When he pulled up at the Popescus' building, the CSU van was already there, its back door open. Inside, Saul Bernheim, the skinny criminologist who claimed he never ate, was sitting cross-legged on the floor gnawing on a massive deli sandwich.
Mike pulled up behind the van, got out, and locked the car. "Hey, Saul."
"Mike, Mike man. You on this one? I thought you were working the cojones case. Mean." He shook his head over the mutilation.
"Nah, we got him."
"Him? Homo case? I thought as much."
"No, boyfriend-girlfriend. The wife went back to her husband. The boyfriend sent her his crown jewels."
"Doesn't ring." Saul shook his head. "Wasn't the victim with a he/she before he got wiped?" He took a bite of half-sour pickle and chewed.
"Yeah, but the he/she didn't do it."
"It wasn't the hooker? You sure?" He ate more sandwich and gave Mike more puzzled looks.
"No, it was the guy's business partner." Mike was salivating over the sandwich. "He sent her the guy's nuts. The package had a return address." Not a hard one to figure.
"Listen to me. Three guys, one a he/she? The other two fighting over a woman, and the winner gets his jewelry whacked. Come on. This is a homo thing."
"Thanks for your input, Saul. What are you eating?"
"Best pastrami in the world, right here at Katz's. Nothing else like it. Want some?"
Mike shook his head. "You been inside?"
"No, I'm waiting for Carmine. He went out for cannolis."
"Jesus, all you guys do is eat."
"This is an aberration. We never eat. Want to fill me in? I told them I don't like coming back after the body is gone. This is a big fuckup, a contaminated situation from the word go. But do they care? What are we looking for, anyway?"
Before Mike could answer, Carmine Cartuso trotted up, carrying a white bakery box by its string. "Hey, Sanchez, how ya doin'? You in on this idiocy?"
Saul eyed the box. "You know how long pastry cream will hold up in weather like this?"
"Ah, stuff it."
"You don't want to die of food poisoning. Come on, just one. Then you'll thank me for saving your life. How about it?"
"No way. This is for my wife."
Mike interrupted the banter. "Last night an employee in the building said she saw the woman jump. The ME's report says the victim had already been dead for several hours before the 911 call. Head injuries suggest her head was banged repeatedly against the wall or floor. She died inside."
"So we're looking for wall and floor samples. Okay." That was simple enough. Saul glanced at Carmine.
"Where was the body found?" he asked.
"In the back."
"Okay, let's take a look." Bernheim threw a knapsack over one shoulder. Carmine grabbed another, stowed the bakery box, and locked the van. The three men crossed the sidewalk. A chain-link gate, padlocked, barred entry to the narrow walkway between the old building and the high-rise next door. Mike glanced around quickly, then pulled a tool from his pocket and picked the lock.
"Thirty flat. Getting rusty," Bernheim remarked as they sauntered into the backyard, where there was nothing to see but some old junk and garbage. And the yellow police tapes, indicating where the body had been. It wasn't a nice place to end up. The men looked up. A body tossed from any window in the high rise would fall on the other side of the fence. The ground-floor windows of the Popescus' building had air conditioners in them. The windows on the next two floors were closed and shrouded in black.
Carmine made a face, hunkered down, and crawled around examining the broken surface of the concrete. Bernheim crammed the last quarter of his sandwich into his cavernous mouth, snapped on plastic gloves, then marched to the building, working his jaws. He tried the back door. Locked. Still chewing, he turned around and studied the ground, mentally measuring the distance between the building and where a body would have fallen if it had gone out a window. Finally he opened his knapsack and pulled out long and short metal measuring tapes, a drawing pad, and a pencil. Springtime had greened the saplings and weeds that rose through the cracks. Carmine's fingers probed the sprouts and scraped up samples of cement containing brown stains.
"You're repeating. They did this part already," Mike said. "I'm going inside."
"They sent me here, I'm doing it again. You never know."
