Judging Time

At 5 A.M., on what would tum out to be anything but a routine Tuesday, April Woo saw the glow of morning spread around the comer and down the hall into the bedroom where she was trying to sleep. The light came from the living-room picture window of the twenty-second-floor Queens apartment where her boyfriend had lived for six months and where no curtains concealed the drop-dead view of the Manhattan skyline. Punched out and highlighted by the dawn, the jumble of building shapes hung as if etched in the sky, a monument to the ingenuity of man, that great magician who used the raw power of steel and concrete in bridges and glass towers to dwarf nature and hide himself. Another day, and the city beckoned even before the cop was fully conscious.

April Woo was a detective sergeant in the New York City Police Department and second whip in the detective squad of Midtown North, the West Side precinct between Fifty-ninth and Forty-second streets from Fifth Avenue to the Hudson River. She was a boss who supervised other detectives and was in charge of the squad when her superior, Lieutenant Iriarte, was not around. She was also a person used to sleeping in her own. bed. Having grown up in a Chinatown walkup, and living at the moment in a two-story house in Astoria, Queens, April was now in the highest place she'd ever spent the night. She yawned, stretched, and let the soft drone of the news perpetually playing on 1010 WINS filter into her consciousness. A sharp detective listened for disaster twenty-four hours a day.

Hearing a radio report of a crime in her precinct could get her out of bed even if she wasn't aware of hearing it. Now, April urgently needed the story of some catastrophe for her mother, that April could claim kept her working around the clock. She needed the story if she wanted to go home in peace.

Only three weeks ago, on April 25th, April Woo had celebrated her thirtieth birthday, but you'd never know it by the way her parents treated her. It was particularly humiliating to her that instead of bringing her the respect she deserved, her rank in the department and the ripeness of her age only served to pick up the pace of her mother's tirades on the subject of her low-life job and lousy marriage prospects.

In the Chinese culture, dragons can be both good and evil, can appear at any moment and have the power to make or break every human endeavor. April called Sai Yuan Woo "Skinny Dragon Mother" because her mother, too, had the ability to change shape before her eyes, and had a tongue that spit real fire. April was no less afraid of her now that she carried two guns on her person than she had been as a small and defenseless child.

Lately, Skinny Dragon Mother had upped the ante on her disapproval of her only child, calling April the very worst kind of old maid, a worm old maid with an undesirable suitor. The undesirable suitor in question, Mike Sanchez, was a Mexican-American sergeant in the Detective Bureau like April. But unlike her, he was now assigned to the Homicide Task Force. Carefully, April turned her head to look at him, lying on his stomach beside her, sound asleep. One arm was curved over his head, the other cradled the pillow that hid his face. The sheet covered his calves and feet. The rest of him was naked.

The clutch hit her above the heart and below the throat, somewhere around the clavicle. His legs and butt, the muscles in his back and shoulders, the fine tracing of curly black hair on the backs of his arms more on his legs, seemed exactly right. His waist, though no longer exactly slender and boyish, was proportionately correct for his age and stature. He had smooth skin—in places it was as soft as a baby's—and the hard muscles of a trained fighter. His body was an interesting blend of hard and soft, dotted with a collection of scars from various battles, only a few of which she knew the origins.

The tightness in her chest rose to her throat as she thought of his welcome last night. When she'd gotten there at 1:30 A.M., he'd given her food and wine. Then, in the flickering light of a dozen candles, they'd made love for much of the night. The candles, she'd thought, were an unusually nice touch. She shivered as the dawn slowly infused the room. The idea of her former supervisor as a thoughtful and compelling lover was so alarming that part of her wanted to get off the slippery slope and slide right out of there with the morning, never to return. Another part told her to relax and go back to sleep. She was wrestling with the conflict when Mike spoke.

"Want some coffee, querida?" The question came from the depths of the pillow. Not a muscle in his body had moved, but the sound of his voice told her he'd been awake for a while, knew where his gun was, could roll over, hit the floor, and fire at the door or window in less than ten seconds. She grabbed at the sheet to cover herself.

"No thanks, I've got to get going."

