Judging Time (46 page)

April Woo was a detective sergeant in the New York City Police Department and second whip in the detective squad of Midtown North, the West Side precinct between Fifty-ninth and Forty-second streets from Fifth Avenue to the Hudson River. She was a boss who supervised other detectives and was in charge of the squad when her superior, Lieutenant Iriarte, was not around. She was also a person used to sleeping in her own. bed. Having grown up in a Chinatown walkup, and living at the moment in a two-story house in Astoria, Queens, April was now in the highest place she'd ever spent the night. She yawned, stretched, and let the soft drone of the news perpetually playing on 1010 WINS filter into her consciousness. A sharp detective listened for disaster twenty-four hours a day.

Hearing a radio report of a crime in her precinct could get her out of bed even if she wasn't aware of hearing it. Now, April urgently needed the story of some catastrophe for her mother, that April could claim kept her working around the clock. She needed the story if she wanted to go home in peace.

Only three weeks ago, on April 25th, April Woo had celebrated her thirtieth birthday, but you'd never know it by the way her parents treated her. It was particularly humiliating to her that instead of bringing her the respect she deserved, her rank in the department and the ripeness of her age only served to pick up the pace of her mother's tirades on the subject of her low-life job and lousy marriage prospects.

In the Chinese culture, dragons can be both good and evil, can appear at any moment and have the power to make or break every human endeavor. April called Sai Yuan Woo "Skinny Dragon Mother" because her mother, too, had the ability to change shape before her eyes, and had a tongue that spit real fire. April was no less afraid of her now that she carried two guns on her person than she had been as a small and defenseless child.

Lately, Skinny Dragon Mother had upped the ante on her disapproval of her only child, calling April the very worst kind of old maid, a worm old maid with an undesirable suitor. The undesirable suitor in question, Mike Sanchez, was a Mexican-American sergeant in the Detective Bureau like April. But unlike her, he was now assigned to the Homicide Task Force. Carefully, April turned her head to look at him, lying on his stomach beside her, sound asleep. One arm was curved over his head, the other cradled the pillow that hid his face. The sheet covered his calves and feet. The rest of him was naked.

The clutch hit her above the heart and below the throat, somewhere around the clavicle. His legs and butt, the muscles in his back and shoulders, the fine tracing of curly black hair on the backs of his arms more on his legs, seemed exactly right. His waist, though no longer exactly slender and boyish, was proportionately correct for his age and stature. He had smooth skin—in places it was as soft as a baby's—and the hard muscles of a trained fighter. His body was an interesting blend of hard and soft, dotted with a collection of scars from various battles, only a few of which she knew the origins.

The tightness in her chest rose to her throat as she thought of his welcome last night. When she'd gotten there at 1:30
A.M.,
he'd given her food and wine. Then, in the flickering light of a dozen candles, they'd made love for much of the night. The candles, she'd thought, were an unusually nice touch. She shivered as the dawn slowly infused the room. The idea of her former supervisor as a thoughtful and compelling lover was so alarming that part of her wanted to get off the slippery slope and slide right out of there with the morning, never to return. Another part told her to relax and go back to sleep. She was wrestling with the conflict when Mike spoke.

"Want some coffee,
querida?"
The question came from the depths of the pillow. Not a muscle in his body had moved, but the sound of his voice told her he'd been awake for a while, knew where his gun was, could roll over, hit the floor, and fire at the door or window in less than ten seconds. She grabbed at the sheet to cover herself.

"No thanks, I've got to get going."

"Why? You don't have to be at work until four this afternoon?" He rolled over, stretched his arms above his head and arched his back, showing off his chest and stomach and the rest of the merchandise that was fully restored after very little sleep.

April busied herself tucking the sheet around her neck, looking everywhere but at the goods. "You know my mother," she mumbled.

Mike laughed softly. "We're already acquainted,
querida.
It's okay to be naked."

"Not where I come from."

"Don't you like to look at me?" He nudged her with his knee.

"Yeah, sure," she mumbled some more, wimping out.