"Sure, go inside, secure the area for us." Carmine and Saul laughed as Mike headed to the front of the building to see if anyone was home to let them in.
CHAPTER 44
April didn't let herself feel uneasy as Mike drove away. She had work to do. She was stewing over Baum's show of independence and disrespect after she'd singled him out to bring along. He should be driving her around, supporting her actions, not doing whatever he felt like. No one had instructed him to tell the Kwans that the baby's mother had been murdered or to bring them downtown when she wasn't ready to talk to them. Bad form on his part. On the other hand, a little breathing space and a walk weren't so terrible a prospect. Only two waves of nausea hit her as she hurried to Ludlow, then counted building numbers until she found the one where the dead girl had lived.
She hadn't told Mike the reason she didn't want to go into Mr. Wang's apothecary. The truth was she was ashamed of her mother and didn't want all of Chinatown to know what she had done. Besides, Mr. Wang had probably provided her mother with the poison in the first place. If Mr. Wang was responsible for selling her such deadly stuff, he should be charged with reckless endangerment and assault of a police officer. The thought almost made her smile.
The murdered girl had lived in an ancient five-story brick walk-up with no intercom and a primitive buzzer that didn't work. The front door was locked. This was pretty much the same setup as the building where April had grown up. It was meant to discourage visitors, thieves, and officials of all kinds, including the police. After pushing the broken doorbell a number of times with no success, April tried knocking. No one responded to that either, but there was a face in the first-floor window.
"I have an important message for someone here," April said in Chinese.
The ancient specimen wearing black glasses with thick lenses and a hot pink cardigan over her black peasant pants opened the door a crack. "No one here, everyone working." She gave the standard answer in Cantonese.
"Grandmother, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm looking for the relatives of a young woman who lived in this building."
"People come and go." Frail as a twig, with failing eyes, the woman bravely defended the entrance.
"She worked at Golden Bobbin," April said.
"Something wrong?" The door opened a little more. April could see that she was missing all but two of her teeth.
"Yes. I need to find her relatives."
"What for?"
"Grandmother, this is confidential information."
"Ah, ah, maybe tell cousin."
"She has a cousin? I'd like to talk to her cousin. Where is the cousin, upstairs?"
"No live here."
"Where does cousin live?"
"Ah, ah, very rich."
April held on to the door frame, feeling a little dizzy again. "Where do they live?" she asked again. "Very rich" did not happen to be a place.
"Someplace. Long Island, I think. No, maybe New Jersey. Across the river."
At least she was sure about that, but of course every place outside of Manhattan was across a river. "Please let me come in," April asked politely.
The door opened some more. "I'm not supposed to open the door."
"I'm a friend of hers."
"If you're a friend, why don't you know her name or where she lives?" The old tabby was not the doorkeeper for nothing.
"I'm a friend from work."
"Too many friends from work. Come every day. Too much trouble for an old woman like me," she complained, finally moving aside so April could enter.
"You have an important position in the building, Grandmother. What other friends came here from work?"
"Very old lady, even older than me. Take Lin to hospital."
"Lin?" April saw the brick falling, but she couldn't find a way to dodge it.
"You look for Lin Tsing, yes?" The old woman looked at her, puzzled because April didn't even know who she was looking for.
"Lin Tsing?" The brick struck with its full force. Lin Tsing was Nanci's Hua's cousin, the one who was missing, the one April was supposed to find. That meant Lin Tsing was the mother of the missing baby, and Nanci had been hiding that from her. April shook her head the way the puppy Dim Sum did when it was mad. How could Nanci be so stupid as not to tell her? Maybe both were dead now. Nanci, Nanci. Why keep the secret?
"What was wrong with Lin?" April demanded.
The old woman didn't have an answer. April pointed at a red-and-gold Chinese calendar in the hall.
A section of the Great Wall was the picture for May. "What day, yesterday?"
