Hanging Time

64

Okay, what do we have here?”

The A.D.A. surveyed the room full of people, half of them with containers of coffee as well as their notebooks in front of them. They were all talking at once.

“Come on, let’s see if we have a case here.” Penelope Dunham was a no-nonsense kind of woman somewhere in her middle forties who looked as if she ate only on rare occasions, saving up her appetite the rest of the time for her opponents in court. Tall and excruciatingly thin, she had a sharp nose with half glasses perched on the bridge, short curly brown hair, intense brown eyes, and a perpetual furrow between strong, untweezed eyebrows. She wore a gray suit with a pearl-gray blouse buttoned all the way up to the neck, low-heeled gray pumps, no jewelry or makeup. Two heavy black bags sat at her feet.

“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Penny Dunham, the assistant district attorney on this case. Before we’re through, you’re going to know me better than you want to.” After having been up half the night and giving herself no cosmetic help, she looked every minute of her age.

She finished shuffling her papers and turned her unflinching gaze on Sergeant Joyce. Joyce had had even less sleep and the additional job of getting two unwilling kids off to their second day of school. Still, she’d taken the time to put some rouge on her cheeks in approximately the right places, some lipstick on her mouth, and the drops she used in her eyes “to take the red out.”

April had seen her struggling to pull herself together only moments before. April’s own eyes, hidden in their Mongolian folds, looked as fresh and bright as always. She was lucky that way, and knew if she could keep enough fat on her body, and not wither away like her mother, she’d age better than anybody. Joyce, Woo, and Dunham were the only women in the room.

Penelope nodded at Ducci, who had made his second rare emergence from the police labs, and Dr. Baruch from the M.E.’s office. Penelope, with her Daughter of the American Revolution background, was an anomaly in a D.A.’s office, where most of the prosecutors were on their way somewhere else, were ethnically diverse with distinct New York neighborhood accents and a wide range of coloring.

April had never worked with her before, but Mike called her “lock-’em-up Penny” because he once heard her dismiss the testimony of a hostile witness by demanding, “Don’t you think our police officers have better things to do than go around arresting innocent people?”

It was nine o’clock in the morning, the earliest they could get together. Dunham had requested that the detectives on the case go downtown to the D.A.’s office because it would be easier on her team—her second in the case, Mario Santorelli, and her investigator from the D.A.’s office, retired Lieutenant Bill Scott of NYPD, now just Bill Scott. Because of the delicacy of the situation and the number of people involved, however, it hadn’t turned out that way.

Sergeant Roberts was off the case, being investigated himself for having shot the suspect. Bouck had taken a .38 slug in his right lung, which had made such a mess, he only just survived the surgery. He was as yet unable to speak, and his condition was listed as guarded. Lieutenant Braun was in the hospital, on a different floor, not feeling too good with a couple of mashed bones in his right foot.

But still there were a lot of people. In addition to the three from the D.A.’s office, there were six people from the Two-O, Ducci, and Dr. Baruch. There weren’t enough chairs. Sanchez and two other detectives leaned against the wall.

Ducci scowled as if already he wasn’t happy with the way things were going. “I got the stuff from the Stark case only yesterday. Haven’t touched the bag of clothes from the suspect’s house. Haven’t got anything else from the house,” he grumbled. He didn’t mind people telling him what to look for, but hated being told what he had. He already told them he wasn’t finished.

“—yesterday evening. What do you think I am, a magician?” Baruch’s words rose to the surface, then he looked around and was silent.

“Supposed to be. Want to share the autopsy report with us or keep us in suspense?” Scott threw his two cents in.

“What do you want—the whole thing, or just the pertinent parts?” Baruch opened the report.

“What do you think?”

“Fine, the pertinent parts. Rachel Stark died by strangulation, same as Wheeler. Can’t tell you the exact time. Sometime Saturday night, probably. Interesting thing. Recently she’d had surgery, had only one kidney. Had some pretty bad keloid scarring around her—”

“Anything else relevant to the case?” Penny interrupted. “We have a lot to go through.”

“Bruises around the neck and shoulders. Makeup on her face like the other case”—he looked up—”traces, I mean. Three deep scratches on the right arm. Some dirt under her fingernails, nothing else. Looks like she was overpowered and died without too much of a struggle. Just like the Wheeler case.”

“What about the blood on the floor?”

“She had her period. Must have bled right through her Tampax just prior to, or at the time of her death.”

Ducci coughed. “What about the pattern marks on her right ankle?”

