A Clean Kill

Thirty-eight

Woody tried, unsuccessfully, to get into the Perkins house. He was waiting for April by the car when she finally emerged and pushed through the thicket of reporters. She saw him step forward and wave, but stopped for a moment to talk to Lily, who had her cameraman all set up for an interview.

"It's a homicide, but I can't tell you any more than that at this time," she told the reporter, who'd freshened her lipstick when April emerged.

"Is that the best you can do?" Lily demanded.

"The very best," April said, tilting her head to give a bad angle to the cam.

"Oh, come on. We've been here all morning. What were you doing in there?" she asked.

Talking on the phone, talking to Igor and Tam while they worked the crime scene, talking to Lynn Papel and Andrew Perkins, searching the house for Alison's missing diamond rings. April smiled ruefully. "The usual," she murmured.

"Fuck, April. I thought we were friends."

"We are friends, but you know the rules. I'm not the go-to person on this. Let's have lunch soon, okay?"

"Aren't you sailing on Friday?" Lily waved away her cameraman.

The red light on the video cam went off, but April was startled nonetheless. "How did you know that?" She'd forgotten all about her honeymoon.

"Oh, I have my way." Lily smiled, and at that moment looked exactly like Lucy Liu, playing the stereotypical evil Chinese dragon lady.

April smiled. Despite the facade, she didn't think Lily was so tough. "Okay, what do you know?"

"I have some stuff." Lily checked her watch. "How about lunch? I don't have to be at the studio until five."

"This is homicide, not a game, Lily. If you know anything at all about this, give right now."

"Dinner?" she teased. "It'll be worth it."

"It's a crime to withhold information." April didn't feel like playing. "I have to go."

"All right, breakfast tomorrow, then. I promise you won't be sorry."

"Okay, we'll see." April crossed the street, and Woody stepped forward to meet her with a happy smile.

"Boss, how ya doin'?" he said.

"Not a good day for me." She moved toward the car, pushing the reporter out of her mind.

"I have the photos from yesterday that you asked for." Woody looked around. The street was closed, but pedestrians and their dogs and children were still loitering on the block. "Some of the same people are here." ,

He opened the passenger door of the car, and she settled in with a sigh. "Did you take any photos today?"

"Of course," he said.

"Good, we'll take a look later."

He held the door open for a second, gazing at her with expectation. "Where to?"

"The lab. I want to talk to Ducci."

"Okey-dokey. "

Woody walked around to the driver's side and headed east. As they turned up Sutton Place, he started whistling through his teeth. April didn't hear it at first. She was debating calling home to see what mischief her mother was up to. The wise option would be to call, but she didn't think she could handle someone yelling at her right now. "Take the Fifty-ninth Street entrance to the bridge," she instructed Woody.

"So . . . was it as bad as yesterday?" he asked after a moment.

"Yes." She didn't want to talk about it. On the bridge going to Queens, the traffic slowed to a crawl. "What's going on with Sergeant Gelo?" she asked.

"Looks like she's chosen Hagedorn for her partner," he said, whistling again.

Interesting call. "Cut that out, Woody."

He continued whistling.

"Woody!"

"Sorry, boss." He shut up.

Twenty-five minutes later, they parked in the lab lot, checked in at the desk, went through the metal detector and the cage, and headed to the elevator. As they went down the hall, she heard a familiar voice teaching a class on crime scene techniques. Woody pushed the button, the elevator doors opened, and they went up.

Fernando Ducci was known as the Duke of Dust. He had a large, ultramodern space in the new police lab that he'd managed to clutter with his huge collection of specimens practically the day he moved there. He was an old-time dust and fiber man who'd spent years making samples of dirt and dust, thousands of materials and fabrics, the hair and hide of every conceivable animal and bug— pretty much anything dry that he could think of— just in case he needed them in a case sometime down the road. In his thirty-odd years on the job, he'd seen bits and pieces of everything from every corner of the city—from the largest crime scene in American history, the World Trade Center site, to beaches, airports, car trunks, warehouses, and so on. He knew his materials like no one else. He was white-haired, not tall, and thick from shoulders to knees from a lifetime addiction to Snickers and Mars bars. Every time April visited him, he offered her lunch from his candy drawer.

Today she'd called him from the road, and he was waiting for her at his cluttered desk, thoughtfully chewing on a Snickers. When she came in, he put the uneaten portion down on the edge as if it were the butt of a burning cigar. "Pretty one, let me look at you," he cried.

"Hey, Duke." April prepared for the onslaught of recriminations of neglect, and it came quickly.

"I never see you anymore. I guess you don't love me now that you've married that bum. You only come when you're in trouble."

"Well, of course." She laughed and took his hands.

