Judging Time

46

At five-fifteen, April rapped sharply on Dean Ki-ang's doorframe, then walked into the prosecutor's office. He was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, didn't seem to have heard her knock.

"You never go home, do you?" she said, sorry to have to wake him up.

He started, looked surprised, then checked his watch. "April, you're early . . ." He recovered quickly. "But looking very good," he amended. "I'm glad to see you."

"Thanks." April took off her gloves and unbuttoned her coat.

Dean gazed at her appreciatively, smoothing back his hair. Then he got up from his desk to close the door. "Here, give me that." He took the coat, threw it over a chair, then stepped back to look at her as if from a distance, making a telescope with his fingers the way he had the last time they met. "You're a sight for sore eyes. Did I tell you I'm a sucker for female Chinese sergeants?"

She smiled, trying to think of a suitable reply, neither too cold nor too warm. Something pleasantly neutral that wouldn't generate deeper forays into the subject, for she didn't know any other female Chinese sergeants. But Dean moved before she could think, stepping forward into her space and in one fluid move drawing her into a full body hug. April was too surprised to react. The unexpected embrace took her breath away. It was as if she'd been waylaid by someone on the street she'd never suspected.

Things like this happened all the time in the station houses, particularly to unwary patrol officers. April had always managed to step aside, get out of reach, show it wasn't ' worth it to mess around with her. She'd never been one of the "girls" the horny ones went after.

But this was no cop on a power play. This was a highly desirable suitor. Dean Kiang was a lawyer, a Chinese. He' was the kind of person Skinny Dragon told her she must smile at—be honey to his bee: work for if she could get the job, be indispensable to, then clinch the deal, lie back, and do nothing for rest of life. In the case of Dr. Dong a few months back, Sai had gone as far as to advise kissing on command, as necessary, the way the prescriptions on pill bottles read. Just to close that pie-in-the-sky deal for a June wedding and the happy life Sai wanted for her. Just keep up that kissing, and never mind what the man looked like, or whether he was an asshole. Never mind love. Sai liked to say love was like a lily: bloom only one day. Better think of other things.

In one second, less than a second, Kiang's hard wet lips were sucking noisily on her mouth while his hard tongue penetrated the unguarded space between her teeth, diving for her tonsils. His hips ground against her, driving the hard plastic of her gun into her side. His arms wound around her hips like a vine choking a tree. He pushed his chest against her breasts, hunching his shoulders around her. His hands grasped her bottom, pushing it up, pushing her pelvis forward against the hard protrusion bulging from his well-cut, gray pinstripe trousers.

"Oh, baby." He groaned and reached for her skirt, pulling it up, started rubbing the front of her thigh, then reached even higher to her crotch. He was holding on so tight with his other arm she could hardly breathe. Then, as she protested, he plowed into her mouth with his tongue and lips again with another rough kiss as he kept rubbing her, chaffing her as if he actually intended to rip off her tights and plunge into her on the spot.

Think of other things, her mother would advise at such a time. But the things Dean Kiang made April think of were too much garlic in his lunch and too much starch in his shirt, a thin and bony body like her father's. Unpleasant greedy lips and a hard greedy tongue. He reminded her of a goat rutting in a field or oversexed monkeys humping in a rain forest. Ki-ang's hand exploring her leg suddenly grabbed her crotch and gave it a hard squeeze. The reminders stopped and a rocket went off in April's brain. She was a cop, not a helpless woman. She pushed Kiang away.

"Stop!"

"Uh-uh." He didn't want to stop. He didn't let go.

"Stop. Now." She jabbed him hard with her elbows.

"Oh, baby," he groaned. He didn't seem to care about resistance. He was lost in another place.

For a few seconds she had been lost in another place, too. It was as if her magical Dragon Mother had actually entered her mind and made her forget how to kick, how to punch, how to judge right and wrong. For a few seconds April had actually been paralyzed, afraid of kicking the Chinese prosecutor in the balls and causing him to lose face.

But he didn't seem to be concerned about face, either. When he recovered himself, April was further shocked by his arrogance and her own uncharacteristic restraint. Before letting her go, Dean let both hands once again drop to her bottom and roam around the territory, squeezing at will, front and back, even as she was slapping his arms off.

