Judging Time

36

Saturday was supposed to be April's day off. She had promised to take her mother to see Uncle Dai in the hospital, so Skinny Dragon could use her power to rally Dai's spirit and save his life. He was in a coma now, and needed al the help he could get. But April's day off was canceled. Naturally, Skinny had to scream at April and remind her for the ten thousandth time that she had no sense of honor, no sense of duty to her family and ancestors. Skinny had to threaten that every ancestor would send April bad luck every day of her life and afterlife until the end of time as punishment. No offer of taxi money for the trips to the hospital and back, and no amount of April's explaining that there was more than one kind of duty in life and the police department didn't take no for an answer, could stop Sai Woo's rage at her.

April drove into Manhattan with a bad headache. It got worse when she sat down in her office and saw a message from Jason Frank, who no doubt also intended to punish her for the rest of her life for his run-in with Iriarte yesterday. Meanwhile, the lieutenant must have been waiting for her because she hardly had her coat off when he walked by, aimed his finger like a gun at her through the window in her door, and ordered her into his office with his chin.

April didn't think she was afraid of him, generally speaking, but the curse of her ancestors, lasting until the end of time, was no small thing to have hanging over her head. She had no doubt bad luck was on the way, and he was the one who'd deliver it.

Iriarte began in a hurt voice. "What do you think you're doing, Woo?" He looked at her with sad and puzzled eyes.

"What, sir?"

"I asked a simple question." The hurt took a sharp tum to anger fast, the way hurt usually did.

"I'm investigating a homicide, sir." April tried a simple answer.

"No, you're dancing on hot coals. You want to know how many complaints I got about you last night? You seem to be making quite a name for yourself downtown."

"Did I offend someone, sir?"

"You know who you offended. You can't accuse the medical examiner of God knows how many blunders and expect the thing to pass unnoticed."

"We had some conflicting evidence, sir. I just wanted to clear—"

"The medical examiner said you interrogated Dr. Washington's technicians, accused her of tampering with evidence, even malpractice."

"What?" Iriarte's words struck April's throbbing head like a hammer. She was appalled. How could she accuse Dr. Washington of malpractice? Wasn't malpractice for patients who were alive? Tampering with what? And she hadn't even seen a tech at that hour. They'd all gone home. April stared at her boss. All she'd done was to ask a few questions straight out, the American way, the way she'd been trained and was paid to do. What was going on? What was the big deal?

"Is that all you have to say?"

"No, the DA's office also put their two cents in about my little interview with Dr. Washington last night. Either the woman's nuts, or the ME's office has something to hide."

April stood in front of Iriarte's desk, waiting for him to speak up and defend her. But the man wasn't happy. His face was purpling with rage. Maybe the case was getting to be too much for him. Maybe he'd have a heart attack like Uncle Dai, who wasn't anybody's uncle, or Tor Petersen, who'd sniffed too much coke. On the other hand, maybe the lieutenant would just snuff her out with a stroke of his pen.

"Woo, I'm beginning to worry that you don't have a brain. Don't you know you're looking for trouble here?"

"It was completely inadvertent, sir. I didn't intend to offend the ME. All I did was ask how the toxicology reports were leaked to Petersen's widow before they got to us. I also wanted to tell Dr. Washington about the dust and fiber lab's finding that the bloodstains on Petersen's overcoat indicate that Petersen died before Merrill Liberty. It puts her homicide in a different light. Since Petersen's death report gave a heart attack as the cause of death, it just doesn't—"

"I know, I know," Iriarte said impatiently.

"I wondered if there could be any other possible cause of death in Petersen that might have been overlooked in the autopsy. The body was cremated with unusual speed, sir. I just wondered . . ."

Iriarte rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "Woo, your job is to wonder in here, understand? You don't go wondering all over the place with your mouth flapping."

"Yes, sir." April felt like casting her eyes down in the direction of her feet but refused to let herself do so.

"I'm disappointed by your lack of professionalism, Sergeant. I don't care how smart Lieutenant Joyce and Captain Higgins say you are. At this rate you may have a very short career with us."

