A Clean Kill

Forty-five

Woody was right on time, waiting double-parked outside when April emerged from the restaurant at five past eight. The wind had picked up in the last half hour, and sleeting rain pounded the pavement.

"Morning, Boss. Was that Lily Eng?" Woody said as she scrambled into the car.

"Yes."

He knew better than to ask what they were meeting about. "The shop?"

"Yes. How are you doing, Woody?" She knew he hated to be left out.

"Me? I'm fine. It's quiet," he told her, as if crime was all that really mattered to him. He pulled the car out, angling across First Avenue through the traffic to make the turn west onto Fifty-seventh Street. For once, he did it without hitting the siren, and for that, she was grateful. At the red light on First Avenue they watched pedestrians fight the gusting rain as they crossed the street. The sky had darkened almost to night. As Mike would say. "Esta feo, feo." It was ugly weather. Woody whistled through his teeth.

"Turn up the box," she said anxiously. If something happened this morning, she didn't want to be the last to know.

For a few minutes only static blew in. Then the dispatcher's voice came on with business as usual. Woody stopped whistling before April told him to, and she was thankful for that, as well. The slightest positive thing helped on a bad day. She was feeling bloated and queasy from another of Skinny Dragon Mother's sticky breakfasts and the diner's rusty-nail tea. She hadn't drunk very much of it, only enough to know it wasn't going to be a health aid. "Anything new?" she asked after a pause.

"Looked like Charlie worked all night, and he's wearing the same clothes from yesterday. Maybe he didn't go home. I didn't see the sergeant," Woody reported.

"Anything else?"

"Barry was hinting around. He wants in."

Barry Queue was their former intelligence officer, the one who was so secretive and didn't try to make friends.

"What did you tell him?" It could be that Queue was someone's spy and she had to watch out for him. Or else he was coming around. She hoped it was the latter. She preferred team players.

"Didn't say nothing, just that I'd let you know."

"Thanks for the heads-up." She had more questions about a few other people but not the energy to pursue them right then. It occurred to her that as Iriarte had done before her and every other boss did, she was always gathering information on the whereabouts, activities, and personal habits of the people who worked for her. Part of it was simply chain of command. To run an efficient unit and

avoid surprises, one had to know what was going on. The question was, where did the job stop and controlling begin? And that was her question about the Anderson woman, too.

She'd been deeply troubled by what Lily had told her. It appeared that Jo Ellen Anderson was more than just intrusive with the girls she placed; she also meddled in the lives of her customers. She went into their houses and watered their plants. That was unusual, and particularly troubling because it gave her access to their private spaces. What else did she do there? And who else could have used those keys? April's thoughts raced ahead. Even more interesting was the fact that Jo Ellen lived in a town house on Fiftieth Street, two blocks from Maddy and even closer to Alison. She had gray hair. April's mind wandered back to the photos Woody had taken at the two houses. A gray-haired woman who fit Jo Ellen's description hadn't been in any of them, but she wondered if the woman had been questioned by anybody else during the canvass of neighbors, and the name just hadn't popped up yet.

"Are you okay, boss?" Woody asked.

"Yeah, fine," she said. But she didn't feel fine at' all. She'd lost her cookies only once before on account of something her mother had fed her. A few years ago when Lieutenant Bernardino had been in the car, she'd had to get out and barf on the street. The horrible feeling of that lost face still haunted her. She'd vowed never to do

that

again no matter how bad she felt.

"You sure you're all right?" Woody demanded.

"I said I was fine. Why are you bugging me?"

"You're groaning."

"Jesus." She held on for fifteen more agonizing minutes, concentrating on the rain -outside and her prayer that no one else would get hurt today. She was out of the car before it stopped in front of the station, and went straight to the public women's room, where no one would see or hear her. In a second she was on her knees, hugging the toilet seat in the stall farthest from the door. The smell of disinfectant was strong, but not strong enough to cover that chipped old toilet's decades of use. She heaved right away, and everything came up.

"Oh, God," she moaned. Most of the time she could overcome the quakes in her stomach. Even seeing Alison's body the day before didn't take her over the edge. But today her lifelong weakness had gotten to her. She felt like a wimp or worse, turning on cheap tea, the smell of human effluvia, and fear. It was Wednesday. She had only today and tomorrow before her scheduled cruise, and she didn't want anyone else to die. Her fear was another humiliation.

