Hanging Time

84

In the car, however, April had a change of heart. Should she have left the damn dog behind, just dumped it somewhere else in the precinct? She felt like an idiot with the bulky kennel on the front seat of her car. The puppy was quiet, but April was really rushed and anxious now. She had less than an hour to get to her exam. She muttered to herself all the way across and downtown.

“Calm down, calm down. We’ll make it.”

She drove more aggressively than usual, weaving in and out between double-parked cars and vans, speeding up in momentary gaps in the dense traffic. She did not look at the clock on the dashboard, didn’t want to know.

When she got down to Fifty-fifth and Second, the iron grille was still in place across the front of Bouck’s shop. In spite of all the antiperspirant she had used that morning, she broke into another sweat at the sight of it. What if no one was there to take the dog? How could she walk into her exam with it? She didn’t think she had a choice here. The thing wasn’t exactly NYPD property. The examiners would think she was nuts. She had to get rid of it.

April could feel her good-luck shirt sticking to her back as she pulled the car into an empty spot in front of a hydrant and looked up at the windows in Bouck’s living quarters. The light was on in the living room. She could even see the crystals in the huge center chandelier sparkling faintly. The guy Jamal must be in the house.

April got out of the car, slipped her purse over her shoulder, then went around to the passenger side for the kennel. She figured she still had about forty minutes. It was almost a straight line downtown to One Police Plaza. She could take the FDR Drive and make it in thirty.

Puppy poked her muzzle out of the wire mesh and tried to lick April’s hand as she reached inside the car for the kennel. April stroked her wet nose. “Hi, sweetheart. Someone wants you. Guess you’ll never be mine.” She hurried across the sidewalk to the door of the building and pressed the buzzer. “Didn’t really want a dog anyway,” she muttered.

The downstairs door clicked open instantly. Carrying the kennel in front of her, April climbed the stairs. At the top, she rang the doorbell. A few seconds later the door swung open. A smiling face greeted her.

“Oh, it’s you.”

April’s jaw dropped. In the doorway, dressed in a lavender silk camisole and a long, loose purple skirt, Milicia Honiger-Stanton grinned at her.

“How nice of you to bring my baby back. Hi, baby.” Milicia reached for the kennel and took it inside the apartment, where she crouched down to open the wire door and release the excited puppy.

April followed her in. “That’s your sister’s dog. A man called Jamal telephoned for it.”

“No way, hon. This one’s mine. Hi, Hannabelle.” Milicia picked up the ball of fur and hugged it to her chest, laughing. “You think I don’t know my own puppy?”

April frowned. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I came for Camille’s things.” Milicia cuddled the puppy. “I had to check up on everything, you know. I’m responsible. Will you look at this place?” Still holding the puppy, she led the way down the hall to the living room. “All this stuff. It’s Camille’s. She bought it all. A compulsive shopper. Camille has money hidden everywhere. It used to drive me crazy. I can’t just leave everything here like this. Who knows what will happen to it? I’m so glad you brought my dog. I was so worried about her.”

“Where’s Jamal?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never heard of such a person.”

Milicia stopped in the middle of the jumble of furniture. Here a space had been made for a huge mirror. It sat propped up on the top of green-leather-covered rolling library stairs two steps high. The mirror was almost seven feet tall.

“Get a load of this, will you.” Milicia twirled in front of the big mirror with the dog in her arms. Her purple skirt swung out in an arc. The mirror reflected pinpoints of light from the sparkling chandelier above. Milicia smiled at the lovely vision of herself. “It just came the other day. Isn’t it gorgeous? Camille told me it’s the best pier mirror she’d ever seen. Dates back to 1703.”

April frowned, worried about the predicament Sergeant Joyce had put her in with Jamal and the puppy. Joyce had told her to return the dog to Jamal. And April was also intrigued by the change in Milicia. Yesterday the woman had been hostile, insecure, frightened of the police. Now she had invited the detective on the case into a house whose owner was in critical condition, was openly revealing her plan to remove what she wanted from the house, and chatting happily about the sister who had only the day before tried to strangle her.

“It’s a real horror, isn’t it?” Milicia preened in front of the mirror, at home in the cluttered room, much too comfortable with the situation. “Just the kind of thing Camille liked.” She laughed softly.

April’s scalp tingled. She shivered, uneasy about a lot of things. One was the way Milicia was now gripping the little dog. It clearly wasn’t her dog. The puppy struggled in her arms, trying to get down. And time was passing. She was going to be late for her exam. April had no more than thirty seconds. She told herself to get Milicia to sign a release for the dog and get out of there.

Instead, she said, “You don’t seem very upset about your sister.”

Surprised, Milicia swung away from the mirror to look at her. “Oh, honey, I’ve been upset for twenty years. Do you have any idea what it’s like to grow up with a wacko sibling? Believe me, I cried a lot. But I’m not crying anymore.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry she’s going to prison, but she hurt me. She hurt other people. She can’t get away with it. That’s what our laws are for.” Her voice was suddenly harsh.

In Milicia’s arms, the dog whined deep in its throat. Milicia glared at it, then abruptly put it down. Free, the tiny animal raced out of the room. April could hear it charging up the uncarpeted stairs. Probably going to the third floor, searching for its mistress.

“What happened yesterday? What made Camille turn on you?”

“I told them at the station. She was upset by all their questioning. She had a headache. I suggested she lie down and get some rest.” Milicia’s eyes glittered. “I helped her upstairs and turned down the bed. She didn’t want to lie down there.”

“Why?” April asked. “Why didn’t she want to lie down?”

Milicia shrugged, raising her shoulders twice for emphasis. “How do I know what sets her off? The woman’s crazy. Anybody can see that.” She narrowed her eyes at April, frowning a little, her mood changing. “She’s crazy. Crazy and violent. What more do you need to know?”

