Hanging Time

by Glass, Leslie

Mike raised his chin at her, indicating that she should be the one to answer.

  “Ah, no.” April put her mouth close to the speaker-phone holes. “It’s Detective April Woo, New York Police. I’d like to talk to you. Would you let me in?”

  In the lengthy silence that followed, April thought the woman had gone away.

  There was some more crackling and a faint whisper, like the sound of leaves blowing in the wind. “What did he do?”

  “I can’t hear you. Would you open the door?”

  The voice rose to a wail. “What did he do?”

  “Miss Stanton, could you open the door so we can talk to you?”

  No answer, only the sound of a dog’s crazed yapping.

  “Jesus,” Mike muttered.

  “Miss Stanton, we just want to talk to you. Please open the door.”

  “… I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  There was another long pause before she answered. “He’ll hurt me.”

  “No one will hurt you. I promise. We just want to talk to you for a few minutes. Please open the door.”

  “Yes, he’ll hurt me.”

  The whisper was hoarse and intense. April had to strain to make out the words.

  “Who’ll hurt you?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Who’s Bouck?” April tried.

  “He owns the house. I’m not supposed to let anyone in.” The voice was timorous, more like that of a frightened little girl than a grown woman.

  “Tell her to come outside,” Mike suggested.

  “Huh?”

  “Tell her to walk the dog.”

  April nodded. Good idea.

  “Miss Stanton. Can you come outside?”

  “No, no. I have to stay until he comes back.”

  “When is he coming back?”

  Silence.

  “Did he say when he was coming back?”

  “He said four o’clock.”

  “It’s way past that now.” April spoke carefully into the intercom. “What happens when he’s late?”

  “Uhh.”

  “Ask her to walk the dog.” Mike nudged her arm.

  “Miss Stanton, doesn’t the dog have to go out?”

  Silence.

  “Are you allowed to take the dog out, Miss Stanton?”

  The intercom crackled. “Of course I can take Puppy out.”

  “Miss Stanton, why don’t you do it now?” “Why?”

  “It sounds like Puppy wants to go out.”

  “Puppy always wants to go out.”

  No more sounds from the intercom.

  “Miss Stanton, Miss Stanton—damn.” April turned to Mike. “What do you say?”

  “At least we know she’s in there. This guy—Bouck. Maybe we should run a check on him.”

  “She seems scared to death of him.”

  “Confirms what the sister said.”

  “Uh-huh.” They headed back to the car to put in a call to Sergeant Joyce. “Yeah, but she also said the woman was out of it.”

  “She sounded scared, not exactly out of it. Give me the keys.” Mike held out his hand.

  “You were driving. You have the keys.”

  “Unh-unh. You put them in your bag.”

  April rolled her eyes. “That was yesterday.”

  Mike patted himself down, found the keys in his jacket pocket. “Oh, yeah, I knew that. Just testing your memory.”

  “Sure.”

  Mike unlocked the passenger door and opened it, then walked around to his side of the car. He got in and called Sergeant Joyce. While he was still speaking, April punched him in the arm.

  The black paneled door of the building opened a crack. The woman they thought was Camille Honiger-Stanton stuck her head out and looked around.

  After a second or two, when the woman didn’t see anybody lying in wait for her, she came out with a tiny poodle on a retractable leash. A current of electricity, kind of like lightning, jolted through the car. April felt the familiar rush of adrenaline. She looked at Mike. It had hit him, too. His body was still, but she could feel his heart racing, his blood pressure rise at the sight of the red-haired woman walking a dog that was a hairball with a muzzle. “Holy shit,” Mike murmured.

  It was kind of an orange color, a bit lighter than the hair of the woman, who was even taller than her sister. April estimated her height at five eleven. She wore a long, flowered skirt with a white blouse hanging out over it. The blouse had big sleeves and reminded April of another one she had seen somewhere like it. Her shoes were black flats, like ballet slippers. Her hair was long and wild around her head. In the darkening light, with her tall, slight frame covered in billowy clothes, she looked almost ghostly.

  Mike made a move to get out of the car, then stopped. “She’s not going anywhere,” he said softly.

  “No. Look at that dog, will you?” April shook her head. Unbelievable. Ducci was going to be impossible after this call.

  The poodle had fluff all over it, was clearly a puppy that hadn’t been clipped into poodle shape yet. The little dog looked to April like a lamb. Immediately the puppy squatted in the doorway, then took off, leaving a little puddle behind. It raced down the sidewalk as far as the leash would go. At about twelve feet, the cord ran out, pulling the dog up short.

  It stopped and turned around to look at Camille questioningly. Its mouth was open in what appeared to be a smile.

  “Oh, my God, it’s smiling,” April muttered. “Have you ever busted a dog?”

  “No, have you?”

  “Not exactly an everyday thing.”

  They were silent, watching the woman. She did not move from the front of the building. The dog raced back to her, then ran down the sidewalk the other way, until the leash ran out just before the corner where April and Mike were parked.

  “Cute,” Mike muttered.

  “Yeah, but what is it? Accessory to murder? Witness to murder?”

  “All of the above. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to tell us about it.”

