A Killing Gift

by Leslie Glass

  Rage and adrenaline shot through her system. Her purse with her gun in it was on the chair in the restaurant next to Inspector Bellaqua. The restaurant was full of cops, but at the moment she wasn't thinking about them or what she was supposed to do: Sound the alarm. Get help. A cop was down. There was no more serious crime than that. Instead she was up again, running to catch the man who'd killed her friend. Her party shoes flapped against the soles of her feet, clacking on the concrete as she ran. She'd caught a glimpse, only a glimpse, of a figure in the fog, and didn't see him now.

  Shit! Where did he go? People in the square were just forms in the mist. But she had a feeling he was heading straight through. She crossed the street and picked up speed. Her heel caught in a crack in the concrete, and her own arrested momentum almost brought her down. She twisted, wrenching her back, but didn't fall. The shoe stuck, so she left them both behind. The cold of wet cement bit into the soles of her feet. But she was a fighter from way back, centered and fast. She didn't mind the wet.

  Just ahead of her she sensed motion in the mist and heard footsteps. A man was walking, not fast enough to be in a hurry. She didn't want to yell, Stop, police, at someone she couldn't see clearly, someone who could take off. She didn't want to declare herself a cop without any backup, any muscle to protect her. Double stupid to leave the scene with no gun. Now it was too late to sound the alarm. She was running. The man ahead was walking fast. Useless strategies spun in and out of her head until some words spilled out of her mouth.

  "Sir, you dropped something," she called.

  "What?" He stopped, turned around, and took a few steps toward her, then crouched down, as if looking for whatever he'd lost. In that position it was hard to tell how big he was. April approached, automatically thinking she could take him.

  "Beat it. I'm not interested." The voice was low and confident. The man thought she was a hooker. All she saw was a baseball cap pulled low. He seemed to be tying his shoes.

  She moved closer. "It's right there. I think it was a credit card or something."

  The rule was never to let them get close enough to stab or lunge at you. April was wary. She was thinking things over. He couldn't see that she didn't have a gun, but still she didn't want to take the risk of saying she was a cop and having him run. She wanted to engage him in conversation to keep him there. Her brain was spinning like a car wheel in sand.

  "Where?" he asked, laughing.

  "I'm not sure, I think near that bench." Under the light. April had both feet on the ground. She was balanced and sure of herself. The man was talking to her, way too calm to be Bernie's killer. But it felt odd, wrong. She was frozen, couldn't leave and didn't dare attack.

  He crouched down as if to take a look. He wasn't acting like a killer, but she'd learned a long time ago to take nothing for granted. Then, soundlessly, he sprang at her with the full force of his coiled legs. His right shoulder tried to catch her in the stomach, and had she not moved backward a quarter step, she would have been driven to the ground. Instead his shoulder glanced off her side and she spun away. When he came back at her she kicked him, spun around a tree, and kicked him again. But he didn't go down. On her third kick he grabbed her foot and flipped her into the air as if she were a matchstick. She flew, and although she turned as she fell, she did not miss crashing into the trunk of the same tree that had shielded her before. Red blotches of pain filled her eyes. He was on her, pulling her to her feet, before her vision cleared. Helpless, she could feel the arm closing around her neck and another coiling around her shoulder. In a sickening instant she knew that this hold would leave her with a broken neck in a heap on the sidewalk like Bernie. She raised her right leg and smashed her shoeless heel down on his instep with all the force she could muster. The blow startled him, but did not ease the pressure of his arm against her throat.

  "Arrgh." Her arms and legs tried to find a target as he held her from behind. More colors exploded in her own private fireworks behind her bulging eyes. This was what it felt like to die. Pure panic filled her as her throat was squeezed like a sponge. She could not call for help. She could not use her brain or her training. She didn't hear the screams from across the street or the sound next to her of a dog barking, or even the male voice that called, "Hey, cut that out."

  Another cop was down.