Then he sat down at his desk again as if nothing had happened. Not a single thing. "Look, you're early. I don't have a lot of time. What's on your mind?" He checked his watch to show how rushed he was.

Murder. Murder was on her mind. She wanted to kill him. "You asked me to come here," she reminded him.

"Well, give, baby." He leered suggestively. "What's going on?"

Flushed and confused by the sudden shifts in his behavior and her own reaction to them, April opened her notebook and coldly told him everything that had happened that day.

"Well, that's good. But we don't need bloodstains on the mink anymore. It doesn't even matter what Liberty was wearing when he stabbed his wife. We've got him on another homicide now." Dean squirmed his fanny around the seat of his chair, proud of himself for his little adventure.

"What homicide?"

"We have a warrant out on him for the murder of Wally Jefferson."

"Huh? No, no. You're getting messed up here," April fumed. "That guy Julio something, the one we picked up last night—"

"Well, you caused me a lot of trouble with that. You picked him up. I questioned him. He wasn't the one."

"What are you talking about? The guy was a—"

"We found the murder weapon. Liberty's prints were on it. It's been confirmed. Liberty killed Jefferson. We figure it's a sure thing that he killed his wife as well." His face said end of story.

April's stomach was all over the place. The man made her physically sick. His spit was in her mouth. She was afraid she was going to hurl. "Where's Julio?"

"Oh, we let him go hours ago, but he's a witness. We know where he is. He'll come back and sing anytime."

"Who arrrested Liberty?"-

"Your people. He's at Midtown North."

And no one had told her. Ducci beeped her, Mike beeped her, she couldn't reach either of them when she called back. But no one from the precinct beeped her about that. April stood and grabbed her coat.

"Wait a minute, we have to talk."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Ah, I wanted to tell you I can't do dinner tonight. I have to start interviewing Liberty around seven-thirty, eight." He checked his watch again.

"No problem," April assured him. She wasn't available either.

"But maybe we could meet later, you know . . ."

Sure, dream on. She didn't look at him as she left.

There was a great commotion on Fifty-fourth Street when April arrived. During the afternoon the wind had picked up. It was a cutting January knife now, slashing through the excited crowd that had gathered outside Midtown North in the early dark. The special breed of people who drove vans with dishes on top, wore heavy cameras around their necks, spoke heatedly into microphones, and manned minicams like soldiers with assault rifles were there en masse. More of them were trying to move in at Eighth Avenue, and no uniforms were down at the light, directing traffic, or out front to keep the predators away from the station house door.

April double-parked half a block away. As she walked back, she was still trembling with fury at the treachery all around. She inhaled some frigid air through her nose to calm down. The cold made her want to sneeze. Approaching the crush, she started shouting instead. "Move that equipment out of here. Right now. You know the rules. This is a police station. Clear the entrance."

The sharks moved a few inches back. Inside the precinct there was more pandemonium. At the desk April had to raise her voice to be heard over the din. "Sergeant, we need some bodies outside."

"We need some bodies inside, too," came the reply. "Got some coming in."

"Where is he?"

The sergeant didn't have to ask who. His answer was a scowl as his thumb jerked upward. April climbed the stairs, fighting wasteful emotion. As she neared the top, as if on cue, Mike came out of the office he'd been assigned. His face was grave as he waited for her, then drew her into the tiny office and closed the door.

"Are you part of this?" she asked coldly.

"I just got here. I tried to call you. Where were you?"

"It's a long story."

"What did you do with your mother?"

"I asked a friend of hers to take her home. She'll never forgive me. Not if I have ten thousand lives." April longed to grab him and hold him tight. Skinny Dragon said Mike smelled too sweet for a man, but he smelled good to her. She breathed him in. He looked good to her, too. Sexy. Strong. He always knew what to do in every situation. She liked his hair, his mustache. Liked his dangerous-looking clothes and the respect he had for her. He'd never grabbed her no matter how tempted he was. In all her years as a cop no matter what happened, no matter how great the carnage or the violence, or the tragedy of any situation, April had never cried on the job. She could feel the tears coming now.

