A Killing Gift

Forty-six

Al Frayme had to pee. Mike could see it in his face. He was sealed away in the same small room where they'd parked Cherry Packer for two days while they'd tried to nail either Harry or Bill Bernardino. Cherry was back upstate feeding her horses. She had orders not to flee. Harry was home with Carol, still on warning, too. Neither was deemed a flight risk at the moment. And Al Frayme was all alone in the hot seat.

Two teams of detectives were taking turns with him. A confession would be preferable to the thousands of man-hours it would take to make a case, but Al wasn't the scaredy-cat type. So far he hadn't had any trouble containing his temper or his bladder. He'd refused soda and coffee, but spent the afternoon guzzling bottles of sparkling water without any concern about volume. Only now was it looking as if his full bladder was getting to him. That was good. Detectives came and went from the room, had their sandwiches and cigarette breaks. Frayme's requests to take a piss were ignored. He was beginning to get the idea.

When April returned from three interviews at York and caught up with Mike outside the viewing room, she was starved. "Have you eaten?" she asked.

"Hours ago. It's practically dinnertime now. What do you want?"

"Club sandwich," she said.

A uniform took the order and went away to have it filled. As they waited for it, they sat outside the viewing room watching the suspect squirm in his chair.

"How's he doing?" April asked.

"He's had about four quarts, so we know he's got a lot of control. You first."

April opened her notebook and turned the pages. "Wendy Vivendi doesn't have this guy on her radar screen. He's a nonentity as far as she's concerned. He isn't asked to any of the important functions, doesn't know the president to shake his hand. The big donors are not even handled through the alumni office. Two independent teams work the donors. Under a hundred grand is the development office. Over a hundred is handled on the executive level. Vivendi does it herself. If she knew that Bernardino was a target for fund-raising, she certainly didn't tell me. Same with Birdie. Jobs are on the line for sure, but it turns out Baldwin is the one on notice. He's got the quota to fill."

April glanced up and saw Frayme all alone. He was checking his watch, tapping his foot. He had to pee.

"He's been unhappy for an hour," Mike said.

"What else?"

"Let's see. The dean of the social work school remembers meeting the alumni people. She says that Baldwin pretty much nodded through it, and Al Frayme was in and out of the room."

"Clearly not to pee."

"Maybe not. Crease doesn't know either of them well and understood from the get-go that they were not interested in helping her out. Social work is pretty much the bottom of the food chain. There are plenty of students who want to do it, but the field doesn't bring in research, state, federal, or private money. No one wants the poor, the addicted, the homeless, the mentally ill. I got the whole litany. She's a desperate woman."

"So you have nothing."

"Well, maintenance doesn't clean private offices, and there was no scheduled work on the floor that day. We went in and dusted the phone. It had been wiped. We checked the desk, chair arms, doors, and doorknobs and lifted a bunch of prints just in case. Do you have Al's prints?"

"Yes, he parked them all over his water bottles. We're running them. What else?"

"The boys down in the Fifth do not have Frayme on anybody's dojo list. But he has to be training somewhere. He has to be sparring with somebody. You don't do this alone. It's a partner thing, like tennis. Since his own name hasn't come up, I'm guessing he has an alias for this aspect of his life, maybe a code name. We're getting a poster made up now. I have Hagedorn checking on his background."

The sandwiches came. April took a few delicate bites, then gave in and gobbled. When she'd finished half of it, she shifted to Baldwin's input.

"Frayme was a classmate of Birdie's. We can try him with that. Maybe she blew him off back then, and he nursed a grudge. Maybe she blew him off again with the money, and this time he couldn't take it. Baldwin said Al's a schmoozer, not a closer. He was passed over for Baldwin's job three years ago."

"A loser, then! That would play." Mike reached for her uneaten French fries.

Frayme got up and pounded on the door. "I need to fucking urinate. What do you want me to do, piss on the floor?" They'd reduced him to begging.

April and Mike slapped each other five.