A Killing Gift

by Leslie Glass

  On Thursday April won the first-up race. Long before six, she'd climbed up on her parents' bed, put her face about an inch from her father's nose, and breathed on him until he grabbed and tickled her.

  "Orange juice, Daddy," she demanded. "Please."

  After he got up to supply it, she sat on the closed toilet seat while he went through his shaving routine. Sometimes Jason wore a short beard for a year or two. But now he was back into the routine of scraping his cheeks and gabbing with his little nonstop talker, who liked to lather her own cheeks and play-shave herself.

  By seven he'd finished showering and was dressed in a white shirt, lightweight blue suit, and one of his dozen boring blue-and-red-striped ties. He'd already checked his e-mails and his phone messages, and thought that nothing terrible had happened in the night. Patients needed prescriptions refilled, they wanted to change appointments. Colleagues had to reschedule meetings. At that moment everything appeared normal in his world, and that was enough to make him happy.

  Despite the endless round of terrors expressed daily by his patients about world war and the precarious state of the stock market in addition to their own private tragedies of death and life-threatening events, the rebirth of spring was reviving his hope. He loved his wife and baby and worked hard every day to balance fear against normalcy.

  In fact, life's urgencies post-9/11 had taken on a new poignancy for him. Just having the privilege of being alive and present for his family and patients felt like a gift. Every day was a new gift. Today, when Emma came into the kitchen with a sheet crease on her left cheek, her lovely hair still a little messy, wearing one of his T-shirts, and yawning her sleep away, he felt it again. Blessed.

  "Hey, baby," she murmured to Jason.

  "I'm not a baby," April replied.

  Jason laughed. "Hey, gorgeous." He moved close to cuddle his beautiful wife, nuzzle her neck.

  "No way." Emma made a grumbling noise at the idea of beauty in the morning, so he hugged her and kissed her some more until she stopped protesting. Then he poured coffee with hot milk into a large mug and handed it over so she could climb out of the sleep pit.

  "Thanks." Her first smile of the day. After that first smile had warmed him all the way up, Jason finally turned on the news. The first thing he saw on NBC was a fast-breaking news alert that Birdie Bassett, his most important appointment of the day, had been murdered last night. "Oh, no." He felt the blast of another human life wasted and gone. What was it with him and homicide? He'd had respite from violent death for more than a year, but now it was back. Someone on the fringe of his life had a violent death the night before he was to meet her to discuss important business. Damn! Reflexively, he moved the plastic syrup container out of April's range. She already had a lake of it on her plate and was squeezing out more.

  "No, Daddy!" She tried to retrieve it from him.

  "You've got lots," he pointed out.

  "What's the matter, honey?" Emma responded to his body language. She always knew when he crashed. April didn't.

  "Yum," she said, eating her waffle with both hands and dripping all over the table. "Yum, yum."

  "Somebody I was supposed to see today died last night," Jason said softly.

  "Goodness. Who?" Emma's eyes opened wide.

  "Remember Max Bassett?"

  "Of course, your lifesaver. But didn't he die weeks ago?"

  "Yes. This is his widow." Jason was too depressed to pour more coffee for himself, and he needed it now.

  "I'm sorry," Emma said. "Was she old?"

  "No, she wasn't old."

  "What did she die of?" Then she got it and stared at him questioningly.

  Jason shook his head. He didn't want to go there. Emma herself had been stalked and almost killed a few years back. She was still suffering nightmares from the experience. Only months later, her best friend had been stabbed to death. Their lives were changed forever, and baby April was the result of their need to love each other and have a family. Their precious daughter was named for April Woo, the detective who'd handled both cases, and baby April reminded them of her in some way or another nearly every day. But Jason didn't want to face another murder.

  "No, sugarplum. That's enough." A few seconds ago Emma had been sleepy and out of it. Now she was on active toddler duty with a wet towel at the ready to swab sticky syrup out of April's adorable blond curls as soon as she finished covering them with it. And Emma was on that other alert, too. The murder alert.

