Judging Time

14

April always tried to learn from other people's and her own mistakes. On the evening of the murders, she had been dressed in her usual uniform: a turtle-neck sweater, jacket, slacks. Functional, not classy. The next day she had worn the same outfit most of the day until she had the chance to change into the wrinkled pants and jacket she kept in her locker for emergencies. Sometime during the night in a random dream about the ADA on this case, she suddenly felt that it was time to improve her image. She knew lawyers thought themselves many steps up from cops. She knew they thought cops were uneducated bullies who beat people up on the street, then lied about what their victims had done to deserve it. To appeal to a man like Dean Kiang, she knew she had to make herself look better than a cop.

Her former supervisor, Sergeant Joyce, had always worn suits with skirts to work. At six that morning, April decided it was time for her to wear suits with skirts to work. She prepared for class warfare with a slim, calf-length burgundy skirt with a slit to the knee, a powder blue turtleneck sweater (that looked like but was not cashmere) with a long silk scarf that incorporated both colors, and a short burgundy jacket that was just loose enough to disguise the gun bulge at her waist. She wore boots that did not hide the small size of her feet or slimness of her ankles. She wore makeup and small jade studs in her ears for good luck in all ventures, but especially in love. She knew from the way he smiled that Jason Frank had noticed.

When she entered Dean Kiang's paper-strewn downtown office, she was glad again that she'd made the effort. The Chinese DA was drop-dead handsome by anybody's standards, and she was smitten anew. He was taller and better educated than her former lover, the scrubby and manipulative night-watch-in-Brooklyn Jimmy Wong. He was more elegant and self-assured than the chubby and permanently disappointed-in-love (by a white girl who'd jilted him for a Pakistani in medical school) Dr. George Dong, the Chinatown eye doctor April's mother still wanted her to marry. He was more appropriate and had a higher status in life than the steamy but all-talk-and-no-action Sergeant Sanchez. For a minute April forgot about the victims in the case and stared at him openly.

Kiang was a tall man with a slender build but not the skinny, almost emaciated appearance of some Chinese like her father, who could not convert even the best diets to healthy muscle and fat. Kiang's features were bold and open, classical. April figured he had north Chinese, but not Mongolian, ancestors because of his height and build, his excellent nose and mouth, almond eyes. She thought she could feel the power and intelligence emanating from him.

Both shrewd and clever, his eyes pierced the air. He was a Chinese who didn't even try to seem like the perfect model of Tao teachings, the modest being with downcast eyes who let the wild winds and storms rage around him, deriving power by appearing passive and weak and never saying a word to betray his ambition or true intentions. Here was a prosecutor who could deal with the system and set things right. He was a lawyer in a well-cut gray pinstripe suit, white shirt, and red-and-blue-striped tie.

The elegance of Kiang's appearance was nicely offset by chaos in his professional space. Stacks of files were everywhere so that there was hardly any place to sit. April decided that Kiang was a flexible person, not the rigid and controlling type of man who had to have everything just so (including her) that she'd known in the past.

As April stared at him, assessing his looks and character, Kiang shuffled around the mess to create a place to seat her. Finally he moved his square briefcase from the chair closest to his desk, moved the pile beneath it, placed the chair even closer to his own, then gestured for her to take it. He stretched his long legs between stacks of files. Electricity crackled in the small space between their knees and hands. Dean's long legs in pinstripe, his beautiful face and body, even his law degree were attractive. April's lips were dry. She worried that meant that she had been staring at him with her mouth open. Delicately, she licked her lips and dropped her eyes.

"Well, you're the best-looking detective I've ever seen." Sitting opposite her, Kiang took his turn to look her over, and he did it by aiming his view as if through a rifle sight from the top of her head down the length of her legs all the way to his own right shoe that was close enough to nudge hers. "But then, I've never worked with a Chinese detective before."

"Thanks." Released, April looked up, beaming. Sanchez was always telling her that professional didn't mean she had to be absolutely stony all the time. Now she took his advice and smiled, assuring herself through the giddy flush of pure female pleasure at being admired by such a handsome man that she was still a cop, still a sergeant, still on the job. Still grinning, she turned her attention to the office and searched for a photo of Mrs. and/or baby Kiangs. She didn't see one, smiled some more.

"And I've never worked with a Chinese prosecutor," she murmured.

"This should be interesting then." Kiang was also speculating. His eyes traveled to her left hand where he looked for a wedding ring and didn't see one. "Married?" He found a pen under a pile of papers and carefully set it down beside a new yellow legal pad as if he might take a note on her answer.

"No."

He shrugged. "Not that it matters. Boyfriend?"

April shifted uneasily in the chair, not sure what the right answer was. She had the possibility of an inappropriate boyfriend, one who did not always call and keep in touch as he should. One who only talked about being hot for her. On her side, it was true she often thought about what Mike would look like without his clothes, aroused. How compelling he'd be like that. What he'd feel like touching her, kissing her. What she'd do back. But they always ended up wrestling the bad guys to the floor, not each other. Did such a candidate count? "Who has the time?" she said finally.

"Exactly. That's it exactly." He picked up the pen and made an exclamation mark on the yellow page. No time. April gathered that he was unencumbered and gave him another warm smile.

He returned the favor. She was absolutely certain she'd sleep with him, and for about a minute there was a break in time. The appropriate thing on such an occasion of instant attraction was to get right to the important matter of exploring family trees and ties, aunts, cousins, sister cousins, young and old uncles, as well as Chinatown and other connections. Likes and dislikes, and hopes for the future. For sex to be exactly right, it was necessary to determine if there was compatibility in these other vital areas.

