Stealing Time

by Glass, Leslie

  "Anton doesn't pay his parking tickets. And he's a speeder." Charlie gave Baum a dirty look. "Typical lawyer stuff."

  "We need more on Anton. Where he went, who he hung with. Name of the girlfriend," April said. She was beginning to have her doubts about the girlfriend.

  "That's your job," Charlie reminded her.

  "All right. That's it. Check with the health department, see what you come up with on a birth certificate."

  "You're not going to find that under his name," April told him. She had a feeling there was no birth certificate.

  "It never hurts to check," Iriarte said. Everybody else filed out. He flapped his hand at April to stay, then gave her a little smile.

  "Guess what, this guy Popescu wants to drop the whole thing." Iriarte shook his head. "Looks like he's gotten himself between a rock and a hard place on the adoption and wants out before it gets out of hand." He smiled cynically.

  "What's your take?"

  "This guy certainly has something to hide. Wife and a girlfriend. One baby between the two of them. Looks like the other woman has it. His wife in the hospital, beaten up. Let me tell you, the media would go nuts with this, so keep it to yourself."

  "Has Popescu made an offer for some kind of resolution here?"

  "Yeah, he says he won't sue us if we go away now. I told him that won't cut it. A baby's missing and a woman's assaulted. That's about as big as it gets for us, and we're not going away."

  "I talked to Heather's mother in California last night. She had no idea the baby wasn't her daughter's."

  Iriarte shook his head, looking impatient at all the lies. "Do you have any more thoughts about it?"

  April did have another thought about it, but she didn't want to open a new can of worms to her boss just yet. What she hadn't verbalized, even to herself, was that the baby in the picture Anton had given them looked an awful lot like him and Heather Rose. Of course, she could be wrong. How much, after all, could one tell from the eyes of a three-week-old? She could easily put it down to just another creepy feeling. She wasn't seeing a white baby, she was seeing a Chinese baby with blue eyes. That didn't speak of an adoption from China, but of something closer to home. Oh, she didn't like this.

  Iriarte changed the subject. "How you doing with Woody?"

  "He'll be fine." April didn't want to say he could think but couldn't drive, so she didn't say anything.

  "Oh yeah? That sounds tentative."

  "He'll be fine," she assured him. "He's quick on his feet."

  "Go find that baby." Iriarte flapped his hand. "Yes, sir."

  CHAPTER 16

  Jason Frank was in front of his building at Riverside Drive and West Eightieth Street, studying his watch, at exactly two P.M. when the blue-and-white police cruiser pulled up at the curb. The police car took him by surprise.

  "April?"

  April leaned out the window on the passenger side. "Hi, Jason. Thanks for this—I know it's an imposition."

  "No problem." Jason smiled at her. "You know I'd do anything for you"

  "I appreciate it, really. This is Detective Baum. Dr. Frank." She introduced them.

  "Hi." Jason leaned over and smiled at Baum, too.

  The sandy-haired young man in the driver's seat raised his hand in acknowledgment.

  "Well, get in, Jason. Let's go." April got serious fast.

  Jason gave the car a doubtful look. "What's with the squad car?"

  "The unmarked unit we usually take has a flat. You have a problem with it?" She gave him an amused look.

  "Yeah, I have a problem. I don't want my colleagues and patients to see me driven away in a police

  car. It's bad for my image." He grinned as he said it, though, playing with her.

  April grinned back. "Come on, don't make a political statement out of it, get in the car. We're in a hurry."

  "All right, all right." Jason rolled his eyes and opened the car door. The outside was as clean as could be, but inside the car smelled as if the great unwashed had been living there for the entire millennium. Not only that, there was a thick wire screen between the front seat and the back. "What is this, your arrest car?"

  "Yes." April turned around to talk through the screen. "Jason, I love you without the beard. When did you shave it off?"

  Jason raised a hand to his chin, smooth for the first time in nearly a year. "This morning."

  The car took off fast, throwing him against the backseat.