  "What happened?" she asked as soon as Jason muted the TV.

  "Later." He clicked his tongue. He really didn't want to talk about it now. The sudden death didn't bode well for the institute, and that was upsetting, too.

  Jason was a prominent psychiatrist/psychoanalyst who taught and supervised candidates at the Psychoanalytic Institute. He also chaired about a hundred thousand ineffective committee meetings there a year. Max Bassett had helped the institute emerge from several decades of decline and finally enter into the modern age. With Max's death, chaos among the dinosaurs was certain to reign again.

  It was a selfish thought, but Jason couldn't help it. The whole mental-health field was suffering from HMO-itis, but psychoanalysts most of all. Psychiatrists had become closely aligned with drug companies and were reimbursed nicely for heavily medicating every kind of emotional distress. Psychoanalysis didn't qualify for reimbursement by HMOs and was scorned by drug companies. To make matters worse, analysts had trouble accepting the fact that they had to fund-raise to support their institutions just like everybody else. Soliciting funds from their patients and patients' families was considered taboo. It was a catch-22. With the loss of an important advocate like Max Bassett, so much had been at stake for the institute that Jason had been looking forward to meeting his widow.

  He pushed away the selfish feeling of loss for the institute with the same motion he used for his breakfast plate. Then he remembered the tremor in Birdie's voice when she'd returned his call a week ago. Something had been bothering her about her husband's will and about his death. She had questions. Jason hadn't thought much of her concern at the time. No one ever believes death is a natural consequence of living. But now that she was gone, he was sorry he'd taken so long to see her. His week could not have been that busy. What had he been thinking? He began to torment himself about it.

  At eight he said his good-byes to Emma and April, then traveled the long distance to his office in the apartment next door to begin his patient day. Several hours later, during the time he was supposed to be at Birdie Bassett's apartment, he'd brooded long enough to call April Woo on her cell phone.

  "Sergeant Woo," she answered right away.

  "Hey, April, it's Jason. Long time no talk."

  "Jason! I thought you dropped off the end of the earth. How's my namesake doing?"

  "Talking up a storm. Emma's great, too. How's Mike?"

  "Oh, being promoted to captain any day. We're doing okay. What's up? I never hear from you unless there's trouble."

  "Well, there's trouble. Birdie Bassett, that woman who was murdered last night…" He sighed. "I had an appointment with her today."

  "I'm sorry for your loss, Jason. How can I help you?"

  "Well, her husband was a donor at the institute. I didn't know her, but she called me last week."

  "I see. Do you have some information that could help us?"

  "Her husband died recently and she voiced some concern about it. I'm calling about that."

  "What kind of concern?"

  "She knew him well, of course. She said he was in perfect health, but you know, people have trouble accepting the fact that sometimes no one is to blame. We're a blaming society."

  "For sure. What are you suggesting?"

  "I'm not really suggesting… You just always told me there are no coincidences in police work. And Mrs. Bassett was troubled last week. I don't know the full extent of her suspicions. I'm just reporting what she told me in the few minutes that we talked. She'd inherited a lot of money, and she g
ave me the impression that her stepchildren didn't get what they expected, and they were contesting the will. She definitely had her concerns. Last night she was murdered. I just wanted you to know."

  April was silent. She wondered about Mike's copycat speculation. Maybe Bernardino's death presented an opportunity to Birdie's enemies. It had happened before.

  "Are you there?"

  "Yeah, I'm here."

  "Can you talk to the detectives handling the case?" he asked.

  "Oh, sure. I guess I could do that," she said.

  "Are you the detective handling the case?" he asked after a beat.

  "One of them."

  "So you know everything about it?"

  "There was another homicide in Washington Square last week, a retired police lieutenant, my old supervisor, in fact. This is the second one," she said slowly.

  "What does it mean?"

  "I don't know. At the very least it means there's a sick person out there who kills rich people with his bare hands."

  "Rich people. I thought you said your supervisor was a cop."

  "Bernardino was a cop with fifteen million dollars in his pocket. Thanks for the tip, Jason. I'll get back to you." Jason hung up the phone more distressed than he'd been before.