April knew the fire-belching Gods of Messing Up, summoned by her ancestors all the way from old China because of her lapse in respecting Uncle Dai on his possible deathbed, had arrived to destroy her life. She shuddered. "I'll take care of it, sir," she said softly about the angry ME.

"Good. Do that." Iriarte stuck his arm out and waved her away.

So much for the legendary loyalty of the department to its own. April slunk back to her office with a great deal of guilt heavy on her mind. Only yesterday her greatest fear had been of handling Liberty all wrong. Instead of getting him to crack, as the ADA Kiang had told them to do, they'd threatened him too much and made the suspect run. Yesterday morning Iriarte had said they'd mishandled Liberty. Then Jason had suggested the same thing last night. Now the lieutenant was saying she'd mishandled the as well.

Everybody knew what happened when someone in the department messed up or became a political liability. A few weeks would go by and suddenly that somebody who'd messed up would be offered a nine-to-five Monday-to-Friday job working for a borough, the most boring work on earth with no hope of overtime and no way to get out because, like the Chinese, the police never forgot or forgave. The bosses would laugh their heads off the minute the guy was gone because they'd gotten rid of the asshole. April would not forget what Iriarte had said about the one other woman they'd had in the detective squad before her. "She was here for a while. She went into Special Victims up in the Bronx." Then he'd laughed. "We got rid of her."

And April felt bad about Jason. They'd worked well together, had trusted each other as much as a cop could trust a civilian or a shrink could trust anybody. But Iriarte was CO of the unit; he was her boss. If he wanted to talk to someone, he would talk to someone. If he wanted to mess up one of her important relationships, he would do it. Why? Simply because he could. Rank was power.

"You hear me, Woo?"

"Excuse me, sir?" April looked up.

Iriarte stood outside her door. "Just for your information, the tox reports came in on the Liberty woman. She had high levels of cocaine in her blood, too. So nobody was out there trying to kill either of them with bad shit."

"Thank you for telling me, sir." There went one theory.

April still had a strong suspicion that Petersen had not died of a heart attack, but clearly no one else wanted to think along those lines. The discovery of Liberty's car and the hunt for Liberty himself were now the focus of attention.

Mike tapped on the doorfrarne, came in, and took the vacant chair, scowling. "I heard your boss carrying on. What's up?" He didn't call her querida and wasn't even calling her April.

She was hurt. "Estoy a mal con todo el mondo," she muttered, her face copying the Spanish sulk she'd seen so often on the girls in high school. She was in trouble with everyone.

"Muy bien."

"No, it's muy awful. What's the news on Jefferson?"

"There's nothing on that situation that will win Iriarte any points with the commissioner." Mike smiled suddenly as he pulled himself out of his chair. "But things are looking up. There were a number of Liberty sightings last night. One in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, and three in West Harlem. A lot of people are out working on it. See you." Without saying more, he turned on his cowboy boot heel and closed her door on his way out.

"Shit," she muttered softly. Working alone was no fun.

Three-quarters of an hour later, April was sitting in Daphne Petersen's living room watching the widow try to wake up. "I'm going to need some hair samples," she told Daphne.

It was nine-thirty and Daphne was still in her nightgown. Her hair was not so stiffly coifed as the last time April had seen her. It was all over the place. April felt like grabbing a handful.

Daphne lit a cigarette and coughed on the smoke. "You woke me up for a what?"

"I need a hair sample for the lab."

"Whose?" she cried.

"Yours. Not your pubic hair, your head hair. And I need some with follicles for the DNA typing."

Daphne gathered her hair at the back of her neck and held it in her fist as if for dear life. "What are you talking about?"

"The lab needs your hair. I can't be plainer than that."

"What for? My husband died of natural causes."

"Well, it appeared that way at first, but we're checking into it again to make sure. You know how it is."

"No, I don't know how it is. You can't do this." She collapsed dramatically into a chair, filmy fabric billowing all around her. Then she righted herself. "But he's already been cremated," she pointed out. "What can you hope to find?"

"Oh, there are ways to reexamine the evidence. We have very sophisticated methods these days."

"This is bullshit."

"Maybe. All the same I need your hair."

