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A spark ignited in her boss's eye that made April nervous. She'd only known lriarte for a few weeks. The lieutenant could have been a real bastard to her, could have withheld the kind of everyday information that would have made doing a good job almost impossible. But so far he'd been fair. He hadn't coddled her or made nice, but he'd been fair. April couldn't ask for anything more than that. He could still make life miserable for her, though. Anytime he felt she wasn't on his team, he could chop her up into little pieces and feed her to his three ugly musketeer henchmen.

As the lieutenant had done only a second before, April sniffed the air and smelled Sanchez. Sanchez really complicated things for her. He edged even closer to the door now, smiling at a scenario he was beginning to get used to, that of the outsider who, depending on his mood, had the power anywhere he went to make things more chaotic, or less.

April decided to take a chance. Some cops talked to each other really well without saying a word. On the street, communication was everything. A cop could have peace or war just by his body language and the tone of his voice. The idea was to get the suspect to give up his hands for the cuffs, not reach for his gun hidden in some unexpected place and blow everybody away. One had to know how to keep the competitive macho thing on both sides of the badge as low-key as possible. April didn't know if Iriarte had ever been on the street, but she cocked her head in the same engaging little way she used when she told some disgusting dirtbag thief or rapist—who thought it would be easy to kill her because she was an Asian, or didn't have her gun pointed at his head, or was a woman—and smiled as she said, "Come on now, put that gun down. You don't want to spend the rest of your life on death row for killing a lady cop, do you?"

Now she raised her own eyebrows, such as they were, back at Iriarte. Can we talk about this later, sir?

Still fair, he gave her a little nod. "Okay, what do we have here? You talk to Liberty yet?"

"Yes, sir." April decided to show Sanchez she was taking the lead here.

"What's the story there, he our killer?"

April drew breath and exhaled slowly. "It's early days to rule it in or out," she answered. "He was supposed to go to the theater with his wife last night, but at the last minute he went to Chicago."

Hagedorn sniggered. "Chicago, huh? That sound familiar to anyone? I'd bet a grand it's the black bastard."

"You don't have a grand," Skye sneered.

Creaker agreed with Hagedorn. "Nine times out of ten it's the husband."

"Could have been the wife," April threw in. "Petersen's wife has a motive and no alibi."

"One woman, two victims? Does that sound likely?"

"Nobody said she didn't have help. The woman has a lot of rivals, including our victim, and a lot to gain with hubby out of the way."

Iriarte ignored that. "So when did Liberty go to Chicago?" he demanded.

April checked her notebook. "He said he took the two p.m. flight, had a meeting, flew home, and returned to his apartment at the Park Century around midnight. The doorman at his building verified his return at between midnight and twelve-ten."

"Which is it?" Definitely after midnight when the building's porter stopped by to give him some coffee before he went home and before twelve-ten when he double-locked the door and left his post to go to the john."

"Libery come out again?"

April shook her head. "He says not. The doorman says not."

"How about the back door?"

"The back elevator is shut down at six p.m."

"How about the fire stairs?"

"Anybody who opens the gate on the main floor sets off an alarm. I think we'd better look in another direction. Liberty says Petersen's driver—Wally Jefferson—took his car without his permission while Liberty was in Europe a week ago. The car has disappeared. Jefferson claims it was stolen off the street."

"Where are you going with this, Woo? You think this Jefferson had something to do with it?"

"I don't know, sir. Jefferson was Petersen's driver. He knew where they were. He had opportunity."

"I thought you said he was Liberty's driver," Iriarte said impatiently.

"It seems he drove Liberty freelance. In any case, he borrowed Liberty's car without permission, and it's missing."

"Where's the motive for a double murder with him?" Hagedorn muttered.

"We don't know he wasn't there waiting for them. He could have been there, killed them, and left after it was over."

"What's the fucking motive, huh, Woo? A stolen car?"

Mike flushed but kept silent. April was grateful for that. .

"Liberty said he told Petersen his driver was a thief and urged him to cut the man loose. Maybe Petersen took his advice and Jefferson was pissed."

"Because he lost his job?"

"In the postal service, employment beefs end up in mass murder all the time," Creaker joked.

"Good ballplayer," Iriarte commented about Liberty. "What say you, Mike?"

Mike chewed on the ends of his mustache. "It doesn't look to me like one person made the two hits here. That's what's bugging me. There might have been two killers. If they'd been thirsty crackheads, they would have taken the time to grab the purse and Petersen's wallet. Nothing would have stopped them from getting the money. No one took their money. It wasn't robbery."

"Maybe someone's after a lot more than pocket money."

lriarte stared at Skye and Creaker. "Garbage time," he said. "Start with five blocks all around. What are we looking for, April?"

"For the lady, the ME said possibly an ice pick. Maybe a double-edged knife, thinner than a switchblade.' Maybe some specialty item." April shrugged. "Possibly a switchblade. We don't have a COD on the male yet. The ME said he may have seen the woman being attacked and had a heart attack."

"Jesus. Okay, go over the scene again, see if daylight turns something up." The lieutenant glanced over at Mike. "Hey, big shot, you got a plan?"

Mike moved away from the door so Creaker and Skye could get out. "I've always got a plan."

"Well, put it up on the board. I like my cases up on the board, every step of the way. I like to see what we know and what we don't know. I like to see the holes plugged, you know what I mean? April will tell you, Mike, I'm a detail man all the way."

Mike coughed. "That's great, but not in this case."

"Oh, yeah, why not?"

"Because the press is all over this one."

"The press is all over all of them."

"Yeah, but we're going to look really dumb if we're the last ones to know how our investigation is going."

"Yeah, that's exactly what I think. Hagedorn, show the sergeant here where his desk is, and make sure he has everything he needs. Out." Iriarte turned his attention to April. "Anything else?"

April shut her notebook. "That's all we have at the moment."

"All right. Go find the driver." Iriarte contemplated her silently for a moment before adding his final thought. "That's your puppy out there, Woo. You'd better keep him on a leash."

"Excuse me, sir?"

"You heard me. If your boyfriend fucks up the case, your ass is out of here."

"Yes, sir." Was this childish or what? April turned on her heel to hide the flush, spreading over her body like a fatal disease. She didn't bother to insist that Mike wasn't her boyfriend. Iriarte didn't care and wouldn't have believed her anyway.

8

The office where Jason saw his patients was next door to his apartment on the fifth floor of an old-world building on Riverside Drive. At three minutes to four in the afternoon he came out of his office and walked five feet down the hall to his apartment. The day had a surreal quality to it, and he felt almost dizzy from changing dimensions so many times. He'd gotten up early, missed breakfast, spent much of the morning with Liberty, was in too much of a hurry to have lunch. After seeing four patients back-to-back, he was exhausted and desperately hungry. Outside it looked like the 'middle of the night again. And he had only twenty minutes until his next patient would be sitting in his waiting room counting the seconds until he returned. He needed a break, needed to check on Emma.