A Clean Kill awm-9

by Leslie Glass

  "I'm talking about something else here. You've seen things no one else has seen."

  Remy pressed her lips together.

  "What you saw has to stay secret. You can't tell anyone. It's a big responsibility, okay? Only you know what she looked like. It has to stay with you."

  "Jesus." Remy sniffed.

  "Lieutenant," Wayne called. "You're needed here."

  "I didn't hurt Maddy. Please tell him that," Remy begged.

  April didn't take the time to reply.

  Eight

  Awkward, awkward. April hated the jockeying for position at the beginning of cases. And in the marble foyer the feng shui was as bad as it got. All the brass who'd come for their look-see had melted away. Those left behind were standing under the curve of the stairs in such a way that the energy could flow neither out the front door where the press had gathered, nor into the living room where the French doors led to the garden. The energy was trapped, stuck in a funnel like a twister, so no one could easily take the leadership position. Mike was outside, suited up in Tyvek with the Crime Scene Unit, and April felt herself being sucked into a tug-of-war.

  Wayne started talking right away, his tone instantly modified. "April, April, thank you for coming so fast," he said as if she were a close friend he had summoned to the scene himself.

  April was surprised by the effusiveness of the greeting, and even the fact that he had remembered her name. They'd met only for a few moments, and she had been just one person in a huge crowd. "I'm so sorry for your loss," she murmured, then quickly introduced herself to Sergeant Minnow. Right away she wanted to put some distance between herself and her husband. "I'm Lieutenant Woo."

  "I've heard of you," he replied with a smile.

  "I've heard of you, too," she said graciously.

  Wayne ended that exchange, putting her right back in her place. "April, your husband told me you were going to take care of me. Now, I want to see my wife."

  April blushed. She doubted very much that Mike had said any such thing. "Sergeant Minnow is in charge of the investigation. He'll help you with the process," she said smoothly. She wasn't going to let herself get sucked in.

  "Now, now. There's no reason to be so nice. That's not what I heard." Wayne touched her arm in a familiar way.

  April felt the heat in her face. Wayne was manipulative; he just kept on talking.

  "I might as well be open with you. Commissioner Avery called me on my cell phone as soon as he heard. He told me you were heading the investigation."

  That was highly unlikely. The police commissioner happened to be in New York Hospital that morning having double hernias repaired. April knew for a fact that he wouldn't be conscious until sometime in the afternoon. Furthermore, he didn't call people on their cell phones to tell them who was handling the case when their wives were murdered.

  Wayne was completely unembarrassed about lying. "So let's get started. I want to be involved with this thing every step of the way. I want to see the scene. I want to talk to Remy. She's my right-hand person here. What did she tell you?" He asked this with an open expression.

  April glanced at Sergeant Minnow, who was listening to all this very quietly. Now that the police commissioner's name had come up, he began to look worried. It was clear he didn't know the PC's schedule.

  "I can't talk about confidential information," April replied after a moment.

  Wayne ignored the slight. "Look, this is obvious. We all know who did it. He killed her in my gym, for Christ's sake."

  "Sir?" Minnow interjected for the first time.

  "He's probably at Workout now."

  "Who?" Minnow locked eyes with April. She realized that he hadn't heard about the trainer yet. She didn't say anything.

  It had become stifling in the foyer. Wayne actually seemed to have pumped heat into the space with all his bluster. He'd tried to pit the two detectives against each other. He'd pulled rank, dropped names. And as he did it, his color returned. April guessed that he felt better with the upper hand. Finally, he wagged his finger at Remy to join them. He thought he'd put them all in their places.

  April had been at many murder scenes. Every single one had been sad and upsetting, but this was the oddest. What struck her the most was that Wayne Wilson had invited Mike and her to his party a few months ago. Now he acted as if they were friends and expected them to overlook the fact that he was a suspect. She had to nip this little hubris in the bud. Murder suspects were not friends. She lifted her chin to give Minnow the heads-up.

  I'll take care of this.

  He nodded slowly and tipped back on his heel to give her the lead.

