by Leslie Glass
“Oh, yeah, you’ve helped me.”
“Well, good luck, and let’s get together soon.” Charles rang off.
The inky coffee was cold. Jason poured it down the sink and tightened the knot on his tie. It was a nice deep blue with red French horns on it, the first tie Jason’s fingers had touched when he reached in the closet for his tie rack that morning.
He rinsed out the coffee cup and left it in the sink. His stomach growled. He ignored it. He was thinking that Charles always knew what was off about somebody. His not being sure about Milicia might mean simply that Charles couldn’t relate to the powerful aspect of her. But the concept of falseness might come from the woman herself. It was something to think about. The carriage clock on the hall table chimed the hour. It was fifteen minutes late. Jason sighed. He didn’t have time to go out and get milk before his first patient showed up at seven-thirty.
17
The alarm didn’t have to scream at April for her to know it was time to wake up. She always heard the click before the alarm sounded. Sometimes she was up before the click. Last night she had fallen asleep studying her notes, and now their contents were the first thing she thought of as she pulled herself out of bed.
No one was allowed to take anything home from a case. All evidence had to be carefully labeled and locked up. Only thing you could take home was your notes. April took a lot of notes. She studied them at night, working on questions, angles, speculations, hypotheses. Every case to her was like being in training for the police Olympics. Every morning she started thinking before she could see. That morning she was thinking, who killed Maggie Wheeler? Was it a random thing—some crazy off the street—or somebody involved with the girl herself?
April drank some water, pulled on her tights, and started exercising. Last night she’d had Maggie’s address book copied, took the photocopy home with her, and made a few calls. She was rewarded for that bit of ingenuity by not being able to get through to anybody. She tried always to do things right. There was a rule of procedure and a reason for everything the department did. But doing everything right took a lot of extra time and wasn’t always so easy to do.
Not everything happened the way it was supposed to. For one thing, no one was supposed to go into a crime scene but the cops who caught the run and the two crime-scene people. The catching cops were supposed to rope off the area and keep everyone out, but it didn’t work that way. Call came in on a homicide like this, and twenty, maybe thirty people from the bureau wandered through, wanting to see the corpses and check out the murder scene. Problem was thirty cops and detectives wandering through a murder scene couldn’t help but contaminate the evidence quite a bit.
No way could anyone keep the bureau out.
In the Wheeler case ten squad cars rolled up before Crime Scene got there. The new Captain of the precinct, an uptight Irishman of the old school who wore blue shirts with white collars, and half a dozen ranking officers from the Two-O were among those “having a look.”
The hordes of Europe tramping around didn’t make too much difference in a gore-spattered scene where the murder weapon was visible and a picture of what happened was pretty clear by the marks on the body, the way it was lying, the pooling and spatters of blood around it. But here, where there was nothing, it was a different story.
“How many?” was the first question Igor had asked when he and his partner, Mako, named for the shark, entered The Last Mango.
“Many,” Mike said.
“Shit. When are you people going to learn?”
Old gripe of the science people. They said the whole story of every murder was right there on the spot, even if the dumb cops couldn’t see it. It was there in traces of dust and fiber and hair and grease and stains. All they had to do was collect, identify, and match. But ninety-five percent of trace evidence was contaminated or left behind. Five percent was collected, and maybe one percent used to nail the suspect. April was taking a course on this and knew how to look at things through a microscope.
“Hey, what’s that?” Skinny Dragon Mother opened the door to April’s apartment with her own key, not bothering to warn her with a polite knock. Right away she started in on her in Chinese.
“What’s that?” she demanded again in case April hadn’t heard her the first time.
“Hi, Mom. What are you doing up so early?” April was on her hands and knees on the floor, doing leg lifts with a book open in front of her.
“Have to be early bird catch this worm,” she said in Chinese.
This was the time of day that showed Sai Woo was not so new-style Chinese as she claimed. She was wearing black pants and black canvas shoes with absolutely no embroidery on them, a plain blue peasant jacket. Summer version, not padded. Very skinny woman, eyes narrowed with deep suspicion at the book on the floor. April knew her mother dressed like a peasant in her own home to fool the gods into thinking she wasn’t so well off and fortunate. Clearly there was something on her mind.
“What worm is that?” April asked, lowering herself to her elbows for the next set, which was a lot harder.
“Worm daughter.”
Great, she had a big new case, her Sergeant’s test in less than two weeks, and exams in the summer courses she was taking at John Jay. She couldn’t qualify for Sergeant without two years of college, but she already had three and a half and was hoping to graduate this year. And now her mother was calling her a worm.
“Why am I a worm, Mom?” April tried to concentrate on the leg.
“What’s that?” Sai demanded, pointing at the book.
April sighed. So it was the Sanchez thing again. Ever since Mike had driven her home in the red Camaro that first time, her mother had been thinking the worst. “It’s Spanish, Mom.”
“Ayeiiii, I knew it,” Sai cried, still in Chinese. “I knew it.”
“You don’t know it, Mom. The department wants everybody to speak Spanish. It’s a new thing. You want to get ahead, want to get a degree, you have to speak another language.”