"So come on, take that thing off. We can look at each other in the light. Make my day." He reached out to tickle her, but she turned around to study the clock and didn't see his digits coming.

"Oh my God, it's almost six. Gotta go." She jumped when he touched her. "No, no, really."

He withdrew the offending fingers. "Aw, don't pull the guilty number on me. You know you don't have to go home anymore. You can stay here with me. We could have coffee, sleep a little more. If you don't want, I won't bother you." He lifted an edge of the sheet that covered her and pulled it over himself. The action got him closer to her. They were side by side now, touching from shoulder to knee, and the sheet did not succeed in hiding his intent.

She shook her head and laughed.

"What?" he demanded, his lush mustache twitching innocently.

"You know."

He rose up on one elbow to look at her. "Lucky me, you are one pretty woman in the morning,
querida.
Give me a hug."

"Yeah sure, I bet you say that to all the girls." By her calculation, Mike was the good-looking one, and he had a rep. He was like Sarah Lee to the opposite sex: no one didn't like
him
.

"You're the only girl in my life." He said this with just the right amount of huskiness in his voice, not too hokey.

April swallowed the hook and believed him, but didn't want to get all teary about it. She scrunched down, put her arms around him, and laid her head on his chest. She was trying to go with the flow' but wasn't finding it so easy. From the things Mike said and did m bed, she was aware that her own erotic repertoire was somewhat lacking. It made her afraid that regardless of what he told her right now, he'd be tired of her before the week was out.

He was able to distract her from this pessimistic speculation for a while by kissing her all over and encouraging her to return the favor, which didn't turn out to be so very difficult.

Then he got up, made coffee, and scrambled some eggs for breakfast. She was impressed by his domesticity. At nine, he showered and dressed for the day, collected his gun and his keys from the table, and took off without saying anything about the case that was bedeviling him. April decided to put off going home. What difference could a few hours make, she asked herself.

Time made a big difference in everything, though. If she had gone home either sometime during the night or early in the morning, she might have avoided a whole lot of trouble with her parents. If she had been a few minutes earlier or later in to work that day, or if she hadn't started the evening tour on radio call, driving around with her driver, Woody Baum, newly promoted to detective, new to the squad, and highly desirable to April because he didn't have any loyalties, she might never have been involved in the Popescu case.

As it was she didn't go home. She started work on radio call, and she and Woody had hardly settled into their gray unmarked unit when she got a call from the dispatcher to 10-85 the Midtown North Patrol Supervisor forthwith.

"Possible kidnapping, K," the dispatcher squawked. "Be advised the Midtown North Patrol Supervisor has also requested Crime Scene and Emergency Service Units, K."

"Ten-four, Manhattan North Detective Supervisor on the way, K." April turned to Woody. "That's that fancy building at Seventh and Central Park South. Turn around."

Woody threw the bubble on the roof, hit the sirens, and did a gut-wrenching u-ie on Fifty-seventh Street, leaving tire marks on the road.

The address of the requested investigation was a glass tower that curved around the corner from Central Park South to Seventh Avenue, sweeping up as much view as it could along the way. A driveway to the building entrance cut through the sidewalk, curving the other way. In front of the driveway was a tiny garden, consisting of a burbling fountain, a Japanese maple full of red leaves, and a thickly planted patch of gold and purple pansies. The building was already locked down. Yellow crime-scene tape was stretched across the entrance. Vehicles jammed the area. Uniforms swarmed everywhere. Three minutes from the 911 call, and the operation was already in full swing. The area was sealed off. The curious were clumped together outside police lines, talking, staring. The media was gathering.

"Park as close as you can and meet me inside." Adrenaline kicked in, and April was all nerves. It looked like something really big.

