But she was certainly taking her time getting there.
76
Milicia was wearing sunglasses, had pinned her hair into a tight bun and put a silk scarf on her head, tied around the back like Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy used to do. People turned to look at her. She knew she looked good. She was carrying her leather carryall and the Channel Thirteen bag with Hannabelle inside. She strode along Fifty-seventh Street, moving confidently now. The two Klonopin she took after her shower must have worked.
Usually, she didn’t like taking pills of any kind. But Charles had told her that in really stressful situations, it was okay to get a little help to calm down. He told her the experience she was having now with Camille and the police ranked very high on the stress scale. She should have gone to Charles in the first place. This mess wouldn’t have happened if she had gone to Charles instead of Jason Frank.
She glanced around casually. She wasn’t stupid. She knew someone had to be following her. But who was it? She stopped in front of a restaurant with bottles of Chianti and piles of fresh uncooked spaghetti in the window and carefully studied the street reflected behind her. No one seemed to be watching her. But how was she supposed to know? It didn’t have to be someone in uniform. It could be anybody. The person or persons following her could be Chinese or Hispanic, or black. The cop who had come to her apartment was Chinese, her doorman said. In the station house a lot of the police didn’t look like police.
A feeling of unease drifted over Milicia as she thought of all those people looking like Haitian taxi drivers, and Indians on messenger bikes, who might really be cops.
She went into the restaurant. She took a table where she could watch the street from the window and ordered some spaghetti with tomato sauce and a glass of red wine. When the spaghetti came, she ate it slowly, thinking things over, sipping the wine and ignoring the unhappy dog scratching at the canvas bag by her feet.
After her meal she felt better. She paid her bill and headed east toward Second Avenue. Things looked normal around her. But still she had an uneasy feeling that anyone and everyone could be a spy.
On Second Avenue, unlike the night before, there were no police cars on the street. She did not know how this could be. They had sent a sick woman home by herself, a woman who was not safe without supervision. How could they do that? Weren’t they responsible if they took her home in a police car, left her there, and something happened to her? She felt a surge of anger at the thought of something happening to Camille.
She scanned the street, looking for someone who appeared to be hanging around. She saw several dozen parked cars and vans: All were empty. None of the passersby paid any attention to her. As she approached the door of the building, it suddenly occurred to her that maybe Camille wasn’t alone. Maybe they had sent a social worker or a cop with her, maybe she was somehow being supervised. Maybe she was under house arrest.
She glanced around one more time, saw nothing to arouse her suspicions, then opened the outside door. Inside, she had no problem using her key. Bouck was in the hospital. She knew that part wasn’t a trick. She had called to make sure. He was in intensive care, couldn’t even speak, the nurse had told her. His guns had been confiscated. She could go into Bouck’s house anytime she wanted: She had no more reason to be afraid.
Milicia climbed to the second floor and opened the door at the top of the stairs. Inside, she stopped short. Camille was on her hands and knees in the middle of a lake of soap and water, scrubbing the floor, singing a tuneless little song.
At the sight of her sister, Camille stopped singing.
“Hi, baby,” Milicia said, setting the canvas bag down. “I brought you a present.”
77
How did you get in here?” Camille was so startled to see Milicia come through Bouck’s apartment door, she dropped the brush with a clatter.
“Baby, I can get in anywhere, you know that. I’m an architect. I know how everything works.” Milicia made a face at the puddles of soapy water. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Milicia’s Channel Thirteen bag tilted and fell over. The dog inside tumbled out and shook herself. Puppy, who hadn’t been acting right since the police station, suddenly regained her energy. She leapt out of Camille’s lap, charged through a puddle, and hurled herself at her tiny twin.
“Puppy,” Camille cried sharply. “Come back here!”
Puppy ignored the command.
“Puppy, it’s your mother calling!”
“No.” Milicia laughed. “It’s her sister calling.”