"I don't understand."

"There was a strand of hair on your husband's body when he died."

"On his body? Ugh." Daphne grimaced. "It wasn't mine."

"On his sweater."

"So, there was a hair."

"He was with Merrill Liberty at the time of his death, and she was blond." April shrugged.

"I don't know what you're getting at. The hair on his body was dark. Well, so what if it was mine? We were married. My hair could have gotten on his sweater the day before."

"True enough, but you said you didn't see him for two days before he died."

"Look, I'm tired. You're trying to confuse me."

"On the contrary. You've been trying to confuse me. Did you or didn't you see your husband on the day he died?" "I don't know, maybe." She looked at her nails. "Did the doorman tell you I saw him?"

"Your husband wasn't having an affair with Merrill Liberty, was he?" April changed the subject.

"No. The bitch had been turning him down for years. The only one he couldn't get is what he liked to say about her."

"Was he mad at her for that?"

"Let's put it this way. He could be very persuasive, and he didn't like to be thwarted."

"So he was a man to be reckoned with."

"Yes. You should see the gifts he bought her."

"How did Liberty feel about the gifts?"

Daphne shrugged. "My husband was an important man. People did what he wanted."

"Would you say. he was a dangerous man?"

Daphne hesitated. "Yes, he certainly could be."

"Did he ever hurt you?"

She looked at the wall. "Who told you he hurt me?"

"It was a guess. I saw an item in the Globe about his first wife. He broke her arm one night when she didn't want to give him oral sex. On another occasion he assaulted a stewardess he'd met on an airplane. He beat other women, why not you?"

Daphne pressed her lips together. "He liked to hurt people. He was an awful man."

"You married him."

"I worship the divinity in all creatures. I saw only his good side when I met him. I saw only his good side when I married him. I didn't believe the hateful rumors about him. Powerful people always have detractors, don't you know."

"And he had lots of money," April murmured.

Daphne lit a cigarette. "I could never kill anyone."

"Even someone who hurt you?"

"Only Satan is without divinity. And poor Tor was only a weak man, not Satan."

"I see." April wrote that in her Rosario. Not Satan. "Now tell me about Liberty, was he a jealous husband?" "She didn't cheat on him."

"You said that, but it doesn't always alleviate paranoia about it," April remarked dryly. "How about abusive. Was Liberty an abusive husband?"

Daphne's eyes flared. "He should have been. She was a real bitch. I mean she was vicious. She and Tor were made for each other. And they died together. Weird, isn't it?"

"What did you and your husband fight about that day?"

"I don't know. He was high as a kite. Who could fight with a person on Mars? The man was wacko." Daphne looked away.

Uh-huh. "Did he strike you?"

"No!" Her fist hit the table.

"Why did you have him cremated so fast?"

"What should I have done, have him stuffed?" Daphne shot back.

She didn't tell the truth about anything. April knew she'd have to keep twisting and twisting her to get the facts. She smiled and held out a plastic bag. "I need the hair, please."

"Isn't there some kind of law against this?"

April shook her head. "Just to rule people in and out, you know how it is," she said again.

Daphne pulled three hairs out of her head. "I'm doing this because I don't think anybody killed my husband but himself."

"Thanks. We'll talk some more later."

Daphne swore.

At 11:31 April came through the heavy Wrought-iron-and-glass doors of Jason's building, nodded at the doorman who knew her, and went up to the fifth floor unannounced. Instead of going into Jason's office, where Jason would be waiting for her in twenty minutes, she rang the doorbell to his apartment. Almost immediately Emma opened the door.

"Uh, April," she murmured, "Jason's not here."

"Hi, Emma, can I talk to you for a moment?" "Sure, want a cup of coffee?"

"Yes, I would. Thanks."

Emma put two cups, two bagels, and a container of tuna fish on the table, poured the coffee. April figured she was serving lunch.

"Tell me about Merrill," she asked.

Emma sighed. "In the entertainment business your best friends are the people on your latest project. So Merrill was special for me. We stayed close. She was my oldest friend, my only real friend except for Jason." She glanced at April. "We don't socialize much. He's always working."