"Why? You don't have to be at work until four this afternoon?" He rolled over, stretched his arms above his head and arched his back, showing off his chest and stomach and the rest of the merchandise that was fully restored after very little sleep.

April busied herself tucking the sheet around her neck, looking everywhere but at the goods. "You know my mother," she mumbled.

Mike laughed softly. "We're already acquainted, querida. It's okay to be naked."

"Not where I come from."

"Don't you like to look at me?" He nudged her with his knee.

"Yeah, sure," she mumbled some more, wimping out.

"So come on, take that thing off. We can look at each other in the light. Make my day." He reached out to tickle her, but she turned around to study the clock and didn't see his digits coming.

"Oh my God, it's almost six. Gotta go." She jumped when he touched her. "No, no, really."

He withdrew the offending fingers. "Aw, don't pull the guilty number on me. You know you don't have to go home anymore. You can stay here with me. We could have coffee, sleep a little more. If you don't want, I won't bother you." He lifted an edge of the sheet that covered her and pulled it over himself. The action got him closer to her. They were side by side now, touching from shoulder to knee, and the sheet did not succeed in hiding his intent.

She shook her head and laughed.

"What?" he demanded, his lush mustache twitching innocently.

"You know."

He rose up on one elbow to look at her. "Lucky me, you are one pretty woman in the morning, querida. Give me a hug."

"Yeah sure, I bet you say that to all the girls." By her calculation, Mike was the good-looking one, and he had a rep. He was like Sarah Lee to the opposite sex: no one didn't like him.

"You're the only girl in my life." He said this with just the right amount of huskiness in his voice, not too hokey.

April swallowed the hook and believed him, but didn't want to get all teary about it. She scrunched down, put her arms around him, and laid her head on his chest. She was trying to go with the flow' but wasn't finding it so easy. From the things Mike said and did m bed, she was aware that her own erotic repertoire was somewhat lacking. It made her afraid that regardless of what he told her right now, he'd be tired of her before the week was out.

He was able to distract her from this pessimistic speculation for a while by kissing her all over and encouraging her to return the favor, which didn't turn out to be so very difficult.

Then he got up, made coffee, and scrambled some eggs for breakfast. She was impressed by his domesticity. At nine, he showered and dressed for the day, collected his gun and his keys from the table, and took off without saying anything about the case that was bedeviling him. April decided to put off going home. What difference could a few hours make, she asked herself.

Time made a big difference in everything, though. If she had gone home either sometime during the night or early in the morning, she might have avoided a whole lot of trouble with her parents. If she had been a few minutes earlier or later in to work that day, or if she hadn't started the evening tour on radio call, driving around with her driver, Woody Baum, newly promoted to detective, new to the squad, and highly desirable to April because he didn't have any loyalties, she might never have been involved in the Popescu case.

As it was she didn't go home. She started work on radio call, and she and Woody had hardly settled into their gray unmarked unit when she got a call from the dispatcher to 10-85 the Midtown North Patrol Supervisor forthwith.

"Possible kidnapping, K," the dispatcher squawked. "Be advised the Midtown North Patrol Supervisor has also requested Crime Scene and Emergency Service Units, K."

"Ten-four, Manhattan North Detective Supervisor on the way, K." April turned to Woody. "That's that fancy building at Seventh and Central Park South. Turn around."

Woody threw the bubble on the roof, hit the sirens, and did a gut-wrenching u-ie on Fifty-seventh Street, leaving tire marks on the road.

The address of the requested investigation was a glass tower that curved around the corner from Central Park South to Seventh Avenue, sweeping up as much view as it could along the way. A driveway to the building entrance cut through the sidewalk, curving the other way. In front of the driveway was a tiny garden, consisting of a burbling fountain, a Japanese maple full of red leaves, and a thickly planted patch of gold and purple pansies. The building was already locked down. Yellow crime-scene tape was stretched across the entrance. Vehicles jammed the area. Uniforms swarmed everywhere. Three minutes from the 911 call, and the operation was already in full swing. The area was sealed off. The curious were clumped together outside police lines, talking, staring. The media was gathering.

