A Killing Gift (15 page)

O
n Monday morning Bernardino's funeral was covered by all the papers and TV stations in the area. With all the family secrets still in the freezer, the Department came through with a full police blowout, a bagpipe unit, the chief of police, chief of detectives and all-if not the actual police commissioner himself, who was with the mayor in DC on NYC business.

Four detectives from Bernardino's unit helped carry the coffin with his son and nephews. Some walked with the family, and some surreptitiously photographed every mourner in attendance. Nothing unusual about that. Investigators always photographed the crowds around crime scenes and funerals. Some killers became attached to their victims and returned again and again to relive their triumph. Others hung around to offer help. And a surprising number came to their victims' funerals to say a last good-bye.

Harry Weinstein's wife was right about his being sure to come to his old friend's funeral. April was the one to spot him at the cemetery. The same mustard-colored jacket he'd worn to Bernardino's retirement party stood out against a sea of gray headstones and the smaller throng of diehards wearing black and gray who'd taken the extra time to follow the hearse to Bernardino's final resting place in Queens right next to Lorna's brand-new mound that didn't have grass yet. Harry had missed the pomp and the eulogies up in Westchester, but was there to see his friend's coffin lowered into the ground.

April skirted the sad flock and caught up with him as he was sidling away. "Didn't you get my messages, Harry? I've been trying to reach you all weekend."

"Hey, April. How ya doin'?" Harry gave her a quick once-over the way cops do. Arrogant, checking things out.

"Not so great." April had a new trick. She could make her voice crack whenever she wanted to. She did it now.

"What's the matter with you? You got a cold or something?"

"Yeah, feels like someone tried to choke the life out of me. What about you? You hiding from something?"

His wide shoulders climbed up his neck. "I lost my cell. You know how it is… What's on your mind? You're not on the case…?" The question hung in the air as he gave her a sly smile that showed off big nicotine-stained teeth.

"Oh, I'm just trying to track a few things down for the family. Kathy and I go way back," she said.

"She's a good kid." Harry turned his head to stare out at the stalled traffic on the Long Island Expressway nearby.

April followed his gaze to nowhere. "What did you do after you left the retirement party?" she asked.

Harry's eyes snapped back to her in surprise, as if this were the very last question he expected to hear from her. "Me?"

"I'm talking to you, aren't I?" she rasped. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mike approach.

"Hey, what's going on?" Harry looked at Mike, who nodded for April to continue whatever she'd been saying.

"Harry's been out of the loop. He doesn't know we're looking for a killer," she told him. "Funny, huh?" She scrutinized the old-timer and didn't make the introductions.

Harry was six-two, a hulking guy, slightly hunched over. He moved like a turtle, but bulk on an old cop could be deceiving. They were used to moving when they had to. Harry didn't smell of camphor or spearmint. He smelled like a bundle of very old clothes that had spent a century or two in a trunk full of cigar butts.

"I had some business out of town." Harry lifted one side of a long, untamed eyebrow at Mike.
Who are you?
it demanded.

"Lieutenant Sanchez, Homicide task force," Mike introduced himself without offering his hand.

Harry nodded, friendly. "Okay. I'll talk. But I'm hungry. Want to buy me lunch?"

Twenty minutes later they were sitting in a grungy pizza place in Elmont. Harry didn't want to go there, so he placed a defiant order of a meatball hero even though it wasn't on the menu. The waiter wrote it down without blinking. Mike ordered an everything pizza. April rolled her eyes because Mike refused to believe she didn't like cheese. She asked for hot tea.

"Red Rose is all we got. That okay?" the waiter asked.

She wrinkled her nose and nodded. All teas were not created equal.

When the ordering was done, Harry's shoulders relaxed a little and he leaned back in his metal chair. "I'm going to tell this to you, no one else, okay?"

Mike shook his head. It didn't work that way, and Harry knew it.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I loved the guy. I was the shlepper, never made more than detective third grade. Bernie made good. I would never hurt a hair on his ugly head. I worshiped him, okay? What do you got?"

