A Killing Gift

by Leslie Glass

  But it didn't sound like the Bernie April knew. She considered the time frame in light of yesterday's conversation with Kathy. Kathy had been out of town since her mother died. If Bernie had wanted to give his daughter a bunch of tax-free money, could he have gotten it out to Seattle without taking it there himself? Did he plan a trip later on? If he'd given a bunch of tax-free cash to Bill, would Bill have sent it on to his sister? If it went to the kids, it had to be about taxes, right? What else was there?

  Possibly a whole lot of things. A woman none of them knew about? An illegitimate child. Through the window April could see Kathy washing dishes at the kitchen sink, carefully not watching them. Her hair was no different from yesterday, unwashed and un-brushed. Today she was wearing an old gray sweatshirt and jeans and had circles under her eyes that were visible from a mile away. She certainly didn't have the burnished look of a grieving millionaire.

  One thing Kathy had told April was that her father used to discuss everything with them. If he hadn't told her about the money, maybe he'd told Bill and the two men were in some kind of scheme to avoid taxes. April shivered. Now she knew what had bothered her yesterday about the mess Bernardino had left. Bernie was a tidy guy who'd wreaked havoc on his house, so he must have had a reason. April hoped that the money was right there, somewhere under their noses in the house, and had nothing at all to do with his murder. She didn't want to suspect his son of killing him. That was too terrible to imagine.

  The press outside the front door didn't know about the missing money, and no one would tell them anytime soon, but the detectives inside were looking for it, guessing that maybe something had gone wrong between Bernie and Bill, and the son had murdered his own father. No one was hoping for that. But they were praying for something simple; anything was better than a mystery.

  Mike interrupted April's speculation on the missing money. "And what are you really doing here, querida?"

  She considered her options. If she played the cripple, he'd send her home. If he thought she could be useful, he might let her in. It was a small chance that she decided to take. So much for her carefully thought-out plan to remain silent for at least a week. She cleared her sore throat and tried vocalizing for the first time since Wednesday night.

  "Kathy wanted to talk." Her voice was a gravelly whisper that sounded like something a whole lot worse than Marlon Brando playing the Godfather, but at least it was audible. Score one for the Dragon.

  "Did she tell you anything?" Mike showed no surprise that her voice was back.

  "Not yet. Her mom is dead, her dad was murdered, and her brother is a suspect. I'd say she's scared."

  Mike squeezed her arm. "You thought you could handle this on your own? Pretending you couldn't speak? How long did you think you could pull that off?"

  April shook her head. "I was just helping out an old friend."

  "That's what you always say. You have no idea what's going on here." He glanced back toward the house.

  No, she didn't know what was going on. She changed the subject. "Why isn't Bernardino getting a full police funeral?"

  "He isn't?" At this Mike registered surprise.

  "Kathy's pretty upset about it. I would be, too. Thirty-eight years on the job. Lieutenant murdered on a city street…" April shook her head. "What's the reasoning behind it?"

  "I don't know. This is the first I've heard about it."

  "Well, I'm going in to talk to her."

  Mike glanced at his watch. "I thought we settled this already."

  "It's not a problem. I'm taking sick leave." She gave him a mischievous smile, feeling better in his presence.

  "Oh, please." He snorted through his mustache.

  "I am."

  "Fine, if you're taking sick leave, you've got to stay out of sight. Get in bed. Don't attend the funeral. These are the conditions."

  " 'Oh, please' yourself. The picture's changed. You need me."

  "We got a lot of people on this case. What's so special about you?" But he said this with a smile, already opening the door a crack.

  April walked through it and felt the fog of Wednesday roll back in on her. "What's special about me, chico ," she said in her chalk-on-the-board voice, "is that I don't make the answers up."

  He laughed. Like he made them up. "Well, I guess you're feeling better."

  "Look, Bernardino has to have a full department funeral. Bagpipes and everything. Tell Avise it would be a scandal not to. He has the muscle to get it done."

  "I don't know what's up with that," Mike murmured, checking his back.