  “We don’t know what Ducci will turn up from this one.” April jerked her head toward the crime scene where they’d spent the better part of the day.

  The store where Rachel Stark died was almost directly across the street. Some of the yellow tapes that had sealed off the sidewalk in front of European Imports earlier were still stuck on a tree. They were still in place all over the front of the shop.

  Camille Honiger-Stanton didn’t seem to be aware of them. Her attention was focused on the dog, now racing for the street.

  “We’ll have to pick it up. It appears to be evidence.”

  They were both silent again, thinking their own thoughts about how Lieutenant Braun would handle this suspect and her canine accomplice. April could see how the dog could work to win over a victim, make a murderer welcome anywhere. She remembered that the Boston Strangler had gotten into his victims’ apartments by mewing like a cat.

  “Ohhh shit.” Mike stiffened in his seat.

  Finally the woman felt it was safe to move. She strolled toward the opposite corner, where Lieutenant Braun and Sergeant Roberts were returning from their dinner.

  47

  Jason checked the clock as Milicia gathered up her things. His face was rigid. She was taking a lot of time to get organized. He willed himself to appear relaxed and neutral at her resistance to leaving. Daisy was Jason’s next patient. He hoped she and Milicia wouldn’t meet in the waiting room. Daisy would be disturbed by Milicia.

  Finally Milicia was on her feet, but she wasn’t happy. Only seconds before she had been calm, as if a great pressure inside her had finally eased. Now she was hurt and angry again because Jason wouldn’t drop everything and take care of her now that he understood the true nature of her crisis. She felt he had tricked her into going to the police alone. She was furious, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Daisy was probably sitting in his waiting room already, and she was by no means his last patient.

  He glance
d down at his appointment book. Tuesdays he had patients until eight-thirty at night. The only thing that would stop him from seeing them was an actual medical emergency. One of them getting shot or hit by a bus. A suicide crisis. An accident where blood was flowing all over the ground. Nothing else.

  Once a very sick patient he was visiting in the hospital became suicidal during the visit. Jason had stayed at the hospital until the patient was stabilized. He got back to his office an hour and a half later. While he was gone, the patient whose session he missed had become hysterical waiting outside his locked office door, knocking and getting no answer.

  He had planned to come right back, had left the lights and the radio on in the office. The patient, a woman, saw the crack of light under the door and heard the radio. She fantasized that Jason was in there, had had a heart attack, and would die if the doorman didn’t break down the door to save him. The doorman wouldn’t do it. A male patient confronted by a locked door would probably have shrugged and left. But his woman patient never really felt safe with him after that.

  Jason watched Milicia turning things over in her mind. How she would handle this apparent betrayal on his part, how she would manage the police. Jason was intensely aware in those moments that he didn’t fully understand this situation, had no idea what was really going on.

  There are so many levels to the relationship between psychiatrist and patient, so many secret recesses of the mind where events and feelings were processed but never fully explored no matter how many hours are scheduled.

  Jason knew most people couldn’t make connections between things, and even when they could, human communication was an iffy undertaking at best. From the first moment he saw her, Jason knew Milicia was not like anyone else. It was more than her extraordinary presence. He couldn’t place her, couldn’t define her, wasn’t sure of her purpose, her character. His method was always to let the patient inform him of these things. But every time he saw or spoke to Milicia, something totally unexpected came out of left field. This was an uncommon thing. Very rarely did he remain perplexed for very long. With Milicia he had been perplexed ten whole days. That was as long as he had known her.

  In psychiatric time ten days was nothing. Jason kept wondering if there was something he should have picked up right away from the very incomplete picture Milicia gave him when they met the first and second times.

  He had a feeling of helplessness as she left the office. It was another one of those occupational hazards that went with being a shrink. He couldn’t be with his patients when they made their actions. He couldn’t stop them or help them, or rewrite the story as it was happening. He could only discuss it with them afterward.

  Milicia walked out of his office to talk to the police about murder. Jason knew the procedure because he had been there, knew the precinct, knew how the detectives, particularly April Woo, would deal with her. He was deeply involved and yet he had to miss it.

  Daisy came into the waiting room. Jason had heard the door open and close. Daisy was always difficult, a challenge.

  He nodded at Milicia as she went out the door. She didn’t look back. If she didn’t call him to tell him what happened, he wouldn’t call her. April would no doubt fill him in.

  The brass bull clock on his bookshelf hit the quarter hour with a tiny click. He waited until he was certain Milicia was gone, then came out of his office, prepared for Daisy, smiling slightly and looking as if nothing important had happened to him in a long time.

  48

  Braun sauntered up Second Avenue, in no hurry now, though he had grabbed only twenty minutes for his hamburger. April watched him unwrap a stick of gum and fold it into his mouth as he stepped up on the curb at the corner. The suspect’s tiny dog ran over to greet him, sniffing at his cuff. Camille quickly jerked the dog away. Braun shook out the crease in his pants, chewing, while his mouth tried for a smile.

  He passed Camille. Slowly it occurred to him. His head turned. On his second take he sought guidance from Sanchez and Woo, sitting in the unmarked car as they had been ordered to. Braun looked at them and cocked his head behind him at the tall redhead now crossing the street with the little dog.

