A Killing Gift

Thirty-seven

When April hung up with Jason, the sun was out and the city was heating up. It had gone from rain to shine without her noticing, and she felt she'd missed something, missed a lot.

"What's going on, boss?" Woody Baum was heading uptown in the unmarked unit, away from the mob scene at the crazed Sixth Precinct. He was driving with one hand, playing tag with civilian cars, running red lights, all his usual antics to keep things interesting.

Woody had been in a rough-and-tumble anticrime unit for three years, driving around with a bunch of tough guys on the third tour in the earliest hours of the morning, looking for bottom feeders to lock up before they got impatient and shot someone. There had been a lot of shootings among the dealers back when Guiliani was cleaning up the city block by block. Since then Woody had hung up his spurs, cleaned up, and cut his hair real short. He was a good-looking, almost preppy kind of guy now, trying to be a nice, quiet detective. It wasn't so easy for him. His life on the streets had made him somewhat unpredictable. April thought of him kind of like Dim Sum-a bad dog with some training that didn't always stick. The poodle squatted in the kitchen when she was thwarted. And Woody kept testing his limits, too.

Right now April was too preoccupied to chastise him or answer his question. Jason's call had caught her off guard. Cops rarely made friends with people whose lives they'd saved. They didn't like to be reminded of their traumas. But Emma and Jason had been different. They trusted April, had even named their daughter after her. It always made April laugh to think that a little blond angel was carrying her name. But she was proud of the child and secretly wanted to return the favor. A dark-haired Emma, or maybe a Jason. Why not?

She'd consulted Jason on many cases. In return, Jason seemed to feel that April and Mike were his own private police force he could call on whenever something was off in his world, which was too often for comfort. He treated many different kinds of people and was no stranger to the dark side of human nature. Woody finally got her attention when he ran a light on Forty-second Street while a bunch of car horns blared in protest.

"Hey, slow down, Woody!" April closed her eyes as a bus hurtled toward them.

"No problem." Woody chuckled as they made it across the street unharmed.

April turned her attention to her cell phone and called Mike. "Yo. Sorry to bother you," she said when he answered.

"What's up?" He sounded stressed.

"Jason Frank knew Birdie Bassett's husband. He was a donor at the institute. The funny thing is, Jason was supposed to meet her today."

"Jesus. Okay, thanks for the heads-up," Mike said hurriedly.

"She thought her husband was murdered. She wanted Jason to look into it."

"No kidding." Now he was interested.

"And I got a hold of Brenda and Burton Bassett. Guess where they are?"

"Their father and Birdie's apartment."

"Yes, in one. It looks like they'd planned to raid the place before the IRS could get there. Can you get up here?"

"Give me an hour. I'll try."

"Right." She hung up as Woody plowed up the Park Avenue ramp to circle the Hyatt Hotel and Grand Central Station. Her cell rang again before they got to the top. "Sergeant Woo."

"It's Kathy. What about that second homicide in Washington Square last night?" She sounded stressed, too.

"Oh, you heard," April said a little guiltily.

"Of course I heard, but not from you. Why didn't you call me last night? You promised." Kathy was peeved.

"Sorry. I tried you yesterday afternoon." But then April's plate got full, and she forgot.

"Who's the vic?" Kathy asked.

"She's the widow of a richie, a big philanthropist. You can look him up. Max Bassett. Two Sams, two Toms. Birdie was attending a dinner at York U. Seems she was an alum there. A donor." April paused at Kathy's sharp inhalation of breath.

"York U?" Kathy said.

"Yeah, does that mean something to you?"

"Well, yeah. Dad went there," Kathy said slowly.

Bingo, a third connection. "Your father attended York University?" April said excitedly.

"Yes, ma'am, he got his BS there. He went at night when I was little. I think he got most of the credits he needed for a master's degree, too. I don't know why he didn't finish." She paused for breath. "York U. Humph."

"That's good, Kathy. Thanks." April was elated and wondered why it hadn't come out before.

"April, do you still think my brother is involved in Dad's murder?" Kathy's voice was cool.

"Kathy, I'm going to be honest with you. Bill wasn't forthcoming about a number of things. Right off the bat he made himself suspicious. He left the party early. It seemed odd, you know. Other things, too. I don't want to go into it. But we have to eliminate the family first in every case; you know that. And he's looking clean now."

"I know," Kathy said softly, but her voice was still icy.

April let it pass for the moment. "Look, we gave Bill every opportunity to help us out. He came downtown a few times. He invited a search of his house, and some detectives went over it and his car pretty carefully. I'm sure you know he was present at the time of the search. This was on the advice of his lawyer; you know what I'm saying?"

"I know what you're saying. I don't know anything about a search. When did you do it?"

"Tuesday."

"What did they find?" Kathy asked.

"Look, your brother is a prosecutor. He knows as well as you and I do how to hide an elephant."

"Are you saying you didn't find anything?" Kathy was still on the search.