Sai Woo switched suddenly to English to show she was bilingual, too. “You speak other ranguage. You speak Chinese.”
“Doesn’t count. Have to speak Spanish.”
“This New York. Not Miami, not Rrr.A. Not so Spanish here, every kind people in New York.”
“That’s true,” April agreed, finally rolling over and sitting up. A lot of people thought like her mother, didn’t like this new Spanish thing, thought the Spanish should learn English.
“Not Spanish lestlant on every brock. Chinese lestlant on every brock. Chinese best food, best people.” Sai pounded her tiny fists on her flat chest to indicate her pride.
April smiled. “That may be, Mom. But the department still wants everyone to speak Spanish.”
“Humph.” Sai turned her back and touched the little table beside the couch. It slanted a bit on the floor.
“What’s bugging you, Mom?” April closed the book guiltily because her mother was right about one thing. This, of all mornings, she didn’t have to be studying Spanish during her exercises. She could be doing management styles, or preparing the oral answer to such questions as: Crime analysis is an important tool for the police supervisor. Please explain to this board the purpose of crime analysis and how you would use this information as a police sergeant.
“Taber no good. Maybe taber bad spilit in your rife.”
All her hope and confidence fled in an instant. April frowned, the dread of bad luck in her exams, her life itself, descending like a pall over a wedding. “I don’t have a bad spirit in my life.”
“Yes. Dr. George Dong says he’ll meet you—no promises—you no rant meet him. Must be bad spilit in this house.”
“Maybe the bad spirit is downstairs. I never heard of the guy,” April protested.
“He no guy. He docta.”
“That’s great, Mom. But I never heard of him.”
“Now heard of him.” Sai picked up the table and moved it to the other side of the room. “There, taber frat. Now spilit happy.
You two can meet, mally, have many babies. Some boys, some girrs.”
April nodded. Great, now her mother was a feminist. She must really be desperate, never used to pray for girls.
“Mom, I have a new case. Want to hear about it?”
Sai nodded, padded across the room to April’s kitchen, and started rattling around. Feng Shui over, match made. Now she would make worm daughter’s breakfast and solve the case. April sighed and headed for the bathroom to take her shower.
She arrived at the precinct before seven-thirty. The Desk Sergeant who’d been on night duty was still there. He nodded at her. Upstairs the squad room was empty. It still smelled of old smoke. The evening shift were all smokers. The day shift were all trying to quit. It smelled disgusting. April had never tried smoking. She dusted the piles of cigarette ash off her desk, sat down, and punched out the number of the M.E.’s office to see if the autopsy report was coming in today.
No one answered, so she took out the copy of Maggie’s address book and dialed one of the numbers she’d tried the night before. The phone rang a bunch of times before a grumpy voice answered.
“Yeah.”
“Is this Bill Hadgens?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Detective Woo from the New York Police Department.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do what, Mr. Hadgens?”
“I didn’t kill old Maggie. That’s what you’re calling about, isn’t it—hey, is this for real?”
“Yes, this is for real. Where are you located? I’d like to talk to you.”
No reply for quite a while. “How did you get my number?”
“It was in her telephone book.”
“So that doesn’t mean anything. We come from the same town is all.”
“I didn’t say it meant anything. I’m just trying to locate people who knew Maggie. Trying to find out what happened to her.”
Bill Hadgens thought it over for a while, then spoke. “I saw it on the news last night. Eleven o’clock. Really weird.”
“What was weird?”
“I don’t even watch the news. Last night I watch the news, and someone I know got killed. Weird.”
It wouldn’t be so weird to watch the news if he already knew what would be on it. She took Hadgens’s address, then called the M.E.’s office again. This time someone with a friendly voice picked up the phone, listened to April’s identification and questions, said, “Just a minute, please,” and put her on hold for five minutes.
Then a less friendly voice came on that seemed to come from a different department. April repeated the same things about being the detective on the Maggie Wheeler case and needing the autopsy yesterday afternoon. She got put on hold again. Finally someone came on who knew something. The Wheeler autopsy was scheduled for right about now, and they should have the report by early afternoon. April offered to go over and pick it up and was told that wasn’t necessary. She decided not to argue.
April looked at her watch. Eight-fifteen. The place was filling up. Sergeant Joyce, in a black skirt and apple-green blazer, her hair sticking straight up in a style that defied description, stopped by April’s desk and peered at the pile of papers she had laid out.
“Early afternoon for the autopsy report,” April said. She resisted the impulse to cover her notes with her hand.
“Bastards,” Joyce said. “Anything else?”
Sure. “I’m checking out the boyfriends. Where’s Sanchez?”
“Twentieth Street.”
“What’s he doing there?”
Sergeant Joyce shrugged and walked away, either didn’t know or wouldn’t say. Maybe Sergeant Joyce was the bad spirit in her life. Muttering under her breath, April picked up her bag and headed out to meet Bill Hadgens on Fiftieth and Second.
18
I never went out with her,” Bill Hadgens insisted for the third time, eyeing April uneasily. “I can’t tell you anything about her.”
