A Killing Gift

Fifty

After April and Mike switched cars and drove home, it was both a long night and a short one: long on worry, short on sleep. Bernardino's case was a little like lightning. The one strike sent down more than one deadly streamer and left some unresolved issues. Even if they indicted Frayme for the murder, four million dollars was still missing, and Harry Weinstein had briefly been in possession of two hundred and fifty thousand of it. So far there was no trail that led to Bill or Kathy. But for Bernardino's sake, April was not going to be able to let go of that. Launching further assaults on a tough old cop was not going to be easy. More important at the moment, though, their only really viable suspect was still walking around, making late-night phone calls and working out with his unregistered weapons. Mike and April were too wired to calm down.

April was up again at five-thirty, drinking hot water and scanning the yellow pages for martial arts. She was not surprised to find some of the names that had come to her on the spur of the moment. Silent Warrior would be a natural. It was there. So was Praying Mantis. She was also attracted to the strongly American typeface of Professional Prepare at Twenty-second Street and Broadway.

Mike was up at eight, on the phone again trying to reach the ME. More than forty-eight hours after Birdie Bassett's murder, the preliminary death report on the cause of her death still had not left his desk. Her funeral was set for Sunday afternoon out in New Jersey, and he was determined to have some resolution before then. Dr. Gloss didn't pick up the second urgent page and return the call until nine-thirty Saturday morning. By then, Mike and April had already visited Ducci in the lab for the second Saturday in a row and were on their way into the city.

"Yeah, Mike, what's up?" Dr. Gloss said.

"How about Birdie Bassett? We're at a critical juncture here."

Gloss sighed. "Yeah, I know. You'll have the prelim as soon as I do. I'm still working on it."

"By now you should already know pretty much everything you're going to know."

"What's your hurry?"

"The funeral's tomorrow, and we need some specifics to move forward."

"Well, nobody told me there was any particular rush," Gloss said.

"I'm telling you. Aren't I good enough?"

"Don't get huffy. I can give you generalities. What do you need?"

"How about the murder weapon?"

"Look, that's what I'm working on. I want to be sure. She has some deep premortem bruises on her neck. It looks like he roughed her up a little before he killed her. The bruising on the neck is consistent with manual strangulation, the kind from his squeezing and her struggling that would take place in that circumstance. There's a bruise at the base of the neck possibly caused by pressure from the killer's hand."

"But…?"

"But there are no petechiae in the mucosa of the lips and lids of the eyes. And, of course, you saw her face. It wasn't the dark red that would be consistent with the slow bleeding that occurs with strangulation. And her neck is broken."

"So the blow killed her. Tell me about the blow."

"Okay, the blow. More force was used than would have been necessary to kill her. The neck is broken, as I said. The spinal cord is crushed. All this indicates that she did not ultimately choke to death slowly."

"Okay, we know that. So he started to strangle her and changed his mind."

"It looks that way. He changed his mind and hit her. Maybe somebody interrupted him. Maybe she did something to infuriate him."

"Okay, could be either. But what did he use?"

"That's what I'm working on. We know it's some kind of blunt instrument. He could have come at her with his hand, but I want to be sure it wasn't a pipe or a baseball bat. We're measuring, okay; we're trying to make a match with different things. It's too easy to go for the karate stuff. It's possible he hit her with something else."

"Lao really hit a nerve, huh," Mike said.

Gloss grunted angrily. "Look, it's not that easy to kill someone with a hand. Arm yoking, absolutely. Break their neck, easy as pie. You have to be strong, but a lot of people are strong. Crushing a spinal cord with a hand"-he clicked his tongue-"that's another story… but on the other hand, if he had used a pipe why not just bash her on the head? You see, it's not such an easy call."

"His psychology is the key to this."

"Whatever makes the case."

"If he's a kung fu nut, he'd want to use the hand in the traditional way. Are you telling me it wasn't a hand?"

"All I'm saying is, it could be. We're still trying to get an impression, work backward."

"What about a protective mitt?"

"No, a mitt would have spread out the bruising."

"All right, can you tell me which hand the killer used?"

"Oh, that I can tell you. The killer was facing her. The blow was on the left side of her neck. That makes him left-handed."

"And Bernardino?" Mike said excitedly.

"Bernie was yoked from behind. Pulled from right to left. The guy's still left-handed."

Mike whistled. "Thanks."

"Well?" April asked when he hung up.

"A lefty, just like Ducci predicted, and he wasn't wearing a mitt."

"A purist. That son of a bitch Ducci. Amazing how somebody who never even saw the body could be so sure."

"He saw the photos. Home sweet home, carita."

They pulled up in front of the Sixth, where Woody was waiting outside in the sunshine, turning the pages of a book.

"Look at these cuties," he said when they parked the Camaro and got out. "I used to have one like this." He pointed at a little white hair ball with two black ribbons on its crown. A real man's dog, with a fringe so long its paws were covered.

April glanced at the photo. "Jesus, Woody. A Maltese?"

"Did you locate Hammermill?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, he's out in the Hamptons. Want me to drive out with the pictures?" he asked hopefully. It was a nice day for a drive.

April took the book out of his hand. It still had its Barnes and Noble price sticker on it. Woody had done things the easy way, as usual. He'd paid thirty-five dollars for Choosing a Dog for Life, and would put in for the refund. Still, it had good pictures of 166 breeds. Should do it. They went inside where the task force was assembled for the morning meeting.