"We got a few questions," Mike said.

"Okay, so ask." Then he started answering before Mike had time. "I came to the party. I wasn't feeling so good after all that heavy food. I didn't want to go home so I stayed in Manhattan with a friend, okay?"

"What friend?" Mike asked.

"This isn't for public consumption, so keep it quiet, okay?"

"What friend?" Mike raised his own eyebrows.

"Her name's Cherry. Hey, a little respect. Don't laugh; she's a business associate."

"What kind of business do you have with Cherry, Harry?" April coughed out the question through a bad case of the giggles and avoided Mike's eyes. Even so, she could see his shoulders shaking. Cherry and Harry. Everyone was going to have fun with this one. And poor Carol didn't have a clue.

"I'm in the horse-racing business." Harry stretched for some dignity and failed.

"Has Cherry got a number, Harry?" April asked.

"Look, she's a breeder, okay? This is completely legit."

"Cherry is a breeder? She's breeding for you?" This was another new one. Bernardino was gone and buried, and Mike and April were cracking up with the comic relief of Cherry breeding for Harry.

"Cut it out. She breeds thoroughbreds for racing."

"So what's your involvement with Cherry?" Mike couldn't help repeating the name and drawing out the two syllables into three.

"I've been looking at a horse. In fact, I bought one." He beamed with the pride of ownership.

"You bought a racehorse?" It took a second to digest this. April and Mike eyed each other, the laughter gone. "How much do thoroughbreds go for these days?" Mike asked.

Harry squinted, considering the question. "Not a lot, a few hundred thou. But we think he's promising. Warlord is his name." Harry's one long eyebrow did a dance. He was beginning to have some fun of his own.

"Harry, where did you get a few hundred thousand dollars for a horse called Warlord?" Mike inhaled on the absurdity.

"I got it from Bernie, God rest his soul." Harry crossed himself.

"Yeah," April cut in.

The pizza and meatball hero came. The hero was huge. Harry was in no hurry to wolf it down. For a suspect in the interview game there was pretty much only one trick: Keep mum on the important stuff, and nobody could do a thing about it. Detectives could bring a suspect in, keep him, let him go, then bring him in again. Fishing expeditions were annoying and time-consuming for a person being examined again and again but couldn't hurt anyone with the nerve to hold out. Lawyers could stop the questions, but only for a while. If cops had no secrets on a guy, no muscle in the form of jail-time threats to use against him, there wasn't a thing they could do short of beating him up to get him to give.

Harry Weinstein had been a cop for a long time. He didn't need a lawyer to help him obfuscate. Eight hours after Bernardino was finally laid to rest, he was still cruising for a bruising, completely comfortable with the situation. He was retired, on half pay for life. No one could fire him or put him in jail or hurt him in any way he cared about. He wasn't going to give.

After lunch Mike and April put him in the car and drove around for a while, taking turns hammering away at him. Then Chief Avise had a little chat with him downtown at headquarters. He didn't talk for the chief of detectives either, and didn't have to miss his bedtime. Everyone was tired. Around ten p.m. he went home wagging a tail he pretended not to see. He had an appointment to come back to the Sixth Precinct but didn't know it yet. His mood was high.

T
he next morning bright and early Harry had a surprise visit from two uniforms in a squad car, and got a free ride downtown to where April and Mike were waiting to do it all over again.

"You know we slept on your story and it's just plain disrespectful," Mike said. "You hurt our feelings."

"How so, my man?"

"We're not your man. We're your only hope here. You expect us to believe that Bernardino gave you a suitcase full of cash to buy a freaking horse? Come on." Mike had had a good night's rest and didn't give a shit how long it took to break Harry down.

"It's what happened, pally." Harry shrugged.

"No paperwork, nothing? What a friend!"

Harry shrugged some more.

"Listen, I heard different. I heard you and Bernardino were on the outs."

"Who said that? I never heard that." Harry feigned amazement.

"The way I heard it, he blew you off a long time ago, so what happened to change his mind?"

