A Killing Gift

Twenty-six

On Monday morning Bernardino's funeral was covered by all the papers and TV stations in the area. With all the family secrets still in the freezer, the Department came through with a full police blowout, a bagpipe unit, the chief of police, chief of detectives and all-if not the actual police commissioner himself, who was with the mayor in DC on NYC business.

Four detectives from Bernardino's unit helped carry the coffin with his son and nephews. Some walked with the family, and some surreptitiously photographed every mourner in attendance. Nothing unusual about that. Investigators always photographed the crowds around crime scenes and funerals. Some killers became attached to their victims and returned again and again to relive their triumph. Others hung around to offer help. And a surprising number came to their victims' funerals to say a last good-bye.

Harry Weinstein's wife was right about his being sure to come to his old friend's funeral. April was the one to spot him at the cemetery. The same mustard-colored jacket he'd worn to Bernardino's retirement party stood out against a sea of gray headstones and the smaller throng of diehards wearing black and gray who'd taken the extra time to follow the hearse to Bernardino's final resting place in Queens right next to Lorna's brand-new mound that didn't have grass yet. Harry had missed the pomp and the eulogies up in Westchester, but was there to see his friend's coffin lowered into the ground.

April skirted the sad flock and caught up with him as he was sidling away. "Didn't you get my messages, Harry? I've been trying to reach you all weekend."

"Hey, April. How ya doin'?" Harry gave her a quick once-over the way cops do. Arrogant, checking things out.

"Not so great." April had a new trick. She could make her voice crack whenever she wanted to. She did it now.

"What's the matter with you? You got a cold or something?"

"Yeah, feels like someone tried to choke the life out of me. What about you? You hiding from something?"

His wide shoulders climbed up his neck. "I lost my cell. You know how it is… What's on your mind? You're not on the case…?" The question hung in the air as he gave her a sly smile that showed off big nicotine-stained teeth.

"Oh, I'm just trying to track a few things down for the family. Kathy and I go way back," she said.

"She's a good kid." Harry turned his head to stare out at the stalled traffic on the Long Island Expressway nearby.

April followed his gaze to nowhere. "What did you do after you left the retirement party?" she asked.

Harry's eyes snapped back to her in surprise, as if this were the very last question he expected to hear from her. "Me?"

"I'm talking to you, aren't I?" she rasped. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mike approach.

"Hey, what's going on?" Harry looked at Mike, who nodded for April to continue whatever she'd been saying.

"Harry's been out of the loop. He doesn't know we're looking for a killer," she told him. "Funny, huh?" She scrutinized the old-timer and didn't make the introductions.

Harry was six-two, a hulking guy, slightly hunched over. He moved like a turtle, but bulk on an old cop could be deceiving. They were used to moving when they had to. Harry didn't smell of camphor or spearmint. He smelled like a bundle of very old clothes that had spent a century or two in a trunk full of cigar butts.

"I had some business out of town." Harry lifted one side of a long, untamed eyebrow at Mike. Who are you? it demanded.

"Lieutenant Sanchez, Homicide task force," Mike introduced himself without offering his hand.

Harry nodded, friendly. "Okay. I'll talk. But I'm hungry. Want to buy me lunch?"

Twenty minutes later they were sitting in a grungy pizza place in Elmont. Harry didn't want to go there, so he placed a defiant order of a meatball hero even though it wasn't on the menu. The waiter wrote it down without blinking. Mike ordered an everything pizza. April rolled her eyes because Mike refused to believe she didn't like cheese. She asked for hot tea.

"Red Rose is all we got. That okay?" the waiter asked.

She wrinkled her nose and nodded. All teas were not created equal.

When the ordering was done, Harry's shoulders relaxed a little and he leaned back in his metal chair. "I'm going to tell this to you, no one else, okay?"

Mike shook his head. It didn't work that way, and Harry knew it.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I loved the guy. I was the shlepper, never made more than detective third grade. Bernie made good. I would never hurt a hair on his ugly head. I worshiped him, okay? What do you got?"

"We got a few questions," Mike said.

"Okay, so ask." Then he started answering before Mike had time. "I came to the party. I wasn't feeling so good after all that heavy food. I didn't want to go home so I stayed in Manhattan with a friend, okay?"

"What friend?" Mike asked.

"This isn't for public consumption, so keep it quiet, okay?"

"What friend?" Mike raised his own eyebrows.

"Her name's Cherry. Hey, a little respect. Don't laugh; she's a business associate."

"What kind of business do you have with Cherry, Harry?" April coughed out the question through a bad case of the giggles and avoided Mike's eyes. Even so, she could see his shoulders shaking. Cherry and Harry. Everyone was going to have fun with this one. And poor Carol didn't have a clue.

"I'm in the horse-racing business." Harry stretched for some dignity and failed.

"Has Cherry got a number, Harry?" April asked.

"Look, she's a breeder, okay? This is completely legit."

"Cherry is a breeder? She's breeding for you?" This was another new one. Bernardino was gone and buried, and Mike and April were cracking up with the comic relief of Cherry breeding for Harry.

"Cut it out. She breeds thoroughbreds for racing."

"So what's your involvement with Cherry?" Mike couldn't help repeating the name and drawing out the two syllables into three.

"I've been looking at a horse. In fact, I bought one." He beamed with the pride of ownership.

"You bought a racehorse?" It took a second to digest this. April and Mike eyed each other, the laughter gone. "How much do thoroughbreds go for these days?" Mike asked.

Harry squinted, considering the question. "Not a lot, a few hundred thou. But we think he's promising. Warlord is his name." Harry's one long eyebrow did a dance. He was beginning to have some fun of his own.

"Harry, where did you get a few hundred thousand dollars for a horse called Warlord?" Mike inhaled on the absurdity.

"I got it from Bernie, God rest his soul." Harry crossed himself.

"Yeah," April cut in.

The pizza and meatball hero came. The hero was huge. Harry was in no hurry to wolf it down. For a suspect in the interview game there was pretty much only one trick: Keep mum on the important stuff, and nobody could do a thing about it. Detectives could bring a suspect in, keep him, let him go, then bring him in again. Fishing expeditions were annoying and time-consuming for a person being examined again and again but couldn't hurt anyone with the nerve to hold out. Lawyers could stop the questions, but only for a while. If cops had no secrets on a guy, no muscle in the form of jail-time threats to use against him, there wasn't a thing they could do short of beating him up to get him to give.

Harry Weinstein had been a cop for a long time. He didn't need a lawyer to help him obfuscate. Eight hours after Bernardino was finally laid to rest, he was still cruising for a bruising, completely comfortable with the situation. He was retired, on half pay for life. No one could fire him or put him in jail or hurt him in any way he cared about. He wasn't going to give.

After lunch Mike and April put him in the car and drove around for a while, taking turns hammering away at him. Then Chief Avise had a little chat with him downtown at headquarters. He didn't talk for the chief of detectives either, and didn't have to miss his bedtime. Everyone was tired. Around ten p.m. he went home wagging a tail he pretended not to see. He had an appointment to come back to the Sixth Precinct but didn't know it yet. His mood was high.