Read Online A Clean Kill by Leslie Glass - Free Book Online

too. What do you want me to do, chico April said, rising from the bench. " I have a bunch of people waiting for me in my shop. Avise has another job for me. If you think Remy did it, tell Fish to go for it. It's your call."
    "Uh-uh. I'm not convinced."
    "That's good, because all we have right now is a body."
    He ignored the sarcasm. "What I want you to do is put Gelo in charge of your shop and take this case on. You can mop it up in twenty-four hours."
    April shook her head at the difficulty of the politics. She got the feeling that he didn't want to step out on a limb on this one. She also felt manipulated. She didn't like either of the feelings one bit.
    Since becoming a captain, Mike was a different guy. He had to appear at COMSTAT meetings with all the top brass once a month at headquarters to run the numbers in his precinct. Crimes and arrests, where they occurred, what was being done about it. Every single event had to be accounted for. Responsibility had given him a sharper edge, and his expectations for others in his command had risen proportionally. Fine for them. But April was not in his command. And even if she were, twenty-four hours would not be enough time to mop up any homicide. They wouldn't have a death report, or any crime scene analysis, for days. Even the clear-cut cases took weeks to process. She thought longingly of her honeymoon, less than a week away.
    Mike pulled off the protective suit. "I'm done
    here. I've got to go. I spoke with Avise. He says it's okay. He'll give you thirty-six."
    Thirty-six hours? Were they crazy? April kept her back to the house, where people could be watching. She was fuming and didn't want anyone to see them fighting. "Mike, we agreed that we weren't going to do this anymore," she said.
    "Come on, querida, think of her kids. It's probably a simple thing, boyfriend/girlfriend thing. You could do this case in your sleep."
    She shook her head. "If it's such a simple thing, get someone else to do it." Then she thought of the cute little boys, who now had no mother. What was wrong with her? Not long ago she would have schemed to get on a homicide like this. She'd always been driven to be the one who nailed the killer. Now she was identifying with the babysitter who kept butcher knives in her knapsack. She was worrying about Sergeant Gelo's dress code, and she was thinking of her honeymoon. Not good. Skinny Dragon Mother used to say she had too much yang for a girl. She'd never find a man to marry her. Now she was married and had softened up, and sometimes she wondered if she had enough yang left to be a good cop.
    "Mi amor," Mike murmured, "do the right thing."
    Shit. Usually he was urging her to do the right thing and stay out of it. Now he wouldn't let her out of it. It was tough. She hated to think that the. babysitter who wanted to be a chef could have killed her boss over a cooking job. It was hard to imagine anyone having a strong enough motive to stab a young mother to death a dozen times in her own shower. But early this morning someone had done just that.
    She sighed. If she identified the killer fast, she could go back to the strip clubs and Fish could make the arrest. It was ironic how yin she'd gotten. She was more interested in sitting on a beach far away with her honey than in getting the credit. It almost made her laugh.

Ten
    E loise, it's me. What's going on?" Woo was on the phone.
    "Boss." Sergeant Eloise Gelo was parked at her desk, but not alone. Sitting across from her, Detective Charlie Hagedorn had been filling her in with some background information on the senator's kid who'd overdosed at some club, and ended up ten hours later in psych lockup at St. Luke's. She'd been listening to Charlie, studying a spot high over his head, and occasionally taking a mental note.
    The lieutenant wanted to know what was going on in the squad room. Gelo ran through the list in her head. A drunk who'd exposed himself one time too many on Broadway had been brought in by two