A Clean Kill

Thirty

Entering the Perkins house was an eerie repeat of the day before. A lot of people had piled into the starkly modern house to look around, but most of them were gone by now. In the foyer, April was immediately struck by the mournful sound of howling dogs and the lack of homey possessions— umbrellas, toys, mess of any kind. Abstract paintings in black and white hung on the walls of the hall and the living room beyond. Chief Avise must have heard the door slam, because he appeared at the top of the steep stairway that led to the third floor, then charged down holding on to the banister the second he saw her. April thought grimly that his fingerprints would be everywhere. He got to the last step and nodded curtly at Mike. April was clearly the person he wanted. He didn't say hello as he drew her aside.

"I hear you had this woman in your office all afternoon yesterday. What did you think you were doing?" he said softly into her ear so that Mike couldn't hear as he passed them on his way up.

"She didn't want to be mobbed by the press. I took her to a quiet place, my office," she replied calmly. She knew what was coming.

He made a face and waved his hand. "Go on."

"We talked there for several hours. I have a tape of our conversation for the task force."

"Why didn't you pass along that tape last night?"

April lifted her palms. She didn't know there would be a briefing. There were other answers . . . Down the road she could see IA taking her apart, but she had to admit to the tape. "I'm sorry, sir." Sorrier than he could ever guess.

"Why did you take her to the West Side?"

"I met her in Meke's gym. It's on Fifty-sixth Street, so Midtown North was closer and, as I said, quieter."

He sighed. "This is not a good thing, April. What did she tell you?"

"It was a rambling interview, sir. I have it on tape. She was convinced that Remy was the killer. She and Maddy both had a thing going with the trainer. He was probably supplying them with cocaine." She said the last thing slowly.

"Was she high?" he asked suddenly.

"Possibly—" she began.

He interrupted angrily. "You didn't check it out?"

If April had it to do over, she would have done pretty much everything differently. Starting with her downtown meeting in the morning with the chief and ending with the dinner at Soleil. But yesterday had been chaotic. She'd been under pressure from Mike, and she hadn't done anything by the book. She hadn't taken the time to get organized with the rest of the team, just gone out on her own, with her own agenda. She should have turned over the tape yesterday. She definitely shouldn't have

jumped around from one suspect to another, letting them wander off before clearing them. She'd hopped from Wayne to Remy, to Derek, to Alison, to Wayne again, because she'd wanted to form a picture quickly, and they'd all just resumed their lives. Not good.

"Maddy's death was a stabbing. I didn't want to put Alison on the defensive about drugs if it wasn't relevant to the case." It wasn't a good answer, but it was the truth.

Avise stepped back so she could see the furious expression on his face. "Well, it's relevant to this case," he spat at her.

That stunned her into silence.

"Go take a look at her," he snapped, and walked away.

April stood there paralyzed, watching him go. Why couldn't he just tell her what was going on? Why did she always have to guess? Yesterday it was the whole club thing. For a second she was sorry that she hadn't told him about the progress on the Peret case. Now it was too late. Why did he have to be so cryptic about Alison's cause of death? April was always anxious about making mistakes in investigations that could have a tragic consequence—like a killer's getting away, or someone else's dying. When she'd been working yesterday, she had a lot of thoughts about that, particularly in regard to Derek, but she never in a million years could have guessed that Alison would b_e dead today. The chief had spoken to her as if it were her fault, but murder never worked like this. It just didn't happen. .

She looked at the stairs, dreading what she had to do next. Here, the stairs didn't do anything fancy like form a bridge over the entry to the living room the way they did in the Wilson house. They just hugged the wall all the way up to the third floor, then turned the corner into a hall. She didn't want to go to Alison's room and see the sad evidence of an overdose—or something else—that could have been avoided. Finally she forced herself to move and started up.

At the top, she heard voices coming from the back and went that way. Mike was nowhere to be seen, but the doorway into the bedroom was blocked by tape. Inside, the Crime Scene Unit was already at work taking photos of Alison and the room where she had died. The body was covered, only Alison's head was visible, and one thing was clear: she hadn't died in her sleep. Her eyes were open, and her face was anything but peaceful. Mike came down the hall behind April, and touched her arm.

"What did the chief want?" he asked softly, as if he didn't already know.

"He wanted to know about my conversation with Alison yesterday," April said, feeling' guilty because she hadn't told Mike that Alison was afraid the killer would go after her next. She stared at the small form hidden under a heavy quilt.

The bed had a white upholstered headboard and a white quilted bedspread. Placed at an angle under it was a black-and-white area rug. A white slipper chair was set on each side of the window. On the wall opposite the bed the doors of a black lacquered entertainment center were shut. Nothing was out of place. In fact, nothing much was there at all. It looked as though someone had made the bed over the dead woman, leaving only her head exposed, then had tidied up the rest of the room just the way someone had cleaned up the Wilson gym yesterday. The two death scenes were very different, but gave the same message. Two lives had been cleaned up in death. It was neat, neat, neat.

