A Killing Gift

Twenty-nine

Late Tuesday afternoon Bill Bernardino bowed under heavy pressure and finally agreed to allow a search of his house and car without a warrant because he didn't want the media attention that the serving of a search warrant would bring on him and his family. The Department had given his father a good send-off. He owed them. Mike and two detectives proceeded to his home in Brooklyn, where they took the spacious family house apart as neatly as possible.

The three men did the search with a minimum of fuss and conversation, and Mike was the one to come across Bill's workout bag and sweaty gym clothes from which a strong odor of camphor and spearmint emanated. When he searched the inside pocket, he found a half-used bottle of Tiger Liniment. He seized it and a second bottle of Tiger Liniment, this one unopened, that Bill had stored in his medicine cabinet. Mike showed no reaction whatsoever to either of the other two detectives or to Bill about his find. But he was excited. They were a step closer.

Of all analgesics for muscle pain, Tiger Liniment was about the messiest. It was packaged in little bronze-colored glass bottles for an old-fashioned look, and some of it had spilled out into Bill's gym bag. The oil seemed an unusual choice for a no-nonsense kind of guy like Bill. As Ducci had pointed out on Saturday when they visited him in the lab, the newer patches with some of the same ingredients were easier to use and just as readily available. There wasn't a huge market for this.

Bill watched them packing up the contents of his medicine cabinet with a puzzled expression but didn't say a word. They dumped his gym bag and unwashed workout clothes in a carton. Not a word. He started protesting when his laptop computer full of files on the cases he'd been working for the DA's office was removed from the house. Then, practically frothing at the mouth, he called the office from which he had been suspended to see what could be done about it. The answer came back-nothing. His boss was furious because he hadn't thought to cleanse the computer before he left.