Judging Time

47

Two hours later Lieutenant Iriarte's face was affable as he waved April and Mike into his office. Hagedorn was still up to his nose in arrest forms and didn't bother to acknowledge them as they passed his desk. April eased into the office and lowered her eyes so Iriarte couldn't read the situation . in them. Mike was almost a head taller than the lieutenant. He was also in better shape. His full mustache made Iriarte's thin one look anemic. He didn't have an angry expression or look a bit tired after twelve hours on the job. Standing in front of Iriarte's desk with his arms by his sides and his cowboy-booted feet apart, Mike looked like a showdown in the making. April dropped the tapes that she'd made of their interviews with Liberty and Belle Lindsay on the desk. The two of them had corroborated each other's story for the last two days, and last night in particular, in all the - essential elements.

Iriarte's face flashed annoyance. "Don't tell me he said something," the lieutenant began.

"Who?" Mike asked.

"You know who: Liberty. You talked with him. So, what've you got?"

"What did he say before?" April asked.

Iriarte looked annoyed. "He asked if he could use the phone."

Mike spoke first. "Lieutenant, do you know who's downstairs right now?"

Iriarte shrugged. What did he care?

"Three of Liberty's business partners are down there talking with McCarthy. Three white guys in suits on a Sunday night. Each one has a lawyer with him and they're in suits, too. All six suits want an apology in front of the TV cameras and Liberty out of here now."

"Dream on." Iriarte shrugged again. McCarthy was second whip in the house since Captain Johnson wasn't on duty this Sunday night. Angry protesters were not Iriarte's problem. His problem was solving the crimes.

"You know who else is here? Judge Lindsay and his wife, you know, the filmmaker—and they are not happy, either. The woman videotaped with Liberty when you arrested him is their daughter. They saw the clip on TV. They went batshit. The house you arrested Liberty in happens to belong to Judge Lindsay's mother. This isn't looking good, Lieutenant." Mike smiled.

"Oh, shit." Now they had Iriarte's attention.

"Jason Frank is here, too," April added.

"What's he doing here?"

"I called him," she said. "I had to tell him, and he had something he wanted to show me. What's going on? When Sergeant Sanchez and I left here this morning we thought you were going to bring Liberty in for questioning. We get back here and he's been arrested. You've got him cuffed to a table. What happened?"

"I didn't cuff him to a table." Now Iriarte wasn't looking too happy. "I don't have to answer to you, Woo. We arrested him because the situation changed. We had Liberty's prints on Jefferson's murder weapon. We got a warrant. The DA was adamant about arresting him for the Jefferson hit."

"Well, maybe we'd better have a little talk with the DA about that, because the situation's changed again."

Iriarte rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, what now?"

"A lot."

"Well, talk."

April sat down. Mike did not. Mike nodded to April to go on. She complied. "Before Dr. Frank left here the other day, he asked to see the death reports and photos on Petersen and Merrill Liberty. I showed him the photographs of Petersen's body. He was interested in the pinpointed spot above Petersen's abdomen. The same thing Ducci was interested in."

"Shrinks aren't doctors. Dust and fiber nuts are not doctors. What do they know?" Iriarte grumbled.

"Remember the story about the woman and the wire hanger?" April was unruffled.

"Not that again." Now Iriarte was looking really peeved.

"I asked at the labs if there's any way they can enhance the autopsy photographs to show the exact size and nature of whatever that thing on Petersen's chest is—and whether the injury had been filled in and disguised with makeup so that we all might have missed it during the autopsy."

"What?"

"In Petersen's autopsy the ultraviolet lights weren't on. There was a lot we might have missed, including the lint from Petersen's T-shirt."

Irarte scratched the side of his face. This was getting away from him. "Makeup?'' he grunted, ignoring the T-shirt issue.

"You know, like they do in funeral homes to fix customers who've had really bad illnesses, or injuries, to look—"

"All right, I get the picture." Iriarte rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. "Don't make me guess. Can they perform this photographic miracle?"

Mike was smiling broadly. The makeup idea was his.

"We don't have the answer to that yet, sir. But we have enough other problems with the autopsy to cast serious doubts on the ME's report."

Iriarte inhaled noisily, then exhaled, making the sound of an angry goat. He changed the subject. "What did Liberty and the woman say?"

April gave the short version from her notes. "They said the guy who shot Jefferson ran across the four lanes of Broadway, recognized Liberty, and threatened him with a gun. There was a second man with the shooter. He punched the Lindsay woman in the head, knocking her down. Liberty went for the shooter, causing him to drop the gun. The other man came at Liberty with a knife, slashing him in the chest. Liberty went down, saw the gun, picked it up, and threw it out of reach. That's how his prints got on the gun. The woman started yelling. The two men ran away."

