Hanging Time

25

But I did it,” Block protested, his whole body twitching with anguish and outrage when April finally said he could go, three hours and forty minutes later.

“Life’s tough, but stick around. We’ll get back to you,” she said as if he were applying for a job. Which in a sense he was.

“Stick around here?” he asked hopefully, lagging behind at the door of the stale questioning room guarded by a uniformed cop big enough to break his neck with one hand if he got out of line.

April shook her head. Why anybody would want to be indicted for murder, stand trial, and go to prison was beyond her. “Unh-unh, just don’t leave town.”

“But what else do you want?” he whined. “You know I did her.” Tears flooded the corners of his eyes and threatened to fall down his pale cheeks. He wiped them with the now-damp red handkerchief.

“Unh-unh,” April said again. “We just know you were there. You didn’t tell us how you killed her, Albert. Or what you used, or where her clothes are. Lot of things we still don’t know. You tell us everything, and you’re our man.”

“You’re letting me walk right out the door. I don’t believe it.”

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time the police questioned a killer and let him go. It wouldn’t be the last. April stood on the sidewalk outside the precinct with some blue uniforms, watching Albert trudge dejectedly to the corner, just to make sure he really left. She was pretty sure he didn’t do it, even if he knew something no one else knew.

April saw him reach Columbus and turn the corner, then she went back inside. Three detectives would now start checking the background and activities of Albert Block. He’d eagerly agreed to a search of the rental apartment where he lived. Maybe something would turn up.

She wearily climbed up the stairs to the squad room, thinking it over. Block had the motive and the opportunity. He had the temper, and he felt guilty. But she didn’t figure him for a killer. She just didn’t. And she knew Sanchez didn’t either. She headed down the hall to the ladies’ room.

It smelled like a war zone. There was some kind of pink face powder peppering the bottom of the sink. It reminded her of the makeup smeared on Maggie Wheeler’s face. Not exactly done by an expert. Could that be Albert’s work? April wiped out the basin with some toilet paper, then splashed cold water on her face.

Since there didn’t appear to have been a robbery at the boutique, she figured it had to be someone who knew Maggie. Either Albert Block, or Bill Hadgens or some other guy they hadn’t a line on yet. April made a mental note to ask Elsbeth if anything—anything at all—was missing from the store.

She dried her face with more toilet paper. It was the cheapest city issue and felt like sandpaper. Still, they were lucky to have it. In the ladies’ rooms in the criminal courts downtown, there often wasn’t any paper at all.

On the other hand, maybe this was something else altogether. The murder had the composed look of a ritual, something a crazy would do for reasons of his own that weren’t rational, or easily explainable like Albert’s reasons. Most people who committed murder didn’t do weird, sadistic things to their victims afterward.

Well, Block was nuttier than Hadgens. She’d gone back to see Bill Hadgens a second time with a tape recorder an hour after her first visit to ask if he had any further recollections about Maggie. He hadn’t changed his clothes or gotten up since she first spoke to him, and didn’t seem to have many thoughts about anything. She taped his surly answers. She’d compared his voice with the one on Maggie’s answering machine. It was negative for a match. She had the suspicion Albert Block’s would be, too.

So far they had nada that even connected Block and Maggie as lunch pals. The whole thing could be a figment of Block’s imagination. April had heard of cases where a psychic revealed one thing, one tiny detail, about a case that gave everything else he said a weird kind of credibility. She’d heard stories of hopeful detectives feeding a psychic (like they’d fed Albert Block), talking for days, trailing off on a bunch of wild goose chases, only to find out in the end that the one tiny thing the psychic “saw” was just a fluke. Could be that way with Albert. She had to check him out with the owner of All Dressed Up. Maybe he knew about Block’s relationship with Maggie.

April applied fresh lipstick and tossed it back in her black leather shoulder bag with the two interlocking C’s that she got in Chinatown and looked like a Chanel. It contained her off-duty gun, her Mace, a couple of notebooks, some pens, her telephone book—most precious possession—that had all the numbers of every source she’d ever used, a couple of packages of tissues for when she had to go to court and use the unequipped ladies’ room, her badge and wallet.

Her stomach churned with hunger. During his long questioning, Albert had eaten a triple-decker turkey, salami, Swiss, and chopped chicken liver sandwich with Russian dressing and then a huge slab of cheesecake. Neither she nor Sanchez nor Joyce had eaten anything themselves. As she headed back to the squad room, she hoped Mike might want to grab a bite and talk things over.

He got to her before she hit the door. He looked as if he’d been hanging around in the hall, waiting for her. “Where you been?” he demanded.

“Seeing Block out the door. Qué pasa?”

“Magnífico. Hablas español.” Sanchez grinned and told her qué pasa en Español.

“La cosa está que arde. La autopsia de Maggie Wheeler está lista. Vamos a buscarla.”

Something, something Maggie Wheeler. Shit. That was the problem with this Spanish thing. You said something simple and got back something totally incomprehensible. April frowned. “Huh?”

“Never mind, you just started a few months ago.” Sanchez touched her arm and nodded toward the stairs.

“Vamos?” To lunch, she hoped.

“M.E.’s office. The Wheeler autopsy report is in.”

Oh. April shook her head. She should have gotten la autopsia está lista. Lista meant ready. They headed out into the heat, her stomach still protesting. Lunch was clearly not on the menu.