"What can I tell you? We went back a long way together. I gave him all the particulars on Warlord. He started slow, but he was picking up. A real beauty. It was a good deal."

"Who started slow? Bernardino or the horse?"

"The horse started slow. He was a late bloomer."

"So Bernardino gave you money for a slow horse. Why would he do that?"

"Bernie was like that, real heart-of-gold kind of guy. He believed in dreams. You know that about him, right?" He locked eyes with April.

"When did he fulfill your dream, Harry?" she asked.

Harry smiled. "I don't know, a couple of weeks ago. I don't remember what day."

"You can't remember getting a suitcase full of money. Can't remember when your dream came true. Come on." Mike laughed. "You're an insult to the field."

"Honest. I'm retired. I don't know one day from another."

But Mike knew they had a problem, and so did April. There was no mention of any meeting between Bernardino and Harry in Bernardino's daily calendar, and certainly no file on horses. Not any kind of horses. Bernardino had been a careful man. If he was going to spring for a racehorse, the odds were his files would be full of horse statistics, or spreadsheets-whatever they did with horses. But there was none of that. Bernie didn't have horse pinups in his file like his house pics. So many houses, all in different styles, different locations. Bernardino wouldn't purchase an item cold. He wasn't that kind of individual. Mike figured Bernie hadn't known about any horse. He changed tack and hammered the other subject.

"We need to talk to your girlfriend, Harry. Clear up a few things."

"Talk to her. Who's stopping you?" Harry lifted his shoulders, saw his hands fly up in front of his face, and took the opportunity to examine his nails. He could hardly control his grin. He was enjoying himself. No one could touch him.

"I would talk to her if I had a last name, a number," Mike said.

"I'm old. I forgot."

"Harry. Be easy on yourself. Give us a name. We're going to find her anyway. Down the road it's going to get nasty. You know how it is. If everything's on the up and up, nothing can hurt you. You got a gift horse. Okay we'll forget the gift tax. I give you my word. This is not about the money, you know that. Money…" Mike lifted his own shoulders and let the word trail off. "Money between friends. That's sacred. We won't touch it. Just give us the name." Mike glanced at April. She tapped her wrist. She was going out for a break.

"Mikey, I've been married forty-five years. Cherry's just a friend, but my wife is everything to me. You know how it is; I just can't do it."

Mike did know how it was. He'd hit a brick wall. But he had a method for finding people, and pretty much it always worked. "Yeah, pally, I do know how it is. See you later."

"Can I leave now?"

"What do you think?"

Mike and April left the interview room together. Mike called Marcus Beame on his cell. "I need you to find someone," he told him.

"No problem, Lieutenant, who?"

"Female known as Cherry. Breeds horses. I'd guess around fifty, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older, but not much. I don't have much more than that. She's a known associate of Harry Weinstein."

"Harry's girlfriend?" Marcus laughed.

"You got it."

"You got a place to start looking for Harry's Cherry?" Beame joked.

Mike clicked his tongue. "You know, he said he'd spent Wednesday night with her in the city, but I'm thinking she doesn't live here. Try upstate somewhere. Horse country. Nothing fancy, though. Harry's a lowlife."

"Okay. I can do that. Work back from Harry."

"You might try checking horse-breeding records, too. I think thoroughbreds are registered with the racing association-I don't know, some association. Cherry's got a horse called Warlord. See if she sold it to anyone."

"Anything else, sir?"

"That's it. And I don't want to know how you do it-whatever you have to do, just get her in here."

"Do I have twenty-four hours, boss?"

Mike checked his watch. "Yeah, sure. Before noon tomorrow would be real good."

April met him on the stairs a few minutes later. He was on his way to the men's room. "Something odd has come up."

"Oh, yeah."

"The same number came up on both Bernardino's and Jack Devereaux's caller ID list."

Mike frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Beats me," she said.

J
ack Devereaux was an angry man. The press and the cops had made him a prisoner in his own home. He was stuck on the sofa with his sweetheart plying him with food he didn't want to eat, antsy as hell. He wanted to go out to eat. He wanted to walk, and he wanted out of where he was. His bruises were healing, and his broken arm itched. He was beginning to think of fleeing but felt he was too famous to move. It was not a good situation.