"Are you pregnant yet? Let's see." He held out his arms.

She laughed. "No, no, not pregnant."

He gave her a hug and held on for a few seconds too long. "Nope, not pregnant yet," he agreed. "What are you waiting for, World War III?"

"I thought we were in it already." She didn't mind the banter or the bear hug. Ducci was an eccentric who'd never married: tiny specks barely visible to the naked eye had been his true love— that and stunning shirts. She guessed that some hole-in-the-wall Chinese laundry was responsible for the excellent ironing of the elegant dress shirts he always wore. Today's was a yellow-and-blue-striped number with a pristine white collar and cuffs, probably Polo without the logo. The tie he wore with it was equally dashing. He turned to Woody.

"Who let him in here?" he complained.

"You know Woody, right? You're going to be hearing a lot about him in the future."

Woody grinned like an idiot, and Ducci grimaced.

"I've already heard a lot about him. Tree, tree, what the hell kind of name is that?" Duke's white hair was slicked back. His aging choirboy's face tried to be antagonistic.

April held back a smile. "So, when are you retiring like everyone else?"

"Why would I do that?" He picked up the Snickers and took a bite.

April turned to her driver.

"Woody, would you go and find Mark or Chad and tell them I'll be down in a few minutes."

He nodded and departed.

"Are they the team on the Wilson case?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, we got different people on

Perkins. Now we have to coordinate the two' to see what we've got," April told him.

"They're all right." Ducci shrugged.

She didn't know what team he meant. He grabbed a chair from his absent neighbor and dusted it off with a lily-white handkerchief from his pocket. "Have a seat and tell me what you need."

"I'm helping out on the Wilson case."

"Yeah, I heard you were on it. You want a candy bar?"

"No, thanks." April's stomach rumbled, and she put her hand on it protectively.

He looked at her startled, as if inadvertently, she'd revealed a secret.

"What?" she demanded.

He smiled. "You sure about that candy bar?"

"Absolutely certain. Now, what have you got for me?"

"Take a look around. I don't have anything yet. You're too early."

With all his stuff from many cases everywhere, it was hard to tell what he was working on, but it was upsetting that they hadn't started on the high-profile homicide yet. "What are you waiting for?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "What can I say? We're short-handed. What's the story? No one tells me anything."

"A young mother was stabbed multiple times in her shower yesterday morning. She's the wife of a restaurant owner, Wayne Wilson—"

"I know that much. You got the murder weapon?" he asked.

"Maybe you don't know that the shower was on, the body was artfully arranged, and the scene was squeaky clean."

"Oh." He lifted heavy eyebrows to look at her over skinny reading glasses. "You got a murder weapon?" he repeated. _;

"There were a lot of knives in the house. Wilson is a collector. And the nanny's in cooking school so she has quite a few herself. You know how tough it is with incised wounds to tell exactly what kind of knife was used."

"Where are these many knives?"

"They're in the building somewhere. We have to get going on this."

"So you're looking for blood on the knives," Ducci said.

"Yes, that and other things."

"What other things?"

April paused for a second. "There was another homicide this morning," she said as coolly as she could. "Alison Perkins lived two blocks away from Maddy Wilson. She was the dead woman's best friend. Four little kids have lost their mothers in two days." She felt badly about this, as if it were her fault.

"It's a shame. Same neighborhood? Same method?"

"We don't have a COD on Alison yet. She was found in her bed, probably smothered. Whoever did it washed her body with cleanser."

Ducci nodded. "So how can I help?"

April reached in her purse for the envelope with the hair she'd found in the Perkins powder room. "The way the house is set up, the third floor consists of two connected closets, a bathroom, and the master suite, which has a bedroom and TV room with a tiny powder room hidden behind a painted wall."

"Uh-huh." Ducci reached in his drawer for another candy bar.

"When I searched it—"

"Oh-oh. Don't tell me you're taking things from crime scenes now. We don't go for that." He shook his finger at her.

"Duplicates," she said airily. "Crime Scene got everything I have. I just don't have time to wait. Yada yada yada. If they're going to be helpful, I need to know now." She had to resolve this case fast.

"Where's the fire?" he said.

"Please, I'm just trying to rule things out."

He shook his head. "What are you looking for, color?" Duke opened the envelope, poked at the lone hair in there with a thick finger, then got up and moved across the brightly lit space.

"Yeah, and anything else it can tell me."

"Fine, give me an hour."

"Thanks. Other hairs were tangled up with a feather. Looked to me like a goose down feather. You have the pillows from the vic's bed here." April shrugged. "I'm guessing the perp killed her with the pillow, then used the powder room to wash up."

"Okay." He got started and seemed to forget about her. When she got to the door he said, "And thank you for dropping by."