Tracking Time

by Leslie Glass

  After a long time, Dr. Gloss came on the line.

  "This is Dr. Gloss."

  "Sergeant Woo, Midtown North."

  "Oh, hi there, April, interesting case."

  "Tell me."

  "I haven't got anything down on paper yet, but this guy James was a walking disaster."

  April had known Pee Wee for a year or two and wasn't surprised. "What killed him?"

  "Oh, he had lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver, and a number of other things that must have made his life pretty uncomfortable, including gangrene in his left foot. Let's put it this way, the man didn't exactly have a bright future. But I'll give it to you in a nutshell. He has a number of bumps on his head, recent cuts and bruises on his face. Looks like he was beaten repeatedly with a branch. Tree bark and leaf particles in his wounds. Big hematomas on his chest. Looks like he'd been stomped and kicked in the side, too. A real brutal thing. He was lying down during the attack. There were no defense wounds on his hands…scalp lacerations on his forehead. The important head injury, however, was on the right side of his head. It put quite a dent in his squash and caused a subdural hematoma. Blood clot on the brain to you. Here's the interesting part. When the skull is cracked like an egg and begins to bleed inside, there's no place for the blood to go except down to the brain stem, and when it does that, the brain gets choked. Death comes fast. But this was a focal injury, in one spot, and it caused slow bleeding in his brain that occurred over a period of many hours. If he had been a healthy person in a car wreck, and been taken to a hospital promptly, we could have saved him." Gloss paused.

  Pee Wee had left the precinct at noon. When April last saw him, he'd just peed in his pants. He'd been drunk but had no head injury. "What are you suggesting?" she asked.

  "Well, depressed in the hair and scalp were fragments of cement and brick. You know what these homeless guys die of most frequently?" the ME asked.

  "Exposure."

  "Exposure is not a cause of death, April. No, a lot of these guys die because they drink too much or take an overdose and fall down."

  "Dr. Gloss, the man was badly beaten and someone cut off his finger. You're not going to tell me he died of falling down."

  "Well, the cause of death is a subdural hematoma, but his skull depression was probably caused by a sidewalk."

  "You're telling me he fell down?" April was incredulous.

  "Or he was pushed down. Anyway, he got up and maybe walked around for a while."

  "With his brain bleeding? Is that possible?" April asked.

  "It's possible."

  "Then later somebody beat him with a tree branch. Was he alive when his finger was cut off?" April said.

  "Yes, but probably unconscious. One hopes so."

  "Can you give me a time frame?"

  "I'd say he died between eight to twelve hours ago. Some time between midnight and three."

  April thought about it. The sidewalk did it some time after noon. What did Pee Wee do after he left the precinct? When did he enter the park? He met someone there and was attacked, and sometime between midnight and three, he died. Ducci, the dust and fiber man, had his clothes and the bagged items they'd found in the area. The park bench had been dusted for fingerprints. If they were lucky something would come up.

  The DA wasn't going to like it, but her boss would. There wouldn't be too much paperwork, and no one was going to blame the death on what might or might not have happened in the station house. No one beat him with a sidewalk there. No fodder for Internal Affairs in this.

  Gloss was still talking. "Another interesting thing. There were some small black flecks on the dead man's clothes. At first we thought it was car paint, but there were several little chips and one bigger one, and they were brittle but nowhere near as hard as the spray paint used on cars. Our guess is nail polish. Ducci will know."

  "Black nail polish? So there was a woman involved," April said.

  "That's right. My guess is that maybe he attacked her."

  "With a dent in his squash?"

  "Head trauma victims can get pretty aggressive sometimes. As I said, they don't collapse right away."

  "So you think he got into an argument with a woman. She fought him off, chipped her nail polish, and hacked off his finger while he lay dying. I've heard of revenge, but this seems a little extreme. The amputation was pretty messy. What did she use, anyway? The nail clipper?"

  "A knife. Obviously not a very big one, maybe a boning knife."

  "How about a razor?" April asked. Dylan used razor blades for her tummy cuts. But she wasn't wearing nail polish yesterday when April saw her.