  Thirty-seven

  When April hung up with Jason, the sun was out and the city was heating up. It had gone from rain to shine without her noticing, and she felt she'd missed something, missed a lot.

  "What's going on, boss?" Woody Baum was heading uptown in the unmarked unit, away from the mob scene at the crazed Sixth Precinct. He was driving with one hand, playing tag with civilian cars, running red lights, all his usual antics to keep things interesting.

  Woody had been in a rough-and-tumble anticrime unit for three years, driving around with a bunch of tough guys on the third tour in the earliest hours of the morning, looking for bottom feeders to lock up before they got impatient and shot someone. There had been a lot of shootings among the dealers back when Guiliani was cleaning up the city block by block. Since then Woody had hung up his spurs, cleaned up, and cut his hair real short. He was a good-looking, almost preppy kind of guy now, trying to be a nice, quiet detective. It wasn't so easy for him. His life on the streets had made him somewhat unpredictable. April thought of him kind of like Dim Sum-a bad dog with some training that didn't always stick. The poodle squatted in the kitchen when she was thwarted. And Woody kept testing his limits, too.

  Right now April was too preoccupied to chastise him or answer his question. Jason's call had caught her off guard. Cops rarely made friends with people whose lives they'd saved. They didn't like to be reminded of their traumas. But Emma and Jason had been different. They trusted April, had even named their daughter after her. It always made April laugh to think that a little blond angel was carrying her name. But she was proud of the child and secretly wanted to return the favor. A dark-haired Emma, or maybe a Jason. Why not?

  She'd consulted Jason on many cases. In return, Jason seemed to feel that April and Mike were his own private police force he could call on whenever something was off in his world, which was too often for comfort. He treated many different kinds of people and was no stranger to the dark side of human nature. Woody finally got her attention when he ran a light on Forty-second Street while a bunch of car horns blared in protest.

  "Hey, slow down, Woody!" April closed her eyes as a bus hurtled toward them.

  "No problem." Woody chuckled as they made it across the street unharmed.

  April turned her attention to her cell phone and called Mike. "Yo. Sorry to bother you," she said when he answered.

  "What's up?" He sounded stressed.

  "Jason Frank knew Birdie Bassett's husband. He was a donor at the institute. The funny thing is, Jason was supposed to meet her today."

  "Jesus. Okay, thanks for the heads-up," Mike said hurriedly.

  "She thought her husband was murdered. She wanted Jason to look into it."

  "No kidding." Now he was interested.

  "And I got a hold of Brenda and Burton Bassett. Guess where they are?"

  "Their father and Birdie's apartment."

  "Yes, in one. It looks like they'd planned to raid the place before the IRS could get there. Can you get up here?"

  "Give me an hour. I'll try."

  "Right." She hung up as Woody plowed up the Park Avenue ramp to circle the Hyatt Hotel and Grand Central Station. Her cell rang again before they got to the top. "Sergeant Woo."

  "It's Kathy. What about that second homicide in Washington Square last night?" She sounded stressed, too.

  "Oh, you heard," April said a little guiltily.

  "Of course I heard, but not from you. Why didn't you call me last night? You promised." Kathy was peeved.

  "Sorry. I tried you yesterday afternoon." But then April's plate got full, and she forgot.

  "Who's the vic?" Kathy asked.

  "She's the widow of a richie, a big philanthropist. You can look him up. Max Bassett. Two Sams, two Toms. Birdie was attending a dinner at York U. Seems she was an alum there. A donor." April paused at Kathy's sharp inhalation of breath.

  "York U?" Kathy said.

  "Yeah, does that mean something to you?"

  "Well, yeah. Dad went there," Kathy said slowly.

  Bingo, a third connection. "Your father attended York University?" April said excitedly.

  "Yes, ma'am, he got his BS there. He went at night when I was little. I think he got most of the credits he needed for a master's degree, too. I don't know why he didn't finish." She paused for breath. "York U. Humph."