  Three

  Mike Sanchez had been preoccupied all evening, but not with murder. Homicide numbers in New York had hit their lowest level since 1962, when murders first started to be recorded in the city. Although there were still too many gun-related deaths in the tough sections of Brooklyn and the Bronx, there hadn't been a high-profile Manhattan homicide in months. Mike had watched the love of his life socialize and thought about police politics. A few years ago he never would have dreamed that he and his fiancée would be a Department power couple, invited everywhere the top brass went.

  To the chief of detectives Mike had appeared to be wholly focused on the conversation. But actually April's every gesture had drawn his eyes to her. He couldn't help it. April was so changed from the way she used to be, he hadn't been able to keep his eyes off her.

  When they'd first met in the detective unit of the Two-oh, April had kept the lowest of low profiles on the job. She worked hard, kept out of sight, and interacted with superiors only when she had to. She had not approved of dating colleagues in the Department-or, indeed, mixed marriages-and tried to keep their relationship low-key and unofficial as long as she could. But after they'd gotten engaged everything changed.

  The two famous case solvers were perceived as comers, and now it seemed that every few days they were invited to some Department function they couldn't avoid. April's shyness fell away with the higher expectations for her, and she was thriving in her new identity. Tonight she'd looked good with her sleek longer hair and silk wrap dress. Classy, and no longer afraid to show off her figure a little. She had been talking easily with Inspector Poppy Bellaqua.

  Mike liked that. He never hung by her side, but he enjoyed watching her negotiate the new territory. Not that socializing with the chief of detectives was exactly old hat to him, either. He'd been a street kid from the Bronx who'd run with a gang and could have gone either way. In fact, it had been a young cop who'd turned him around after stopping a knife fight in which he had participated. The scars from it would stay with him forever.

  "Yes, sir," he responded when his boss gave him a look.

  Chief Avise was nursing a diet Coke and brooding about old times. "Back in the day" was always a big topic of conversation at retirement parties. And this was their third retirement party in ten days. March and April were bad months this year. It seemed as if good people like Bernardino were throwing in the towel every day. Even before 9/11, things had been bad. Experienced bosses with more than twenty years in had been falling away like hair on a cancer patient. Bye-bye to grubby precincts, bad guys, frustrations of the job. Bye-bye to risking their lives in the toughest neighborhoods.

  The accrued overtime of 9/11 and the huge shakeup of a new mayor after eight years of triumphs in law enforcement with the last one brought about even greater upheaval and defections. The Department was still reeling from its losses. The new commissioner brought in retired CIA terrorist experts to reinvent security in New York. And comers in the middle ranks, like Mike and April, were moving up to fill the gaps.

  Mike had done well on his captain's test-the last test for promotion he'd ever have to endure. Henceforth all promotions would be discretionary. For him job openings were coming up. Any day he would receive the promotion and change of command that would put him back in uniform as commanding officer of a precinct, or head of a special unit, and bring him up the next step in the ladder of his career. He was not thinking of the old days. He was thinking of the new ones to come.

  "Chief, we've got a problem." Sergeant Becker's face was white. He didn't shout across the room. He'd come inside the restaurant, passed the people sitting and standing at the bar, and now spoke softly into the ch
ief's ear.

  Avise tilted his head slightly to listen. His face didn't change. Only the tone of his voice. "Jesus," he muttered.

  Mike waited silently for his cue. Avise gave it to him. "Shit. Bernie's dead," he said softly.

  "Heart attack?" he asked Becker. It wouldn't be the first time a warhorse died the minute the pressure was off. But the COD didn't matter. Avise was moving his heavy body before the answer was out, and Mike was right behind him.

  Mike might have been finished for the night, full of food and thoughts of love with his novia later on, and far from thinking of disaster. But a cop was never really off duty. Tragedy always got sluggish blood going. He and Chief Avise joined the brass in suits hurrying down the block to the place where a clot of partygoers had instantly formed around the fallen man. Circling them, uniforms were already organizing with the efficiency that made it plain that Lieutenant Alfredo Bernardino was no more.