His father had left him a town house on Sutton Place, and another house in California. Both had heavy security, but he resisted moving into a world from which he'd been excluded for so long. To be sure the Manhattan house was amazing. The classic four-story brick building on Fifty-seventh Street had been gutted and redesigned for a contemporary sensibility. The rooms flowed one into another and even from one floor to another. Staircases seemed to be suspended on air.

He and Lisa had visited there exactly once. Lisa had been intrigued by the huge kitchen, the mirrored ceiling in the master bedroom, the terrace on the East River, and also by the obscenely large master bathroom. The bathroom took up half a floor and was tiled in three different colors of marble. The shower had no walls. The Jacuzzi was a custom design; its faucets looked like real gold. The attention to detail in the house was so opposite to the lack of attention paid to him that Jack reacted to the tour by vomiting in his late father's powder room toilet. He hadn't gone back. But now the idea of having resources was beginning to jell. He wanted some of that money so he could hide.

But it wasn't so easy. He couldn't exactly get a billion-dollar check and suddenly become the head of a giant corporation. It didn't work like that. There were little things like procedures, probate. Everything took time. He knew that from when his mom had died. In a huge estate like this, the feeding frenzy among the lawyers would drag it all out. Probate hadn't been filed yet, but Jack had been informed that he could take his trusteeship in the company foundation immediately. He could also request a deposit or something, a few mil to tide him over until the estate was settled. Since his visit to the hospital, he was getting calls from his new "friends," the lawyers at the firm of Gibson, Frank, and Field urging him to get out of town, and he wanted to go. But he was resistant to leaving the only life he'd ever known. He didn't want to lose himself.

On Monday after the murdered cop's funeral, he was wavering. On Tuesday when he got an early-morning call from Al Frayme, he still hadn't moved. Lisa wasn't quitting her job anytime soon. She was back at work, and he was alone again, bummed out, glad to get a friendly call.

"What's up, Al?"

"How are you holding up? We're worried about you," Al said. "Anything we can do?"

"Thanks, but as I told you Friday, there's nothing to worry about. I'm fine."

"Good. Then business. You're not going to let me down next week, are you?"

"About what? You know I can't do gifts yet."

"No, no, nothing like that. You're speaking at the reunion, remember? You're going to be okay for that, aren't you?"

"Oh, yeah. With all this I forgot about it. Gee, I'm not sure. I might have a conflict out of town next week." Speaking on any subject was the last thing in the world he wanted to do now. No way.

"Oh, God, don't welsh on me. I'm counting on you."

"Look, Al, what can I say? I got hurt last week. I just don't know if I'm up for it."

"But it's so fucking impressive. Everyone is dying to hear about it. What a New York story. Saving a cop, fighting off a killer… it's amazing."

"Oh, I really did a job on him," Jack said bitterly.

"Oh, come on, don't be so modest. I heard you hurt him bad."

"It's all a crock. I didn't get anywhere near him."

"Not what my sources say. We're going to write you up in the magazine. Billionaire alum, New York hero. What kind of Good Samaritan story is that?"

"It's great, but I'm not interested."

"Oh, come on, it would be so good for both of us."

"Al, I'm spooked, okay? I'm not interested in being described as a hero when there's a killer out there."

"I'm sure he doesn't read the alumni magazine."

"Very funny."

"Come on, lighten up. People like you are exactly what the university desperately needs. Don't let us down."

"Not right now, okay, Al?"

"What can I do to change your mind? How about a limo for the event?"

"I'm only a few blocks away. I could walk. That's not the issue." Jack was trying hard to be nice.

"Then what's the issue?"

"I told you I'm nervous. Call me a wimp, whatever.

I don't want to do the event. It's not safe." Jack gazed out at the reporters downstairs. He had a lot of trouble going out.

"The university could protect you, I promise."

"Don't make promises. That's not the issue."