  "Fasten your seat belt, it's the law," April ordered. Now she was playing with him.

  "Whatever you say," he said, suddenly meek now that his life was at stake. "Where are we going?"

  Woody sped down Riverside, hit the siren, and turned left onto West Seventy-second Street, plowing through oncoming traffic without slowing down. Jason had the uncomfortable feeling he was going to jail. No one relieved him of that apprehension.

  He gasped when Woody braked suddenly. "Oh, God."

  "Gee, I'm so glad to see you. It's been a while." April grinned some more again.

  "Same here, I think. You look great, April." In fact, she looked gorgeous—radiant—in a red jacket, a navy skirt, and a white shirt with an oversized collar. In her ears were the jade studs she sometimes wore for good luck. His eye caught a chain around her neck.

  "What's that?"

  April reached to the middle of her chest for the medal hanging there. "Oh this? It's St. Sebastian. He's the patron saint of soldiers and policemen. Kind of like an evil eye, so I'm told." She said it deadpan.

  "I didn't know you were a Catholic."

  "I'm not." She smiled, shrugging.

  "Boyfriend?"

  April cocked her head in the direction of her driver. "Don't ask."

  "Oh, I forgot how secretive you cops are. So what happened to Mike?" Jason couldn't help teasing, pretty sure the gift came from her old partner, Sanchez.

  "He's in Homicide now." End of subject.

  "Is Baum your new partner?"

  "Jason, you're just full of questions, aren't you? We don't have partners in detective units. You know that. How's Emma?"

  "Emma's great. She's taking a leave from the play, may or may not go back to it, depending." He grinned, didn't want to tell her why now. "So what's going on? What do you want from me?"

  "I could have handled this myself if I had a few more days," she said airily. "But this is a right-now kind of thing. Sorry to haul you in on such short notice."

  "Apology accepted. Now what's with the cloak-and-dagger?"

  "Oh, God, will you look at that cutie?" April turned to admire a baby in a stroller stopped at a red light near them. Big fat cheeks, pink. Curls to die for. About twenty pounds, kicking feet in tiny red-white -and-blue sneakers. And a happy grin on her face that could conquer the world in a heartbeat.

  "Adorable." Jason's eyes went all gooey.

  "Jason, tell me about women who kill babies. And

  I'm not talking about abortion here. I mean a full-term, three-week-old baby. Married woman, well-to-do, in her late twenties."

  Jason clamped his jaws together to stop himself from showing his alarm at the way April always led him into things. He'd been through several investigations with her before, and each time whatever little problem she'd wanted his advice on had blossomed into a horror story that he couldn't wander out of. Baby killing! Nice of her to tell him.

  "Someone with a character disorder," he said slowly.

  "Does that mean a nutcase?"

  "Someone who's insane? Not necessarily. A lot of high-functioning people have character disorders."

  "Oh yeah? Maybe I know a few."

  Jason smiled suddenly. "I'm sure you do."

  "Okay—for Baum here, would you define the term?"

  Jason went into teaching mode. "A lot of different kinds of symptoms fit under the umbrella of character disorder. Some people with character disorders relate to the world and other people only on the basis of how those 'others' make them feel. This kind of person loves whoever makes him fee
l good and feels angry at whoever makes him feel bad. Or her, as the case may be. Say you have a narcissistic mother with a new baby. If the baby cries and won't be comforted when the mother wants to console it, she might feel the baby was preventing her from feeling good about herself. She might think the baby was doing it purposely to hurt her. Narcissistic people have no conscience when it comes to hurting others. They are sometimes driven to punish people who they think are hurting them, to make the hurt stop." He paused for breath before going on.

  "Another possibility might be a woman with a really extreme case of postpartum depression."

  "Nope. Isn't her baby," April said flatly.

  Jason groaned again. "It isn't her baby! Whose baby? Give me a break here, April."

  She frowned at him through the wire. "What about revenge? Do you think a woman might kill a baby to get back at her husband who was cheating on her? I mean, if she was nuts."