  "Uh-uh. Not sturdy enough. Maybe a pocketknife. Or a small Swiss Army knife. Would have been a struggle though, if he were awake."

  "Maybe that's how the nail polish got chipped."

  "Did I say he was lying down?"

  "Yes, you mentioned it. Okay, I guess I'm getting a picture. It was a savage attack and he was already pretty out of it," April said at last.

  "Do you have anyone in mind for the assault?"

  "Nothing solid yet. Thanks," April said.

  "We'll have a full report in a few days," Gloss told her.

  Few weeks would probably be more like it, April thought. Poor Pee Wee. She sat brooding at her desk. Now she knew some of the physical evidence they were looking for-the knife that had cut off Pee Wee's finger, black nail polish. Diaries, letters, anything to indicate state of mind. The problem was they had been looking in the wrong places. She peered out the window of her office at the swarm of detectives in the squad room. She knew Brandy Fabman had been one of Pee Wee's attackers. Now she was worried about Maslow, really worried.

  She dialed John Zumech to give him the news.

  He answered on the first ring.

  "Hey, John," April said.

  "April, I was just going to call you. What happened to you this morning?" he demanded.

  "I had to follow up a lead. Sorry, I didn't mean to run off. Anyway, we have a preliminary death report on James. Gloss says he fell, and the sidewalk hit his head. But he bled for hours and had plenty of time to get into a fight and have his finger cut off before he died."

  "Sounds complicated."

  "Yes, and I'm bothered by how it all fits together. I'm thinking maybe Pee Wee knew where Maslow is. When I was questioning him, he kept telling me about someone who was taking care of him, paying him off. Maybe he hid Maslow somewhere, then moved him later. Anyway I think he's still in the park." The pressure to get going was killing her, but she didn't want to start with the bad news.

  "How can I help?" John asked.

  "How well do you know Central Park? Maybe we missed something. What about tunnels or hiding places we don't know about? There must be maps or something that would show everything over and under the ground. Surveys, whatever."

  "I don't know anything about maps and plans. Parks Department would have that." Zumech was sounding very cold.

  "It was just a thought. It popped into my head." April wondered what was up with him. "You know, I can't help thinking, if Maslow isn't on top of the ground, he may be under the ground. We know Peachy can find a buried man. She's done it before. What do you say we try again?"

  "Well, she could if there's a breathing hole for his scent to escape," Zumech said slowly.

  "But even if Maslow's scent is gone from, say, the street, I could still show you where Slocum's dog was working and where she got stuck. We could take it from there," April suggested.

  "Fine, I'll do it. Do you have a clean scent item?"

  "I can get you one."

  "You get it, I'll be there in an hour."

  "John, I really appreciate this, but I think I'm hearing something in your voice." Now she could tell him the bad news.

  "I was going to call you about those soft tissue finds we had this morning. I knew there was something weird about them."

  "For sure," April murmured. She could feel him squirm on the phone.

  "Well, I think I know w
here they came from."

  "Where did they come from, John?"

  "When my wife got home from work a few minutes ago, she thanked me for cleaning up the garage. And the thing is, April, I didn't. I planned to, but I never got around to it. You know how it is."

  April chewed on that for a moment. "You had body parts in your garage, John?" she said finally.

  "Yeah, for training the dogs. I don't use it anymore. I can get the scent mail order-anything I want, fear, death. Fear is good when you're tracking escaped prisoners. I forgot about it. But my wife was always complaining about the smell. It was gone this morning. April, I'm reeling over this. I can't believe it."

  "We'll have to dust your place for prints, John. I hope your wife didn't clean up."

  "Well, let's just say I have a good guess who did it. I'm not happy about it, in fact I'm pretty sick. It isn't going to look good for me."

  "Your little friends Brandy and David. They may have killed Pee Wee."

  "Oh God, that's bad. You pick them up. I'm on my way."

