A Clean Kill (12 page)

"She placed Remy with the Wilsons?"

"Of course, and the last girl and the one before that."

"How many have there been?"

Alison shrugged. "I don't know. A lot. They never work out. It's always something."

"Tell me about Remy," April said.

"What's there to say? She. comes from Wyoming. She doesn't know how to dress and she doesn't know how to clean."

"Can't clean?" April said. Somebody cleaned that gym pretty well.

"Oh, no, she's a terrible cleaner. The place was always a mess. All she cared about was food and Wayne. 1 have to get out of here."

"Did Remy have any special friends?"

"She and Lynn, my nanny, are very close. Our kids are close. They all spend time together. And there's another girl in the neighborhood, Leah. I don't know who she works for. She hangs around a lot. There are others. You'll have to ask them."

April changed the subject. "What about Maddy's husband? Has he ever hurt her?" April asked.

"Wayne? No! He gave her everything, wanted her to be happy. He built that gym. Wayne would never hurt her."

A uniform called Ulla came in with a mug of hot water and a cup of regular coffee from the deli down the street. She handed the coffee to Alison without asking if it was for her. "You need anything else?" she asked.

"Do you have Sweet'n Low?" Alison asked.

"I could look downstairs," Ulla offered.

"Here, I have some." April reached in her desk and passed two over.

"See, you know about maintenance. Are you married?" Alison dumped the powder in her coffee, stirred, sipped, and was distracted. "Ugh. This is terrible coffee. Do you have anything stronger?"

"Sorry about the coffee." April returned to the subject. "Would you say the Wilsons were a happy couple?"

Alison shook her snakeskin boot. "What's a happy couple?"

"I think you know what I mean."

She dipped her head. "Well, they're totally famous. He's a busy man. I have one like that, too. You have to watch them all the time." She glanced at her watch. "I could use a drink. Oops, I didn't

say that." She glanced guiltily at the tape machine. "Don't tell my husband I said that."

"Alison, did Maddy use, too?"

"Excuse me?"

"Alcohol, cocaine, other drugs?" April said as if it were a given.

"Uh, no. Of course not."

"It'll show up in the autopsy if she did," April told her.

Alison looked scared. "Why are you asking me that? I wouldn't know something like that."

"You were her best friend. You did everything together, shared the same trainer, the same employment agency. I think you shared a lot of things. Did Derek sleep with you both, supply you with your drugs?"

"Oh, God, no! Don't drag Derek into this," she wailed.

"No to which?" April asked innocently.

"Jesus. You're intimidating me."

"This is a murder investigation. The truth is going to come out, Alison."

"Well, he didn't sleep with her. I know he didn't."

"How do you know?"

"He liked her, but it wasn't like that. She wouldn't give him the money for his place. It was strictly, and I mean strictly, business with those two!"

"That's not the way I hear it," April murmured.

"Well, let me put that rumor to bed. It was him and me," she said angrily. "Not her and him.
Me."
Then she realized what she'd said. "Oh, God.

Don't get me in trouble. My husband would kill me."

"Alison, where were you at nine o'clock this morning?"

"I told you. I was at home waiting for Maddy to call me. Jesus, are you crazy?" She pulled her bag back onto her lap, clutching it tightly. "What are you saying?"

"Just wondering how angry you would be if you found out Derek was having an affair with Maddy."

"But he wasn't."

April didn't say anything for a while.

"He didn't tell you he was, did he?" she asked in a small voice.

"What about the coke? Where did she get it?"

"I don't know anything about any coke."

"Don't lie to me, Alison. I can see it in your eyes."

"It's not a big thing. I had a bad day."

"You had a bad day?" April repeated.

"Yeah, my best friend was killed."

"But you didn't hear about it until we came to the gym, right?"

"So?"

"Then where did you get the coke? Was it at the gym?"

"No, I had it with me. . . . Shit." Alison pulled on her ear. "It wasn't about cocaine. Don't make it about that. It's all over the place in the restaurant business. Modeling business. Advertising. Wayne had it around. Believe me, no one would murder anybody over that."

"Somebody's dealing. Who is it?"

"Don't make it about that," Alison begged. "If you go there, you could arrest the whole fucking city."

"So you don't think your boyfriend, the coke dealer, killed her?"

"Shit, I never said he was a dealer, and he would never hurt anybody."

"So you think maybe Wayne got angry when Maddy fired his girlfriend?"

"No! I never said anything about Wayne, either. Maddy's fired girls before, lots of them. It wasn't a big deal. If Wayne liked one of them, he'd give her a waitress job. Nobody lasted long," she said furiously.

"But Remy probably didn't know that," April murmured.

Alison started sobbing. "If Remy did it, then I'm really upset. I can't take any more of this. I have to go home now." She looked as if she might be sick again.

"Well, who else could have done it?"

"I don't know. But Lynn is Remy's best friend. How can I have her in the house now? I'm afraid," she said.

"What are you afraid of?"

"I could be next," Alison cried. "I need protection."

"Why? Who would want to kill you?" April asked.

"They hate us. They wear our clothes. They steal our things. If they can get our husbands, they'll steal them, too," she ranted.

"Are you really at risk? Is Lynn having an affair with your husband?" April asked, wondering at the whole thing. The husbands with the nannies, the wives with the trainer, and cocaine abuse in the mixk. How did it all fit?

"What? What? Is Andrew having an affair with Lynn?" Alison said, sounding panicked. "Are you sure?"