  "Mr. Wilson. Would you step into the library with me for a moment?" She hadn't seen the whole house yet but figured he had a library. An office, something.

  "Of course. Follow me."

  Wayne went up the stairs without a second glance. She could see in his back that being in control meant a great deal to him. Outside in the gym, his wife's body was" being photographed, videotaped, examined by someone from the medical examiner's office, and slowly prepared for removal. He had given up trying to see her in situ. He was moving on. At the top of the marble stairs he entered an octagonal room filled with books. The sun streamed in from a leaded bay window that completed three of the eight sides. It was noon.

  April felt the power of the room with its unusual bright orange Oriental carpet, unusual windows, leather desk, armchairs, and computer hooked up to a large-screen "TV. Wayne sat down in his desk chair and leaned forward.

  "She was only thirty-four, a beautiful, wonderful woman. A terrific mother to our boys," he said heatedly, riding up the roller coaster of emotion again.

  April nodded. Of course she was. The dead were either saints or devils. She was beginning to think Maddy had to have been a saint to put up with him. Or maybe a devil for wanting him in the first place, but it wasn't her call and it didn't matter one. way or the other.

  "This is why I asked you up here. I want to get this over and done with right now. Get everything on the table," Wayne said, ignoring the fact that it had been April's idea to find a private place to talk.

  April wished she had a tape recorder with her. She had a feeling this was going to be a good one. Wayne's expression was open. She knew his type. He was a liar who deeply believed he told only the truth.

  "I'm a man. Once in a while I fucked other women. It didn't mean anything. Maddy was my wife, the woman I loved." He looked to her for the reactions he was used to getting: understanding, applause for the performance, pity. Whatever.

  "I'll need their names," April replied stoutly. Out came the notebook. Wayne stared at her as she wrote

  player.

  "What?" He sounded startled.

  April brushed her fingers against the buttery leather on the back of the closest club chair. "The names of your girlfriends," she prompted.

  "Wait a minute. They're not

  girlfriends.

  You're not listening to anything I said. I thought we were friends. Don't go cop on me," he said in an injured tone.

  "Mr. Wilson, just give me a moment to tell you how this works. And then we'll have everything squared away."

  "Just a minute—"

  "I know this is very painful for you, but friendship doesn't enter into police work,' ' April said firmly, cutting him off. "It's the same for everybody. What's going to happen here is this. You better look for another place to stay for a few days. We'11 be going through this house, looking at your wife's things, her notes, her telephone calls, her appointment list. Her friends, her employees—all the people who knew and worked with her will be interviewed. In addition, we'll put everyone in this household under a microscope. It's not optional."

  He shook his head. "But this isn't necessary. I can tell you everything you need to know."

  "Well, maybe, but maybe not. Did she know everything about you? Did she know about your girlfriends?"

  His face hardened. "That's not the point."

  "We
're going to catch her killer. Trust me on that. You can help us by letting us do our job."

  "Well, that's exactly what I'm trying to do," he said benignly. "Help you do your job."

  "Good, then we'll get along fine. By the way, all the officers you see here are a team. Sergeant Minnow is in charge, so why don't you tell him what you just told me."

  Nine

  April found Mike sitting on a stone bench at the back of the garden still wearing his Tyvek suit. As captain of the precinct, he should have been gone a long time ago. He was on his cell phone and gestured for her to come over. Then he abruptly ended the call.

  "What do you have?" he asked.

  "You first," she said.

  "Fish's boys found knives in the babysitter's knapsack. They were wrapped in today's newspaper."

  "Oh, gee. Which one?" April asked to lighten the mood.

  "The

  Times,

  does it matter?" He lifted an eyebrow. "What do you think of her?"

  April cocked her head to one side. As she considered her answer, she caught sight of a large gas grill in an outdoor kitchen. It was quite a patio out there, a nice leafy bower surrounded by ten-foot brick walls topped with a cap of iron spikes. She wondered who else had the code to the garage door, if anyone could have come over the walls. Who had brought the iris into the gym? She had a lot of questions.