April nodded. "You know, I was looking over my notes of our interview the other day and the only thing you said about Merrill and Liberty's relationship was that it was 'devoted.' You know people can be devoted and still have lots of problems." April spread some tuna salad on half of her bagel and took a bite.

"Yeah, like Jason and me."

"So what were the issues in Merrill's marriage?"

Instantly, Emma became defensive. "I didn't want you to think it was race. It wasn't race."

April was silent.

"Merrill had quit working, just stopped acting. She couldn't have a baby, I don't know why, and she'd lost her bearings."

"Did she have a botched abortion at some time?"

Emma looked surprised. "What makes you think that?"

"The autopsy showed Merrill had scarring in her uterus that would be consistent with it. But she also had endometriosis. Surgery for that could have produced the same results."

Emma shook her head. "The things you learn. Merrill refused to have any tests. She said she'd rather not know the cause than risk having Rick feel like less of a man if he—you know—was the one at fault."

"Little bit of deception there. And she was unhappy with her life?"

Emma put her hand to her mouth. "Sounds weak and selfish, doesn't it? But she just . . . took it out on him. You know? She'd pick a fight, then if she didn't get him going, she'd unplug his computer while he was working so it crashed. Then he'd get a migraine. And she'd scream at him, and he'd start bashing the wall to make the pain stop. Honestly. I think he was a saint. I would have killed her. Oops. Good job, Emma. I didn't mean to say that."

"Emma, do you know Wally Jefferson?"

Emma shook her head. "No. Who is he?"

"He's Petersen's driver."

"I told you last time you asked me that I didn't know Tor very well. Years ago, before I knew Jason, when Tor was between wives, Rick wanted to fix us up, but Merrill didn't think Tor would ever stay with anybody. She knew he wasn't for me. I heard about Rick's car and the cocaine on the news yesterday, what-?"

"Did you know that Merrill used cocaine?"

Emma nodded. "That's another thing they fought about."

"You held back a lot, didn't you? Thanks, Emma. You were a great help."

"I can't feel too guilty, April. You're very smart. I knew you'd find out. I didn't want it to come from me. Snorting is what Tor and Merrill did together. Rick didn't like drugs and neither did Tor's wife. For Tor and Merrill it was like going out drinking. I knew they were high when they came backstage."

"Emma, what happened when you left them at the restaurant? And don't hold back anything now."

Emma was quiet for a moment. She closed her eyes and seemed to go into another place. "I was in a hurry. There was a limo parked outside. The driver was a white man. Yes, he was—white, I'm sure of it. Was Tor's driver white or black?"

"Black. What kind of car?"

"I don't know. He offered me a ride, that's how I know he was white. They do that sometimes when they have more than an hour to kill, you know, to make money off the books. I turned to look at him. I thought about it, but I don't like negotiating with them over price. It's makes mc nervous. A taxi was coming down the street right then. There was snow on the street, but it wasn't snowing. A woman got out of the taxi. I got in. That's it."

"Do you know what Tor's wife looks like?"

"I've seen her picture in the papers."

"Could the woman getting out of the taxi have been her?"

"Oh, God, I hadn't thought of that. God, I don't know. Oh, God, April, I was in a hurry. I remember she had black tights on, and she was wearing a black mink coat. I remember it because it was just like Merrill's. God, Merrill had a gorgeous coat."

"What did the woman's coat look like?"

"I don't know—big, swing skirt. That's all I can rcmember."

"Could it have been Merrill's coat?"

Emma closed her eyes. "Merrill was wearing lier suede coat that night, wasn't she?"

"Yes."

She shook her head. "It wasn't Merrill's coat."

"What about her shoes?"

"I didn't see her shoes. I was looking at the coat."

"Could it have been Merrill's coat and a man's feet?"

"Don't ask me these things, April. I don't know." Emma was getting frantic.

"Would you recognize the woman if you saw her in the same coat again?"

"I don't know—maybe."

"Okay, what else did you see?"

"I saw another couple come out of the restaurant. It couldn't have been Rick getting out of the taxi. I'm sure I would have known if I'd seen Rick. I know his walk. I know how his body moves. I know his gestures. I know he wasn't there."