Now April shrugged. “Was she afraid of lying down?”

“What are you saying? What are you getting at?”

“I’m just wondering. Your sister just seems more like a victim than a murderer to me.” April said it mildly, but she knew she was pushing it. Instantly, Milicia flared up.

“Are you accusing me of something?” She took a step toward April, suddenly revealing a powerful undercurrent of rage.

For the first time, April realized what a big woman she was. The skimpy camisole revealed how wide her shoulders were, how deep her rib cage, well fleshed, with round pendulous breasts. Her bare arms had the definition of someone who worked out with weights. The full skirt of crinkled purple silk, billowing out from her waist, only expanded her impressive bulk.

“Why the questions?” Milicia demanded. “What are you getting at? Don’t you believe me?”

“Any problem with my asking?” April asked calmly. Still, she eased away from her, toward the door. She felt threatened by the woman, increasingly uneasy about being alone with her in the empty house. April was supposed to be somewhere else; she could almost hear the seconds ticking by as she lingered. Why didn’t she just go? She glanced toward the door, willing herself to leave.

“I answered all your questions. I told you what happened. I told you everything.”

April edged another step toward the door. Time was passing. She must go.

“Don’t back away from me,” Milicia cried. “Why are you backing away from me? Why do you all do that?” A muscle in her cheek twitched.

Why do you all do that? Who was Milicia talking about? Who else had backed away from her? April felt the weight of her off-duty handgun. The gun was in her purse. Her purse hung by a strap on her shoulder, touching her hip. There was no unobtrusive way to get her hand into it. She was alone, off-duty, on her way to her Sergeant’s test, couldn’t get to her gun without alerting Milicia, couldn’t seem to get out of the house.

Milicia towered over her. “Don’t back away from me,” she said hoarsely.

April stopped. “I’m not backing away from you. I have to go, that’s all. You want to sign a release for the dog?” As if to get the release, she reached for her bag.

Now April could hear the dog pattering down the stairs. It hadn’t found its mistress, was coming back.

“I didn’t touch her. She backed away from me for no reason. No reason,” Milicia said fiercely.

“Backed away? How did Camille back away?” April asked.

“Attack. I said attack. Can’t you hear?” Milicia took a step closer to April.

Now she was near enough for April to feel her heat and smell the deep heavy perfume she wore. Milicia reeked of hot musk and fury. As April recoiled from the smell, her foot caught on the ornately carved ball foot of a table and she almost lost her balance.

“Hey, watch that,” April said sharply. “Don’t touch me, I’m a police officer.”

Milicia made a sound like a branch snapping. Her long arm snaked out and grabbed April before she could maneuver around the cumbersome table.

“Let go!” April tried to recover her balance. “I don’t want to hurt you. I said let go.”

Milicia’s grip was unexpectedly painful. April’s breath caught in her throat. She could feel her terror mounting. Milicia had begun to shake her, like a dog with a sock. Her sharp fingernails bit into April’s shoulders, right through her jacket. Her head snapped back as Milicia picked her up easily, and her feet left the ground. In the huge mirror April could see herself suspended, like a little Chinese doll.

The grotesque mirrored image of herself struggling in Milicia’s powerful arms brought the last moments of the two dead girls into hideous focus. Also the ancient memory of an academy instructor, six feet four and built like a linebacker, holding her off the ground with one hand, laughing his head off at the sight of her helpless, flailing arms.

You want to be a cop, little girl? Then don’t struggle. Use your pussy little brain and kick the shit out of me.

I said, KICK ME, Officer.

Yessir, whatever you say, sir. As she had done more than once in her life, April relaxed into a dead weight, then slammed her knee into the softest place of an opponent’s body. In Milicia’s case it was the stomach.

The vicious blow caught Milicia by surprise. She doubled over, gasping for air. Released, April stumbled backward, hitting her head against the crown of a column with a marble bust on it. Still propelled backward, she hit the hard brass corner of the bulky table with the ball feet. The table prevented her from crashing to the floor. She held on to it, fumbling in her purse for her gun.

“You’re crazy. You kicked me,” Milicia screamed as soon as she could find her voice. She hugged her stomach. “You hurt me.” Her face was contorted with surprise and rage.

“You can’t hurt me.” Milicia started toward April as the tiny dog charged into the room. Finally free after twenty-four hours in the small kennel, perplexed by her missing mistress, and excited by the angry voices, the puppy started dashing around and around Milicia in a dizzying circle, barking wildly.

“Stop that,” Milicia screamed.

The puppy continued to bark shrilly. Her sharp baby nails pawed frantically at Milicia’s calf, giving April precious seconds to recover her balance and reach for her gun.

The dog wouldn’t stop. It scratched at Milicia’s panty hose, at the hem of her skirt until the panty hose ripped and the puppy caught a nail in the tear.

“Shit!”

Milicia jerked away, back toward the center of the room, where she stood reflected in the mirror under the enormous crystal chandelier, lashing out savagely at the dog attached to her leg by a thread. The dog finally tumbled away, but Milicia went after it. The second time her kick missed the yipping ball of fur, her foot slammed into the library stairs that supported the antique mirror.

“Noooo—” In the middle of a long piercing scream, Milicia could see the little dog turn and leap into the Chinese policewoman’s arms. She could see that the policewoman had a gun pointed at her. She saw the huge mirror jolt, then teeter. The horror on the policewoman’s face.

The mirror pitched forward, setting the sparkling crystals on the chandelier above it into a gentle swaying dance. And in the last shimmering, light-filled split-second before the full weight of five hundred pounds of wood and glass came crashing down on her, crushing her skull, Milicia understood it wasn’t the policewoman who ended her life. It was the dog.