  April hung up. John had kept human tissue in his garage. Nobody here was looking good. She decided she'd call Jason and tell him first. David Owen had a shrink. That meant there had to be something major wrong with him, right? Now they had three kids in trouble. Only Dylan had a motive for hurting Maslow. But to April's eye, that sad sack of a girl wasn't looking like much of a suspect now.

  Fifty-five

  Maslow stripped off his T-shirt and gently put it under Allegra's head. He probed her skull with his fingers. Some lumps and bumps. No tears in her scalp or face that he could feel. Without a wig, her head was much smaller than he'd thought, and her own hair was very short, like a pixie's. This surprised him. He couldn't imagine why she'd worn a wig or what she looked like without it, but none of that mattered. Keeping her alive was his concern right now. Her pulse was strong. She moaned as he struggled with the laces tied around her swollen wrists.

  "How are you doing?" he asked.

  "Ahhh."

  "Sorry, can't help it." He picked at the knots, ignoring her groans, and finally worked the last one loose.

  "Oww. That kills," she sobbed, sucking in her breath as her arms were freed.

  "Hang in there. Good girl."

  "I'm dying," she whimpered. "I don't care."

  "Uh-uh. Don't die. I can't lose you now." He chafed her hands, then gently rubbed her wrists to get the circulation going. She made crying noises.

  "Don't."

  "You're doing okay," he assured her.

  "Oww."

  "How's that, better?" He rubbed life back into her arms and hands.

  "It kills. My leg!"

  "We'll get it out. You'll be fine," he assured her.

  But in the dimming light, she didn't look so fine. Her body was curled in an awkward position and her nose was badly smashed to one side. She yelped when he touched the leg caught under the gate.

  "Owww."

  Hunger gnawed at Maslow, but he was moving now, his body beginning to obey his commands. He felt nauseated and needed water, but knew that Allegra needed it more. She was dehydrated, and he was afraid she was going to go into shock. He was shivering pretty badly himself and had to get them out of there.

  Beyond the bushes, the light was fading. He feared their captors got active at night. He didn't want to be there when they came back. He crouched in front of the mouth of the cave. It wasn't very big and now he saw how they were trapped inside. The gate blocking the entrance was about thirty-six inches wide and had bars at four-inch intervals. The smell of rust was strong in the damp air. The gate was clearly very old.

  He called, then listened. Nothing. Called again. Then he felt the bars one by one. The sharp, scaling metal cut his fingers. The bottom and sides were still sturdy, but the vertical bars were thinner and he could feel that many of them had rusted nearly all the way through. The gate itself was no higher than three feet, but there were only a few inches of space above it, not enough to climb over it. Inside the cave, sand was still falling from above. More of the ceiling might collapse at any time. Maslow was worried about the circulation in Allegra's ankle. Soon she would lose her foot. He tested the gate. If he could lift it a few inches, he could ease the weight on her ankle. He could move her foot out.

  "Oww," she screamed.

  "If you can bear just a little more, I think I can get your foot out."

  "Stop!"

  "Just a little more."

  Her voice croaked. "No. I have to tell you something."

  "Sure, as soon as we're out."

  "No! Now!"

  "In five minutes, I'll have you out of here. I promise."

  Her voice was angry and tearful. "I'm going to die in here, and you won't listen."

  He kept working. "You never listen!"

  "Allegra-"

  "I'm not Allegra. I'm Dylan. I'm your sister."

  Silence. Maslow was trying to lift the gate and save the girl's foot. He didn't want to argue. "You're my sister." Whatever. She was very good at stories.

  "Owww. Stop! Your father is my father." She took a few gulping breaths of air. "I wanted to meet you. That's all. It was like a hunger I can't even explain."

  Stunned, Maslow sat back on his heels. Pain blasted through the muscles and torn skin of his calves.

  "What?" He stared at her dirty, battered face, nausea sucking at his gut.

  "Jerome Atkins is my daddy."

  Maslow's brain swirled back four months. In her written biography, she'd described a father unwell and crippled who'd needed help going to the bathroom. In great detail, she described the outhouse behind the modest house where they'd lived and how her father had abused her there from the time she was five or six.