Someone came into the bathroom. She was on her feet, flushing the second she heard the door. The unseen individual tinkled in the stall next to hers, flushed, and then left without washing her hands. April' exited gingerly, not feeling much better. She washed her face, popped an Altoids into her mouth, and groaned again at the sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair was flat. Her face was pale, and for the first time in her life she looked to herself—distinctly old.

Shocked, she blinked and looked again. Suddenly she could see what she'd be like in ten years, middle-aged and still doing what she was doing now. Time had passed without her realizing it, and now she saw her future. Suddenly she understood why people left the Department, went to the private sector, and moved on. The facilities were the least of it. The truth was, the job was a mill that ground people down. There never was time for anything, not a personal day, not a vacation, not a single luxury. She remembered what Alison had told her on Monday: maintenance was important; men liked younger women. They got restless and drifted away. Right then it was clear that she was not maintaining herself. She didn't look like Lily Eng. She wasn't patient with Woody, or Eloise, or Charlie Hagedorn. Certainly not poor old Skinny Dragon, who'd been neglected for months. She did not have time to be with her mother. Crime never went away, and the victims never stopped talking to her, no matter how long they'd been dead. She remembered what Alison had told her, and like all the other times when victims had come first in her life, she pulled herself together for them.

"Good morning, everyone," she said a few minutes later to the four people she'd assembled in her office. "Charlie, do you have anything to tell us?"

Hagedorn cleared his throat and glanced at Eloise. Eloise was wearing black-and-white-checked pants, a red sweater, and a Glock. Her head was a mess of blond curls. April was going to have to talk with her. Her smoky eye shadow gave her a sultry look, and her tough-guy's mouth was twisted to one side. She nodded at Charlie, and her message was definitely mixed.

"The Anderson Agency was a private company until 2000. In 2000 the founder's daughter, Sally George Anderson,Jo Ellen's aunt, sold it to Hunter International, a much larger company. Hunter has a history of acquiring smaller agencies and over time consolidating them into their corporate structure. Their stand-alones include Harris Brown, a recruiter of business executives and support staff for overseas operations; ITEL, a company that specializes in business intelligence; and Crater Corp, which provides security personnel."

"You said it was a quirky place. How does it fit in with Hunter's objectives?"

"There's nothing on the Web site or anywhere else that says it's owned by Hunter. It's not clear what the deal is there. They may have acquired it for the name."

Eloise cut in. "There's a staff of only eight people. It's a small operation, very uncorporate in style. J0 Ellen may have a contract to stay for some period of years."

"Charlie, would you find out who's in charge at Hunter International and what the deal with the Anderson Agency is? What about the aunt?"

He made a note. "She passed away two years ago, left the house to J0 Ellen."

"What was the relationship between them?"

"It must have been pretty close. They lived together in the town house. The number is four twenty-five. It's right across the street from the Perkinses' house." He glanced at Eloise for some sign of approval, but she wasn't looking at him.

"That's good work, Charlie," April said, making a few notes.

"There's more. Since 2002, a bunch of complaints

came in from residences where Anderson placed staff, a couple of thefts. All of them in town houses. No arrests were made."

April wondered how he carne up with that information, since complaints that were dropped didn't' enter the record, but she didn't want to get into it at the moment. She turned to Queue, whom she invited on a tryout. "Barry, I want you to go downtown and get a search warrant for the Anderson house and agency. She has the keys to her clients' houses and lives across the street from Alison Perkins. I think that's probable cause for going in for a look-see, and the DA on the case agrees with me. Charlie, you're working on Hunter. Find out what the payment was for the company and what the deal with Jo Ellen is. Also, the status of the house,if anything is owed on it. Any personal information on Jo Ellen Anderson would be useful, too."

"You think it's her?" Gelo said.

"She was definitely exploiting both her clients and the nannies who worked for them. Looks like what she did was work on the mothers' concerns about reliability, etc., to get the girls in trouble so that she could replace them. Motive for that— probably greed. She could also have used her access to the houses for theft You said some jewelry was stolen."

They nodded.

"Okay, that's it. Woody, come with me. Eloise, you're in command here. You can continue on the Spirit case for the moment. Thank you all, we'll be in touch."

No one asked her what she was doing.