"Park as close as you can and meet me inside." Adrenaline kicked in, and April was all nerves. It looked like something really big.

As Woody tried to pull into the driveway, a tall uniform with a mustache waved at them to stop. Woody jerked to a halt to talk to him as April took out her shield and clipped it to her jacket's breast pocket. The uniform saw it and waved them on without a word, but April had already jumped out of the car and joined the fray. The first thing she did, before going into the building, was to look up. On the roof, she could see two detectives in vests, with double-barrel shotguns, peering over the edge from above at ledges and anything else that protruded. She then saw a familiar face and went to talk to the precinct patrol supervisor, Lieutenant McMan, a steely type with startling ^green eyes and no lips at all, who had called the special units in after receiving the call from the 911 dispatcher.

"What's the story?" she asked.

"Hey, Woo. Woman's name is Popescu. It appears she was assaulted in her apartment. Her baby is missing."

"She still here?"

"No, she's in ER at Roosevelt."

"Anybody go with her?"

"Her husband claims he found her." McMan shrugged. "I have two uniforms on them."

"Upstairs?"

"Four detectives trying to get the phones tapped in case there's a ransom demand. ESU's canvassing the basement, roof, elevator shafts, tops of the elevators, trash, trash compactors." He smiled grimly. "The building superintendent freaked out at the heavy tools and the floodlights. He didn't want them breaking down any walls or doors."

"Any sign of the baby?"

McMan shook his head. "Nothing yet."

"What about CSU? Wasn't the crime scene secured for their first shot?"

"Yeah, yeah, they're up there, too. Apartment 9E. You going up?"

"Just for a quick look-see. I want to go over to ER to Q and A the victim right away. What's her status?"

"She was unconscious when she was taken out."

"Hey, boss." Woody bounded up.

"We're going up," she told him, nodding toward the front elevators, two pink-marble-fronted horrors.

"Not those. We got people in the shafts. You'll have to go up the back elevator," McMan told her.

Uniforms were swarming on the back stairs as April walked through. One was also guarding the back elevator. The elevator men and doormen were being questioned by detectives. A clot of tenants, unable to get home, was having a fit. April and Woody commandeered the elevator, stopped at the ninth floor and tried to enter the apartment through the kitchen.

"Forget about it, I'm not even started here. You can look in and that's it," came a voice from behind the door. The unseen criminologist added, "I don't give a shit who you are," in case somebody planned to put up a fight.

"Sergeant Woo. We just want to take a look," April said.

"This is where it happened. One look, don't touch," came the warning.

"Fine."

The door opened a little and April and Woody got a partial view for all of three seconds of some bloodstains on a marble floor. Somewhere in the front of the apartment, another feisty Crime Scene investigator and more detectives were locked in a noisy conflict over contamination of the scene versus the need to get the phones up right away so they could tape al the incoming calls. She'd have to come back later.

April glanced at the garbage can by the back door and repressed a strong urge to go through it. Victim first.

"Okay," she said to Woody. She turned to leave, and realized he'd frozen the elevator on the floor so she wouldn't have to wait when she was ready to go. Good man; he was taking care of her.

Roosevelt Hospital was only a short distance away on Ninth Avenue at Fifty-ninth Street, just a block down from the Manhattan branch of Fordham University. Woody negotiated the car through the streets and April was lost in her own thoughts. Her antennae were up and she was bristling all over. By now there would already be detectives from the Major Cases unit there. They would move in and take over the precinct squad room, maybe even her own desk. They'd be setting up their easels and starting the clocks ticking on their time sheets. It rankled her that no one thought precinct detectives could handle anything important. From now on, until this missing baby was found dead or alive, the precinct squad would be ordered to do the scout work. No precinct squad detectives liked it one bit.

What April always did was to work around the specialized units as if they weren't the hotshots with all the muscle. Right now, she didn't want to vent her feelings about how things were to the new kid. She wanted to manage the case correctly so the outsiders wouldn't make a mess in her territory.