  This was the moment when lightness usually broke the tension among cops. Corpses of former human beings always elicited inappropriate remarks because no one ever wanted to give in to emotion and weep. Tonight, however, no jokes were forthcoming. Aware of the chief's arrival, the recent revelers parted silently for Avise. One quick glance at Bernardino's body told him the one thing he didn't want to know.

  "Aw, shit. What the hell happened here?" he muttered angrily.

  Fog blunted everything but his voice. He was already barking out orders to people who didn't know any more than he did.

  "What do we got here? You got any witnesses? Close this street now. Get every name. Everybody!" Avise shook himself and backed away, rattling off the to-do list as Mike took his place near the body.

  "It's a homicide. Mike, you're it," he said, pointing his finger.

  "Sorry, sir." Somebody shoved Mike from behind, inadvertently offering him an even better view of Bernardino's staring eyes and twisted neck.

  Oh, no. Mike took the punch and groaned without sound. Violent ends always told the most pathetic stories. Bernardino's eyes in his startled face made him look as if he'd been caught in some embarrassing faux pas. A bad finish for a tough and loyal soldier. Poor Bernardino. Poor guy.

  "Mike, you're it." Avise's words hit like a hammer in his head. Mike's promotion to captain was imminent. His days of test taking were over. No more hands-on homicide. No more knocking on doors to find out what made victims magnets and who were the killers.

  But now he was tagged and It again. He had to find out who wanted Bernardino dead only days after his tenure in the Department was over. Jesus. Why Bernardino? Why now? What had been his last case? What had he been into? Who might be out on the streets that he'd put in the slammer five years ago? Ten? What was the story? Shit. Already the questions were roiling around in Mike's head. The last thing he needed.

  A quartet of sirens were howling now. Blue-and-whites coming, an ambulance. He snapped to, thinking he had to find April and get organized. As he stepped aside, the toe of his cowboy boot caught the hard edge of the plaque that applauded Bernardino's thirty-eight years of service. His first thought was that April had been first on the scene and must have sounded the alarm. Bad luck for her. Bernie had been her old boss, her rabbi before she'd moved out of Chinatown. He wanted to push the weather away so he could see her, go to her side. He began searching the crowd for the familiar figure in the pretty dress.

  "Anybody seen Sergeant Woo?"

  Poppy Bellaqua touched his arm. "What happened?" she breathed into his ear.

  "Some bastard broke Benardino's neck," he said tersely.

  "Jesus!"

  "Where's April?" His voice sharpened as he scanned the crowd and didn't see her. His second thought was that she might have been on the scene when it went down.

  "She followed Bernie out," Bellaqua told him. "She must be here."

  Mike knew she wasn't there and was rattled. He couldn't hear her voice, couldn't see her through the smoke, couldn't smell her or feel her presence. He felt the panic rising. He was a cop, but it didn't mean he didn't get scared. At the best of times he didn't like having April out of his sight. Times like this he was no better than her crazy mother, who wished she'd do practically anything else for a living.

  "Mike, you okay?"

  "April may have seen Bernie's killer." It hurt to spit the words out, but he had to move. April had gotten too close to a fresh kill. Way too close. She might have tried to prevent it. In any case it wasn't like her to leave a scene. Anxiety crawled all over him as screams broke out in Washington Square. He and Poppy locked eyes, then started running.

  Four

  You did a good job. Don't move. An ambulance is on the way."

  Jack Devereaux heard the command and obeyed. Frankly, he couldn't have gotten up if he tried. His whole right side was a fireworks of pain. He couldn't feel his feet and couldn't lift his right arm at all. Not even the hand. He knew without even seeing that particular hand that he'd need a cast. This was a disaster for a person who lived his life by computer. But that was the least of tonight's disaster. His body was on hold, but his brain kept going without it, bumping along over relevant and irrelevant subjects like a jeep on a dirt road.

  "Is she all right?" he croaked out. He was pinned to the ground and no one would give him an answer.

