reliable, but she suspected that something was going on between the girl and her husband. Mrs. Currant had a good relationship with Miss Anderson, who had placed other household help with her in the past. She considered Miss Anderson a friend because she seemed to take a personal interest in the household and called from time to time to find out how things were going. On one such call, Mrs. Currant confessed that she was. concerned about Lynn getting too friendly with her husband. According to Mrs. Currant, Miss Anderson said that kind of behavior was totally unacceptable. She advised her to fire Lynn and take a new girl who had just come in with great recommendations. Which Mrs. Currant immediately did."
A Clean Kill Page 21