"What's the issue, Jack? You're one of us. I want you to know we're here for you. It matters to us that you're happy, feeling secure. The president, everybody. We want you happy. We can keep you safe."

"Well, tell everybody I'm happy, but I have another call coming in." Jack cut him off. He didn't want to hear any more people telling him how important he suddenly had become. He wasn't doing the reunion, period.

His call waiting kicked in.

"Hi, it's April Woo."

"Oh, hello." That was all he could manage even for her.

"Listen, can you come in today? I need you to look at somebody."

"Who?" Then he got excited. Maybe it was over.

"A guy." The pretty cop was noncommittal.

"Look, I'm under siege here. Is this for real?"

"What's going on?"

"The reporters won't go away. Don't these guys have anything else to do?"

"Everybody's trying to flush you out of your little pond into the big sea where you belong. You're the only guy in the world who prefers a walk-up to the Ritz. And you're a hero. It's all news. Do you want me to send a car for you?"

He wasn't a hero, but everybody wanted to send a car for him. Why wasn't he impressed?

"Well, it would be nice to get there without a confrontation in front of the building," he murmured. On the other hand, it wouldn't be so nice to see a clip of himself getting into a squad car on the evening news.

The detective read his mind. "How about an unmarked car?" she said.

"That would be great. Do you have the man who attacked you? If you had him, it would be a huge relief."

"Yeah, for all of us. The whole city. A car will be there in ten minutes, maybe eleven if the traffic is bad. Officer Maureen Perry will be your driver."

Seven minutes later a black Buick pulled up in front of his door building. The driver was a blond woman in uniform. The uniform blew his cover.

"Good morning, sir," she said, a little surprised when he charged out of the building, dove into the front seat next to her, and slammed the door. After that she didn't say a word, only nodded when he got out and thanked her for the ride.

As he headed into the Sixth Precinct his arm itched badly in its cast, and he had the feeling of rage that had been flashing on and off in him like painful power surges ever since his father died and stole his identity. Now absent fathers and murderers were all mixed up in his mind. Maybe the absent father was the murderer. All he wanted was to be normal again-to watch the Yankees battle the Mets, to make love to Lisa, to build his little business his own way. Normal.

Instead he couldn't get out of being an item on the news. His photo, inset next to a larger one of his father, had been on the cover of
Time
magazine two weeks ago. He was followed around by reporters. Yesterday the cop's funeral had dredged it up again. And now he was in the center of a murder investigation. Every talk-show host wanted him on TV talking about it. He didn't see how rich was good. It got him into this, but it couldn't get him out.

Inside the precinct, the desk lieutenant gave him a quick glance and knew right away who he was. "Mr. Devereaux?"

"Yes."

"They're waiting for you upstairs. First door."

Jack found the stairs and took them two at a time. There was nothing wrong with his legs, and he was in a hurry to see who was in custody. At the top of the stairs the door to the detective unit was open and people were spilling out. With them came a cloud of cigarette smoke. So much for the law against smoking in government buildings.

"I'm looking for Sergeant Woo," he told a skinny man with a pencil mustache and a gun at his waist who was sitting on the first desk with his cell phone pressed against his ear.

"You can wait in here." The man got up and led him through a maze of detectives and desks to a room with a window. The blind on the window was up, and April Woo was in the room beyond. He could hear her talking with a man who was definitely not the person who'd attacked him. He was too big, too fat, and too old. Jack sat down, disheartened. He'd hoped it would be over.

After a few minutes Mike Sanchez came into the room and shut the door behind him. "Thanks for coming in," he said. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay. It's not him."

"Are you sure he doesn't look familiar to you at all?"

Jack's memory of Wednesday night had jelled solid. It didn't vary with the time of day, and he didn't have to study the man sitting at the table in the other room to know he wasn't the one. The man he'd seen gripping April in the fog had been catlike, a dancer. The man in the room with her now had a soft belly that doubled over his belt. He was a bear with big flat feet and fingers like sausages. A bear crushes with his weight. Jack touched the cast on his arm. The man who'd attacked him had not been a bear. Not a polar bear nor a grizzly bear. He'd been snake thin, snake quick, and snake agile. Too fast to grab hold of. He shook his head.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm dead sure. Who is he?"