"Leave it here," she said abruptly about the car in a no-parking zone by the emergency room entrance. Then she jerked her chin to indicate that Baum should accompany her inside.

They hurried into the ER entrance. Right away, April picked out two uniforms flanking a nervous-looking man in a blue suit. She decided to take the time to stop at the reception desk before speaking with him. She didn't say anything to Woody. He didn't say anything to her. Good, he was following her lead.

At the desk the harried-looking woman with permed red hair saw the shields, then returned to her computer screen.

"Where's the assault victim? Po-pes—"

"Popescu. It's Rumanian," the woman snapped. She kept typing and didn't look up.

"Thanks, that's the one. Where is she?" She didn't glance at Baum.

"She's in Treatment Room 3."

"I'd like to talk with her."

"She's unconscious."

"How about the doctor?"

"The doctor's with her."

"You have any idea when I could talk with him?"

"No." The woman returned to her typing, pleased to thwart April. She filled out her uniform and then some, had angry eyes, and a patch of fiery red pimples on each cheek. After a pause, she added, "They've finished with the X rays. Shouldn't be too long now."

"Thanks." April turned back to the rows of seats occupied by the motley bunch that formed a little pond of human misery in the waiting room. She didn't want to think about the bacteria and viruses circulating the room. She recognized the uniforms, Duffy and Prince. Both were white, five-ten or so, beefy, a few

years younger than she, and not much for taking initiative of any kind. Duffy worked a wad of gum around his mouth without actually chewing. The two cops flanked the victim's husband in an informal kind of way. The obviously upset, dark-haired man sat on a chair between them, wringing his hands. She noticed that his tie had alligators on it, his pink shirt had white collar and cuffs that were stained with blood, and his blue pinstriped suit looked expensive.

"Mr. Popescu?" she said.

His head twitched her way. "Yesi"

"I'm Detective Sergeant Woo, this is Detective Baum."

He looked from one to the other. "Who's in charge?"

"I am," April said.

He pulled himself to his feet with an effort. "How's my wife?"

"We don't have a report yet."

"Did she say who did it?" he asked.

"She's unconscious."

"Jesus." He shook his head. "Who could do this?"

"What happened?"

"I want to see my wife." Popescu had a wide mouth and wide-set eyes as black as April's. The voice was cold, the eyes were on fire. He looked about to blow.

April felt sorry for him. It wasn't uncommon for people to get crazy when someone they loved was hurt. "She's with the doctor."

"I told them I don't want doctors to touch her without my being in the room."

"That's not possible—"

"I won't have any emergency room doctor playing around with my wife." Popescu's panic screamed out of his voice. "I forbid them to do anything to her, working on her face—or, or . . ."

"Can you tell me what happened, sir?"

Popescu gave her a crazed look. "Somebody broke into my apartment and took my baby." His voice cracked. "He's only three weeks old. I came home.

Heather was on the floor. There was blood all over the place. At first, I thought the blood was the baby's. Then, I realized the baby wasn't there —"

His hands flew to his face. "Oh God, you've got to let me in to see her. I need to be with her."

"They have to clean her up first. It's procedure."

"She's all right. I know she's all right. It's just a cut on her head. It bled a lot, that's all. These goons restrained me physically. That guy put me in a ham-merlock. I almost choked to death." Popescu pointed accusingly at the offender.

April glanced at Duffy. He stuck the wad of gum in his cheek and gave his head a barely perceptible shake.

No way.

"I don't want her to stay here. I want her to come home with me. I'm sure she's all right." Popescu was raving. April figured him for a lawyer.

"Let's hope so." She took some notes on her steno pad, and frowned at Baum to do the same. The first things people said were often important. The new kid . on the block, Baum dutifully followed her example.

Years ago, when she'd first joined the department and worked in Chinatown, she'd jotted some Chinese characters along with her notes in English on the steno pads the DAs called Rosarios. The DA on the case had gone nuts when he asked for her Rosario and saw the Chinese characters she'd written there. He told her nothing she wrote in Chinese counted and not to do it again. Now her notes were pretty much in English even though she missed the calligraphy practice.