"You know I can't answer that. All I can tell you is that Bill knows how to handle himself. And his team is on his side."

Suddenly April felt very tired. She couldn't talk about Tiger Liniment or missing millions or anything else with Kathy. For a second she let her thoughts wander to last night, when she'd taken her turn at examining Birdie Bassett's body. The staggering thing about this murder was that the killer had choked his victim-there were bruises on her neck-but that wasn't the cause of death, and he hadn't yoked her as he had Bernie. It was clear to her what he'd done because she knew the move. He killed Birdie with a karate technique few black belts had the deadly strength to execute. One punch, one kill. This time he signed a clear signature. Now she was sorry she hadn't asked Gloss whether Bernardino's killer was left-handed or right-handed. As soon as they knew that, they'd know if there was one killer on the loose, or two.

She shook her head. One punch, one kill. The move everyone practiced, and that looked so great on TV, came with the caveat of "Don't try this," along with a bunch of other moves it was stupid to attempt when a mugger held a knife to your throat or a gun to your head. The truth was, karate only worked to give a potential victim a second or two. Ninety-nine out of a hundred amateurs could not gain enough time to get away from an opponent with a gun or a knife.

Dr. Gloss had sniffed the body for the odor of Tiger Liniment, but Birdie Bassett's body had smelled only of its own waste that she'd excreted at the moment she'd died. And she'd smelled faintly of perfume, blood oranges and roses.

Kathy made an impatient noise, and April changed the subject. "Can you add anything to what we know about Harry?"

"Forget Harry. I want to know what's the link between the two victims?" Kathy returned to the question that prompted her call. She wanted her brother well off the hook. That was all she cared about right now.

"Both victims had a spouse die recently. They'd both inherited big money." April's voice cracked on the words big money because she didn't want this bit of news to surface in the media. "Keep this to yourself, Kathy. Let's not make it a circus, okay?"

Then April shivered with excitement. No one in the investigation had copped to the fact that both victims had money and both were alums of York University. Marcus didn't know it, and Mike didn't know it. Only she and Kathy knew it. April loved having an edge, even if she'd keep it for only about ten seconds. There was nothing overtly competitive about her.

"Tell me about Harry." April was back on Harry, relishing the few moments of relative peace in the car with her maniac driver before she'd have to move into the murk of the new victim.

Kathy clicked her tongue. "Bill told me about the racehorse. That's a crock, you know."

"You mean, your dad wouldn't give Harry a few hundred grand to buy a horse?"

"Not a few hundred anything!" Kathy exploded.

"Even in special circumstances?"

"No!"

"What about Bill-would he give money to Harry?"

"Are you nuts?" The suggestion made Kathy ballistic.

April paused to give her another moment to speculate. Come on, Kathy, don't make me hurt you, she thought.

"Look, I've been thinking about it a lot," Kathy admitted finally.

"Uh-huh." April was sure she had.

"I don't know. The truth is, Dad had been acting a little off before he died."

"How off?"

"I told you this before. Obviously he was secretive. You know Mom was into the lottery, but I didn't know how it works. Call me crazy. I didn't know it came in so fast, and I didn't know what he did with it. I know he was depressed about his future. He kept talking about living in a hotel, sitting on a park bench. Crazy stuff. I didn't know he was looking for a house in Florida. There was a lot of stuff I didn't know."

"Do you think he was feeling guilty?"

"For surviving Mom? I'm sure. He thought he'd neglected her."

"What about that and distributing money to Bill and Harry? Maybe guilt for excluding you was what you heard in his voice."

"Jesus, April. Don't go there. I knew Dad. He was my buddy. Why would he do that to me?" But Kathy wasn't sure now. April could hear it in her voice.

"Maybe your dad had a plan for you, too," she said. "Maybe the check was supposed to be in the mail and just didn't get to you."

"He would have told me," she said quietly. "He was a careful man. I'm sure he would have told me."

April had planned to save this for a time when the two of them were sitting face-to-face, but she went ahead because she didn't know when that time would be. "He didn't tell you everything, Kathy. He had your mother cremated."

"Oh, Jesus. That's a crock, too. Where did you hear that?"

"We know he did," April said softly. She didn't have to offer proof. It was in the computer if Kathy cared to look.

"Oh, sure, and where are the ashes? She had a funeral. I saw her buried. She didn't have an open casket because of how bad she'd looked. But I did see her buried."

"I know you did. What did you see her buried in?"

"A casket, of course. Where are you going with this?" Kathy was furious, but she sounded nervous, too.

"Okay, good. She was buried in a coffin. Maybe our information is wrong. Look, Kathy, I'm sorry about all this. We'll straighten it out, okay?" Lorna was buried in a coffin? April shivered. Something wasn't right; she could feel it.

"Where are you going with this, April? I need to know what you're doing," Kathy demanded.

"I'm doing whatever I have to, Kathy. Your father was a friend of mine." April was puzzled. What picture was she seeing?

"Fuck you. It doesn't sound like it," Kathy muttered before she hung up.