Milicia planted herself on the third stair. She took her scarf and sunglasses off, then peered through the banister bars at Camille, as if one of them were in a cage.
“Sisters are more important than mothers.” She pointed at the dogs. “Look at them.”
The two apricot fluff balls had launched into a frenzy of leaping and jumping and kissing and rolling all over each other with sharp yips of delight.
Camille was confused. Puppy had seemed so sick with precinct cancer, and now she seemed all right. “Oh, no.” Camille smacked her cheek in horror. “Oh, no, oh, no.” She’d taken Puppy’s collar off when she started splashing water everywhere. The collar had been expensive, and she hadn’t wanted to get it wet. Now Puppy was without her identification. Puppy wasn’t listening to her, and Milicia’s dog wasn’t wearing a collar. What if Puppy forgot who she was?
“What’s her name?” Camille cried frantically. “Call her, call her back—”
“Doesn’t have a name. Look how happy they are to see each other.” Milicia clapped her hands. “Isn’t it cute. That’s how sisters should be.”
“Puppy’s been sick,” Camille said angrily. “I don’t want her upset, you’ll have to go. I’m too busy. I can’t have you here.” She picked up the brush to show how busy she was, spraying soap across the wet floor. “Take your dog and go away.”
“Oh, don’t be so mean, Camille. You’re always so mean.”
“I’m not the one who’s mean.” Milicia’s sneaking in on her made Camille’s head start to pound.
She kept her eyes on the dogs, now chasing each other up and down the hall, sliding in the soapy water and falling on each other. Puppy was staggering around a little, but seemed determined to play. Go away, Milicia, she thought but could not say.
Then, as Camille studied them, she could see they weren’t the same at all, just like she and Milicia were not the same. The other dog had a tooth sticking out of its lower jaw that distorted its face just enough to make it look like it was always smiling. Puppy didn’t have that tooth at all. She’d lost the baby canine on that side, and the new one hadn’t sprouted yet. Camille knew this because one day a tooth fell out in her hand.
Camille reminded herself of the tooth so she wouldn’t think about Milicia being nice to her. All those massages, when she rubbed little Cammy’s tummy, moving her hand lower and lower, fingers wiggling between Cammy’s thighs. Like that, Cammy? Isn’t it great? Fingers slippery with Vaseline from the medicine cabinet. Back and forth, round and round with the soft, oily fingers until little Cammy was all throbbing and breathless and hot. Yes, you like it. Yes, I’ll do it again. Whenever you want.
Yes, yes, comparing the two poodles point by point, Camille noticed Milicia’s was darker around the head and ears, and Puppy’s legs were longer. Puppy was taller. Her head still hurt, but she felt better when she knew which was hers.
“You’re mean to me,” Milicia said in a pouty voice. “I try to take care of you and love you, and whatever I do you hate me. Why do you hate me so much?”
That tone of voice made Camille’s stomach queasy. Milicia’s voice was like a pretty pond with a mud-sucking bottom. All sweet and sad, with an ugly, dangerous edge. What did she want?
“You better go. Bouck’s coming back in a little while. He won’t like finding you here.” Camille pushed away the sick feeling in her stomach that kept warning her Milicia was there to be her boss again. Carefully, she scrubb
ed a spot on the wall she’d missed. “Can’t you see I’m cleaning for him?”
“Bouck’s not coming back.” Milicia spoke gently. “He’s dead. I’m the one who takes care of you now.”
“No, stupid.” Camille’s eyes twitched. She was furious. “You can’t trick me. He’s not dead. He’s coming back. I’m going to the hospital to pick him up in a few minutes.”
“That’s a lie. You don’t even know which hospital. And you couldn’t find it if you did. You’re the stupid one.”
Camille squeezed her eyes shut. Her head hurt. “Go away.”
Milicia sat on the stairs like a queen and poked at her through the banister bars with her finger. “Unh-unh. You’re stupid, and you’re crazy, too. All your life you caused trouble. And now this. Look at this place. You can’t keep house. You can’t even find food. You’re still little Cammy.”