April was too shy and Kiang was too polite to make these inquiries, however. This overlooking of her connections made April think that Kiang's must be vastly superior to hers. His father must be a doctor or an engineer or a very rich businessman. His mother could well have many children, all boys, all professional men who went to top colleges, made much money, and wore pinstripe suits every day to their offices like Dean did. This truly excellent family would no doubt disapprove of a cop girlfriend for their golden son and brother. On this dismal thought, time began again.

"How about lunch?" Dean asked abruptly. "We should get to know each other better."

An hour and seventeen minutes later Kiang was in court and April, with a glow on her face and a delicious Chinese lunch in her belly, caught up with Rosa Washington in the medical examiner's office.

"You can talk if you walk. But shake a leg, I'm in a hurry." Rosa Washington was still drying her hands as she swept out of her suite, forcing April to jog after her. She was wearing a fresh scrub suit but no cap. Her black hair was in a pageboy, and she was all business.

"Any leads on the killer?" she asked.

"Yes, some," April said.

"Well, give. What do you have?" Rosa arrived at the fire stairs and opened the door.

"You first," April said. "What did you find in Merrill Liberty?" Rosa started down the stairs, again compelling April to follow her lead.

"Didn't your partner tell you?"

"Sanchez? He's from Homicide. He's not my partner," April told her back. Rosa knew that.

"He didn't put you in then." Rosa skipped down the first flight of stairs.

"Put me in on what?" April spoke to Rosa's back as she trotted down the stairs.

"The loop. God, those guys screw you every time." Rosa spoke to the air in front of her.

Guys in general, or cop guys? "Slow down a minute, will you?" April asked.

Rosa showed no sign of hearing the request. "Why did your buddies hold out on you?"

"They didn't hold out. I've been in the field all morning. That's why I wasn't present at the autopsy myself."

"I wondered why you didn't show. I thought nobody told you."

That too.

Rosa hit the next floor still running.

"Maybe you'll keep me informed on the next one," April suggested.

"We're doing the next one now."

"Petersen?"

"No, Abraham's still home sick, but thinks he's coming back for Petersen tomorrow."

"I gather you have your doubts."

"Yes, I do." Rosa slowed down suddenly the better to deliver her good news. "His voice sounds like a dying cat. Worse than yesterday. My bet is Malcolm ends up in the hospital tomorrow. You know, you could help me out. We could help each other here, two little minority girls and everything."

"Oh, yeah." Which one of them was little?

"How about getting your buddies in the puzzle palace—and the DA's office—to pump up the pressure on getting the autopsy results. If Abraham gets too many phone calls on Petersen, he'll have to give in and let me do the job. He hates negative publicity even more than having a deputy hog the limelight." She turned and resumed her charge down the stairs. "Anyway, it's my turn."

The puzzle palace was police headquarters. April smiled at the thought of having buddies in that place where a bunch of mortal ghosts she didn't know could elevate or destroy her with the stroke of a pen. She considered herself neither a girl nor a minority. Certainly not a little minority girl. She'd never heard anyone talk like that. Most minority girls like herself and Rosa acted like they were normal people. Like the rainbow pals on TV sitcoms.

"I'll see what I can do. What about the results of Merrill Liberty's autopsy?"

"I heard you just got promoted." Rosa hit her third set of stairs, still jogging, not panting a bit.

"I did."

"So, you know how it is when it's your turn."

"Yes, Doc. I do."

"You can't let those guys keep you out of the loop."

"No, you can't."

Rosa laughed. The sound was pleasant, like soft water on stones. "You don't have much conversation, do you?"

"I was just thinking about the case. What about the Liberty woman?"

"Okay, okay . . . There were no bruises on the face, or body. Just the one wound in the neck. Neat, precise. The killer knew what he was doing, was not an amateur. What do you think of the DA?'"

"He's cute," April said.

"You think so, really?"

"Sure, for a prosecutor."

"You think he could talk to his boss?"

"I don't know, Rosa."

"Ask him. And then I'll call you when I do Petersen. Here we are. You want to come with me? You might learn something on this one. It's a burn victim. She smells like barbecue."

"Ah, no thanks. Can you fill me in a little more on the Liberty woman?"

Rosa sighed and stopped in the hall outside the swinging metal doors. "She had a tipped uterus. You know, people used to think you couldn't get pregnant without surgery to fix it. That's baloney. She did have some scarring in the uterus, though. Probably couldn't have children."

"Botched abortion?"

"No way to tell. Might have been surgery for endometriosis. She had some endometriosis in an odd place, behind the uterus where it would have been hard to detect. She probably experienced quite a bit of pain, but who knows?"

"What else?"

"The disc between the fourth and fifth vertebrae in her neck was badly compressed. A few of the others also showed signs of degeneration. She probably had sciatica that affected her right leg."

"How do you know that?"

"Her right calf was half an inch smaller than her left. That meant she wasn't exercising it, had been favoring her right leg for quite a while. The muscles had begun to atrophy slightly."

"So this wasn't a recent injury."

"Probably wasn't an injury at all. She might have had arthritis. She had some deformation in the bones in her feet, particularly her toes. She probably took a lot of ballet classes when she was a kid. She might have had the sciatica for a long time, years."

"Anything else?"

Rosa thought for a second. "Everything else was pretty normal. I'll get a report to you in a day or two."

"Tox results?"

"Same. Look, I have to go; you sure you don't want to see this one?"

"No thanks, I'm not fond of human barbecue."

"Very funny, Woo. You're not so bad, after all."

April didn't think that was funny. But she was pleased to be liked.

"And remember to call your DA boyfriend for me. I need all the help I can get." Rosa pulled a green surgical cap out of her pocket and put it on, tucking her pageboy carefully around her glasses and into the cap without needing a mirror. Then she tied the strings under her chin and smiled at April a last time to show what buddies they were and how enthusiastic she was about her work.