No one in the Department wanted to hang a prosecutor for a cop murder, especially if the prosecutor happened to be the son of the dead cop in question. But between the two possible suspects on the table- a prosecutor and a retired cop, working alone, with each other, or Harry working with an unknown third party-the most comfortable choice was the prosecutor and no third party. The Tiger Liniment in his gym bag and on the victim was good enough for them.
Marvin Cohn, the Manhattan DA, however, wasn't buying. "I don't fucking care where you found stink oil. I don't care if it matches the oil on the victim's shirt and jacket. I don't give a shit. This isn't physical evidence. This is madness." He'd gone ballistic.
"Listen to what you're telling me! Nothing! We already know Bill had been in contact with his father that evening. The two men could have hugged. Traces of the oil could have rubbed off on him at the party, or at some earlier time. Drop it, unless you can do a lot better. What are you, stupid? Are you crazy? You have nothing but circumstantial. And that's fucking nothing."
And he'd said worse things to just about everybody. Bill's wife had confirmed that he was home at the time of the murder, and she passed a lie-detector test. That would be tough to fight in court.
"Give me a fucking break," Cohn had shrieked. It was the same thing that Bill himself kept saying.
Avise didn't like Cohn's attitude, which he considered nothing more than politics. But without the prosecutor's green light, the task force was back to Harry, working with a third party, because Jack Devereaux wouldn't ID Harry himself as April's attacker. There was no question that Harry was in deep, was connected somehow. According to Cherry and her bank records, he'd given her two hundred and fifty grand at least two weeks before Bernardino was murdered.
Harry had received the money right after Lorna died, just about the time four million was withdrawn from Bernadino's brokerage account. How much more of that Harry had come away with was anyone's guess. For all they knew, the two hundred grand might be just a drop in the bucket. If Harry didn't have the rest of it, maybe he knew where it was. He was It now. Every corner of his dusky life was under the microscope. Mike figured if he had more dough, he'd be spending it somewhere. They were checking Harry's every known associate for leaking money.
But April kept being teased by the karate thread. Every cop in the world could kill with a choke hold, but there was more to this than the choke hold. There was the need to kill in public, almost ninja style, the need to show off. You couldn't separate that aspect out. A little niggle about the competence of the two karate fans from Bernardino's own unit made her uneasy. If they were tracking a karate expert close to Harry, they had to be good. She knew them, but were they good enough? Were they going to the right places, talking to the right people, asking the right questions? The karate thread suggested she should take over the search herself, bring her own people in, figure it out her own way. Going it alone in investigations was a little problem for April. She didn't like being a team player. She didn't trust anybody else to get it right. She wanted to solve the cases fast. She didn't want to wait while the primaries dicked around with endless speculations.
As soon as she got home, she ran the water in the bathtub and started stripping off her clothes. She'd been the only woman at the table that night, and her gift for being there was a dry throat and smoky hair. She wanted to wash the male experience off as fast as possible. As a sergeant she was permitted to sit down with the big boys only because of her relationship to Mike. It always made her want to sink through the floor. That night she'd spent the time turning the pieces of the Bill and Harry puzzle around and around in her head to make them fit. They wouldn't fit unless Bill and his father's old partner were working together, or Harry had another friend.
"You don't need to look further. You've got your man right there," Bill had screamed at April in the late afternoon. "And tell Mike I want my fucking computer back." It didn't seem likely that Bill would be pushing for a partner's arrest.
April let her hair down and slid gratefully into the hot tea rose-scented water. She knew the answers would come to her if she let the questions go, if she loosened up her mind and relaxed a little. She breathed to slow her racing heart and was just beginning to calm down when the phone in the living room rang. She could hear Mike pick up.
"Sanchez." Then, "Shit." Then, "Give me thirty minutes."
She was out of the tub at "Shit." Shit always meant more than shit. She grabbed the towel and the pair of slacks that she'd hung on the back of the bathroom door, then dashed into the bedroom for some clean underwear and a blouse. She had a towel wrapped around her head and was zipping up trouser boots when Mike's face appeared in the doorway.
"There's been another homicide in Washington Square," he said.
The familiar sick feeling sucked air out of April's lungs. "Who?"
"A woman called Birdie Bassett. Rich widow. She'd been at a dinner at York U. She was a donor."
York U! She was stunned. "Did he get away?"
"Yeah. You coming?"
This was the moment April always needed reassurance and never wanted to let on. The moment when they found out a case they'd been working wasn't going to be an isolated case, when someone died because they'd been moving too slowly. That was when she felt the worst.
Mike read it in her face and moved toward her to give her a quick hug. It wasn't her fault. That was what the hug said. "Look, you don't have to go."
"Yes, I do. I want to see her." April put her face in his shoulder and inhaled his scent, sweet and complex even after a long, hot day. His body held hundreds of memories of passion and good times. It was tough to shrug off her own wish for love and sleep. But, shit, she did want to see this Birdie before they took her away.
She unwrapped the bath towel and let her wet hair hang down on her shoulders. "Let's go."
Thirty-four
This time they took the Camaro, and no one grumbled about the muffler. The gas was low in the Chrysler, and noise didn't matter to them now. April combed her wet hair with her fingers, feeling guilty for her quick soak in the tub.
"You're quiet; are you okay?" she asked.
"It could be a copycat," Mike muttered. He didn't like the possibility of losing Harry, his second-best suspect.
April flashed to Jack, the alumnus of York U. Neither of them were happy.
Mike accelerated, and the Camaro thundered through the Midtown Tunnel. When they came out on the Manhattan side, the city was still very much awake and alive. Warm weather always drew people to the streets and kept them out until late. Rain scattered them to dry spots under store awnings for a few minutes, but they often emerged again before the sky stopped spitting. Tonight the sidewalks were wet, but the rain had stopped.
As always on her way to a homicide, April was beset by Chinese demons. This time it was worse than usual. The repeater they had on their hands could have murdered her. Almost dying had humbled her. After nearly a year of being engaged, she and Mike would have missed their chance to marry, to buy their house and have a baby. She hadn't even changed her address. At her not-quite-real home, they were still sitting on Mike's hand-me-down sofa, living in a partially furnished apartment and driving worn-out cars. What were up-and-coming careers in the face of the gaping failure to take some time for living? Suddenly it seemed as if they were living an unfinished life on borrowed time. Lorna was gone, Bernardino was gone, and now someone else was gone. Shit. She touched Mike's upper arm and reflexively he made a muscle for her to grip.