  "He didn't want you to know."

  Maslow shook his head as if he had water in his ear. "How do you know?" he asked softly.

  "I saw a newspaper article about him when I was ten. Some award he got. It mentioned your mother and you. I was-it was horrible. After that, there hasn't been a day of my life that I didn't think about you." Allegra was having trouble breathing.

  "Shh. You don't have to-"

  "I want to tell you. I wasn't supposed to know you. Daddy was with you on holidays. He was with me and my mom the day before or the day after. Sometimes you went away on vacation, and we'd wait for him to come home. We were shadows. I felt like a shadow person." She panted. "I was always a shadow person."

  Maslow felt the nausea rise and water fill his mouth. He could hear the rats scuffling nearby, waiting for another chance at them. He didn't want to retch.

  "I kept trying to tell you the truth about Daddy, but you wouldn't listen."

  Maslow closed his eyes. No more confessions. He had to get them out of there. He didn't want her to use up her energy and die, didn't want to throw up and be useless because of what she was telling him.

  "That day I called you-well, I'd called you before. At first I just called to hear your voice."

  "How did you get my phone number?" he asked.

  "I got it from information."

  Of course. He was a doctor, anyone could find him.

  "I listened to your voice on tape. And one day, you answered."

  Maslow remembered it well.

  "You thought I wanted to be your patient. And then before I could say anything, you were giving me times that you were available."

  "Jesus." Maslow was rubbing her hands furiously. Small hands, like his.

  "Owww."

  Bites. She had rat bites on her hands. Maybe one on her cheek, too. Her nose was a mess, she was going to lose her foot soon; and she wouldn't stop talking.

  "I'd wanted to meet you for so long, and there you were inviting me to come and see you. Just like that. It was like God coming down from heaven and making my dream come true. You didn't ask who I was or what I wanted. You just gave me a time and told me where to go. And when I met you, you looked like Daddy, like me, but you didn't see it. You asked me what my name was. I don't know, I just
said the first thing that came to mind."

  "We have to get going." It was too terrible. Maslow didn't want to hear any more.

  "And then we made another appointment for a few days later. I was so excited. I had planned to tell you that first day. But you were so nice to me. You asked me all kinds of questions. How could I tell you I was just a nobody, with a nothing story. Nobody ever hit me or hurt me in any way. I wasn't starving. I went to school. It wasn't like I was deprived at all. What could my complaint be? Last year I took a course on domestic abuse, so I made up a story like that. I wanted to tell you the whole truth, everything. But I liked being with you. I liked the interest you took in me. It was your idea that you analyze me. I never would have thought of it."

  "Oh God!" He was such a jerk. Maslow could see just how it happened. His nausea overwhelmed him. The subway rumbled and a clump of dirt fell from the ceiling behind them. What if she was right and they were going to die in there? He turned away and gagged. A little sour acid came out of him, nothing more. His head spun, and she was still talking.

  "I knew, as a patient, I could see you five days a week, every week. But if I told you I'm your sister, who knew what you would do? I felt really bad. On Tuesday I was going to tell you no matter what, but you brushed me off."

  "I have to lift this gate, Allegra," he said. "So we can get out of here."

  "My name is Dylan Rodriguez and I don't care that I'm dying."

  "Oh God." That was what Chloe had said.

  Dylan stopped talking. She'd told him what she wanted him to know and now she was finished. The gate was wedged in such a way that he couldn't get it up. Frustration at so many ruined lives made him howl like a dog at the rats in the corner, the shadows in the night.

  Fifty-six

  Cheryl was fussing around in her new kitchen with the music on and the door half closed. She didn't have any particular intention of cooking anything, but she wanted to make things nice. Her decorator had considered his job done when the appliances were in and the wallpaper was up, so it was up to her to arrange the small appliances and even the utensils. Because of her surgery last week and a number of other things on her mind, Cheryl hadn't gotten to it until now. At the moment, she was trying to decide which was better next to the sink, the Cuisinart or the coffeemaker. Or maybe the toaster oven.