"No, no. Wednesday."
"Wednesday, are you sure?"
"Yes, yes."
"Thank you. What apartment?"
"Five in the back. Lin good girl. She okay?"
April made a noncommittal motion with her head and started climbing the stairs. "Thank you, Grandmother," she said over her shoulder. She knew the cooking smells, the creaks and moans of buildings like this, where only one lightbulb illuminated the hall, there was no carpet anywhere, and angry voices could be heard behind closed doors. By the time she reached the fifth floor, she was clutching her side. Oh, Nanci, how could you have been so stupid?
A youngish woman with a broad peasant face opened the door after April's first knock. "Something wrong?" she asked in Cantonese, visibly alarmed at the sight of a well-dressed stranger.
"I'm looking for relatives of Lin Tsing," April told her.
"Something wrong?" the woman repeated.
"Yes. I'm looking for her family."
"No family." She looked at April anxiously, then at the room, which contained three cots, neatly made up, some folding chairs, and a card table on which stood several open jars of oily-looking chili sauces, dirty plates, and other leftovers from lunch.
"I'd like to look around."
"Nothing to see. Not here. Went to hospital."
"Who went to the hospital?" April asked.
The woman looked wildly at the card table, edging closer to it as if she were afraid April might abscond with some of the food.
"Lin sick. Went to hospital."
April shook her head. "She's not in the hospital." "Yes, boss said." Suddenly the woman was helpful. "Very nice lady. Come two three times, take to hospital."
"Did she take the baby, too?" April asked.
"No baby." The woman blew air out of her nose contemptuously as if the idea were ridiculous.
"Lin had a baby. She lived here. I'm sure you know that," April said severely.
"Lin young girl. No have boyfriend, no have baby."
"Yes, she did. I want to look around." April stepped toward the bedroom door.
"No, don't do that." The woman cringed when another irate voice responded to April's sharp rap.
"What's going on?" A middle-aged man came out of the room. A young woman on the bed inside covered herself with a quilt.
"Are you the leaseholder of this apartment?" April asked officiously.
The man turned his back on the question. "Get up, and get going," he told the woman in the room, and closed the door.
April opened it. Ignoring the naked woman, she marched in and gave the room a perfunctory look around. "How many people do you have living here?" she demanded.
"Three." Now the man was indignant as well as defensive. "What do you want?"
"I'm Sergeant Woo, with the police. I'm looking for Lin Tsing's baby."
"Ask them." He indicated the two women.
"No baby," insisted the one who had opened the door for April. The second woman, now dressed in a turquoise jacket, came into the room with a pale, troubled face.
The man scowled at her. "I told you that girl no good."
"What are you talking about? No baby!" the first woman insisted just as angrily.
"You should have made her go a long time ago. Why do you think she was so sick, ah?" The man was disgusted at their ignorance. "How could you miss it?"
Two flies buzzed around the condiments and dirty plates on the table. April felt the blood drain from her own cheeks as she thought of a pregnant girl stuck with companions like these.
"Are you her mother?" she asked the woman who'd opened the door.
"No mother. Lin just have stuck-up cousin. You better talk to her,"
"You have the number?"
"Yes."
The woman took some minutes to find the 516 number. With great difficulty she copied it out for April. It was Nanci's. April was a cop. She made a big show of repeating everything the three people in the apartment had said, carefully writing it all down in her notebook. Then she took their names and told them what would happen to them if it turned out the telephone number for Lin's cousin was not the correct one, or if they had lied to her about anything else. They didn't change then-story. But she'd known they wouldn't.
Finally she left the apartment and descended the stairs slowly, hanging on to the railing. There were only two options now: Either Lin had killed her baby when Heather Rose returned him to her, or she had given him to her cousin Nanci Hua, and the child was with Nanci on Long Island.
