Judging Time

3

It did not look like a sentimental postcard of winter at 2:30 A.M., which was when Sergeant Mike Sanchez, after less than an hour of sleep, showered, dressed, and stumbled out in the storm to scrape snow and ice from the front and back windows of his red Camaro, which turned out not to be fully protected by the roof in the parking lot provided by his building. The job only half done, he tried the ignition key and discovered that the battery still had life. Then, with the windshield wipers noisily squeaking their protest, he slowly limped out of the borough of Queens, grateful he had been awakened now instead of three or four hours later when he might have had to dig the car out, or worse, resort to public transportation.

For the last several weeks Sanchez had lived on the twenty-second floor of a building complex less than ten years old. His new apartment consisted of an L-shaped living room with a terrace the width of the picture window, from which the magnificent skyline of Manhattan alone was worth the rent; a bedroom with a view of the parking lot where his car had its own designated spot in all weathers; a bathroom with faucets that didn't drip and pipes that didn't clank when the water was turned on; a kitchen with both a dishwasher and a window.

There wasn't much more in it than the queen-sized bed he'd yet to share with anyone, a table he'd eaten at once, and a quite new secondhand sofa covered in beige tweed he'd gotten from a detective whose wife decided to take him back after a year's separation that didn't end in divorce. The Garden Towers, as it was called, was seven minutes from the Midtown Tunnel, which in turn was close to the precinct on Twenty-third Street where Sanchez was now headquartered in the Homicide Task Force. The Twenty-third Street location put him around the comer from the Police Academy building where many of the labs were still located pending the completion of new and better facilities in Queens.

One advantage of Mike's new life was that his hours were now a civilized 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. five days a week unless he was working off the chart on a major case. As a specialist he covered the whole city and was no longer confined to whatever came down in a single house. He worked out of one of the cubbyholes each precinct provided for Special Cases, was one of those people he used to resent when he was in a precinct detective squad and an outsider came in to "help" them. So far he hadn't had those kinds of problems of too much hostility directed at himself and liked the constant change of scenery. On the personal front, he now had a home of his own in which to spend time with the woman of his dreams, but hadn't gotten her there long enough for the amor ardiente he'd had in mind. Mike Sanchez never thought he'd fail big-time for a cop. But he had, and the woman he loved still worked the killer four-and-two schedule with days off that never coincided with his.

Night for a cop was not supposed to be downtime. These days Mike had more downtime than he was used to and it was driving him nuts. That night he had asked himself how he could possibly get through his second day off with nothing to do but relax. It seemed as if he hadn't been asleep for more than a minute or two when the phone rang and he was apprised of the situation at Liberty's Restaurant. Double homicide. He understood there was nothing official on his possible involvement yet—the call was just a tip in case he got assigned the case later—but if he wanted to see the scene before the bodies were removed and to stake a claim, he'd better head into Manhattan right away despite the inclement weather.

Mike's head cleared of all his miseries and doubts as he drove as quickly as his car would take him through the storm. He had something else to worry about now. Frederick Douglass Liberty had been a hero of his, always came across in the press and his TV interviews as a really upright kind of guy, the thinking man's athlete. Mike had been impressed by him every time he saw him, but then everybody had been impressed by Liberty. Even when he was only twenty-two, he'd had class. He'd been in another stratosphere from the other players. Rick Liberty had never shaved wedges into his hair, tattooed his arms, or pierced any part of his body. He hadn't been a brawler. He hadn't made a franchise of himself when he left football and didn't appear in movies or commercials. He'd explained that he didn't want the celebrity life. He'd wanted to be a regular working guy—some regular guy! He'd become a rich banker. Sanchez knew because Liberty was quoted in the newspapers in the business section now. He was married to a soap opera star, and she was apparently one of the victims. Mike wondered where Liberty was when his wife was murdered. He hoped it was far, far away.

No other car was either in front of him or behind him in the mile-long tunnel. He couldn't remember another time when his had been the only car in the Midtown Tunnel. It felt eerie, almost as if the tunnel had been shut down in preparation for the end of the world. On the other side of the river in Manhattan, the streets were almost deserted in the sheeting snow. It took nearly thirty-five minutes to get across town.

Mike was relieved to see that the ambulance and Crime Scene station wagon were still at the site. And not so happy to see that farther down at the end of the block two news vans were set up to film what they could of the removal of the bodies. Spots lit up the street. He left his Camaro behind the ambulance and ducked under the Crime Scene tapes to take a look at the restaurant garden. A makeshift tent had been erected over the area to protect it from the weather as it was being photographed and sketched and gone over by the CSU. Saul Bernheim, the skinny criminologist who claimed that he didn't eat much because food was bad for you, was gnawing on a hunk of what looked like cornbread.

