Hanging Time

60

We got a warrant to go over the house where Camille lives,” April began. “Her boyfriend came back before we were finished. There was a confrontation. He shot a Lieutenant from Homicide, and a detective shot him.”

“What?” Jason’s California tan turned a little green. “You mean the boyfriend, Bouck, had a gun? He shot a cop?”

April nodded. “And a cop shot him. In the back.”

“Jesus, is he alive?”

“He was alive half an hour ago. He’s probably in surgery by now.” She checked her watch. It was really late.

Camille’s friend got shot. Jason looked stunned.

“In the back?” he said faintly, not understanding how that might have happened.

“Yeah, well, the Lieutenant was in front of him and the Sergeant was behind him. When the Sergeant saw him going for his gun, he fired to protect his boss.”

Jason thought about that for a moment. “A real gun?”

“You mean Bouck’s? Oh, yes, it was very real. We found three guns, none registered.”

The sandwich came. Jason unwrapped the paper plate, then stopped and regarded it doubtfully, like suddenly he didn’t feel so hungry anymore.

“Go ahead.” April nodded at the food. A huge pile of crispy french fries took up more than half the plate, so the huge triple-layer turkey club on white toast hung over the side. “That should keep you for a while.”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed. “Thanks.”

She watched, amazed, while he added five packets of Sweet’n Low and a full cup of milk to the half cup of coffee he had ordered in a large cup. Interesting ritual. She wondered what Freud would think of it.

“Want some?” he offered.

April shook her head even though the french fries looked pretty good. “No thanks. I’m on duty.”

“You can’t eat when you’re on duty?” Jason took a bite of the sandwich.

That was her attempt at a joke. She shook her head again. The plate had a lot of food on it. It would take a while before he could talk. She looked away, letting her thoughts wander around in the fog of this case.

In the office were Mike and Sergeant Joyce, either talking to each other, or Captain Higgins, or somebody who outranked Higgins. In the hospital were Braun and Bouck. April’s thoughts drifted to Albert Block, their first suspect. It occurred to her that Block was a B word, too. Block, Bouck, Braun. All B words. What did that have to do with it? Nothing. She told herself to get focused.

She pulled out her pad and made some notes. Check handwriting in guest book. Bouck’s. Camille’s. They could get handwriting samples out of the house. April had taken the hairbrush from the room. They could match the hair from the hairbrush with the hair on Maggie’s dress. It might not be Camille’s hair in the hairbrush, but might be Camille’s hair on the dress. Maybe both Bouck and Camille wore the clothes at different times.

Jason finished the french fries, pushed the plate away, and picked up the coffee. “Thanks for the food,” he said again, and seemed to make a decision about something.

“I want to review the whole case with you, and I want to talk to Camille again. But not now. I think for now I should give you my reading of Camille and wrap it up for the night.”

April frowned. She was the detective. He was the consultant. He wasn’t supposed to tell her how to manage the case. She told herself to lighten up. “So what’s your reading?”

“At this point I can’t give you a complete diagnosis, but I can tell you what she isn’t.”

“Fine.”

“She isn’t delusional. That means she doesn’t hear voices. She’s not hallucinatory. She doesn’t see things that aren’t there, at least not at the moment. She’s not psychotic. She can tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. She’s not paranoid and not violent.”

April frowned. What was he talking about? The woman tried to eat her arm.

Jason smiled. “I know. You’re thinking if they act crazy, they probably are. Camille is certainly very troubled, very frightened. But except for the rages she directs at herself, she’s a gentle, nurturing person. She could not hurt anybody else. I don’t think she could kill a spider.”

Judging from the state of the kitchen, she couldn’t wash a dish either. April thought of the straitjacket.

“The clothes of the first murder victim were found in the basement of the house where Camille lived,” April told him.

Jason shook his head. “Poor woman.”

April nodded. “It was a—pretty unhealthy scene. The place is a mess. Her room was upstairs. Looks like he kept her in a restraint at least part of the time. We found a lot of sedatives, sleeping pills, that kind of thing, in his medicine cabinet.” She shuddered and fell silent.

“Look, she doesn’t need to be hospitalized at this time, either voluntarily or involuntarily,” Jason said.

“We can’t hold her here,” April protested.

“I know that, but she does need supervision. She’s used to having someone care for her. Unimaginable as it may seem, she was attached to Bouck, and freedom from him will be threatening, certainly more than she can handle. Better call her sister.”

April nodded. Yeah, the sister could take her off their hands. She looked at her watch. Twelve-forty-five. “Thanks,” she told Jason. “I owe you one.”

“Sure, sure.”

She collected the garbage and threw it in the overflowing wastebasket by her desk, then walked downstairs with him. “I really appreciate this,” she said again at the door. The season had changed. The humidity had lifted, and there was a definite bite in the air.

Jason yawned and nodded absently. “Keep in touch. We have to follow up on this one.”

“Yeah.” Two of the guy’s victims were dead. But the one he kept in a straitjacket was still alive. Eventually, if Bouck lived, he’d be tried and Camille might have to testify against him. It would be somebody’s uphill battle to prepare Camille for that. But not hers, thank God.

April took a final breath of fresh air, then climbed the stairs to the squad room. She dialed the sister’s number. She should come for Camille. But there was no answer, and not even a machine to take a message.

The door to Sergeant Joyce’s office was still closed. It made her mad not to know what was going on. Finally she muttered “To hell with it,” went over, and knocked.