  Is that the suspect?

  Mike and April kept their faces neutral, unwilling to commit on yea or nay to such a jerk.

  Lieutenant Braun decided it without their prompting, spun around, and ran back to her. Roberts followed.

  “Shit,” Mike muttered.

  Braun and Roberts approached the suspect like a freight train racing at full throttle. They blocked her front and back. Braun shoved his badge in her face. She cried out, reeling back.

  “No! Don’t touch me.” She reached down to pick up the dog, then tried to get back to her front door. She didn’t get there.

  Sergeant Roberts’s arm snaked out to stop her from resisting an officer. The suspect panicked and started screaming. April shook her head as the two men subdued her and put her in their car. Before they pulled away, Braun made a sign for Sanchez and Woo to remain where they were until further notice.

  49

  Camille’s eyes darted wildly around the room. She could hear them, and she could speak if she wanted to. She wouldn’t speak though. No matter what. She wouldn’t ever tell them the secret, even if they sent her to prison for the rest of her life. She didn’t want to think about prison. Milicia said in prison they’d do bad things to her. Really bad.

  The beating of Camille’s heart sounded like thunder. It was hot. She worried that the place they put Puppy was even hotter. The big one said they had a special place for Puppy, would give her back when they were finished. She didn’t believe him. She stared at him, willing a knife to enter his throat. He was fiddling with something on the table. The other one was staring at her as if she were a witch. Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead.

  Yes, I am a witch. A very bad witch.

  She gnawed at her bottom lip. They told her to cooperate. She shivered.

  “Okay, got it.” The one who had taken Puppy away nodded at the one who grabbed her off the street.

  “All right, let’s begin. Would you state your name.”

  Camille unclenched her jaw, releasing her lip. She licked it carefully, sticking her tongue way out. He said some things into the microphone. She didn’t listen to what they were.

  “Uh, your name.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Camille,” she said suddenly.

  “Ah. Camille what?”

  “Camille Honiger-Stanton.”

  Camille sat back, gathered her bottom lip back into her mouth, gnawed on it while her eyes blinked open and closed. There, she told them.

  “Where do you live, Camille?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Can you tell us where you live?”

  Camille watched the tape recorder. She counted softly to thirty.

  The taller man looked at the smaller one. Camille noticed that he had a big mole on his face. Black.

  “Ten fifty-five Second Avenue.”

  “Okay, good. Are you married or single?”

  Camille giggled. He was going to die soon. She could see it happening. The mole on his face was cancer. She didn’t like being so close to it, having to look at it. Quickly she combed her hair over her face with her fingers until it was a dense curtain she couldn’t see through. That was better. She sat back in the chair.

  “Uh, Camille?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Um, it’s Lieutenant Braun.”

  “Did you know you have a mole on your face?” Her voice came from behind the curtain.

  There was a brief pause before he answered. What the hell was this? He decided to humor her.

  “I didn’t know. Where is it?”

  “Underneath your eye.”

  Camille moved her hair enough to see the man with the mole lift his hand to his cheek. She tossed her hair back, leaning forward suddenly to look closer.

  “Ther
e.” She stuck her finger at his face.

  The man recoiled. The word “Christ” jumped out of his mouth.

  “Did you know those kind of things cause cancer?”

  He looked wildly at the other guy. “Roberts, do you see a mole?”

  “No, sir.” The other man didn’t look, but he was smiling a little.

  “I don’t have a mole on my face.” But he was a little uncertain now.

  “Oh, yes, you do,” Camille said angrily. She reached into a pocket in her dress and pulled out a small artist’s notebook with a pen stuck in the spiral binder. She took out the pen and flipped the pages until she came to a clean one.

  “What’re you doing?”

  Braun was alarmed. Every movement the woman made was jerky, ungainly, weird. He was afraid she might stab him with the pen. He reached over to take it away.

  She moved it out of his reach. “I’m drawing your face is what I’m doing. Don’t disturb me, I’m concentrating.”

  She stuck her tongue deep in the side of her cheek. It bulged out, distorting her face.

  “Camille, we have to concentrate on these questions,” Braun said. His eyes were nervous now, flitting back and forth from Camille to the guy sitting next to her, guarding the tape machine.

  Camille didn’t look up. She pounded her left hand on the table irritably. The recorder jumped.

  “Don’t interrupt. I want to preserve this moment.”

  “Jesus,” Braun muttered under his breath.

  Then he was silent for a while, watching her pen move in swift strokes across the paper. It didn’t take a genius to see that she wasn’t drawing anything.

  He looked at his watch. “It’s getting late. You must respond to these questions.”

  Camille laughed. His eyes were rolling all over the place, looked about to jump out of his head.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  He looked upset.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Camille directed her pen at his eyes and poked across the table in their direction not far enough to touch him but far enough to make him nervous.

  “It’s all in the eyes. You can see it all in the eyes.” She stared at him, her eyes blinking quickly open and shut. Then she dropped her gaze to her drawing, became absorbed by it. She nodded and fell silent.