Stealing Time

CHAPTER 3

W

hen Detective Sergeant April Woo, New York Police Department, reported for work at the Mid-town North precinct at four

P.M

., the last thing she expected was to catch a kidnapping case. But then nothing about that Tuesday had been routine.

At five

A.M

., she'd seen the glow of morning spread from the living room, down the hall, and into the bedroom 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 second whip in the detective squad of 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 walk-up 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 a catastrophe story for her mother so she could claim she'd been working around-the-clock. She needed the story if she wanted to go home in peace.

Only three weeks ago, on April 25, April Woo had celebrated her thirtieth birthday, but you'd never know it by the way her parents treated her. It was particularly humiliating that instead of bringing her the respect she deserved, her rank in the department and the ripeness of her age served only 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 spat real fire. April was fully armed now, carried two guns on her person at all times, but she was still as afraid of her mother as she had been as a small and defenseless child.

Lately, Skinny Dragon Mother had upped the ante in 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, a colleague in the Detective Bureau. 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. April knew the origins of only a few.

The tightness in her chest rose to her throat as she thought of his welcome last night. When she'd gotten there at half past one, 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 for a man. 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,

queridal

" 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, and could roll over, hit the floor, and fire at the door or window in less than five 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, which 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 the 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,

quer-ida.

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 Sara 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 in 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, cruising around with her driver, Woody Baum, she might never have been involved in the Popescu case.

As it was she didn't go home. And when she reported for work, her boss, Lieutenant Iriarte, immediately sent her out on radio call. 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."

"10-4, 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 made a gut-wrenching U-turn on Fifty-seventh Street, leaving tire marks on the pavement.

The address of the requested investigation was a glass tower that curved around the corner of Central Park South and Seventh Avenue, sweeping up as much view as it could along the way. A driveway to the building entrance curved out through the sidewalk. In front of the driveway was a tiny garden consisting of a burbling fountain, a Japanese maple full of red leaves, and a thickly painted 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. Traffic was stopped. Horns were honking. Drivers were screaming. The usual pandemonium.

"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 them to a stop. Woody jerked to a halt to talk to him as April took out her shield and clipped it to her jacket breast pocket. Before the uniform had a chance to wave them on, she jumped out of the car and joined the fray. She hurried toward the building, briefly looking up at two detectives on the roof. They were wearing vests, had double-barreled shotguns cradled in their arms, and were peering over the edge from above at ledges and anything else that protruded from the building.

Then she caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd of blue in the lobby and went to talk to the precinct patrol supervisor, Lieutenant McMan, a steely type with startling green eyes and no lips at all. He had called the special units in after receiving the call from the 911 dispatcher.

"Hey, Lieutenant. 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 the ER at Roosevelt."

"Anybody go with her?"

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

"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 the 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 operators and doormen were being questioned by detectives. Tenants unable to get home stood in a clot, having fits. 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 preservation of the scene versus the need to get the phones up right away so they could tape all 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. 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 chronological time sheets. It rankled that no one thought precinct detectives could handle important investigations. From now, until this missing baby was found dead or alive, the precinct squad would be doing the scut work. No precinct squad detective liked it one bit.

What April always did was to work around the members of 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. And she'd do her best to ignore the frenzy of the media, too.

"Leave it here," she said. Baum abruptly pulled the car up to 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. The young detective, Baum, recently promoted and new to the squad, was following her lead.

At the desk a 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 Romanian," 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 in room three."

"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. 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 a 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 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, that his pink shirt had a white collar and the cuffs were stained with blood; and that his blue pin-striped suit looked expensive.

"Mr. Popescu?" she said.

His head twitched her way. "Yes."

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

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

"I am," April said.

"What are you doing about finding my baby?"

"A lot of people are working on it."

"What about my wife? I want to see my wife," he demanded.

"The doctors are with her."

"I don't give a shit who's with her. She's my wife. I want to see her."

"The doctors are with her," April repeated. Then she changed the subject. "What happened?"

"I said I want to see my wife. You can't keep me from her." 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. "The doctors are checking her out. No one can go in."

"But I don't

want

anyone to touch her without my being in the room. I'm her husband."

"I understand, but—"

"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."

"How did you find out?"

He looked surprised at the question. "I came home. I found her—"

"What time was that?" April had her notebook out.

"Three-thirty."

"Is that a usual time for you to come home?"

"What kind of question is that? I came home because I knew something was wrong."

"How did you know?"

"I called and called. When she didn't answer the phone, I knew something was wrong. And I was right." He pounded his fist against his hand. "I was right. 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 and X-ray her for broken bones. 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.

She took some notes on her steno pad, 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 April 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 wife didn't answer the phone. He went home to check on her. When he got home at 3:30, his wife was unconscious and the baby was missing. 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 kept her face blank; she didn't want to let him know she was wondering what kind of man kept such close tabs on his wife that he had to go home when she didn't answer the phone.

April and Baum saw the red-haired lady signal them. April 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.