He lived in a filthy one-room apartment overlooking Second Avenue above an old-fashioned plumbing supply store. The furnishings consisted of a nasty-looking bed and a wooden chair. Dust balls had collected around piles of dirty clothes on the bare wood floor. Four or five years of grime clung to the windows, long since replacing the need for curtains. One window boasted a rasping fan that didn’t have enough power to stir the dust.
Bill Hadgens sat on the edge of his bed with his hands on his grubby bare knees. He had not bothered to pull himself together in anticipation of a visit from the police. After April’s call he had clearly gone back to bed. He was wearing cut-off jeans and no shirt. The side of his long, horsey face was sheet-creased and didn’t appear to have been troubled by a razor in some time. His shoulder-length brown hair was tangled and dirty. He didn’t look sullen so much as completely unconcerned, as if people he knew got knocked off every day.
“Why bother with me?”
“I told you. She’s a murder victim. We bother with everybody. Maggie had only a few male names in her telephone book. Yours was one.” April took a look around as she spoke. Guy looked like he didn’t eat much and hadn’t been out of bed in days. How many days—since Maggie’s death?
It had taken him a while to get to the door when she rang the bell. Then he looked surprised to see her there. He was grumpy and seemed to have forgotten she was coming. Guy was really whacked. She made a note to herself that she could always come back and take him in for possession if he didn’t want to cooperate.
“Yeah, well, we went to the same school. I knew her years ago is all.”
“What was she like?”
He shrugged, pursing his lips in a show of contempt. “She was kind of a dog, know what I mean?”
April shook her head. “Explain it to me.”
He shrugged again. “A dog. You know what a dog is.”
“If you thought she was such a dog, how come you’re in her phone book?” April crossed the room to the window and looked out. Not much to see. She wondered where the stuff was. His eyes were pretty dilated. Must be around somewhere.
“Who knows.”
“Then how’d she get your number?”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe somebody gave it to her.”
“You have any idea who that might be?”
“No—hey, what’re you doing?”
She took her hand away from the pile of clothes on the chair. “You have a problem with my sitting down?”
“Don’t touch anything, okay?”
April moved away from the chair and changed tack. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Hadgens?”
“Huh?”
“I asked how you support yourself.”
“I, uh, freelance—I’m a writer.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind of writing do you do?”
He stared at the chair. She figured the stuff was there.
“I’m working on a novel.”
“No kidding.” She didn’t see a typewriter. “When was the last time you saw Maggie?”
“I don’t know. Long time. Months, maybe years. I lose track of time.”
“I bet you do. You want to tell me about Maggie’s other friends? She have a boyfriend?”
“No way. Maggie was lunchmeat.”
Okay. “Mr. Hadgens, where were you last Saturday?”
“Nowhere near Maggie Wheeler. I can tell you that. I don’t go to the West Side.”
“Thanks.” April moved toward the door. She didn’t think Hadgens was telling her the whole truth, or even half the truth. Guy was a druggie and a liar. No point in pursuing the subject now. She’d try him again later.
It stuck in her mind that he had described Maggie as lunchmeat. Nice. The girl was dead. Why make such a point of her lack of attractiveness in the distant past when he claimed to have known her and they went to the same school? Was the real story the reverse—that he liked Maggie Wheeler a lot and got rejected by her? Did he go visit her in the boutique last Saturday, have a fight with her, and fix her up for all time? A
pril tried that scenario out, played it through as she descended the grimy stairs to the street.
Nah, this guy didn’t look organized enough to do all that with the dress many sizes too big and the makeup on the victim’s face. That was really weird stuff. This guy looked whack, but not particularly weird. Still, he wasn’t telling the truth. Maybe he didn’t do it, but had some idea who did.
Out on the street the temperature was climbing steadily. It had to be close to eighty-five. April decided to go over to the police labs on Twentieth Street and find out what Sanchez was up to.
19
Hey, Mike, whatcha got?” Fernando Ducci, known as Duke, finished the last of a Snickers bar and tossed the wrapper into his wastebasket. At eleven o’clock in the morning, it was his third candy bar of the day. He wore a blue shirt with a white collar of the kind Captain Higgins liked, the sleeves rolled all the way down and buttoned. His dark blue tie was Italian silk. There was no shoulder holster on his person. Duke did not like to carry. He kept his gun in his locker. With his smooth round face and thick black hair, he looked more like an aging choirboy than a cop in the hair and fiber section of the police labs.
“Stuff from the M.E.’s office.” Mike Sanchez dropped the brown cardboard box on Ducci’s desk.
Ducci looked past him toward the door. “Hey, where’s the pretty one? She avoiding me, or what?”
“She’s out.”
“I’m hurt. I want the stuff from her. We like continuity around here.”
“Yeah, well, I’m continuity. I could have just let them put this shit on the shelf and forgotten it like everybody else. You’re always saying you want everything in the beginning. Well, here’s everything.”
“Ah, well.” Ducci tapped on the box. “Hey, go ahead, keep me guessing. What case are we talking about?”
“Same as yesterday. Boutique thing.”
“Oh, and here I thought something else came up. Shit, why can’t you guys get your act together and give it all to me at once?” He knew damn well why they couldn’t, but liked to annoy.