'Well, look at them carefully.'
She looked at the awesome array. 'I've never seen some of these,' she murmured truthfully.
'Which ones?'
She sat back, putting distance between them. She didn't want to poke at the blades inside their little plastic cases. She wished she could shut down against this whole stupid barrage. Her body ached to close in around itself and seal off the trauma. Her eyelids drooped. 'Give me a break,' she muttered.
'A nice lady died here in a very shitty way. She fought hard for her life. Nobody gave her a break.' The detective started cracking his knuckles loudly. He sounded mad enough to start breaking hers.
'I found her. I wish I hadn't. But I don't know anything else.' Remy held back her tears.
She'd been dog-tired a thousand times in her life. Fatigue was an old enemy. Anybody who'd ever manned a grill or a fry station during peak hours in a popular restaurant knew the dangers of fatigue. People got hurt when their attention wandered. Every line cook had to fight it, and everyone had his own way to cope. Cocaine, alcohol, amphetamines were the commonest combatants. Or coffee. Diet Coke, Cigarettes. They were all addicted to something. Remy's thing was Coke, the liquid kind. Since the cops started taking turns with her hours ago, she'd swallowed down almost a case of Diet Cokes. But the caffeine hadn't helped her. She didn't feel a kick, a buzz, anything. The questions kept coming, and she didn't want to give' in just because she was tired. She knew Wayne hadn't done it, and didn't think Derek could have, so who else was there?
'How about these?' he demanded.
White lights flashed in her eyes as Minnow pushed the plastic bags aside and added six more to the collection on the marble counter. These, Remy knew, were hers. Her precious knives, which she'd bought before she met Wayne, had cost over a hundred dollars each. They'd been removed from their newspaper wrapping, and like the others, they'd been bagged and labeled. The sight of her beloved tools, hostage to a murder investigation, was more than a little frightening. She had a sinking feeling that she wouldn't be seeing them again anytime soon. 'They're mine,' she admitted miserably.
Behind her, the wall phone kept ringing. She'd been told not to pick it up, but she wished someone would. Her head was spinning with all the noise and activity in the house. It made her so nervous how police were working the house, packing things up in boxes and taking them out. She didn't know what they were taking. They kept moving her around so she couldn't see what they were doing and took turns talking to her. Sometimes there were two of them, sometimes one. The Chinese woman who'd been nice to her earlier was gone. Several men in civilian clothes looked as if they didn't have anything to do. They stood around talking on their cell phones. Nobody asked her the right questions.
'What were they doing in your knapsack?' The annoying detective forced her to pay attention to him.
What were her own knives doing in her own knapsack? What a dumb question. Remy drew in her breath. 'I had a class,' she said.
'Oh yeah, what kind of class?'
'I
'You carry them back and forth?'
She nodded.
'What class did you have?'
She took another breath. 'Butchering.'
He let out a nervous giggle as if it were some kind of sick joke. 'No kidding. What kind?' '
'All kinds. I could butcher a cow if I had to. A pig, a lamb. A chef has to know the cuts of meat.' She knew her cuts.
'You know what I think? I think you know a lot more about this murder than you're letting on, little girl.'
'I know a lot about food,' she said miserably. She glanced at the wall clock, wondering who was going to pick up the children. 'Can I go now?'
He shook his head. She sighed and asked for another Diet Coke.
Twelve
By the time April emerged from the Wilson house, the number of Department vehicles had diminished and the number of eager reporters had grown. It took her a few seconds to locate Woody in the crowd. He was buried in a clot of bystanders across the street, talking with a pretty, dark-haired girl in charge of a heavily laden stroller. The stroller was stuffed with a wild-haired toddler eating raisins out of a plastic bag, a plastic tricycle, and a net sack filled with sand toys. April hurried toward them.
Questions barraged her from all sides as she dodged through the crowd of reporters.
'Do you have any leads on the killer?'
'Is Mr. Wilson a suspect?'
'Was the house broken into?'
April didn't let anyone catch her eye. It wasn't her case, and she wanted to avoid attention.
'I'm not the go-to person here. Try DCPI,' was all she said.
'They never say anything,' someone grumbled.
'April, what are you doing over here?' A female voice screamed over all the others.
April grimaced and turned her head away. It was someone she knew. Lily Eng, a Chinese TV reporter who'd done a story on her last year, was elbowing through the crowd. 'Out of the way, she's my sister,' she cried. 'April, April.'
Woody raised his head at the sound of her name and quickly ended his conversation with the young woman.
April couldn't avoid her. She paused in the street just long enough for Lily to charge. Lily's hair was longer than April's, cut in a shag. But they were both about the same size with delicate oval faces, almond eyes, and bee- stung lips. They were also wearing the same purple pantsuit and did indeed look like sisters.
'Hey, cutie, nice suit,' April said, walking quickly to the car.
Lily grabbed her arm to slow her down. 'Can you give me some background on the case?'
'No.'
'Nothing confidential,' she wheedled. 'Please. Just background. I won't quote you.'
April shook her head. 'I don't know a thing about it, sis.'
'Fine, I get it. I'll call you later. Hi—Woody Baum, right?' Lily's voice turned to honey.
'Hi, yourself,' he said, dead meat for the second time that day. He was an easy mark.
'Woody!' April barked.
He jumped to open the passenger door, shut her safely in, then ran around to the driver's side.
'Was that work or play?' April asked about the girl with the stroller.
'Work. She's the next-door nanny, knows that Wilson babysitter well. There's a gang of them that hangs out at the Boar Park together to complain about their lives. I have some names and addresses.' He fired up the engine and backed out.
'Good going. She have anything useful to say?'
'Six months ago the babysitter was hired to be a cook in a restaurant, but Wayne put her on house detail instead. She's pretty pissed off about that.'
Interesting. That was not the story Remy had given her. Maybe she didn't tell the truth to anybody. 'Anything else?'
'She's worried that a psycho's loose in the neighborhood. Apparently there have been some rapes around here.'
'Really?' Mike hadn't mentioned that.
'Uh-huh, do you have a hypo yet?'
'No.' April did not have a hypothetical on what had come down here. She turned away from the vultures huddled around the door of the deceased. They were part of the territory, but she never got used to them.
'Well, do you have any ideas?' Woody pressed.
'Uh-huh.' But she wasn't going to share them.
'Where to?'
'Five six between five and six. A studio called Workout. Maddy Wilson's trainer owns it.'