"You think you didn't see him. The eye sees what the mind is used to seeing. Could Rick fit into Merrill's coat?" April glanced down at her plate and realized she'd eaten more than half the tuna salad Emma had set out.

"Oh, God, don't put me in this position. I don't know who was in the mink coat. It could have been anyone. What about the murder in Rick's car? Could he have anything to do with that?"

"Another mystery, Emma. Look, I have to go. Does Jason know all of this?"

Emma shook her head. "Merrill was afraid of Jason. She thought if he knew how unhappy she was, he'd try to get her into therapy. And she was right, he would have."

Jason's face was stony cold as April came into his office and took a chair. "Any news?" he demanded.

Hello and how are you, too. April looked around at the clocks that didn't chime. All that ticking every day would drive her nuts. It was exactly noon. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since she'd seen him last. Since then, however, she'd offended him and everybody else she knew. How many times did she have to say she was sorry for doing what she was paid to do. She cleared her throat, choking on repentance.

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened last night. I didn't know Iriarte would act that way," she began.

Jason didn't reply. His body was perfectly still.

"If you wanted an apology, that was it." April crossed her legs and swiveled back and forth in Jason's analyzing chair. She wondered what it was like to be a patient, having to tell some doctor every single thought that popped into her head. She used to think that by virtue of his profession Jason could read her mind, but now she knew he couldn't. He didn't know she'd just had lunch with his wife.

Jason didn't move. He was playing his waiting game. April knew how it worked because she often played it herself. Jason could make silence as deep and forbidding as the darkest tunnel full of scaly monsters. But April came from a culture that believed the tongue was the enemy of the neck. Better to keep mouth shut than say wrong thing and be hung from nearest tree.

"So, what's on your mind?" She broke first.

"A lot of things, April."

"Want to tell me?"

"Who can trust a cop?"

April blinked. "Who can trust a shrink?"

They sat in uncompanionable silence. Jason played with a piece of paper on his desk. The back of his hand brushed the desktop. "Why don't you fill me in."

April watched a clock pendulum move back and forth. "It looks like Petersen died first," she said.

"How do you know?"

"The bloodstains on his coat. Merrill Liberty bled to death on his back. That means he had to go down first."

Jason frowned. "What's the significance?"

"Petersen may have died of a heart attack, but not from seeing Merrill assaulted. Merrill was struck in the throat, probably from the front because there were no bruises on her body to show she'd been restrained or grabbed from behind. Another thing is she bled a lot, but the wound was very small, very neatly done. It probably took several minutes for her to die."

Jason coughed. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Your friend may be a very cruel killer. Why did you ask me over, Jason? I'm really pressed for time." April watched him play with a piece of paper, watched the pendulum of the clock on his desk. The minutes ticked by. He didn't answer so she went on. "The toxicology reports came in on Tor Petersen. Turns out he was a big cocaine user, so was Merrill—there was cocaine in the trunk of Rick's car."

"Do you know what kind of weapon killed Merrill?" Jason interrupted.

"Some kind of pointed object. I get all the catalogs of knives you can send away for in the mail, and some you can't. There's a whole arsenal of deadly blades out there. But I haven't seen anything that fits the description of this murder weapon."

"How about an ice pick?"

April shook her head. "The ME measured. We measured. Too big, believe it or not."

"Hmm. So you think Petersen died first. Was the cause of death related to complications of a drug overdose?"

"The report says no."

"They're still certain it was the heart?"

"Yes, they say it's the heart."

"But you're not sure."

April hesitated. "I'm not convinced it was a natural. But I don't know how it could have been murder yet."

"Okay. Was Merrill with him when he died?"

"No, she'd gone into the kitchen to say good-night to the chef. She left the restaurant after Petersen. We're not sure if he was still alive when she came out."

"So Merrill came out, possibly saw Tor die . . . then someone killed her with the only thing at hand."

April nodded. "That's my personal opinion."

"A double homicide, after al." Jason scratched his beard. "So, you don't think Merrill was killed in a jealous rage."