  "Well, find out what's up with it. You're one of them now. The whole city is watching here. Don't let them act like asses just because they don't know the whole story. Okay?"

  He didn't say anything, but she could read agreement in his eyes.

  "I'll see you later, boss." She took his hand and shook it, rubbing his palm briefly with her thumb. "Nice working with you. By the way, where are you keeping the file, the Sixth?"

  "Anybody ever tell you you're a piece of work?" Mike said.

  "Nope." She let go of the hand and picked her way across the patio to the kitchen door.

  Kathy was sitting at the counter. Mike followed April in, got the water he'd come in for, and disappeared without a word. Okay, it was up to her to get a few things clarified. April filled the kettle and put it on the stove to boil.

  "I hope you have tea. I need it," she said.

  "Oh, Jesus, what a voice," Kathy remarked.

  "At least I have one." April sat on the other stool.

  "Thanks for coming." Kathy looked pretty dispirited.

  "No problem. I'm not officially on the case."

  "Can you stop them from tearing up the place? Baboons."

  "Nope. I warned you. Look, Kathy, when we talked yesterday you didn't really answer my questions about your dad's lottery money."

  Kathy brushed her hair away from her face, looking fifteen years older than yesterday. "Is this an interview?"

  "Very informal. No tape recorders, no cameras, no lie detectors at this time. As I said, I'm not officially on the case. We're just talking, okay? I want to help you."

  "Jesus, don't creep me out. No one ever helps anyone."

  "Try me. What about the money?"

  "Dad said he'd let me know when he got it. As far as I knew, he hadn't gotten it yet. What happens now?"

  "Oh, come on, Kathy, you expect me to believe that a dad who told you everything didn't tell you that he got a check for fifteen million dollars before your mother even passed on and he cashed some of it in even before the funeral?"

  "What?" Kathy's whole body jolted with shock. It didn't look like an act.

  "We have the time frames on his deposits and withdrawals. You didn't go through his files and find them?" April studied her. She must be a pretty lousy special agent.

  "I did check," Kathy said slowly. "The recent statements aren't here." She passed a hand over her brow. "And the house was a mess. It looked to me like he was falling apart. That's how I saw it."

  "You didn't have any suspicions that all was not right here?"

  "I don't know what you mean." Kathy looked out the window.

  "That something was out of whack. That nobody was talking about the elephant in the living room."

  "I told you. Dad wasn't interested in money. He didn't like people chasing him around the block trying to get it. He wanted to run away from that."

  "And he was a brick wall when he wanted to be," April added.

  "Yeah," Kathy admitted. "He was a brick wall on certain subjects."

  "Is that the reason you didn't come to his retirement party? Because he was holding out on you?" April rasped out.

  "No! I was working a case. My supervisor wouldn't give me any more time off. I'll give you his number. You can ask the bastard yourself."

  The front doorbell and telephone rang at the same time. They rang and rang. Nobody made a move to answer them.

  "So, did you talk to Bill about the mon
ey?" April asked.

  The wall phone had no caller ID. Kathy waited for it to stop ringing before she responded. "When?"

  "Before Wednesday." April's face was empty of emotion. She didn't want to say "before the murder."

  Then the kettle began to sing. This got Kathy up. Miss Hospitality. "What kind of tea do you want?"

  "Whatever you have is fine."

  "Mom liked chamomile." Kathy searched around in a cupboard for it.

  "Chamomile is good."

  Kathy fussed with a mug and tea bag. "Sorry, I don't have any cookies."

  "Tea is fine." April took the mug and put her nose into the steam. Hot was best, but she'd wait this time.

  Outside the kitchen, they could hear the noise of men going through the house, talking to each other from different rooms, not making any effort to be quiet or show respect. April guessed there were three or four of them, and Mike was one of them. They were still working the upstairs, hadn't gotten to the basement yet. The doorbell rang again. Nobody answered it.

  "Let's get back to the money. How were you and Bill handling it between the two of you?"

  Kathy pressed her lips into a thin line. "We didn't talk about it."