  "That's good, Kathy. Thanks." April was elated and wondered why it hadn't come out before.

  "April, do you still think my brother is involved in Dad's murder?" Kathy's voice was cool.

  "Kathy, I'm going to be honest with you. Bill wasn't forthcoming about a number of things. Right off the bat he made himself suspicious. He left the party early. It seemed odd, you know. Other things, too. I don't want to go into it. But we have to eliminate the family first in every case; you know that. And he's looking clean now."

  "I know," Kathy said softly, but her voice was still icy.

  April let it pass for the moment. "Look, we gave Bill every opportunity to help us out. He came downtown a few times. He invited a search of his house, and some detectives went over it and his car pretty carefully. I'm sure you know he was present at the time of the search. This was on the advice of his lawyer; you know what I'm saying?"

  "I know what you're saying. I don't know anything about a search. When did you do it?"

  "Tuesday."

  "What did they find?" Kathy asked.

  "Look, your brother is a prosecutor. He knows as well as you and I do how to hide an elephant."

  "Are you saying you didn't find anything?" Kathy was still on the search.

  "You know I can't answer that. All I can tell you is that Bill knows how to handle himself. And his team is on his side."

  Suddenly April felt very tired. She couldn't talk about Tiger Liniment or missing millions or anything else with Kathy. For a second she let her thoughts wander to last night, when she'd taken her turn at examining Birdie Bassett's body. The staggering thing about this murder was that the killer had choked his victim-there were bruises on her neck-but that wasn't the cause of death, and he hadn't yoked her as he had Bernie. It was clear to her what he'd done because she knew the move. He killed Birdie with a karate technique few black belts had the deadly strength to execute. One punch, one kill. This time he signed a clear signature. Now she was sorry she hadn't asked Gloss whether Bernardino's killer was left-handed or right-handed. As soon as they knew that, they'd know if there was one killer on the loose, or two.

  She shook her head. One punch, one kill. The move everyone practiced, and that looked so great on TV, came with the caveat of "Don't try this," along with a bunch of other moves it was stupid to attempt when a mugger held a knife to your throat or a gun to your head. The truth was, karate only
worked to give a potential victim a second or two. Ninety-nine out of a hundred amateurs could not gain enough time to get away from an opponent with a gun or a knife.

  Dr. Gloss had sniffed the body for the odor of Tiger Liniment, but Birdie Bassett's body had smelled only of its own waste that she'd excreted at the moment she'd died. And she'd smelled faintly of perfume, blood oranges and roses.

  Kathy made an impatient noise, and April changed the subject. "Can you add anything to what we know about Harry?"

  "Forget Harry. I want to know what's the link between the two victims?" Kathy returned to the question that prompted her call. She wanted her brother well off the hook. That was all she cared about right now.

  "Both victims had a spouse die recently. They'd both inherited big money." April's voice cracked on the words big money because she didn't want this bit of news to surface in the media. "Keep this to yourself, Kathy. Let's not make it a circus, okay?"

  Then April shivered with excitement. No one in the investigation had copped to the fact that both victims had money and both were alums of York University. Marcus didn't know it, and Mike didn't know it. Only she and Kathy knew it. April loved having an edge, even if she'd keep it for only about ten seconds. There was nothing overtly competitive about her.

  "Tell me about Harry." April was back on Harry, relishing the few moments of relative peace in the car with her maniac driver before she'd have to move into the murk of the new victim.

  Kathy clicked her tongue. "Bill told me about the racehorse. That's a crock, you know."

  "You mean, your dad wouldn't give Harry a few hundred grand to buy a horse?"

  "Not a few hundred anything!" Kathy exploded.

  "Even in special circumstances?"

  "No!"

  "What about Bill-would he give money to Harry?"

  "Are you nuts?" The suggestion made Kathy ballistic.

  April paused to give her another moment to speculate. Come on, Kathy, don't make me hurt you, she thought.

  "Look, I've been thinking about it a lot," Kathy admitted finally.

  "Uh-huh." April was sure she had.