"It was just a question."

"Jesus." Alison broke down sobbing. "Jesus. You got me all mixed-up. I don't know what I'm saying."

April turned off the tape. "I think you need help, Alison."

"No, I'm fine. I'm having a bad day. Please, don't drag me and Derek into this. We didn't do anything wrong."

April didn't make any promises. One thing she did know was Alison's cover was blown on the dope. Derek would flush his stash before they got to his place with a search warrant. But the case had just gotten a little more complicated.

Fifteen

A
pril called Mike late in the afternoon. "What's up,
chico?”

This time he was the one to say, "You first." She could hear his desk chair creak as he sat back to listen.

"Well, Maddy was sleeping with her trainer, Derek Meke. He didn't tell me. Woody got it out of him."

"Good old Woody. What kind of guy is Derek?"

"About what you'd expect. Big guy, bulked up. Looks like he's on steroids. He has no cuts or bruises on his hands, face, or body. Woody checked him out."

"He get permission for that search?"

"Everything on the up-and-up. Derek volunteered to show everything, his body, his clothes, his locker at Workout. No wet clothing. We took some wet towels from the bathroom. He was there at nine twenty. A trainer he works with says he was there when she came in. He said he left the house at nine. Anybody in the neighborhood see him?" April asked.

"So far we do have one hit on that. He stopped for a Snapple at the comer store at about five past nine. He's in the neighborhood often so the woman there knows him. She says he seemed fine, looked the way he always does—very good."

April made a noise.

"The detective who interviewed her said his hair was dry. She has a crush on him, so she'd notice. What about you, querida? Do you have a crush on him?" Mike asked teasingly.

"Not my type," she said with a little smile. "But dry hair doesn't mean anything. If he killed her, he could have been wearing a shower cap. And there was a hair dryer in Maddy's gym."

"And he could have been wearing a whole plastic suit, like the Tyvek we wear. We're searching garbage cans."

"What do you think?" April asked. "Think he did it?"

"If he killed her at the end of the session, the time frame wouldn't fit. If he killed her at eight a.m. when he first came in, the whole family would have been gone. He would have had an hour and five minutes to make a bloody mess of her, clean up, and get that Snapple."

"That would work. He had opportunity and time to do it, but what about motive?" April said slowly.

"Maybe they had a lovers' quarrel. What's your take? Is he an angry person?"

"Mmmm, I'm not sure. He's a good actor, has that soft and touchy demeanor that works with women. He's a con type. Really sincere. Looks you straight in the eye. You'll see. He's definitely a player of some kind. He also slept with Maddy's best friend, Alison Perkins. She didn't know he and Maddy had a thing. She was pretty freaked-out to hear that. And there's a cocaine element here. Alison's a user. Maddy may have been, too. It's not clear how it fits. Alison's pretty paranoid. She doesn't want to get anybody in trouble."

"Derek has no record of violence, not even a speeding ticket." Mike put his hand over the receiver and spoke to someone, then came back on the line. "You were saying there's a coke connection."

"Woody searched the gym pretty well. He came up with a lot of vitamins and stuff but no illegal substances. But he didn't take the place apart, of course. Alison said Wayne had blow around and she admitted she had some in her gym bag. I could see her killing Maddy out of jealousy—she certainly has the rage. But she's very small, less than a hundred pounds. Anything on Maddy's finances yet?"

"Minnow has someone working on the bank statements. Looks like Maddy used her ATM with unusual frequency. The lady dispensed a lot of cash."

"I can see a justification for that. It would prevent her husband from knowing how she spent her money. I guess you're following the case pretty closely," April remarked.

Mike was quiet for a moment. He didn't need to say that homicide was his area of expertise, and never mind the protocol of the situation. He was going to work the case his own way, and she was going to work it with him because that was how he wanted it. Since he'd chewed her out pretty fiercely in the past for similar independent action of her own, she almost had to laugh. As they say, "What goes around, comes around."

"What about the incoming and outgoing calls this morning?" Mike asked.

"We have the outgoing numbers. One was to Alison Perkins. One was to Jo Ellen Anderson. That's the employment agency," April told him.

"I know. There were messages from both of them as well. Jo Ellen Anderson, at five to nine, confirmed an interview at her office at two p.m., a new girl to replace Remy. Message from Alison, at nine thirty-two, wondering where she was. Maddy was probably dead by then."

That meant Remy lied about making up with Maddy. Maddy had already fired her. Or else Wayne had underestimated his wife's resolve in the matter; April thought it through.

"So, where did you talk to Derek and Alison?" Mike asked, breaking into her review.

"I took them to my place," she said after a beat.

"You better share,
querida,"
he warned.

"Oh yeah," she promised.

"What's going on with the senator's kid?" He changed the subject.

"I guess you've seen it on TV. His mother got him out of the hospital. No one's saying anything about it. The senator is flying in tonight."

"How's your sergeant doing?"

"She and Hagedorn are working on it," April murmured.

"How do you feel about it?" he asked.

Oh, he knew her so well. April sipped from her latest mug of cold tea and took a second to think about it. When she was coming up, her boss was one Sergeant Margaret Mary Joyce. At the time, Sergeant Joyce was fat as a sausage, wore her suits too tight, and had coffee stains down the front of her blouse almost every day. The woman was as mean as a whip and took the credit for every case April and Mike solved. "Get out of the way" was her motto. April had been a detective second grade and Mike a sergeant. Both had chafed under her rule and conspired to work around her.