  "Where was the knapsack?" she asked first.

  "On her bed."

  On her bed, right where anybody could find it. Humph. This was how people jumped to conclusions and convicted the wrong suspect. "Well, she goes to cooking school. They use their own knives," April told him.

  Mike's eyes narrowed. "Did you see her picture?" '

  She knew whom he meant. "Mrs. Wilson? Yeah, she was a beauty." And she happened to have a husband who cheated on her. Maybe with the nanny to whom he'd promised a job he hadn't delivered.

  "What does the presence of the knives mean to you?" Mike was still on the knives.

  "Oh, please. Don't jump to conclusions. For a cook, they're tools, like drills and hammers are for carpenters. She paused, then continued. "It's a guy kind of crime. All that violence and lack of control—male."

  He made a face at the gender putdown. "She had opportunity, and it took organization to clean up. That's a girl thing."

  "Well, sure. But I'm thinking it was a man," April insisted. "The knife only proves it was spur-of-the-moment. The killer grabbed whatever came to hand—"

  "How could a knife come to hand in the gym?" Mike interrupted.

  "I don't know. Maybe it was scissors. Did you see the flower? Maybe Maddy brought the knife or the scissors in herself to cut flowers."

  "Could be." Mike looked doubtful, though. "The killer was definitely in the shower with her. Maybe

  she

  turned on the water to wash herself off, not the victim."

  "I don't see the killer as a woman," April insisted, knowing what that meant for Remy.

  "It had to be someone with access to the knives, to the gym, someone who was angry enough to keep stabbing after she was dead—"

  "Like a lover, or a husband," April said softly.

  "Or a jealous babysitter. Someone who knew how to clean. She's the maid."

  "Oh, I see. You've been talking to Fish. Okay, my turn. Remy told me Wayne promised her a job at Soleil, and she was only supposed to work here until it opened. She still seems to think he'll give it to her eventually. We know she didn't get the job, but 1 wouldn't call that a motive." April spoke passionately. She didn't want a lynching.

  "Maddy had a trainer, name of Derek Meke, who was with her after Remy and Wayne took the kids to play school. After they dropped the kids off, Remy went to Wayne's restaurant to look at an oven, then walked home from there. We'll have to get confirmation on that. She said that after she got back, Derek did not come into the house, that he never came into the house."

  "You know where to find him?"

  "I can find him. One more thing." April had kept the best for last. "Wayne told me he fooled around."

  "Ay caramba." Mike sighed. "That's too bad. 1 liked him. Do you have a name?"

  April shook her head. "Apparently it was more than one woman. He didn't want to name names."

  "Well, if it was the babysitter, there's your motive." Mike stood up. "I have to get going."

  "Me, too. What do you want me to do, chico April said, rising from the bench. " I have a bunch of people waiting for me in my shop. Avise has another job for me. If you think Remy did it, tell Fish to go for it. It's your call."

  "Uh-uh. I'm not convinced."

  "That's good, because all we have right now is a body."

  He ignored the sarcasm. "What I want you to do is put Gelo in charge of your shop and take this case on. You can mop it up in twenty-four hours."

  April shook her head at the difficulty of the politics. She got the feeling that he didn't want to step out on a limb on this one. She also felt manipulated. She didn't like either of the feelings one bit.

  Since becoming a captain, Mike was a different guy. He had to appear at COMSTAT meetings with all the top brass once a month at headquarters to run the numbers in his precinct. Crimes and arrests, where they occurred, what was being done about it. Every single event had to be accounted for. Responsibility had given him a sharper edge, and his expectations for others in his command had risen proportionally. Fine for them. But April was not in his command. And even if she were, twenty-four hours would not be enough time to mop up any homicide. They wouldn't have a death report, or any crime scene analysis, for days. Even the clear-cut cases took weeks to process. She thought longingly of her honeymoon, less than a week away.

  Mike pulled off the protective suit. "I'm done

  here. I've got to go. I spoke with Avise. He says it's okay. He'll give you thirty-six."

