Stealing Time

CHAPTER 4

T

reatment room 3 was guarded by another uniform. A woman carrying a clipboard and wearing a white coat over blue scrubs came out before April could question him. Mary Kane, M.D., the woman's name tag said she was. The plastic picture ID clipped to her coat read the same. Dr. Mary Kane had a square jaw, blunt-cut wheat-brown hair, and 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 all 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 from April.

Dr. Kane shook her head.

April pulled out her Rosario. "What was she here for on previous occasions?" she asked. Baum knew not to interfere this time.

The doctor checked the chart. "A third-degree burn. A cut—fifteen stitches on her arm. Sprained an ankle twice. She seems to fall down a lot." She recited the list with a face devoid of emotion.

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 had come 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 in the file that Mrs. Popescu has a neurological problem being dealt with by a private physician."

"Was it checked out?"

"Not if she wasn't admitted. Look, 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 a pelvic exam?" April asked.

"For head injuries?"

April glanced at Baum. "What's a postpartum body?" she asked.

"There are 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 belly is loose. The belly 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 she.

"And Mrs. Popescu?" April asked.

"No engorged breasts, no soft, distended belly. She either 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.

April was a little over five five, well-proportioned and willowy. She had an oval face with rosebud lips and lovely almond eyes, a slender neck but not 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 by loose, nubby-weave slacks, a thin sweater, a silk scarf, and a cropped whis-key-colored jacket. Except maybe, if she was looking really hard, she could tell that April was carrying a 9mm at her waist.

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

"I'll handle this," 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 her here immediately. Iriarte hated her. He'd never voluntarily give her a big case. He'd sent her here because the victim was Chinese, and it would look better to have a high-profile Chinese detective on it. April flashed to the husband standing out in the waiting room. A belligerent Caucasian. Oh man, was she 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, were here with her now. He could take this case in hand. Woody Baum was too inexperienced to be of any help, particularly with the husband. If Popescu beat his wife, he wasn't going to like having 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 with pleasure. So much for integrity and scruples. 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 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," 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.

"I want to see my wife."

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

"That's what you say. I want to evaluate her myself."

April studied him, this man who kept tabs on his wife and felt qualified to evaluate her himself. She made a note to herself to keep tabs on

him.

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. She was trained to think like a cop: when faced with a mystery, think dirty. She was thinking dirty about Anton Popescu.

Then another brick hit her. If the baby wasn't Heather's, whose was it? Who was this man Heather had married, and why was he lying about why he went home at the early hour of three-thirty?

He caved abruptly. "Fine. If I can't see my wife, I want to go home now."

"We'll take you," April said. There wasn't anything they could do for Heather here.