Burning Time

69

Waiting for a red light on the street in front of the Greek diner, April felt a mounting excitement. The sight was amazing. Next to her was the diner, exactly as Jason Frank had described its unrelated twin in California. In front of her was the ramp to the Triboro Bridge. Way ahead she could see the bridge, long rather than high, spanning the East River. Just about a block behind her, Twenty-eighth Street bisected Hoyt Avenue. The houses on either side of the wide street were all attached, single-family dwellings. None was more than two stories high.

The stoplight was taking forever. April had some very long seconds to sit there gaping. Right there, all in one place, were the landmarks the psychiatrist had told her to look for, and didn’t think she’d be able to find without him. Ha, she wasn’t so stupid. If Grebs and the Chapman woman weren’t right around here, she’d eat her badge. She gripped the wheel tightly to stop her hands from shaking.

The light changed. She moved forward slowly, taking a moment to look down at her notebook where she’d copied the house number the old lady had given to Officer O’Brien.

Checking out the local precinct had yielded exactly the results she had hoped for. Every investigation was about as successful as the contacts one made. This time April lucked out. The desk sergeant was an old friend from grade school on the Lower East Side. He took the time to ask every uniform coming off duty from the street if there had been any disturbance, any complaint, anything that could help with a case from Manhattan. He displayed the photos of Grebs and Emma Chapman. Nobody could identify them, but Officer O’Brien had an old lady with a complaint about a rowdy tenant and a naked lady in her garage apartment. Maybe the old lady could make the ID.

Bergman had thought there was enough in O’Brien’s story to give April backup when she went in to check out the Bartello house. April had told him what Troland Grebs did to women, and Bergman liked the idea of nailing a possible interstate serial killer on his turf. His proposal was to give April three men for an hour or so, gratis. Just to be on the safe side in case Grebs was there and tried to bail out before her people were ready to grab him. They both understood it was a case from the Two-O, however, and the best thing was for the Two-O squad to follow it through. April appreciated his understanding. Then, because she was getting this much support from Queens, she took a big leap off the deep end. She called Sergeant Joyce for backup without knowing she absolutely needed it. If she was wrong Joyce would kill her.

April could see the house now, halfway down. But it was a one-way street. She had to drive around the block to get to it. She made the turn and headed around the block. On the next block over not all the houses were attached. It was possible to see through a driveway to the backyard of the house that interested her. Overgrown shrubbery hid most of it. But, upstairs, on the garage side, the shades were drawn. She paused for a stop sign even though there were no cars in the four-way intersection. Everything looked quiet. She cruised to the end of the block and turned the corner.

Slowly, April drove back to Hoyt Avenue and finally stopped in front of the house two doors down. Mrs. Arturo Bartello’s house was pink brick with some decorative painted tiles set in here and there to make it fancier. April had seen this block and noted this particular house a thousand times. Maybe ten thousand times. It had a trellis with wisteria on it. The wisteria was in heavy bloom right now. Even two houses down she could still smell it. She wondered if there was wisteria, or any fragrant plant like it growing on the house Grebs lived in in California. Probably was. She got out of the unmarked car she had taken from the Two-O lot and locked it. Then moved in closer.

The house was staked out. One stringy-looking kid was in the backyard abutting the Bartello yard. April saw him down the driveway of the house opposite, hacking away at the air in the neighbor’s yard with a large pair of pruning shears. Now, a shabbily dressed man called Renear, with a baseball cap on backward, pulled an unmarked, mud-colored Chevy into an empty spot down the street. Two minutes later a huge bearded man lumbered up to the phone booth on the corner.

Where the hell was Sanchez? She’d called him over an hour ago. April looked at her watch. Four thirty-eight. After a few minutes, with her stakeouts around her, she had such a powerful feeling about the house the four of them were watching, she decided to displace the beard in the phone booth for a minute and call Dr. Frank.