"Ah, Mike. I'm glad to see they've sent in a big gun. We're going to need a razor brain on this one. How ya doin', man? You come in from the Bronx? I hear it's real bad up there."

Mike smiled at the compliment. "I live in Queens now. It's fine in Queens."

"No kidding. Well, take a look. You're in luck, they're about to bag 'em." Saul waved what was left of the bread at the bodies.

Mike crouched down under the heavy plastic that had been suspended over the two victims and now was covered with snow. He stared at the corpses for a long time. Both looked like large, very well-dressed mannequins that had been carelessly dirtied and mangled. Mike particularly noted how big both were. Two big people who looked to be in good shape. His first thought was that it was an odd setup. Death had come to these two swiftly, and was the more shocking for it. The front of the woman's body was covered with blood. It was smeared everywhere. At first he couldn't see its source.

"Gunshot wound?" he said.

"Naw, take a look at her neck."

"Jesus."

Saul frowned at the precise placement of a small hole above the woman's jugular vein, which must have been pierced in one blow.

"Any other wounds?"

"Might be. Can't tell."

Mike cocked his head, looking sideways at the male lying faceup but not bloody like the other victim. Head wound? he wondered. Two attackers, maybe, one with an ice pick, the other with a blunt instrument. He straightened up and heard some bones crack. "What do you think we have here?"

"A mess, a real mess." The skinny criminologist had finished the bread and was blowing on his bare fingers. A beaver hat with flaps came down low on his forehead and covered his ears. His nose was running and he needed a shave.

"Another weird one," he added. "There's something . . . intimate about this hit, know what I mean? Doesn't have the feeling of a stranger thing. Ice pick killing, maybe only one strike—" Saul shook his head, activating the beaver flaps around his ears. "Usually a guy that works with a pick, he'll choose an isolated location, then stab the victim more than once. It's a rage weapon, know what I mean? I saw one once— female resisted a rape, guy stabbed her with a screwdriver sixty times, maybe more. It was hard for the ME to count because the guy was in such a frenzy he hit in the same place over and over. One strike just right, that's not something you see every day, especially when there are two victims. Doesn't look like either one fought back. . . . Stinking weather, too," he mused. "Someone had to want to hit her pretty bad, wouldn't you say?"

Mike shrugged. It was too early for speculation.

Saul pointed to the door of the restaurant. "Your girlfriend's in there." He moved away from two guys with a body bag and stretcher.

"Huh?"

"Woo, April, is the OIC. Didn't anyone tell you?" Saul pulled a grimy handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose.

"No. No one told me a thing." Mike shook off the snow collected all over him and slicked back his hair. He stamped his feet and headed for the door, thinking this was indeed his lucky day. He'd asked for relief from the piles of boring paperwork due on his last case, cleared a few days ago, and here he was, getting it. He'd wanted to see April and here he was seeing her. April was always talking about luck and how it could be changed by a person's behavior. He must be living right.

Inside the restaurant most of the lights were off, but Mike could make out a kind of Caribbean theme. Palm trees, whitewashed boards, crudely carved, brightly painted fish on the walls. Fan-backed chairs around tables with wicker bases. Overhead a dozen ceiling fans were ghostly still. The large bar was dark and the room was empty except for April, a black man who wasn't Liberty, and an ADA Mike had once worked with named Dean Kiang. The three of them were in deep conversation that stopped abruptly when he came out of the shadows.

"Hi," he said. "Mind if I join you?"

He had the satisfaction of seeing the young assistant district attorney freeze into one of those Chinese masks of wariness he'd seen so often on April. And April clearly hadn't been expecting him. The woman of his dreams almost fell off her chair at the sound of his voice.

An hour later they sat in the red Camaro in front of the now locked and dark Liberty's Restaurant, waiting for the car to warm up. The crime scene tapes were still up around the garden, but the plastic tent and the bodies of the victims were gone. So was Hagedorn with the green unit and the Chinese ADA, who had not seemed happy when Mike sat down at the table uninvited. April finished telling Mike everything she'd found out about the case before he'd arrived. She closed her notebook with a cold smile that tried to cover a bad taste she couldn't deny was bitterness. She wasn't even three hours into this difficult investigation and already the cavalry had galloped in to take it away from her. Mike was good, very good, but she couldn't imagine anything more annoying than having him there to second-guess her.