  "Gee, Kathy, this is hard to believe. If my dad got fifteen million dollars, I'd have an interest in it."

  "I never said I wasn't interested. I said we didn't talk about it. You don't get it, do you?"

  "No, Kathy, I don't get it. None of this is playing for me. Why don't you help me out?"

  "Look, just don't patronize me. Mom died. We were dealing with that, okay? The money was a perk we didn't want to mix up with grieving. Like, Mom died, but hooray, we're rich. That may not make any sense to you. But that's how it was with us."

  "That's what you thought." But that was exactly how it wasn't. April sipped the chamomile. By now she was wishing for that cookie. For a whole plate of cookies, but she never ate when she questioned. Kathy clammed up.

  "Looks like you weren't in the loop. Your dad was cashing in the money big before he died. Four million of it. You said he thought of the money as yours…" She watched Kathy register betrayal.

  The doorbell rang again. A look of irritation crossed Kathy's face. She licked her lips. "Where's the money?" she croaked out in a voice almost as fractured as April's.

  "That's what I'm asking you."

  Kathy shook her head. "I don't get it." But her face said she did.

  "So what about Bill? Does he need money?"

  "Who doesn't need money?" She rolled her eyes, trying to cover her own growing suspicion.

  Good. April had her.

  "Is he the kind of guy who'd hold out on his sister?" she asked.

  Kathy collapsed inside. April could see her world breaking down. Right then she looked as grubby, unkempt, and highly unfemale as a very attractive person could get. Her body language said it all.

  "We weren't close. Dad made us compete when we were kids. Bill was the one who got to law school. He was married, had the kids, got the perks, but he always resented me. You know how it is. Whatever bothers them, they don't get over it, right?"

  The doorbell kept ringing. Kathy ignored it. "Yeah, I guess he might cheat me out of millions if he could get away with it, why not? But kill Daddy? Uh-uh."

  "Maybe Daddy found out."

  Kathy clicked her tongue. "Like you said, April. It isn't playing for me."

  "Well, we'll figure it out."

  "Is this the reason the Department isn't giving him his funeral? Possible gift-tax evasion? Isn't there, like, a three-million-dollar exemption anyway?" She clicked her tongue again.

  "Not my area; I wouldn't know." April's voice was going again, but she believed Kathy's story.

  Four detectives plowed through the kitchen on their way downstairs to the basement. It was clear from their faces that they hadn't found what they were looking for.

  Twenty

  An hour later Mike got into the passenger seat of April's car and slammed the door. Down the street a reporter from a local station had spotted them coming out of the neighbor's yard and started yelling. April could see the girl's open mouth. See her hand raised. She had big red lips and the kind of straight streaky blond hair many Asian girls envied. The reporter was wearing a photogenic outfit, a nice heather-colored jacket and lilac blouse. The pants didn't match perfectly, but it didn't matter because on camera she would never be seen below the waist. April opened the window for some air and heard her plea.

  "Officer, give me a second. Just one." The woman was clearly yelling at Mike.

  April gunned the engine and took off. "You coming with me, chico ? That would be nice."

  "Only to the next stop sign," he said.

  April slowed and cruised the next block of lovely brick houses with picture windows and pointy roofs. She wouldn't mind living out here, but who wouldn't?

  "Okay, stop anywhere along here."

  She slowed in front of a house with a good strong slate roof and a lucky red door. Too bad they were there too soon for the show of fat-budded peonies that were thickly bedded in little kidney-shaped plots, like commas, by the front walk. Next couple of weeks, in mid-June, they'd be out. Nice house, she thought.

  She sighed. Six o'clock was always an in-between time. Not really day anymore, but not yet evening either. Today at six again it was still bright as morning. On her second day in Westchester she could feel the tug of the suburbs, where the backyards were large enough for whole suites of lawn furniture. Where attics and basements were big enough to hold extensive junk collections. And where every house had a garage to hide the car away. The Woo house didn't have a garage. Mike's building had only a covered area. April kept saying she'd buy a new car when she could afford a home for it. Ha.