"No, I don't think she was killed in a rage, but that doesn't mean your friend didn't kill her. It just means her death may have been an afterthought."

Jason made some angry noises. "Rick Liberty would not have murdered his wife as an afterthought. That's just not sound psychological reasoning. I don't think he would have killed her for any reason—but to kill as an afterthought, that's outrageous."

"Jason, I may lose my job on this. The medical examiner found a natural cause of death, and I'm getting very unpopular with this line of—"

"You think Merrill Liberty saw something when she came out of the restaurant that made someone want to kill her?"

"Yes, and I need to talk to Liberty. I really need to find him."

"I don't know where he is." Jason's face was stony once more.

"You said that before."

"It's still true. By the way, did they x-ray Petersen's body?"

"Of course."

"And were the X rays negative for foreign objects?"

April started to sweat inside her sweater. "What are you getting at?"

"Didn't you tell me that Petersen's cause of death was a pericardial tamponade?"

"A what?"

"Perforated heart sac. That's when bleeding in the pericardium stops the heart from beating. In a massive heart attack, the heart loses its rhythm and runs amok, causing an appearance of perforation to the pericardial sac. If the perforation occurs first, the results can be the same."

April blinked. What?

"This reminds me of a case I had when I was a resident," Jason mused.

April watched the pendulum. Time was passing. She had to get moving. "Yeah?" she prompted, tapping her foot.

Jason frowned, remembering. "It was a very disturbed woman. She was brought into ER again and again, having to have objects removed from her body. Once she shoved a lightbulb up her anus, another time a broken Coke bottle up her vagina. She inserted pieces of broken glass in her breasts. We kept patching her up. Then she started weaving bent carpet needles into her skin. One day, she shoved a coat hanger up under her rib cage. We could see it in the X ray. The wire went behind her lung, so it didn't collapse her lung. But it went in so far and was so close to the pericardial sac around her heart that the surgeons were afraid they'd cause a pericardial tamponade and kill her in their attempt to get it out."

"Wow." April raised her hand to the place above her stomach where her rib cage flared out on both sides and there was a soft unprotected spot in the middle. It was the same place where Tor Petersen's corpse had a pimple. She felt a renewed respect for Jason. Even though he was an M.D., she had never thought of him as a real doctor.

"And did they kill her getting it out?" she demanded.

"No, they were first-rate surgeons."

"Jesus," she muttered. "A coat hanger. Look, I've got to go."

"Well, take this with you." Jason handed over the paper he'd been playing with. April read it. When she was finished, she swiveled back and forth, staring at the wall. "So Liberty's been corresponding with you on E-mail," she said finally.

"Only twice. This is the second time."

"What's this about giving Merrill's coat to Emma?"

"I don't know, it's odd."

It sure was. If he'd been wearing it and he was the killer, the coat would have traces of blood on it. April's scalp tingled. "Thanks." She hadn't thought of E-mail. She wasn't exactly sure how E-mail worked, but she figured with a warrant they could tap into the on-line system and trace the phone he was sending from. Jason probably didn't know that, though.

"What did you tell Liberty?" she asked quickly.

"I told him I'd talk to you."

"Thank you for showing me this," she said again.

"You said last night you don't have any evidence Liberty was the killer. No blood, no footprints. No witness who saw him on the scene. So you just want to talk to him, right?"

April nodded, even though the picture had changed a bit since then.

"What about your own suspicions, April? Why would anybody get in trouble for suspecting a double homicide instead of a single one in a very public case?"

April flinched at the attack. "All right, what's on your mind? Do you want to negotiate Liberty's return?" She waved the E-mail in the air. "Is that what this is about?"

Jason hesitated. "I'm not sure I trust the police."

"You can trust me. I'm the police. We need him back, Jason. We need to talk to him."

Jason looked down at the worn Oriental rug at his feet, then glanced at the clock. "Want to go out for a bite?"

"Thanks, I've already eaten." April smiled. With your wife. "But I could sit with you."

"Fine." He made a gesture with his hand for her to get up and get out of there. She did, figuring that for some reason of his own Jason had decided to forgive her.