Husband reports that when he got home, his wife was unconscious and the baby gone. The stains on his shirt are probably his wife's blood.

He would have tried to revive her, of course. Unless he'd injured himself and some of the blood was his. She'd noticed a cut on his left palm.

April and Baum saw the red-haired lady signal them. She tried to distract Popescu. "You want some coffee or something, Mr. Popescu? Officer Duffy could get you something while you're waiting."

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"Detective Baum and I will be right back," she told him.

Popescu tried to follow them, but Duffy and Prince blocked the way. Their size and the clanking police equipment hanging on their hips convinced him to stay where he was. April didn't wait to hear what he had to say to them.

Treatment Room 3 was guarded by another uniform. A woman with a clipboard and a white coat over a blue scrub suit came out before April could question the officer. MARY KANE, M.D., the woman's name tag said. The plastic picture ID clipped to her uniform read the same. Dr. Mary Kane had a square jaw, blunt- cut," wheaty-brown hair, the kind of eyes April's mother called "devil eyes" (washed-out blue without lashes or much expression). Dr. Kane looked about twelve, but April couldn't complain about that because both she and Woody did, too.

April showed the doctor her own identification. "I'm Sergeant Woo, this is Detective Baum. What can you tell me about Mrs. Popescu?"

Dr. Kane shook her head. "She's unconscious." She glanced quickly at Baum, then looked April up and down. "Maybe you can help."

"How badly hurt is she?"

"She has contusions, couple of cracked ribs. He must have kicked her. Lump on her head. Her skull isn't fractured. But she's bruised al over. Weird."

"What's weird?" Baum asked.

April gave him a look.

"Some of the bruises are fresh. Others look like they're a few weeks old. And we have a chart on her. She's been here before."

"Did she have her baby here?' ' This was from April.

Blank-faced, Dr. Kane shook her head.

April pulled out her Rosario to write what the doctor said. "What was she here for on previous occasions?" April was blank faced back. Baum knew not to interfere this time.

The doctor checked the chart. "Third-degree burn, a cut—fifteen stitches on her arm. Sprained an ankle twice. She seems to fall down a lot." Still deadpan.

April wrote some more. "Anybody call the police to check it out?" Heather Rose Popescu wasn't so lucky; but maybe April Woo and Woody Baum would get lucky and there'd be no kidnapped baby in this case. Maybe the mother hadn't been feeling well, had given the baby to a relative for the afternoon and the assault came from the husband.

The doctor's square face took on a belligerent expression. "I couldn't say anything about the follow-up. The chart indicates they were localized injuries— one site each time, nothing major. Not the pattern we would associate with abuse. I'm not aware of any requirement for reporting a cooking burn, a sprained ankle, that kind of thing. There's a note from the husband that Mrs. Popescu has a neurological problem being dealt with by a private physician."

"Did you happen to check that out?"

"You're the detectives, we're ER. You want to try talking with her now?" It seemed as if Dr. Kane was one of those doctors who didn't like cops.

"In a minute. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"I don't know." Finally she focused on April. "Maybe we've got a mental case here. If she's self-destructive, that would explain the previous injuries on her chart. She could have made up a story about a baby."

"Then her husband is a mental case, too. He says there was a baby this morning, and now it's gone."

"Maybe the baby was adopted," the doctor went on.

"They put it up for adoption? This morning?" April frowned.

"No, the woman here adopted the baby." The doctor was getting annoyed, as if April were really thick.

"Why do you say that?" Baum asked.

Dr. Kane pointedly consulted her watch, showing the two cops that she'd given them enough of her time. "She doesn't appear to have a postpartum body."

"Did you give her an internal exam?" April asked.

"For head injuries?"

April glanced at Baum. What was a postpartum body?

"There are other changes that occur in a woman's body after childbirth." The doctor gave April an amused look.

April flushed. "What are they?"

Dr. Kane slapped her clipboard against her hip impatiently. "The breasts become engorged with milk. The skin on the stomach is loose. The stomach itself is soft, enlarged. Not all of the excess weight would have come off yet—a lot of things." She glanced at Baum. He was writing it all down. Probably didn't know a thing about women. But apparently, neither did April.