  She let the engine idle for a moment, then turned it off. The Le Baron was toasty from its long wait in the sun, but she really wanted to bask in the warmth of Mike's nearness. "Miss me?" She was desperate for a hug and didn't want to admit it.

  "Why should I? You're always up to some trick." He shook his head. "This is why we can't trust the Chinese."

  Uh-oh. She didn't like when he went global on her. "Oh, come on, you did miss me." She was determined not to bite back.

  "You're not trustworthy. Why can't you just rest, take a day off for a change?" he grumbled, hitting all her buttons.

  "Look, I don't like to be kept in the dark. I don't like to be pushed aside." Not trustworthy. Jesus. She sulked in the driver's seat, angry at herself for raising the issue. She should have known better than request a time-out for love when he was the primary on a case that was getting stickier by the hour.

  "Left me alone, no message, nothing." Out of his window he studied the house she liked. "You didn't return my messages. How do you think I felt?"

  "I couldn't talk," she reminded him.

  "So now you can talk. Big improvement." He turned to face her, and the bicker transformed itself into a slow, steamy smile.

  Mike was never one for holding grudges. He had his priorities straight. His smile moved right on to the hug she needed. A kiss followed, a long kiss, uncomfortable to maneuver in the bucket seats, but a good kiss nonetheless. April didn't want to be the one to break it up.

  "Mmmm." Finally he made the motions of disentangling.

  She rubbed his neck and discovered muscles that were rock hard with tension. "How late will you be?" Now she felt bad because she hadn't been there for him last night.

  "Few more hours. Are you going back to your mom's? You smell funny. What did she do to you?"

  "Nothing much. I'm coming home." Eventually.

  "Que bueno. I gotta go." He shifted in the passenger seat, refueled for the moment, but then didn't move to get out.

  "I'm sure Kathy didn't know about the money," April said suddenly.

  "Oh, yeah?" Mike raised bushy eyebrows as if he found that impossible to believe.

  "What can I say? It was a dysfunctional family. Welcome to America." April's voice was breaking down again
, but she'd already promised herself that she wouldn't go back to Astoria. She'd have to work on it herself.

  "We'll find the paper trail. It won't be difficult," he said.

  "Yeah, follow Bill. Where was he yesterday morning, anyway? Remember when he burst in on us all, Mr. Indignation? He didn't go to his office in the morning; I checked while you were tossing the basement."

  "Yeah, I know. You're thinking that he came out here and took the files from the house, aren't you?"

  April nodded. "And possibly some of the money. Maybe all of it, who knows?"

  "You think Bernardino kept that much money in cash right here? We didn't find any signs of it."

  "Yeah, but he was smart. I thought I knew him. Now I don't know. Where's his car? Did you check the trunk?"

  "Crime Scene has it. And we're getting serial numbers of the bills Bernie had. He got money in thousands. If anyone starts spending, we'll know." Mike lifted his shoulder, answering April's unasked question. "We could get a warrant and search Bill's place."

  "Well, sure. But he wouldn't put it in a closet, either. Did you talk to Chief Avise?"

  "Twice. He told me to tread softly. He told you to stay out of trouble." Mike pointed a finger at her.

  April gave him a Chinese blank expression that was full of meaning for anyone who knew how to read it. Mike shook his head.,

  "What about the funeral?" she asked.

  "Working it." Mike shook his head some more and leaned close to her again. He kissed the side of her mouth and stroked her hair. "Don't get in any trouble between now and nine-thirty, okay? Promise me?" He gave her another look, then kissed her nose.

  "Well, don't tell me to back off again. I can help you." April made an effort not to bristle.

  "Play nice; be a team player, querida. Somebody knocks you off, I'll be the one in trouble."

  "No one's going to knock me off. I want to talk to Bill."

  "Not alone!" Mike shot back.

  "Then come with me."

  Moody, she stared out at that nice yard. She wanted to know what Bernardino had been up to. If it was just tax evasion, why would anyone kill him? Tax evasion was a national sport. There had to be something else. If Bill was innocent, she wanted to get him out of the way.