"Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't talk crazy," Mike said softly. "You know that's not right." He glanced quickly at April a second time. She knew he wanted to move to her side of the table to protect her. An almost imperceptible shake of her head told him she was fine.

"I know that she's responsible for this." Bill pointed an angry finger at her. "She was there on the scene. She let this happen! You'd better believe I'm not taking it easy. I'm not letting it go. Someone's going to pay."

"Okay, sure. Fair enough. Why don't you sit down now? You need a cup of coffee, something to eat." Despite her warning, Mike instinctively reached out to April.

She was wondering how Bill knew who was on the scene.

"Don't give me that cop shit! I don't want coffee. My dad is dead. I want some answers." His face was almost purple with rage. April figured he'd had enough time to start feeling guilty and almost felt sorry for him.

But even if she could have found her voice, she would have remained silent throughout the tirade. Bill was threatening them, and it was a little scary. She knew how these things could be tilted and turned around. Police investigations came up with all kinds of explanations and skewed answers to cover up mistakes. It wasn't good, but it happened. Bill was a prosecutor and she could see where he was going.

There had been incidents in the past of cops partying just before they went on duty, then having fatal car crashes as they sped to work. Each time drinking was implicated as a factor in a tragedy involving cops, a lot of people went down. Supervisors were transferred, demoted, or lost their jobs. Now the possibility of scandal because a bunch of high-ranking cops had been drinking at the retirement party of a distinguished lieutenant who was murdered on the way home was not beyond possibility.

Dozens of friends only a few feet away and all too drunk to do anything to save him. Oh, it was so clear where Bill was headed.

"Sit down, Bill. I was there and you weren't. So you listen to me for a minute before you get yourself and everybody else in a flap. Okay?" Mike pointed at the chair. April could see how angry he was but knew that Bill could not.

Bill hesitated.

"I said, 'sit down.' Let's be civilized here," he said softly. "I'm not going to bite you."

"Fine. She was there, too; why doesn't she tell me what happened?" Bill took the chair Greg had vacated and looked to April.

April was not feeling so good. But her hair covered the lump on her head, and her turtleneck hid the bruises on her shoulder and neck. Maybe he didn't know what had happened to her.

"She can't," Mike said, real steel coming through in his voice for the first time. "She went after the guy. The bastard almost killed her. The man who killed your father is some kind of martial-arts expert."

Bill's mouth opened. "A what?" He stared at April, stunned. This bit of news hit a nerve.

Stony-eyed, she stared right back. She remembered that Bill happened to be a judo expert himself. Then her eyes went furry on her, and she took a little nap.

Nine

Birdie Bassett got in from her meeting with her husband's estate lawyers before noon and went straight to the phone in the library.

"You have ten new messages," the flat-toned female on voice mail reported.

Birdie sighed. It had been three weeks since Max's sudden death, and the phone was still ringing off the hook. Ten calls already, and she'd been gone only a few hours. She was still in shock, dizzy from hunger, but not yet up to eating. People told her she was depressed, that there was a book she could read about the stages of grieving. But she didn't think there was anything in the book about being a really prominent widow whose husband had taken care of everything.

She took a few deep breaths to calm herself after the unpleasantness in Silas Burns's office. Max's lawyer of thirty years had informed her this morning that Max's two kids were going to contest the will. They were going to hold her up, fight her for a bigger piece of the pie. And that did depress her.

"You have three options, Birdie." He put up three arthritic fingers to emphasize them. "You can fight, you can make a deal, or you can try to wait them out. You're young, and you have your allowance." He lifted his shoulders. "They could hold you up for a very long time, but so could you. Why don't you take a few days to think about what you want to do and let me know."

She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her.

"There's no hurry, dear. Take your time."

Birdie had left the office and headed uptown. Back in Max's favorite post in the paneled library of his fifteen-room Park Avenue apartment, she picked up the last photo taken of him, taken only a few months ago in Palm Beach. He'd looked strong, healthy, and a good fifteen years younger than eighty-one. He was still a handsome man with a full head of hair. "Max, what do you want me to do?" she whispered. "Fight or flight?"

Max's desk was a huge bureau plat of the Louis XIV period with lots of ormolu. The desk was genuine. The large leather chair behind it was of a more recent vintage. The library table and club chairs were English. The rugs were two complementary Persian garden carpets with blue borders. The curtains that framed the eight-foot French windows were made of shimmering red-and-gold silk damask and edged with two varieties of silk tassels and braid. Everything was too ornate and grandiose for her taste, but had suited Max perfectly.

Birdie still couldn't believe he was gone. She'd expected him to remain vigorous for another ten years, then fade slowly for another five. She'd fully expected them to scale down during his lifetime. Simplify. She had no interest in the three houses he'd left her or the antiques his children thought belonged to them. Max didn't give her a sign, so she began listening to her messages.

"Mrs. Bassett, this is Carla in President Warmsley's office at York U. President Warmsley asked me to call you to confirm for Monday night. Could you give me a call at nine-nine-five-six-four-eight-two. Thank you."

Birdie punched three for delete, then listened to her next message.

"Birdie, this is Steven Speel at MOMA. I'm calling to set up a lunch with you and Marilyn. She's available Thursday of next week. Would you give me a call when you have a moment? Seven-five-one-four-four-eight-nine."

Steven Speel reeled off the numbers at twice the speed of the rest of the message, and Birdie got only the first three. She had to listen to the message again and again before she got them all. She hated it when people did that.

The next two were personal requests that she take tables at forthcoming benefits to which Max had supposedly pledged his support. But how would she know if he really had? Twenty thousand for the Emerald Dinner at the Museum of Natural History sounded possible. They'd gone before. But fifteen thousand for BAM? Birdie could not recall ever seeing the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Max's foundation's donor list.

Another call was from the Psychoanalytic Institute. What the hell was that? She listened to it with Max's heavy pen suspended over his ornate message pad. The pleasant voice of a Dr. Jason Frank invited her to lunch so that he and the foundation chairman could personally thank her for Max's generous bequest last year and encourage her to consider taking his place on the board. What? Birdie hadn't even known that Max had been on such a board. She shook her head at the latest revelation.

Max had been retired, but he'd been busy every day, running his own sizable foundation with virtually no staff and no board members to keep track of his activities. The foundation had no brochure, no guidelines for grant proposals, no procedure for donors, and far fewer documents than there should have been.