"And Mrs. Popescu?" April asked.

Dr. Kane turned her attention to April. "No engorged breasts, no soft, distended belly. She didn't have a baby, or she sure got her figure back fast." Clearly the doc didn't think that was possible.

"Her body looks like yours," she added.

Baum smiled. April was a little over five foot, five inches, was well proportioned and willowy. She had an oval face with rosebud lips, and lovely almond eyes, a slender neck, but not with the hollows and protruding bones of a truly skinny person. She also had clearly discernible breasts, though not really ample ones by American standards. Her hair came down to the bottom of her earlobes. When she was away from her boss, Lieutenant Iriarte, she hooked her hair back around her ears so her lucky jade earrings would show. Mike Sanchez kept telling her she was more beautiful than Miss America, and the thought of an Asian Miss America always made her smile.

At the moment, though, she wasn't amused. She didn't see how Dr. Kane could tell anything by her body, since it was covered with loose nubby-weave slacks, a thin sweater, silk scarf, and a cropped whisky-colored jacket. Except maybe, if she was looking really hard, she could tell that April was carrying a 9mm at her waist.

"Maybe you can get something out of her," Dr. Kane said and walked away. April would not have liked to be one of her patients.

"Wait for me," she told Baum. Then she opened the treatment room door.

Heather Popescu was lying on a rolling hospital bed, covered up with a sheet so that only the shoulders of her blue-flowered hospital gown showed. The sides of the bed had been put up so she wouldn't fall off, but she wasn't going anywhere. One eye was covered with a cold pack. Her lip was split and already puffed. Her extremely long, inky hair spilled off the pillow. April was startled, then recovered fast. The unconscious woman, Heather Rose Popescu, was Chinese.

No wonder Iriarte had ordered April sent down here immediately. Iriarte hated her. He'd never voluntarily gave her a big case. He'd sent her here because the victim was Chinese and it would look better with a high-profile Chinese detective on it. April flashed to the husband standing out in the waiting room. A belligerent Caucasian. Oh man, she was in trouble. She didn't like this one bit. Skinny Dragon would think this was a warning just for her. She was going to shake her finger at April over this. "See what happens," she'd scream. "Mixed marriage, woman beaten to a pulp. That's what you can expect when you marry laowai," (shit-faced foreigner).

Oh man. Suddenly April wished Mike, her mother's nightmare, was here with her now. He could take this case in hand. Woody was too inexperienced to be of any help, particularly with the husband. If the husband beat the wife, he wasn't going to like April as his interviewer. April needed the expert partner she'd had in Mike, then lost on purpose because she hadn't wanted to mix business and pleasure. So much for integrity and scruples. Now she was on her own. Thank you, Lieutenant Iriarte.

April studied Heather Rose's battered face. Where were her parents, her protectors? "Heather? Can you hear me?" she said softly. "I'm April Woo. I'm here to help you."

No answer came from the unconscious woman.

"Heather, we need to find the baby. Where's the baby?"

Heather did not stir. April felt the cold brick of fear in her belly. "Come on back, girl. We need your help here."

It was no use. Heather wasn't coming back.

April tried in Chinese. "Wo shi, Siyue Woo. Ni neng bang wo ge mang ma?"

No response.

Finally, April turned to leave the room. "Whoever did this to you, I'll get him for this," she promised.

Back in the waiting room, Heather's husband was standing in front of his chair. Baum was talking to him and writing down what he said.

"How is she?"

April gave him a look. "She's unconscious."

"How long will she be like this?"

April studied him, didn't have an answer.

Popescu's cheeks were gray, like a dead man's. He glanced at the two cops who'd stuck by his side since he'd come in. Duffy and Prince lounged against a wall as if they were used to hanging around for long periods of time with nothing to do. A baby on someone's lap on the other side of the crowded waiting room started to wail.

Another brick hit April. If it wasn't Heather's baby, whose was it? Who was this man she'd married, and why was he lying? He said he wanted to go home and she had to let him. There wasn't anything they could do for Heather here.