Hanging Time

37

Lieutenant Braun was still wearing his powder-blue jacket. April spotted it across the squad room when she arrived. Braun was crowding Mike’s desk, talking fast, and poking a finger at the air. He turned around at Mike’s welcoming smile.

“Ah. Detective Woo,” Braun said. A hint of sarcasm edged into his voice.

“Lieutenant Braun.”

April’s desk appeared to be unoccupied by anyone on the Sunday shift. She put her bag down on it. “What’s happening?”

Mike raised a crooked eyebrow, jerking his head at the farthest desk down the line. A preppy-looking young man in a seersucker sport jacket seemed to have tied his body in a knot around a telephone, and was relating to it intimately.

April took him in. Light brown hair, blue eyes, a spattering of freckles across the nose. Medium build. Looked not unlike Dan Quayle, the former vice president. Five eleven to six foot. Where did Braun dig him up?

Braun nodded. “I’m pretty hot shit” was written all over him. He smirked and folded a fresh stick of gum into his mouth. “Name’s Roger McLellan. Says he left town a week ago Friday. That’s the day before Maggie got hit. Easy enough to check out. Claims he has no idea what this is all about, none at all. He consented to come down here to help us out with whatever our problem is. But lo and behold, the second he gets here he changes his mind and decides he better not say anything without his lawyer present. Hey, does that look like a guy who doesn’t know what this is all about?”

“What kind of guy that young knows a lawyer? He knew the number by heart, didn’t even have to look it up. I’m running a sheet on him,” Mike added.

“Maybe they’re friends,” April murmured.

McLellan’s body was still wrapped around the telephone receiver as he whispered into it heatedly.

“Who?” Braun looked at her.

“Him and the lawyer.”

“Yeah, sure. Who’s friends with a lawyer?”

They watched McLellan reluctantly put the receiver back on the phone and straighten up, visibly pulling himself together. When he approached the three detectives, it was with an air of nervous belligerence.

“My attorney is on his way. He told me to tell you I have nothing to say until he gets here. Where would you like me to wait?” McLellan glanced at the barred enclosure opposite the line of desks.

Braun shook his head at the holding cell. Not so fast. “We’ll go downstairs. You want something? Cup of coffee?” he asked. Real friendly.

McLellan said no. They all trudged downstairs to the same questioning room April and Mike had used to interrogate Albert Block five days earlier. April guessed Braun still wasn’t thrilled with his accommodations next to the men’s room.

Peter Langworth, a near-twin of Roger McLellan’s right down to the seersucker jacket, appeared forty-five minutes later.

“Okay, what’s this all about?” the attorney demanded.

What a pair of tough guys. April glanced at Mike, who had one of his sudden coughs.

Braun introduced himself, then nodded at the chairs. “Why don’t you gentlemen take a seat. Mike, go check on the sheet you were talking about.” Braun turned his back on Sanchez.

Stunned, April caught Mike’s eye. What was that little power-play all about? First he gets Sanchez down there on his day off and then he sends him out of the room. She watched Sanchez’s retreating back. Not one to show his frustration, Mike closed the door quietly as he left.

“Sit down, Detective.” Braun pointed to a chair, then waited for the sitting and scraping to stop. Finally he addressed Roger McLellan. “You know Maggie Wheeler?”

“She’s not in the movement,” McLellan said. “It’s my thing. She has nothing to do with it.”

Braun furrowed his brow at April. What movement?

“Why don’t you tell us about it,” he suggested.

“Maggie has nothing to do with it. She doesn’t want to be involved—”

His lawyer leaned forward. “You don’t have to say anything else, Roger. Lieutenant—”

“Braun.”

“Lieutenant Braun. Why don’t you tell us what this is about.”

“Fine. Maggie Wheeler was murdered last Saturday night—”

The gasp was audible. “What?” McLellan croaked.

April’s heart plunged. Shit. The guy didn’t know.

Braun went on, unperturbed. “So we’re looking into who killed her.”

“Maggie’s dead?” The lawyer paled. So he knew Maggie Wheeler, too.

“Yes, she’s been dead for a week.” Braun shot them a get-real look. “If you didn’t know that, how come the lawyer?”

“I’ve been out of town. I didn’t know,” McLellan protested. He suddenly got interested in his bitten cuticles, examined one finger after another. “Jesus, all I wanted was to save it,” he muttered. “… So that’s why she never called me back.”

“What?”

“You want to establish Mr. McLellan’s whereabouts on the Saturday Maggie died, is that correct?” Langworth demanded.

“We want to know Mr. McLellan’s relationship to the deceased as well as his whereabouts.” Braun had not spit his gum out. April could see it wadded in his cheek.

“I was in Albany. We had an agreement. She promised me she would wait.”

“Wait for what?” Braun’s face did a little dance. It was clear neither patience nor tact was one of the Lieutenant’s virtues.

“Just wait a second, Roger. You were in Albany. You don’t have to say anything. Lieutenant—uh—”

“Braun. Like the coffeemaker.”

“Maggie had a botched abortion, right?” McLellan looked angry.

“Unh-unh. Someone strung her up on the chandelier in the boutique where she worked.”

“Oh, God. My baby,” Roger McLellan cried. “She killed my baby.” He shook his head back and forth, horrified. “How could she do it?”

“Who’s she?”

“Maggie. You said she hung herself. Oh, God, that stupid bitch—”

“No, Mr. McLellan. She didn’t kill herself. Somebody killed her.”

McLellan slammed his hand on the table. “That’s not possible.”

“Okay, Roger.” Braun dropped the “mister.” “Why don’t you tell us about your relationship with Maggie and why she might want to kill herself?”

The young man shook his head, as if he didn’t want to, then started hesitantly. “We were friends. I don’t know why she’d want to kill herself.… Well, she got pregnant. I don’t know how it happened.”

“You don’t know how it happened.” Braun jerked his head at April to underline that particular remark in her notebook. The man had the mental and emotional awareness of a tree. He didn’t know how it happened. “Got that?”

April, the secretary, nodded, repeating, “He doesn’t know how it happened.”

The door opened. Sanchez handed a folder to Braun. Braun opened it, looked inside briefly, then passed it to April. Sanchez took a chair and made a silent drumbeat on the edge of it with his fingers while April looked over Roger McLellan’s priors. Guy had over two dozen arrests for obstructing entrances to abortion clinics, harassing clients of abortion clinics, various types of vandalism to abortion clinics, demonstrations. One B and E.

“She wanted to kill my baby, and it looks like she did.”

April finished reading and looked up. McLellan had hidden his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking with some emotion or other. It wasn’t clear exactly what his regrets were. He seemed more upset about the baby than Maggie. Langworth put his hand on Roger’s arm to comfort—or restrain—him. It struck April that neither of them cared what had happened to Maggie Wheeler.

“Come on, Roger, I’ll take you home.”

“Not so fast. We’re not finished here,” Braun broke in.

“Look at him. He’s in no shape to answer any more questions. In any case, he was out of town when Maggie, uh, died. You can see he doesn’t know anything about it. When he feels better—if he feels better—you may come interview him in my office, but only subject to a specific written request.”

“You want a subpoena, fine. We’ll get a subpoena.”

“Do that, but don’t forget: If you try to harass a prominent leader of the right-to-life movement, we’ll have the press all over you.” Langworth stood up. So did his client.

The demure Asian lowered her eyes to hide her reaction of total disgust. Way to go, Braun. Well handled. Tactful. Now the possible suspect will walk out of the precinct, get his lawyer pal to rip his shirt and mess his hair, then call the press and scream police brutality. She shook her head, not daring to look at Mike. The two of them would have done a lot better.