Camille trembled all over but didn’t say anything. Milicia could do that to her, stop her from talking, stop her from breathing, anytime she wanted. The bad feeling in her stomach wouldn’t go away. Milicia was here to do something to her. What?
Milicia’s voice turned warm again. “You used to love me. Why do you hate me now?”
Camille shook her head. Her arms twitched.
Give me a lesson, Milicia. I promise I’ll be good.
78
What’s going on?”
It seemed to get hotter in the van with every second. April was soaked with perspiration, her hair so wet it stuck to her scalp.
She glanced over at Sanchez, hunkered down on his heels like a cowboy or a Chinese peasant. He looked cool in spite of the temperature, smiled, and raised a shoulder at her. No answer.
April studied him suspiciously. Mike had talked with the Captain before they left the precinct. He might not know what was happening in the apartment, but he knew what was going on at the precinct. In fact, she was beginning to think that all these meetings with Sergeant Joyce and the Captain were getting to him. Sergeant Sanchez had been pretty laid back only a few weeks before. Now April could see that he was walking with a firmer step, his eyes set on the future.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead with a tissue, considering the situation. She knew these high-profile cases could change things. Lots of people in the department got assigned to one job and stayed in it for twenty years. But other people moved around, did different things. Got ahead. Now she saw how it happened. They called in somebody ahead of you, and that person messed up. You got to move up to their place. Just the way she and Sanchez were sitting in this van instead of Lieutenant Braun and Sergeant Roberts.
She knew what Mike was thinking, because people who worked together had a whole language worked out. Everything meant something. If they were questioning a suspect on the street and Mike said, “I’m hungry. Let’s go for a pizza,” it meant “Cuff the suspect now.”
Braun and Roberts had messed up and now April and Mike were in the van.
Mike smiled at her. “A peso for your thoughts.”
April shook her head. “A whole lot of things. Taking the exam. Passing it and moving out of the Two-O. Failing it …” and staying in the squad. His wife Maria dying in Mexico. His being free and finding another woman to love. There were a whole lot of things to think about.
Mike’s mustache twitched. He knew what they were and passed them right back, knocking her flat with the challenge to do what she wanted, say what she felt, be herself, and not some wet rag from a movie he’d seen.
“What is it with you Oriental women?” he had once demanded, swiveling around in his chair in the squad room one day when they were alone for a few minutes. “Don’t you ever want to break out? Go crazy with love? Be wild, smash a wall? Tell your mother off? Get yourself off the hook?” He just had to let her know he’d gone to the damn movie.
“I’m out. What you see is all there is,” April had replied mildly. She never told him she’d seen that cooking movie about Mexicans who went up in smoke when they fell in love. Or that she had thought it was dumb because nobody was that hot.
“Washrags,” he had muttered. “I really wanted to slap them all.”
“You want to slap me? Go ahead, try it. See how much of a washrag I am.” She drew herself up and glared at him. “Go ahead. See how close you get.”
“Damn you! You know what I’m talking about. You can tear apart a class-A felon with your bare hands. You just won’t … I don’t know … grab what you want, go for it.” His hand slapped his desk the way he said he wanted to slap the women in The Joy Luck Club.
But he only shot her a piercing look. “When are you going to go for it, querida? You got to go for it yourself. It won’t just come to you.”
She shivered, not knowing what to say. “I’ll go for it when I find it,” she told him finally. “It’s just old Chinese wisdom to look very close at the quality of everything before you decide what to take. You Latins just jump at anything that strikes your eye. You don’t even know if it’s first quality. Later, when you get what you think you want, half the time you’re sorry.”
That shut him up for a while. But now she could see the question coming back at her in the overheated sound van. She detoured around it. “There’s nothing coming in here. Some great idea, bugging the dog.”
Ben played with the knobs a few more minutes. “I think she took the collar off. I don’t hear nothing. No breathing, no crying. Nothing. Did you tell her to leave the collar on?”