"Someone who borrowed a lot of money from the deceased."

Jack shifted his attention to Sanchez. "Why do you call him the deceased?" he asked.

"Sorry. No disrespect intended."

At that moment, a large woman in a red jacket went into the interview room and whispered in April Woo's ear. She got up and left. A few minutes later she joined them and nodded at Jack.

"Thanks for coming. The traffic wasn't bad?"

Small talk. "No, not bad. Thanks for the ride," Jack told her, smiling a little because she was so pretty, and pretty in a cop still surprised him. Call it male chauvinism. Sanchez was what he would expect. Sergeant Woo was something else. She acknowledged his smile with a little one of her own. She knew.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm doing okay."

"Good. How about our pal in there?" The smile disappeared, and the sergeant's face went blank. It was kind of eerie the way she wiped it clean.

Jack glanced at Mike, then shook his head. "You know it wasn't him," he said, studying her flat expression.

She shrugged and repeated her question. "How are you doing?"

"You already asked me that. What's going on?" Jack frowned.

"Well, the case is coming together." The detective sat down and took out a notebook and a pen.

Something about the way they were acting made him nervous. Sanchez sat down and took out a similar black-and-white speckled notebook. Now they were all sitting at the table. The notebooks were out. Jack had no idea what was happening, whether it was good or bad. His viable hand began to tremble. He wasn't doing well.

Woo turned some pages, checking her notes, then looked up. "Last Friday when I visited you, you told me someone was calling you, someone whose voice and phone number you didn't know. Have you had any more of those calls?"

He exhaled and realized that he had been holding his breath. "No. No. That situation seems to have resolved itself. Why do you ask?"

"Something odd came up this morning. I want to run this by you." That flat look was so unsettling.

"What?"

"There was a match between a number on the victim's caller ID list and yours."

Jack's heart jumped like a fish on a chopping block. Now Bernardino was the victim. "What does that mean?" he said softly.

"It means there might be a link between you and the killer."

"What do you mean,
might be
a link?" The air in the room was so heavy Jack felt as though he were breathing through a thick wad of cotton. How could he know a killer?

"It could be a coincidence, but we always work on the premise that there are no coincidences in police work." She said this with no expression.

"Whose number is it?" he asked in a small voice.

"It's a number in the York U phone system. Do you know anyone at York?"

Jack inhaled, taking a moment to digest the question. "Well, sure. I'm an alum. I know lots of people there. Al Frayme, in the development office, Wendy Vivendi, the vice president. I know the president, too, Dr. Warmsley. Marty Baldwin. Some of my professors are friends now. Professor Callum is on the board of my company," he said slowly. "All kinds of people have my number. It's in the donor data bank. I get calls all the time. Whose number is it?"

"The number comes from the School of Social Work."

"The School of Social Work?" Jack placed it near Washington Square. He passed by the building every night on his walk with Sheba. But not since the incident. Now, because of the reporters, they had a dog walker taking Sheba out. He shivered at the way the two cops were looking at him.

"Do you know anybody in the social work school?" Woo's pen was poised for the answer.

"No, not a soul. Whose phone is it?"

"Dr. Foster."

Jack shook his head. "I've never heard of him."

"It's a woman. She's a professor, and she's been out of the country for several weeks. Ring a bell?"

Jack shivered again. "No."

Woo glanced at Sanchez. "We'll need a list of everyone you've been in contact with at the university, everyone you know. That okay with you?" he said.

Jack nodded. "Of course, but I have a question-is it all right to ask? What was the connection to the… deceased?" His tongue faltered over the word. He hadn't been on the block where Bernardino had died. He didn't know him. How could there be a connection between him and a murder victim? Lisa would be terrified. Sheba wouldn't like it, either. His arm started to throb for the first time since the weekend. And April Woo was busy taking notes. She didn't answer the question.