Hanging Time

46

An intercom was set into the plaster next to the doorbell on the short piece of putty-colored wall that turned the corner into the doorway. The whole building was dilapidated and sad-looking, the black paint on the doorframe cracked and gray with city grit. A faint odor of urine rose from the corners of the worn stone threshold. The door looked as if the top half had once sported a glass insert of some kind. Now it was crudely paneled and painted over and had a peephole in the middle. The lightbulb over the door was blackened with age.

No nameplate indicated who lived there.

April pushed the bell, then stepped back to look up at the windows, as Lieutenant Braun had half an hour before. A few feet away, Mike leaned against a streetlamp, peering up. He shook his head. Nothing.

April rang the bell again. Then a third time, and a fourth. After the second ring she thought she heard a yelp way in the back of the house.

“Come here. I think there’s a dog in there.”

“No kidding.” Mike let go of the lamppost and approached the door.

April hit the button again. They listened and were rewarded by more excited barking.

After a short pause the intercom crackled.

“Bouck?”

April glanced at Mike.

“Bouck?”

Mike raised his chin at her, indicating that she should be the one to answer.

“Ah, no.” April put her mouth close to the speaker-phone holes. “It’s Detective April Woo, New York Police. I’d like to talk to you. Would you let me in?”

In the lengthy silence that followed, April thought the woman had gone away.

There was some more crackling and a faint whisper, like the sound of leaves blowing in the wind. “What did he do?”

“I can’t hear you. Would you open the door?”

The voice rose to a wail. “What did he do?”

“Miss Stanton, could you open the door so we can talk to you?”

No answer, only the sound of a dog’s crazed yapping.

“Jesus,” Mike muttered.

“Miss Stanton, we just want to talk to you. Please open the door.”

“… I can’t.”

“Why not?”

There was another long pause before she answered. “He’ll hurt me.”

“No one will hurt you. I promise. We just want to talk to you for a few minutes. Please open the door.”

“Yes, he’ll hurt me.”

The whisper was hoarse and intense. April had to strain to make out the words.

“Who’ll hurt you?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Who’s Bouck?” April tried.

“He owns the house. I’m not supposed to let anyone in.” The voice was timorous, more like that of a frightened little girl than a grown woman.

“Tell her to come outside,” Mike suggested.

“Huh?”

“Tell her to walk the dog.”

April nodded. Good idea.

“Miss Stanton. Can you come outside?”

“No, no. I have to stay until he comes back.”

“When is he coming back?”

Silence.

“Did he say when he was coming back?”

“He said four o’clock.”

“It’s way past that now.” April spoke carefully into the intercom. “What happens when he’s late?”

“Uhh.”

“Ask her to walk the dog.” Mike nudged her arm.

“Miss Stanton, doesn’t the dog have to go out?”

Silence.

“Are you allowed to take the dog out, Miss Stanton?”

The intercom crackled. “Of course I can take Puppy out.”

“Miss Stanton, why don’t you do it now?” “Why?”

“It sounds like Puppy wants to go out.”

“Puppy always wants to go out.”

No more sounds from the intercom.

“Miss Stanton, Miss Stanton—damn.” April turned to Mike. “What do you say?”

“At least we know she’s in there. This guy—Bouck. Maybe we should run a check on him.”

“She seems scared to death of him.”

“Confirms what the sister said.”

“Uh-huh.” They headed back to the car to put in a call to Sergeant Joyce. “Yeah, but she also said the woman was out of it.”

“She sounded scared, not exactly out of it. Give me the keys.” Mike held out his hand.

“You were driving. You have the keys.”

“Unh-unh. You put them in your bag.”

April rolled her eyes. “That was yesterday.”

Mike patted himself down, found the keys in his jacket pocket. “Oh, yeah, I knew that. Just testing your memory.”

“Sure.”

Mike unlocked the passenger door and opened it, then walked around to his side of the car. He got in and called Sergeant Joyce. While he was still speaking, April punched him in the arm.

The black paneled door of the building opened a crack. The woman they thought was Camille Honiger-Stanton stuck her head out and looked around.

After a second or two, when the woman didn’t see anybody lying in wait for her, she came out with a tiny poodle on a retractable leash. A current of electricity, kind of like lightning, jolted through the car. April felt the familiar rush of adrenaline. She looked at Mike. It had hit him, too. His body was still, but she could feel his heart racing, his blood pressure rise at the sight of the red-haired woman walking a dog that was a hairball with a muzzle. “Holy shit,” Mike murmured.

It was kind of an orange color, a bit lighter than the hair of the woman, who was even taller than her sister. April estimated her height at five eleven. She wore a long, flowered skirt with a white blouse hanging out over it. The blouse had big sleeves and reminded April of another one she had seen somewhere like it. Her shoes were black flats, like ballet slippers. Her hair was long and wild around her head. In the darkening light, with her tall, slight frame covered in billowy clothes, she looked almost ghostly.

Mike made a move to get out of the car, then stopped. “She’s not going anywhere,” he said softly.

“No. Look at that dog, will you?” April shook her head. Unbelievable. Ducci was going to be impossible after this call.

The poodle had fluff all over it, was clearly a puppy that hadn’t been clipped into poodle shape yet. The little dog looked to April like a lamb. Immediately the puppy squatted in the doorway, then took off, leaving a little puddle behind. It raced down the sidewalk as far as the leash would go. At about twelve feet, the cord ran out, pulling the dog up short.

It stopped and turned around to look at Camille questioningly. Its mouth was open in what appeared to be a smile.

“Oh, my God, it’s smiling,” April muttered. “Have you ever busted a dog?”

“No, have you?”

“Not exactly an everyday thing.”

They were silent, watching the woman. She did not move from the front of the building. The dog raced back to her, then ran down the sidewalk the other way, until the leash ran out just before the corner where April and Mike were parked.

“Cute,” Mike muttered.

“Yeah, but what is it? Accessory to murder? Witness to murder?”

“All of the above. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to tell us about it.”

“We don’t know what Ducci will turn up from this one.” April jerked her head toward the crime scene where they’d spent the better part of the day.

The store where Rachel Stark died was almost directly across the street. Some of the yellow tapes that had sealed off the sidewalk in front of European Imports earlier were still stuck on a tree. They were still in place all over the front of the shop.

Camille Honiger-Stanton didn’t seem to be aware of them. Her attention was focused on the dog, now racing for the street.

“We’ll have to pick it up. It appears to be evidence.”

They were both silent again, thinking their own thoughts about how Lieutenant Braun would handle this suspect and her canine accomplice. April could see how the dog could work to win over a victim, make a murderer welcome anywhere. She remembered that the Boston Strangler had gotten into his victims’ apartments by mewing like a cat.

“Ohhh shit.” Mike stiffened in his seat.

Finally the woman felt it was safe to move. She strolled toward the opposite corner, where Lieutenant Braun and Sergeant Roberts were returning from their dinner.