“She’s supposed to keep the dog and the collar with her,” Sanchez said.
“Maybe she disobeyed you.” Ben sounded sarcastic. “Maybe the dog is no longer with us in this world.”
“She wouldn’t kill the dog,” April said quickly.
“Maybe the other one would.” He tried something different with the buttons. Nothing.
“Doesn’t matter. They already took a mold of the dog’s jaw. The dentist said it was an easy one. Sometimes they have to destroy the animal to get it.”
“Nice.”
April glanced at Mike. “One of those women is a killer. I don’t want to sit here waiting to see which one walks out alive.”
“Detective, are you saying in your considered judgment, the time has come to go for it?” Mike asked.
April wrinkled her nose at the smell of Ben’s feet and nodded gravely. “Yes, Sergeant, I am.”
“Okay.” In one smooth motion, Mike stood, then slid the door open. “Let’s go.”
79
Milicia’s voice was soft again, pleading. “You won’t let me near you. You won’t let me love you.” She talked through the wooden bars, her voice trembling with emotion. “Why?”
Camille pressed her hands over her ears. The pounding in her head felt like Niagara Falls. She was rigid all over. Her body told her why.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Milicia asked sadly.
“Don’t talk to me,” Camille cried. “Don’t—”
“Well, I have to, stupid. It’s all your fault.”
“No!” Camille pushed the old voices away, the old feelings: first so exciting. So much fun. What a secret!
Let’s make a tent with the sheets and hide. Come on, Cammy. Don’t you want to be healthy and feel good? Yes, it does make you feel good. Only big people do this. Only smart people … Mommy doesn’t like you. She wants you little and stupid. It’s good, too, isn’t it? Means I love you.
Camille inched backward until her spine touched the wall. Her hands brushed at the skirt covering her stomach, trying to wipe away the memory of Milicia’s hair hanging over her bare belly so many times, tickling her until she squealed with helpless laughter. For a while so safe and exciting. Milicia being so nice when she wasn’t mean.
Then not so nice when she thought of more things that gave Cammy a strange, unsettled feeling. Scary feeling. And more scary as Milicia took her secret place from her little by little, turning it into a torture chamber. It was Milicia who created a panic button right in the center of Camille’s body, trying different
things on it until Camille’s secret place was Milicia’s to invade any way she wanted. Cammy couldn’t make it different.
Milicia, it’s your turn for a health lesson.
Nobody gives me health lessons. I’m already healthy. You’re the one who needs it. If you didn’t need it, you wouldn’t ask me, would you? Beg me, Cammy. Beg me now.
Camille’s head pounded. She tried to stop the voices in the tent, on the bathroom floor. In the back of the car under the blanket. But they rushed back at her. All of them crowding together in Bouck’s hallway, where the frothing soapy water was now tinged pink with his blood.
“My head hurts,” Camille whimpered.
“I can make it stop hurting,” Milicia whispered through the bars. “You want to go upstairs. I know something new.”
If you don’t stop bugging me, Cammy, you’ll never feel good again. Is that what you want?
“No.”
You can’t have it this way forever. This is the baby way. You won’t be a woman until you do it the woman way.
“Oh, come on. What are you afraid of?”
“I can’t be touched.”
“That’s silly. I’ll hug you and make you feel better.”
Camille struggled with the words. “The police know, Milicia.”
Milicia looked surprised. A flicker of hope penetrated the cavern of Camille’s terror.
“They know you killed those girls.…”
“You’re crazy. How could I do that?”
“You know how to squeeze.” With enormous effort Camille shaped the words. “Remember?”
“Did you tell the police stories?” Milicia was angry again. Her face through the bars of the stairway was fierce and very cold.
Camille covered her eyes with her hair so she wouldn’t have to see it. “About what?” she whispered through her hair. “About the scarf game or the plastic-bag game?”
Hanging Time Page 36