As Woody tried to pull into the driveway, a tall uniform with a mustache waved at them to stop. Woody jerked to a halt to talk to him as April took out her shield and clipped it to her jacket's breast pocket. The uniform saw it and waved them on without a word, but April had already jumped out of the car and joined the fray. The first thing she did, before going into the building, was to look up. On the roof, she could see two detectives in vests, with double-barrel shotguns, peering over the edge from above at ledges and anything else that protruded. She then saw a familiar face and went to talk to the precinct patrol supervisor, Lieutenant McMan, a steely type with startling
^gre
en eyes and no lips at all, who had called the special units in after receiving the call from the 911 dispatcher.

"What's the story?" she asked.

"Hey, Woo. Woman's name is Popescu. It appears she was assaulted in her apartment. Her baby is missing."

"She still here?"

"No, she's in ER at Roosevelt."

"Anybody go with her?"

"Her husband claims he found her." McMan shrugged. "I have two uniforms on them."

"Upstairs?"

"Four detectives trying to get the phones tapped in case there's a ransom demand. ESU's canvassing the basement, roof, elevator shafts, tops of the elevators, trash, trash compactors." He smiled grimly. "The building superintendent freaked out at the heavy tools and the floodlights. He didn't want them breaking down any walls or doors."

"Any sign of the baby?"

McMan shook his head. "Nothing yet."

"What about CSU? Wasn't the crime scene secured for their first shot?"

"Yeah, yeah, they're up there, too. Apartment 9E. You going up?"

"Just for a quick look-see. I want to go over to ER to Q and A the victim right away. What's her status?"

"She was unconscious when she was taken out."

"Hey, boss." Woody bounded up.

"We're going up," she told him, nodding toward the front elevators, two pink-marble-fronted horrors.

"Not those. We got people in the shafts. You'll have to go up the back elevator," McMan told her.

Uniforms were swarming on the back stairs as April walked through. One was also guarding the back elevator. The elevator men and doormen were being questioned by detectives. A clot of tenants, unable to get home, was having a fit. April and Woody commandeered the elevator, stopped at the ninth floor and tried to enter the apartment through the kitchen.

"Forget about it, I'm not even started here. You can look in and that's it," came a voice from behind the door. The unseen criminologist added, "I don't give a shit who you are," in case somebody planned to put up a fight.

"Sergeant Woo. We just want to take a look," April said.

"This is where it happened. One look, don't touch," came the warning.

"Fine."

The door opened a little and April and Woody got a partial view for all of three seconds of some bloodstains on a marble floor. Somewhere in the front of the apartment, another feisty Crime Scene investigator and more detectives were locked in a noisy conflict over contamination of the scene versus the need to get the phones up right away so they could tape al the incoming calls. She'd have to come back later.

April glanced at the garbage can by the back door and repressed a strong urge to go through it. Victim first.

"Okay," she said to Woody. She turned to leave, and realized he'd frozen the elevator on the floor so she wouldn't have to wait when she was ready to go. Good man; he was taking care of her.

Roosevelt Hospital was only a short distance away on Ninth Avenue at Fifty-ninth Street, just a block down from the Manhattan branch of Fordham University. Woody negotiated the car through the streets and April was lost in her own thoughts. Her antennae were up and she was bristling all over. By now there would already be detectives from the Major Cases unit there. They would move in and take over the precinct squad room, maybe even her own desk. They'd be setting up their easels and starting the clocks ticking on their time sheets. It rankled her that no one thought precinct detectives could handle anything important. From now on, until this missing baby was found dead or alive, the precinct squad would be ordered to do the scout work. No precinct squad detectives liked it one bit.

What April always did was to work around the specialized units as if they weren't the hotshots with all the muscle. Right now, she didn't want to vent her feelings about how things were to the new kid. She wanted to manage the case correctly so the outsiders wouldn't make a mess in her territory.

"Leave it here," she said abruptly about the car in a no-parking zone by the emergency room entrance. Then she jerked her chin to indicate that Baum should accompany her inside.

They hurried into the ER entrance. Right away, April picked out two uniforms flanking a nervous-looking man in a blue suit. She decided to take the time to stop at the reception desk before speaking with him. She didn't say anything to Woody. He didn't say anything to her. Good, he was following her lead.