If Nanci had the baby, she'd made a big fool out of April, and April had good reason to be furious. But all she could feel was sorry that she'd snapped at Mike. It took her several minutes to stagger down all five flights in the unsavory building. The ancient lady with two teeth and a pink sweater was hanging out by her door, waiting for news. April bade her adieu without supplying any. When she emerged into the fresh air and spring sunshine at last, she was overwhelmed by a sense of freedom and escape from the claustrophobia inside. Then a vision of the nude photos of Lin's battered body on the autopsy table made her sit down abruptly at the top of the stoop. She was hit by a rush of sadness for the dead girl, whose fate could have been Sai Yuan's thirty years ago if she hadn't been so lucky as to marry Ja Fa Woo, or April's if she hadn't been so lucky as to be their child. What was she doing, thinking of marrying a foreigner herself? The edge of her jacket clunked against the concrete, reminding her of the phone in her pocket. She took it out and dialed Nanci's number.
Nanci answered warily before the second ring.
"It's April. I need to come out and talk with you about your cousin and her baby." She heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
"My cousin's baby?"
"You lied to me, and you made a lot of trouble for a lot of people," April said wearily.
"You know?"
"Yes, Nanci, I do. You should have told me."
"I know. I'm sorry." Nanci's voice was so faint April could hardly hear it.
"Do you have the baby?"
"Yes." The voice got even smaller.
April didn't want to tell her she might have saved Lin's life if only she'd spoken up sooner.
"I'm coming out there. We have to talk."
"They all found out. Someone else from the police just called me!" Nanci cried.
This was news to April. "Oh, yeah? Who called?"
"Some captain. He said it turns out the baby wasn't Lin's. She got him by mistake, and he's coming out to take the baby away." "What captain was that?"
"I don't remember his name. He just told me there's been a terrible misunderstanding about this whole thing because of Lin's unfamiliarity with the language. He said the baby Lin gave me isn't Lin's. The baby's real mother wants him back this afternoon, and he's on his way out to get him."
No police captain had told her that. April's sadness and dizziness vanished. Suddenly her head was clear. Nanci was crying now. "He said the parents want to prosecute me for kidnapping. I didn't kidnap him."
"I know you didn't. What did Lin do, call you to co
me in and get him?"
"Yes. It's my fault," she sobbed.
"It's not your fault," April snapped. She was getting tired of hearing her countrywomen take the blame for everything.
"He told me that keeping the baby without telling the police made the baby's real mother crazy with worry."
"Listen to me. He wasn't telling you the truth," April said firmly. "We can easily establish whose baby he was."
"But he told me Lin is dead," Nanci cried.
"What else did he tell you?"
"He said she jumped out of a window. I don't understand. Last night that woman, Annie, told me Lin was sick, and if I gave her two thousand dollars, I could have my cousin. But she never called me back. And now Lin's dead. It is my fault."
"Try to calm down and listen to me," April commanded.
There was a short silence; then Nanci blew her nose.
"Nanci, are you alone?"
"Yes. I called Milton at work, but he isn't home yet."
"When did you get that call from the man who said he was a police captain?"
"I don't know, a few minutes ago." "Look, he wasn't with the police."
"He wasn't? Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm with the police. Listen to me—I don't want you to let anyone in, okay? Wait for Milton to get there. Wait for me to get there. We'll go over all of this."
In the background April could hear the cry of a baby mingle with Nanci's panic.
"What's your address? How long does it take to get there?"
"Wait a minute. I have to pick up the baby."
"That's okay. I'll hold on. Don't hang up, Nanci."
There was static on the line as April waited. She willed the cell phone not to go dead. A wave of nausea hit, then passed. The baby stopped crying. A few seconds later, Nanci came back on the line.
"Don't give the baby to anybody. Keep him for now. He is your cousin's."
"Is she dead?"
"I'm sorry," April said softly. "Yes."
"Oh, God, it's my fault."
"No, Nanci, somebody hurt her. It's his fault, not yours."
Stealing Time Page 27