  Jason scratched the cheek where his beard used to be and wished he were back in his office where he didn't have to deal with baby killers. "Pretty extreme. Can you enlighten me a little further?"

  "Did you listen to the news or read the paper this morning?"

  "I heard something about a missing baby. Jesus, did you find—?" He couldn't bring himself to say the word "body."

  "No, we don't have anything. We searched the building, the area. There's no evidence of an abductor. The woman who had the baby was beaten up. The baby is gone. In the emergency room we find out, it wasn't her baby."

  Jason groaned a third time. "Why me, April?"

  "You're my favorite shrink. Aren't you always telling me you have the best mind in the business?"

  "That's a crock, and you know it. This isn't my field. I'm not forensic."

  "No, but you're always telling me you're the best. So be the best."

  "This is not my area. Can I refuse?" He knew he couldn't refuse.

  "No."

  He sighed and resigned himself. "Okay, so you're the detective, what scenario do you have in mind?"

  "I have no scenario. It's not a clear picture. I was hoping for your input." "What's the problem?"

  "She may be a self-mutilator," April admitted.

  "Hmmm." Jason raised his hand to scratch his beard again, remembered it was gone, and dropped the hand. "Is there a history?"

  "She'd been hospitalized with injuries before."

  "Has she been hospitalized for mental problems?"

  "We're still checking into that."

  "What does she say about what happened?"

  "Er, we haven't questioned her too closely about it. We were hoping you could help."

  "Who found her?"

  "Her husband. He called the police."

  "Do you think he would have called the police if his wife killed the baby, or if he assaulted her himself?"

  "Yes, if he feared it would come out, he might want to be involved in the investigation. Sometimes they want to be the focus of the world's sympathy. Sometimes they just want to explain it away."

  "There's something else you haven't told me, isn't there?"

  They pulled up in front of Roosevelt Hospital. Baum stopped with a jerk, throwing Jason against the backseat again. "April, you didn't tell me she's in the hospital."

  "Yeah, it's the first thing I said. I said, 'Jason, she may be feigning a coma.' "

  "You never said it. And you can't feign a coma, April." Now Jason was really disgusted.

  "She's Chinese. Let's go."

  "What does that mean, she's Chinese?" Jason tried the door. It was locked.

  "Woody." April reminded him to get the door. Woody got out, ran around and opened it.

  Jason looked disgusted. He couldn't get out on his own. The door had a suspect-proof lock on the inside.

  "April, didn't it occur to you that if the woman's unconscious, I'm not going to be able to help you?"

  "You deal with the unconscious all the time," April said smoothly.

  "Unconscious when the patient is awake," Jason said, suddenly feeling testy. "You're jerking me around, kiddo. I don't like that." Woody opened the door, but Jason didn't get out.

  "Oh come on, unconscious is unconscious," April insisted. "You can do this, Jason. I told you I think she's feigning. She's not really out."

  "April, you can't feign a coma," he said again, still not moving.

  "Come and take a look at this. I know you can help. You always do."

  "Oh shit." He got out of the car. He'd promised an hour. He'd give her an hour. "What's the baby's name?" he asked.

  "Paul," she said. "His name is Paul."

  CHAPTER 17

  Jason looked through the window in Heather Rose's hospital room door before going in. Now he could see the reason for April's confusion. The patient showed some sign of movement. Two fingers moved back and forth across a small area of cotton blanket as if she were scolding or polishing it; and she almost seemed to be talking to herself. Apart from the moving hand, she was a bundle under the covers, an undefined shape, not very big. Jason's first thought was that Heather Rose was the size of a few standard pillows shoved together, not a fair sparring partner for a grown man.