"They arrested our suspect," was all she could think of to say. He nodded. So they had.

"Did you talk to Kiang?" he asked, changing the subject.

"He's a pendejo," she exploded. A pubic hair. Worse.

"That bad."

"Yeah." April vibrated with emotion.

"Hey, take it easy." His calming tone agitated her further.

"How can you say that when everybody's fucking us over like this?" Eyes blazing, she jabbed a finger at his chest. Hysterical Skinny Dragon on a rampage couldn't have looked wilder. "You realize what's happened here? They—"

He caught the finger and kissed it. "It ain't over till it's over. By the way, did you talk to Ducci?"

"No, what's he got on the coat?"

"I don't know. He wasn't there when I called him."

April shook her head. "Where is he?"

"He left a message saying he'd call back."

A few minutes later they walked into the squad 'room. lriarte was hiding behind his closed door, talking on the phone. When he saw them, he turned his back.

Hagedorn was hunched over his desk with the forms. He'd gotten stuck with the paperwork—preparing the arrest forms, the complaint arrest report, the property voucher form, and the On Line Booking System arrest report. The last had approximately a hundred data elements and had to be filled in by hand. He didn't look up when they came in.

"Hey, Charlie," Mike said, casually opening his leather coat and shrugging at his shoulder holster. "Looks like you made an arrest here. What's the story?"

Hagedorn's eyes darted over to the window in Iriarte's office before settling on Mike. "You didn't hear?"

April glanced at the holding cell. It was empty.

"No, man. We didn't hear."

"Gee, I thought—" Hagedorn's pen tapped the desk. He looked for help from lriarte, but the CO of the squad kept his back to the window.

Mike leaned over and read Liberty's name off one of the arrest forms. "What's going on, man?"

Hagedorn made a slurping noise. "Those guys in the Thirtieth really suck. I bet they told you there were no witnesses to the Jefferson hit."

"So what have you got?" Mike asked.

Hagedorn's body did a little street-boy bob. "We got the shooter." Yeah.

"No kidding, and who might that be?" Mike asked, eyes innocent.

"Don't pull that wiseass stuff on me. You know we nailed the black bastard. Got him for one homicide. That'll do for a start." Hagedorn slapped his knee.

April looked around for a black bastard, didn't see one. Her body made up its mind. She was boiling. "Where did you make the arrest?" she asked.

He kept his eyes on the paperwork. "The fucker was in a town house on One-Ten Street with some black chick, probably his girlfriend. He E-mailed your shrink buddy that he was going to make a statement on TV."

"No kidding." Mike looked mildly interested.

"We had to arrest him before he could do so."

"Why didn't you beep me?" April demanded.

Hagedorn ignored her. "See, our supposition is that Liberty made the Jefferson hit because Jefferson saw him kill his wife and may have been blackmailing him. As soon as Jefferson was out of the way, Liberty was ready to come out of hiding."

"From what we heard from uniforms on the scene no one saw the shooter. What evidence do you have that it was Liberty?" April's voice was beginning to sound angry.

Hagedorn turned his head to make eye contact with her for the first time. "Liberty's prints were on the murder weapon." He made a fist and jerked his elbow back Yeah.

"Mi Dios," Mike muttered.

April already knew this, but Mike clearly didn't. "Nice of you to let us know, Hagedorn. So, who's talked with Liberty so far?" April asked.

"Just the lieutenant and me. Chang hasn't gotten here yet."

It was Kiang, but April didn't bother to correct him. "What did he say?"

"Who, Liberty? He said he wanted to talk to his lawyer."

"I'd like to see him," April murmured.

Hagedorn returned to his forms. "Hey, you've got four, five hours before he goes downtown. Why not, you're the primary," he added, then laughed. "He's in the interview room."

April glanced at Mike again. The tiny no-no motion of his chin told her not to break Hagedorn's neck just yet. She turned away to take her coat off in her office, trying to clear her head of usless things. Mike opened her office door. He'd taken his coat off, too, and combed his hair. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked.

April frowned. "It's pretty hard to find prints on a handgun, particularly one that's been tossed around in the snow. How would that—?"

"That's what I'm thinking."

She shoved her purse in the drawer and slammed it.