"Chest wounds?"

"Yes," April confirmed.

"Could the injuries have been caused during the earlier homicides?" Iriarte demanded.

"They're fresh, sir. EMS took a look at them, no infection, no healing—new."

"Shit."

Mike took it up from there. "Both Liberty and the Lindsay woman picked out the mug shot of Julio Andreas Garcia as the shooter and the man who attacked them. Has ballistics come up with anything else on that gun?"

"Yeah, they picked up a floater around the Statue of Liberty yesterday. No il yet. Hispanic, thirty-five to forty, exotic dental work, what's left of it. He was shot in the head. There are fragments of gold bridge-work and only a few of his teeth are left. Probably went in the water four days ago. But he may have died before that. Three bullets in the head match with the gun that killed Jefferson. They're checking with the blood in Liberty's car to see if it's a match with the floater."

"I'd guess the time frame of the man's death isn't going to match up with Liberty's other busy killing and running schedule. What do we have now, four homicides?" Mike asked.

"Three homicides," lriarte said, still taking the hard line on Petersen.

"You can probably send Julio down for the two shootings, Jefferson and the John Doe."

"No, Jefferson could have killed the John Doe. He was the mule who stole Liberty's car.' '

"Well, we can credit Jefferson with being the great brain who thought of using Liberty's car for drug exchange. Something went wrong. One of them shot the guy. They abandoned the car. At some point they got scared and dumped the body in the water somewhere off Staten Island. We'll have to check about the currents near where the car was found to come up with a time frame."

"I'm betting no connection with the Petersen/Mer--rill Liberty homicides," Mike said.

"One homicide," Iriarte insisted.

"I'm betting on a double homicide," April said. "And I think Julio had to get rid of Jefferson last night because he didn't trust Jefferson to keep his mouth shut about their drug activities once Jefferson was a suspect in Merrill Liberty's murder. Julio must have worried that Jefferson would rather go down on a drug charge than a murder charge."

The three were silent, thinking it over.

Finally Iriarte figured out a solution. "All right," he sighed, "we'll handle it this way. Two of these homicides don't belong to us. Jefferson belongs to the Thirtieth. Let them go out and pick up this Julio."

April and Mike nodded. Good plan.

Iriarte licked his lips. "Now about this Liberty thing."

"Jason Frank has been trying to reach me all day. You want to see the little present he brought me?"

"I don't like shrinks. Shrinks aren't real doctors," Iriarte muttered.

April smiled. That's what she used to think. She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a round thin plastic container.

"What's that?"

April opened the container and drew out a thin ten-inch needle with a sharp point on one end and white

plastic head on the other. The needle was sheathed in clear plastic tubing. Iriarte grabbed his glasses and read the words on the container. Trocar catheter. 3.3 mm. He put his hand to his mouth, worried.

Finally he said, "Does this little goody match the hole—assuming there is a hole—in Petersen's chest, and the hole in Merrill Liberty's throat?"

"Three millimeters is about half the size of an ice pick. We'll have to get the lab to make the measurements and see. In Merrill Liberty's case, we can dig her up if we have to."

"Where did the shrink get this?"

"Every emergency room, every operating room, every EMS unit has them. Trocars are used to create an airway, or draw fluid, or blood or air to release pressure. Every resident has to practice with them. They come in several sizes: for adults, children, and infants. They're sharp, can penetrate quickly and deeply. Looks like a knitting needle, doesn't it?"

April slipped the unsheathed trocar back in her sleeve, then drew it out, demonstrating to Iriarte how it would neatly slide out to become a lethal weapon, then be easily concealed when the perpetrator left the scene.

"You're going to have to let Liberty go for now, sir."

Groaning, Iriarte checked his watch. It was 8:59 P.M. Liberty had been there for four hours. At 9 P.M. Sunday night the lieutenant was going to have to call the mayor's office, the police commissioner's office, and the DA. Everyone had to hear about the problem with the deputy medical examiner—and the release of Liberty—from him first. It wasn't going to be a good night for him. He scowled at April. She knew her mother's curse would be accomplished, and she would pay for tonight. She glanced at Mike.

No one mentioned Rosa's name.

Iriarte said, "Well, get out of here and go bring her in. I'll have the DA here to talk to her, see how deeply she's involved. He's not going to like this," the lieutenant added in a warning voice, as if the homicides and improper autopsies themselves were all April's fault.

"Thank you, sir," she said.

She and Mike exchanged knowing looks. Once again Iriarte wanted the two of them gone as fast as possible. He wanted to be remembered in the photos, not as the one who arrested Liberty, but as the one who let him go.