  The bed was cranked halfway up and the covers were pulled to her chin. Nothing of her could be seen but her face, which was a study of red and purpling bruises against the white sheets, the one arm that was outside the sheet, and her long, lush, inky-black hair. The way her thick and healthy hair fanned the pillow and framed her battered face was incongruous, shocking. The hair gave her a poignancy, an allure that seemed almost erotic even in the tragic circumstances and austere setting. It draped the pillow and looped over her shoulder, covering the curves of Heather Rose Popescu's chest almost to her waist. This surprised Jason, for hair so very long was an unusual feature for a woman living on the very edge of the twenty-first century. It was definitely a cultivated characteristic, like a huge mustache or a head shaved in patterns. It told Jason that Heather valued her tresses as one of her treasures, or that perhaps someone else, like her husband, valued a part of her that represented another time and place. In any case, the hair was a symbol, and like all symbols, had its profound meaning.

  As Jason studied Heather Rose, the thick loop covering her left shoulder stirred just a little, like a snake shifting in the sun. It was as if her hair had an energy, a life of its own. Jason pushed the door open and went in.

  "Hi, Heather, I'm Dr. Frank."

  In the instant that the door opened and he spoke her body became still. No sound emanated from her. Her face was immobile in its swelling, and her uninjured half-closed eye showed no interest as he walked across the room, pulled up a chair, and sat close to the bed.

  There were a thousand doctor things he could say and do: he could test her reflexes, talk to her, rub her hands, slap her wrists lightly.

  Among all the possibilities, "Who's the president?" was what slipped out of his mouth first. It was something the doctors and nurses always said on rounds years ago when Jason had been an intern and a resident. It was what they said in emergency rooms and psychiatric hospitals. If a patient knew and could articulate the right answer, it meant he could hear, could understand, and was able to sort through the complicated circuitry of the brain and connect with reality.

  Heather Rose did not tell him who was president, did not, in fact, respond to him in any clearly definable way; but he had not really thought she would. April had not been wrong about one thing, however. The woman on the bed seemed somehow to be present. He had the feeling that she had become watchful. Her two fingers stopped chastising the blanket. Now she seemed to be suspended on another level altogether, as if waiting for him to ask her the right question.

  But Jason also knew it was not unusual for bedside visitors (even doctors and nurses) to have a wide range of feelings and beliefs about people who were unconscious. They seemed to be sleeping. They were sleeping, but sometimes they groaned, twitched, writhed, fought their tubes, and made other movements that could be interpreted as me
aningful by those who desperately wanted evidence that their loved ones were still viable beings who could hear, could feel, and knew what was going on—and, most of all, that they could come back if only the open-sesame words, the correct stimuli, were supplied.

  He said a few general things, then mentioned Heather's mother. April had told him Mrs. Kwan was coming from California. "Heather, you're not alone here. A lot of people are rooting for you. Your mom is on her way."

  The hand with the IV in it twitched. Jason took it in both of his, examined the bitten cuticles and nails, turned it over and looked at the palm. Without realizing it, he had become like a cop. He was searching for some sign that she had resisted, had tried to fight off her attacker. Her nails were too short to be weapons, however. Her palm was soft and cool and the skin on it undisturbed. The arm above it told a different story.

  "Look at these burn marks," he murmured, stroking her arm. "You've had a hard time. No one has to live this way. Come on back, Heather. Come on, talk to me. Your baby is out there."

  Her eye flooded, but no tear spilled out. Interesting.

  "No one can hurt you here. Not you, or anyone else. It's safe to wake up. If you wake up, we can protect you. We can help you get well. Whatever happened, we have to find the baby. He's a person. What happened to him can't be a mystery."

  Jason squeezed her hand. It did not squeeze back. "Wake up now. It's over. You have to tell us about Paul. Heather, we need to find him. If someone took him, we need to know who and where he is. If something else happened to him, you can tell me. Please, wake up and tell me."

  No sound, not a thing. He was having a solitary conversation, but he had the eerie feeling she was listening. He'd had that feeling with patients before. Sometimes he was right, and sometimes not. As a doctor he felt helpless more often than not. He wasn't being very doctorlike now. One look and he should have been out of there. Head case or not, baby killer or not, this was not for him. Still, he'd offer her the choice.

  "I know you're coming up from a deep place. I know you want to come back. Come on, now's your chance to tell your side."