A Killing Gift

From long habit, April shrouded her eyes and shrugged. I'm okay.

'You don't look so okay. What happened?'

April considered the question. She didn't want to be paranoid. Kathy was the daughter of a cop, after all. They'd known each other slightly and had always been friendly before Kathy became a Feeb. Right now they were supposed to be on the same side, but maybe Bill had shared his suspicions with her after all. April wondered how much trouble she could get into by sharing information. She hadn't spoken to Internal Affairs yet, but there was no question the unit was going to be all over this. April would certainly be called on the carpet and maybe have to clean it for almost getting herself killed last night. And Kathy was first and foremost an FBI special agent. It didn't really affect the situation except that NYPD liked to keep things in the family. Things were getting complicated.

April felt herself being sucked into the dangerous currents of Department politics. Could she trust Bernardino's daughter? Should she hint at the trouble Bill might be creating for himself by crying scandal? DAs could easily be investigated and disgraced. They got shunned. They got fired. She coughed to test her sore throat. A little sound came out but not much of one. The cough did produce a decision, though. April realized that she had only one story to tell and she would tell the same one to anyone who asked. She opened her laptop and typed the short version.

When she was finished, Kathy read it and sighed. 'My father didn't like strangers crowding him even in bars. If anyone got close enough to take him, it would have to be someone he knew.'

So Bill had talked to her. April lifted a shoulder and wrote, Any ideas?

Kathy covered the bottom of her nose and mouth with a hand as she thought about it. 'You know, I could go way back on this. Dad was an MP in the army before he became a cop. Over in Vietnam. Before I was born. He's always been in law enforcement. He was a damn good cop, and good cops make enemies. You know that.'

April guessed she did know. She had a few enemies herself. Did he have some special buddies from then that he kept up with?

'Yeah, I heard stories. I never met any of them, though.'

Helpful. What about pictures? Do you have pictures?

'Oh, yes, there are a lot of pictures. Do you suspect one of them? Someone from then?'

I don't know. Just the way he was taken down suggests a military angle. Every killing tells a story; you know that. So what could it be here, revenge from an old gripe? A new one? Any ideas? she asked again. It took a while to type it all.

'No,' Kathy broke in before she was done.

What about his cases. Did he ever talk to you about anything special? April tried something else.

'Oh, sure, all the time. Dad wasn't one of those guys who kept work and home separate. A lot of them do, you know. They pack up the gun and take off for work and you never know where they are or when they're coming back. And when they do get back, they give you that look that says, 'No questions, please.' That puts up a wall no one can get through.'

Kathy seemed proud of the way her father had been. 'Dad liked to talk about his cases. Not the gory stuff, but the puzzles, the personalities. He liked what he did. He must have, or Bill and I wouldn't do what we do.' She paused for a minute, refocusing on April's question, then shook her head.

'Enemies… I just don't know.' Then her expression hardened. 'He had that money, that lottery money. What was it, fifteen million after taxes?'

Really? April had no idea it was that much. She'd never asked.

'It was all in the newspapers. His name, his profession. Pretty much everything but his phone number. What about that angle?' Kathy asked.

Yeah, we'll look into it for sure. Kathy, did he give you any of it? Did he promise it to you? How was he handling it?

'Oh, jeez. The truth is he wasn't much interested. Mom was the one who wanted to strike it rich and move to Florida, you know. She probably spent more on lottery tickets over the years than she did on food. It used to piss Dad off big-time.' Kathy let out a short laugh at the old family conflict. Her father the cop. Her mother the gambler.

'After he got that money I'll bet a thousand people called him. Money managers, stockbrokers, bankers. Every neighbor. And the causes-oh, God! Cancer, heart fund, starving children. Police Foundation. Half of Chinatown. Maybe more than a thousand requests. There's a stack of grant requests in here somewhere. He was collecting them.'

Did he have a plan?

'Yeah, get out of town. That was his plan.'

A spending plan, I mean, April typed.

'Well, he was a shrewd guy. He wanted a simple life. A little room somewhere. Nothing special. We thought he'd get over it.' Kathy gave April rueful smile. 'And he thought it was our money because it was Mom's money. He wasn't going to give it away to strangers anytime soon.'

But what about you? Didn't your mom give some of it to you before she died?

Kathy shook her head. 'Too sick to care. She left it to Dad. He didn't want to deal with it. End of story.'

April found this hard to believe. Bernardino won millions and was holding out on his kids? Why? And Kathy didn't seem upset about it. Wouldn't she be upset? Nobody couldn't use money. She and Mike could use it. They wanted to buy a house. Her stomach began to churn as the scope of the investigation needed began to sink in. Somebody had to trace every one of those thousand calls to Bernardino, check out who sent him emails, who sent him letters. What they all wanted and who got what. For indeed Bernardino must have promised or given away some of it. He must have. April thought back on all the times Bernardino had helped out his buddies one way or another when things got tough. Whatever Kathy said, Bernardino would take requests for money seriously. But she was right about one thing. Her father wasn't just a murdered cop. He was also a murdered lottery winner, a lottery winner who hadn't shared with his kids. Weird.

Are you going to keep working now? April typed. She meant at the agency, now that she stood to inherit half of that money.

'I'm going to work on this,' Kathy said angrily.

Your dad was a friend of mine, April reminded her.

Kathy read the words on the screen. 'I know. You risked your life for him.'

April's chin moved from side to side. There hadn't been any heroism involved. Just reflex. He promoted me. He was my rabbi. He brought me along when other people wouldn't. Lot of people thought I was a wimp, a girl. A lesbo Chink.

April finished typing the last two words and flushed. There hadn't been many Chinese cops even in Chinatown a decade ago, but no one had thought very much of them. They were small of stature, insecure in the white culture, had a nerdy look. She'd never revealed her feelings about this to anyone before. Out loud she always said that people were fair, that the old guard was fair. You didn't have to be a guy, and a white guy at that, to get ahead in the Department. But when she was coming up it hadn't been true. Not at all.

'I know how much he admired you,' Kathy murmured. 'He might have pretended to be a chauvinist, but he wasn't really. He had his prejudices. He didn't like the agency, but he was proud when I was accepted.'

April nodded. I'd like your help… . She typed in the dots, hinting without asking outright.

'I understand,' Kathy said.

April typed some more. Her fingers were beginning to feel the strain. Look, I don't want anything to disappear from here. Who knows what's here. We need the materials, all of them. His old notebooks, whatever files he has, everything in the computer, in the e-mail file. We can zip it right out. The letters and requests he got. I need to go through everything. We don't want any problems down the line.

'I understand,' Kathy repeated. April could see her considering her brother's take on it. There might be things he'd want to hide. But finally she said, 'Okay, you have a good resolution record. A hundred percent. I'm glad you're working the case.'

April flushed at the misconception. Not a hundred percent at all. Occasionally she didn't solve one.

Kathy sniffed and went on. 'At least he wasn't a creep. He wasn't into porno or computer dating or anything