"Let's go talk to him."

They filed through the squad room to the interview room where Liberty waited alone. From the back it looked as if he had his head down and was resting on the table. But when Mike and April got inside, they saw that he'd been cuffed to the leg of the table and couldn't sit up. An indication of what Hagedorn thought of him. Nice. At the sound of the door opening, Liberty turned his head.

"Oh, you two," he muttered. He looked worse than the last time they'd seen him. Now he was pale, ex-hausted—and much of his hair was gray.

"How long have you been here?" Mike asked.

"About an hour. Where were you? You missed the fun."

"Sorry about that." Mike gestured vaguely.

Liberty rattled the cuffs. "I'm new at this. What happens when a person needs a bathroom?"

"Have you asked anybody?" April asked.

Liberty averted his eyes. "No one seemed interested. Maybe they wanted me to pee in my pants."

Mike slipped a key from his pocket and snapped off the cuffs and jerked his chin at April. She moved aside to let them out of the room. A few minutes later they were back. Still no cuffs. Liberty sat in the same chair as before.

April stuck a fresh tape in the recording machine on the table, pushed a button, and told it what day and hour it was, where they were, and who was in

the room. Then she told Liberty the tape was for his own protection.

Mike was the first- to talk. "You've gotten yourself in a lot of trouble. Why don't you tell us what happened."

"Thanks for taking off the shackles, but I'm going to wait for a lawyer."

"Did they tell you how long a wait that would be?"

"What do you mean?' "

"You might not get to see a lawyer or anyone else until sometime tomorrow. Right now we're the only friends you've got. You could tell us what happened' and save a lot of time."

Liberty licked his lips.

"You want a Coke or something?" April asked.

"I called someone."

"That's good, but the legal process takes time. You know you've fucked up big-time. You've got yourself involved in a homicide they can pin on you. You're locked in the system now. There's no getting out." Mike shook his head. "I thought you were smarter than that. Now why'd you go make it harder for yourself?"

Liberty scowled at him. "I didn't want to end up chained to a table."

April moved a chair away from the table and sat down.

"Like a dog," Liberty added.

Her eyes flickered. At central booking she'd seen prisoners chained to the walls so they couldn't even sit down. Liberty's shirt was wet. April could smell his fear.

"Now getting chained to a table is personal. I'd take that as a personal thing, how about you?" he asked.

"They tell you about the evidence they have against you?" The expression on Mike's face was of benign interest.

"I don't blame the media for what they do," Liberty said. "They can make up any stories they want. But you people are supposed to uncover the truth."

Mike sucked on the ends of his mustache. "And?" "You fuckers couldn't investigate your way out of a paper bag."

"You ducked out two days ago," April said softly. "Did you finally find your wife's killer?"

He turned around to look at her. "Somebody shot the man, I'll never know what he knew or what he did."

"Did you shoot him?"

Liberty shook his head. "I couldn't have shot him. I don't have a gun."

"Uh-huh. What happened?" April asked.

"I wanted to talk to him. I tried to go to the club where he hangs out, but I couldn't even get close. There was a police raid going on. I heard a shot, but I didn't know then who had gotten shot. The cops, everybody, were running around. Two guys came across Broadway at us. One of them had a bandana tied on his head. He had a ridge of gold teeth." Liberty touched his top teeth. His face was gray.

"Us?" Mike said, quickly taking over.

"What?"

"You said us."

Liberty looked annoyed. "A slip of the tongue. The guy with the gold teeth shot Jefferson."

"This sounds like a fairy tale," Mike said.

"The fuck it is. Can't any of you do your job?"

"I'm doing my job." Mike shook his head sadly. "I've always admired you, man. I thought you were intelligent. But even a dumb cop like me wouldn't buy a story this weak. If the phantom with the gold teeth shot Jefferson, how come your prints are on the gun?"

Liberty was shocked. "Huh? Couldn't be."

"That's what they got. Now why don't you tell us about the woman downstairs who wants to make a statement, and how your prints got on the gun that killed Jefferson."

April shot a look at Mike. His expression didn't change as Liberty hesitated, then started speaking. When he was finished April went out for a mug shot of Julio.