  Thirty-six hours? Were they crazy? April kept her back to the house, where people could be watching. She was fuming and didn't want anyone to see them fighting. "Mike, we agreed that we weren't going to do this anymore," she said.

  "Come on, querida, think of her kids. It's probably a simple thing, boyfriend/girlfriend thing. You could do this case in your sleep."

  She shook her head. "If it's such a simple thing, get someone else to do it." Then she thought of the cute little boys, who now had no mother. What was wrong with her? Not long ago she would have schemed to get on a homicide like this. She'd always been driven to be the one who nailed the killer. Now she was identifying with the babysitter who kept butcher knives in her knapsack. She was worrying about Sergeant Gelo's dress code, and she was thinking of her honeymoon. Not good. Skinny Dragon Mother used to say she had too much yang for a girl. She'd never find a man to marry her. Now she was married and had softened up, and sometimes she wondered if she had enough yang left to be a good cop.

  "Mi amor," Mike murmured, "do the right thing."

  Shit. Usually he was urging her to do the right thing and stay out of it. Now he wouldn't let her out of it. It was tough. She hated to think that the. babysitter who wanted to be a chef could have killed her boss over a cooking job. It was hard to imagine anyone having a strong enough motive to stab a young mother to death a dozen times in her own shower. But early this morning someone had done just that.

  She sighed. If she identified the killer fast, she could go back to the strip clubs and Fish could make the arrest. It was ironic how yin she'd gotten. She was more interested in sitting on a beach far away with her honey than in getting the credit. It almost made her laugh.

  Ten

  Eloise, it's me. What's going on?" Woo was on the phone.

  "Boss." Sergeant Eloise Gelo was parked at her desk, but not alone. Sitting across from her, Detective Charlie Hagedorn had been filling her in with some background information on the senator's kid who'd overdosed at some club, and ended up ten hours later in psych lockup at St. Luke's. She'd been listening to Charlie, studying a spot high over his head, and occasionally taking a mental
note.

  The lieutenant wanted to know what was going on in the squad room. Gelo ran through the list in her head. A drunk who'd exposed himself one time too many on Broadway had been brought in by two uniforms and was now in the holding cell, sobering up. Three detectives were out on cases. The unit secretary was yelling at someone on the phone in Spanish. And Hagedorn, making a pitiful attempt at some form of human interaction, was staring at her breasts. Everything was copacetic.

  "It's quiet, boss. Where are you?" she replied.

  "We've got a homicide on Fifty-second Street," the lieutenant replied.

  "We do?" Eloise was shocked. No one had called it in.

  "Yeah, East Side."

  "Oh." Maybe somebody's homicide, but not theirs. "Who is it?" she asked.

  "A young mother. Madeleine Wilson, that restaurant guy's wife."

  "Oh fuck. That's too bad."

  "Eloise, the language," Woo retorted.

  "Sorry, sir," Eloise replied cheerfully. April Woo was a sir to her.

  "Look, I'm going to be stuck here awhile," Woo went on.

  "Are you working the case?" Eloise took the chance of asking something her boss might not want to tell. She'd never heard of a detective unit CO working a homicide in another precinct.

  "No, no," the lieutenant said easily. "I'm just on a look-see."

  "Uh-huh." It still didn't sound right to her, but she knew things were not exactly regular in this particular unit.

  Eloise tapped her fingernails on the table, and Hagedorn chose that moment to lift his eyes from her breasts to her face and stretch his goofy mouth into a lopsided grin. She rolled her eyes. "You there, boss?"

  "Yeah, I want you to work on the Peret case. Find out where the kid went, who served him booze, where he got the drugs, the whole thing. Check his credit card records for that. He may have charged it. Then talk to the girls."

  "Sounds good to me," Eloise said.

  "I'll fill you in later. Call me if anything comes up."

  "Sure thing, boss."

  The phone went dead, and Eloise hung up elated. This was the kind of thing she'd returned to the bureau for. If she couldn't be in a counterterror unit, at least she could do something useful until she got what she wanted. "The boss is working a homicide in the Seventeenth," she told Charlie.