Baruch nodded and passed around some photos of Rachel Stark, naked on the autopsy table. Two blowups showed a small black curve with four tiny black dots on one side of it. “Looks like a bite mark. I’ve called a dentist to take a look.”

Penelope studied one of the photos, then tossed it to her assistant, frowning. “What kind?”

“What bites on the ankle?” Ducci said sarcastically.

“What? Rats, mice? What?” Santorelli stared glumly at the picture.

Little animals gnawed holes. None of the detectives said anything.

“Woof woof. Here comes the mailman.” Ducci rolled his eyes.

“Oh, God, the dog.” Penny slapped her forehead and looked around for Mike, who had been the one to brief her for the warrant the night before. The dog hairs had been part of the case. Dog hairs in the first victim’s nose.

“You still got the dog, Mike?”

“The dog is not in custody at the moment,” Mike said, glancing at April, who got very busy making a note. She had acquired hair samples from the puppy, but had let Camille take the dog home with her.

“Better get that animal in here before it disappears,” Penny said sharply.

“It isn’t going to disappear.” April spoke for the first time, though she wasn’t as confident as she sounded. Pretty stupid to send the dog home with the suspect’s girlfriend.

“What makes you so sure?”

“It helps with its owner’s sanity.”

“It could still disappear if somebody finds out it’s material evidence in a homicide.”

True. Camille’s loyalty was more likely to be with Bouck than her dog. “I’ll take care of it.”

Penelope switched her attention to the first homicide. All they had were a few fibers, a few hairs, a signature in a store guest book, and the victim’s clothes found in the basement of the suspect’s house.

“Let me get this straight,” she said finally. “You want to arrest this man Bouck?”

Mike looked at April and didn’t say anything. Sergeant Joyce said, “Yes.”

“But you don’t have a case.” Penelope took her glasses off and rubbed her nose.

“He had several unregistered guns. He shot a police officer.” Joyce made this declaration with as little conviction as it deserved.

“He could have shot ten police officers, Sergeant, but that doesn’t help with these two homicides. Unless you can come up with his prints, his hair and fiber—something to put him on the scene—the evidence you have here points to the woman.”

April cleared her throat. “The psychiatrist doesn’t think the woman could have done it.”

Penelope looked up sharply. “What psychiatrist?”

“Ah, we were having some difficulty questioning the suspect.” April paused. “Her behavior was erratic. She was out of control, self-destructive, incoherent. She didn’t seem to know about the murders and had no idea why she was here. I called in a psychiatrist we’ve worked with before.”

“Who’s that?” Penny raised her pencil to write it down.

“Dr. Jason Frank.”

Penny frowned. “He’s not one of ours. I don’t know the name.”

“We’ve worked with him before,” Sergeant Joyce said. “We know the name.”

“Okay, we’ll let that go for the moment. What was Frank’s diagnosis?”

“He said Camille was more likely to hurt herself than someone else,” April replied. “He hasn’t had time to make a full report yet.” And it was her neck if he didn’t. April let Camille go with the material evidence in her arms.

“Where is she now?”

“She’s under surveillance at her house.” April shivered. She hoped.

Penelope made a face.

“It was a pretty weird scene over there,” Ducci broke in. “We see it as the boyfriend dressed up in the woman’s clothes. That explains the large sizes he put on the dead women. Maybe stuff he woulda liked for himself, you know?”

“And he carried the woman’s dog?” Penny said sarcastically.

“So it would appear,” Ducci said.

Penny shook her head. “What about a wig, shoes, underwear, Sergeant? You find all that?”

Mike spoke up. “We found an arsenal, a straitjacket. He kept that woman locked in the attic. His medicine cabinet was full of pills—uppers, downers, you name it. No wig. No women’s shoes that would fit him.”

“Then we don’t have anything,” Penny said.

“He shot a cop,” Santorelli threw in. “We have that.”

“Maybe he thought he was protecting his girlfriend. Took the fall for her.”

Penelope shook her head. “We can’t nail him for this without some evidence. Find out if he liked to dress up in women’s clothes, if the neighbors ever saw him carrying the dog around. See if you can come up with a motive. Check the signature in the guest book. A red wig would help. And a confession. That’s about it for now.” She stretched and collected her papers. “And don’t rule out the woman.”

April glanced down at her own notes. Maybe she wasn’t so triple stupid as her mother said. The night before she had written down the same questions. Except the one about not ruling out the woman.