If Homicide had sent anybody but Mike, her desire for independence and the need to prove herself would have outweighed any other consideration. She wouldn't exactly have obstructed, but she would have revealed only the major facts and kept the details to herself. After all, who knew at this point what was going to be important in this case and what was not? Why spill too many beans and confuse people? Sometimes a stupid detective became invested in a certain bean too fast because it offered the easiest outcome, then tried to bully everybody else into seeing things his way. April had handled everything just right, she'd called an ADA instantly, and she was gratified that the one she got was Chinese. Dean Kiang was good-looking, seemed very professional, and she'd been pleased at the team they made. Then Mike had to stick his nose in and raise the tension level by claiming her loyalty. .

"I'm kind of surprised to see one of you people here in the middle of the night," she said after a pause in which Mike didn't thank her for coming through without an argument, or for telling him the story on what they had so far. "Isn't that kind of unusual?"

He raised the eyebrow that was crooked with bum scars from the previous June, when he'd jumped in front of April and the hostage they'd been trying to liberate just before an explosion that almost killed all three of them. Whenever he raised that eyebrow, April felt a thousand times less worthy than she was. She felt double and maybe triple stupid in ways she didn't begin to understand. Loyalty and love had gotten her all mixed up. And now they weren't even on the same team.

"What is this 'your people and my people,' querida?" Now both of Mike's dark eyebrows shot up.

April's cold fingers became still in her lap as she wrestled with the problem. Sanchez glanced at her hands speculatively. "I thought we were all one people,' ' he murmured, resisting the impulse to take one hand and squeeze it.

Outside, the snow was beginning to falter. The flakes were smaller, not so puffy and dry. It seemed to be warming up as suddenly as it had gotten cold;

it might even turn to rain soon. The wipers squeaked over melting snow on the windshield.

With a shrug April relented. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be territorial."

Mike laughed. "Yes, you did. Always have to do everything yourself, don't you?" he teased.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Only a few weeks ago, when Mike had been in a similar position in a precinct squad, he'd been every bit as territorial about their cases. But why argue? She breathed in the familiar cologne that permeated his clothes and even the upholstery of his car. Mike's perfume—one couldn't get away with calling it anything else—was unlike anything April had ever smelled before or since. On the surface it was sweet and spicy, but underneath it had a pungent sort of kick that kept her off balance as long as he was around.

In the early days of their relationship this almost palpable aroma used to give April a headache. The squad room of the Two-O had reeked of it. In fact, it was Mike's smell that had first gotten her attention. She hadn't known where the powerful essence originated. Then she realized that when Sanchez wasn't around for a while it would disappear, only to return when he did. After that she noticed the pirate's smile with which he studied her and his interesting hair that was different from Asian hair. Mike rolled up his sleeves when he worked, revealing the hair on his arms. He had a fine layer of hair on the backs of his hands, and most likely on his chest, too. In spite of the prevailing taste among April's relatives on the subject, hair on a man's body did not seem altogether barbaric to her.

Jimmy Wong, April's last lover, had one lone hair on his chest growing from a mole near his left nipple, had never smelled of anything but garlic and beer. He'd never said he loved her, or called her darling. He had enjoyed torturing her by telling her anybody who was her partner was guaranteed to die in a shootout since he ranked her the worst shot in the entire department. Jimmy didn't approve of ambition in women and went so far as to threaten not to marry her if she made sergeant. Lucky for her she'd broken up with him before his threat could be tested. In addition to all this, a five-days' growth of beard yielded a very sparse display on his face. Why she'd ever liked him in the first place was now a mystery to her.

In comparison, Mike encouraged her to enjoy life, to advance in her career as far as she could, and called her darling in Spanish in front of everybody whenever he felt like it. His thick and luxuriant mustache was long enough to skirmish with his top lip and often quivered with emotion, causing palpitations in her stomach. During moments of deep concentration he sucked pensively on the ends of it. After April had started working with him, she learned that he was also the best detective she knew.

"You have a problem with my being here?" he asked now.

"Uh-uh. It's just your day off ... so I wondered who called you," she said.

"You're in my thoughts, so you must have," he murmured. That sounded good to him so he smiled. This was going to be a really big case, after all, and no one liked being left out of big cases. "Oh, come on, you're glad to see me, admit it."

She shook her head, didn't want to.

"Fine, don't admit it," he said cheerfully, with every appearance of confidence in his ability to win all his battles with her in the end.

"I could handle this myself," April insisted.

Mike hummed some Spanish love song. At her level of mastery of the Spanish language April was able to make out the words somos novios, which mean "we are boyfriend/girlfriend. We are lovers." She bit back a smart remark. They were not lovers. They were not engaged. They were hardly even speaking to each other. Then he seemed to remember the awful task in front of them and fell silent as he put the car in gear and pulled out without spinning the tires.