April was reminded of one awful suicide in which the deceased had taken a great many sedatives, drunk vodka, lain down on his bed, arranged himself just so, and then put a plastic bag over his head. His death had been ugly. The pills had scattered, the vodka bottle had fallen over, and some of it had spilled. People couldn't clean up as they were dying, and the evidence was always in plain sight. The leftover powder and straws from a cocaine binge—something. Furthermore, drunk or drugged or sober, no one started a day with a completely tidy bedroom. April frowned. "Chico, what does this look like to you?"

She and Mike stood at the door side by side studying the scene as if it were a wax exhibit in Madame Tussaud's.

"She made breakfast for her girls, got them off for the day, and lay down for a nap," Mike said. "That's what the nanny said."

No, April thought. There was a lot more to it. "Was she alone at the time?"

"The nanny took the girls to their play school. They're there now. She said that Alison was like that when she came back."

"She has a name. It's Lynn." April was aware of her breakfast again—that gluey cereal was a rock in her stomach. The end of Alison's dark ponytail poked out from underneath the sheet Seeing it, she felt ill. "Did anybody touch anything?'' she asked.

"Lynn says she didn't."

"What about the chief?"

Mike shook his head.

"Where is Lynn now?" April leaned against the wall. She was going to throw up.

"Downstairs. Alison's husband is downstairs, too."

April closed her eyes against the nausea. She wished she could take herself off this case.

"Querida, are you all right?" Mike took her elbow.

"I messed up. I really messed up this time, Mike. I didn't think she was in danger." Her words came quickly. She felt like a suspect breaking down, crumbling under the pressure.

"Hey." Mike's voice, usually soft and supportive, sharpened. "Calm down." He led her down the hall away from the ears of the Crime Scene detectives. "You need a bathroom?"

"No." She voiced the negative, but knew she was going to throw up anyway.

"There's a powder room in here." He led the way down the hall to the front of the house.

April glanced at the room quickly. Where Wayne had his octagonal library, the Perkins couple had-a cute little living room. Mike punched a wall with faux bookshelves and books painted on it A narrow door popped open to reveal a tiny corner powder room.

April was surprised. "How did you know that was there?"

"I took a look around while you were talking to the chief."

I can't use this—it's too close to the scene, April thought. Then a powerful wave of nausea changed her mind. She ducked inside the small space, closed the door, and stood in the dark struggling for control. She didn't believe in hormone myths. Where she came from, no one talked about things like PMS. Moody was moody, weepy was weepy, and none of it was tolerated. You did what you had to do and never mind the plumbing. "Don't tell anyone when you don't feel good" was the credo. And sometimes people took their modesty too far. Recently, Skinny's close friend Ma Ma Choi died of uterine cancer because she didn't want to lose face by telling anyone the embarrassing truth about the tumor she knew was growing inside.

April had a weak stomach. Nausea and other unpleasant symptoms caught her all the time. She heard that a lot of people had the syndrome now, and there was even a name for it: irritable bowel. Stress made it worse, and so did her mother. She swallowed and switched on the light. Then she sat on the toilet, ducked her head between her knees, and did some yoga breathing. The powder room was wallpapered in a tight black-and-white geometrical pattern. The tiny sink was black porcelain. The floor was translucent white marble. She tilted her head from side to side, trying to ease the frozen muscles in her neck.

She wasn't sick after all. Finally the nausea began to recede, and she opened her eyes to her surroundings. Instantly her attention was captured by an item that shouldn't be there. A gray feather was on the floor, like the kind of feather from the underbelly of a duck or goose that was used to stuff pillows. April had a sudden horrific vision of someone pushing a pillow into Alison's dozing face. Her eyes and mouth opening as she struggled for air and freezing that way.

She shook it off and reached into her purse for the plastic gloves, tweezers, and envelopes she kept in there along with her off-duty gun, address book, gold shield, and other vital paraphernalia. She slipped on two of the gloves and used the tweezers to pick up the feather. With it closer to her face, she saw the particular kind of fuzz on the feather that confirmed it as goose down. April had seen it when she was pricing her own bedding. The fuzzy feathers were far and away the most expensive kind, but soft and lighter than air. As April studied the feather, she realized something was caught in it. About three inches long and very shiny, it looked like a human hair, and was definitely not a dog hair. The hair was not black, not dark brown. It was a light color, possibly with a reddish tone, or a honey blond, and it was coarser than baby hair.

Hairs were notoriously difficult to see when one was looking for them. On white sheets or a white sweater or a black suit—whenever it was embarrassing—hairs showed up. But in a room with many pieces of upholstered furniture and rugs on the floor, they blended. April got down on her knees and searched the floor for more hairs. She found another one at the base of the toilet, put the two together, and studied them. Maybe her eyes were playing tricks, but it almost looked as if there was a stripe in them from different dye jobs. Elated, she separated them, sealed one in an envelope with the feather, wrote on the outside where the sample came from, and took the other hair and put it in an envelope in her purse. She saw the splashes of water in the basin. She made some notes. Match w feathers from Perkins bedding. Check for. hair in drain of Wilson shower. Seconds later, she emerged from the bathroom to hand the envelope over and have a chat with Igor from Crime Scene, who never liked her getting in the middle of his work. Before she headed back to the bedroom, she checked the pillows in the den to see if the fuzzy feather in question could have come from one of them. She punched and felt them. All were stuffed with foam. She was back on the job.