  People were screaming. Sirens were going. And there might be a dead person a few feet away from him. He couldn't tell when he'd tried CPR on her whether it had worked or not. He'd been pulled away too fast, and now no one would tell him if the girl was dead. If she was dead, he'd never forgive himself for not moving fast enough, for not making enough noise. Sheba seemed to think she'd done something wrong. She was on her belly, trying to crawl closer to him. Whining deep in her throat. Sorry, sorry, sorry, boss. Please forgive me.

  "It's okay, baby." He tried to reassure her that she was a hero, she'd done right, but the words came out more like a moan.

  Pain cut through his body, and anxiety cut even deeper. He'd failed again in the saving department. Then his thoughts switched over to smells. He couldn't help being aware of odors. When he was happy, when he was sad, when he was making love to Lisa they could distract him. During disasters especially, his emotions could easily be derailed by his olfactory sense. When his mother was dying of liver cancer three years ago, he'd rushed to the hospital hoping to make it in time. When he got there and saw that she was gone, he couldn't feel the terrible loss because the sheet covering her body had the incongruous odor of wet rubber. So wrong for her, who'd always smelled of the delicate tea rose. After a lifetime of wearing it, she had had the perfume lodged so deep in her pores it seemed part of her. And yet it was the odor of wet rubber that stuck with him. He was like a dog that way.

  Now, lying on the damp cement and fearing another death, Jack was aware only of the agony of broken bones, and the smell of strong garlic and stale cigarette smoke. The mountain of a man who was holding him down had breath that could kill. But the sidewalk under his body also had a smell. So had the girl he'd tried to save; so did the bark and new leaves of the venerable Washington Square trees. Right at that moment Jack Devereaux could have named all the smells of flat-on-the-ground Washington Square. A faint odor of urine, too, from the dogs. What else? Something about the guy struck a chord. He couldn't pin it down. Then his thoughts spun back to the woman surrounded by cops on the ground near him. Dear God, he didn't want to have hesitated and been too late.

  "Please… is she okay?" His voice was like ashes in his throat. Everything in his life had changed two weeks ago, but he still sounded pathetic, like someone who had no control over his life.

  "Whose dog is this?" The question did not come from the mountain with the horrific breath. A new person had arrived. This one smelled of leather and bay rum aftershave.

  "Mine." Jack tried to reach out with his other hand, his left one, but Sheba was beyond his reach, too. The chocolate lab also had a strong smell. It was always comforting to him. Now, restrained by a stranger holding her leash, she whined f
rom the bottom of her soul. Boss, boss, boss. Get over here.

  "How are you doing?" The new person squatted by his side. Jack saw his mustache and thought cop, not doctor. "I don't know," he said honestly.

  "Looks like your arm is broken. I'm Lieutenant Sanchez. We're going to move you in a minute. Can you give me your name and address? Someone to call?"

  "Is she all right?" Jack asked about the woman.

  "Yeah." The word came out curt. "She's all right. Your name?"

  "Jack Devereaux."

  There was silence for a moment. It was always like that these days. As soon as people heard Jack's name, it hit the famous-name register. Yeah, know that one. A celeb. New York was full of them. But Jack was a recent celeb. He wasn't used to it.

  "The Jack Devereaux?" the lieutenant said after a beat.

  "Which would that be?" Jack might be paralyzed for life, but he couldn't resist playing out the famous-name game.

  "Creighton Blackstone's son?" Already amazement was sounding in the officer's voice.

  Jack and the rest of the world were pretty much with him on that one. Shock had echoed around the globe. It was difficult to believe that one of the founding fathers of the Internet, a man with a large empire, whose life had been written about and dissected a hundred times, had actually died leaving an heir no one knew he had. Including and especially the heir himself. Jack Devereaux, a perfectly ordinary young man, nobody of note, was suddenly immensely wealthy. Or soon to be wealthy. Who'd have thunk?

  "Yes, sir, I am," Jack admitted. Until two weeks ago he'd been a young entrepreneur struggling to build his own Internet company. And his mother, bitter to the end because her husband had left her long before making his fortune and having to share it with her, had never told him.