A Clean Kill

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.