Stealing Time

CHAPTER 16

Jason Frank was in front of his building at Riverside Drive and West Eightieth Street, studying his watch, at exactly two P.M. when the blue-and-white police cruiser pulled up at the curb. The police car took him by surprise.

"April?"

April leaned out the window on the passenger side. "Hi, Jason. Thanks for this—I know it's an imposition."

"No problem." Jason smiled at her. "You know I'd do anything for you\"

"I appreciate it, really. This is Detective Baum. Dr. Frank." She introduced them.

"Hi." Jason leaned over and smiled at Baum, too.

The sandy-haired young man in the driver's seat raised his hand in acknowledgment.

"Well, get in, Jason. Let's go." April got serious fast.

Jason gave the car a doubtful look. "What's with the squad car?"

"The unmarked unit we usually take has a flat. You have a problem with it?" She gave him an amused look.

"Yeah, I have a problem. I don't want my colleagues and patients to see me driven away in a police

car. It's bad for my image." He grinned as he said it, though, playing with her.

April grinned back. "Come on, don't make a political statement out of it, get in the car. We're in a hurry."

"All right, all right." Jason rolled his eyes and opened the car door. The outside was as clean as could be, but inside the car smelled as if the great unwashed had been living there for the entire millennium. Not only that, there was a thick wire screen between the front seat and the back. "What is this, your arrest car?"

"Yes." April turned around to talk through the screen. "Jason, I love you without the beard. When did you shave it off?"

Jason raised a hand to his chin, smooth for the first time in nearly a year. "This morning."

The car took off fast, throwing him against the backseat.

"Fasten your seat belt, it's the law," April ordered. Now she was playing with him.

"Whatever you say," he said, suddenly meek now that his life was at stake. "Where are we going?"

Woody sped down Riverside, hit the siren, and turned left onto West Seventy-second Street, plowing through oncoming traffic without slowing down. Jason had the uncomfortable feeling he was going to jail. No one relieved him of that apprehension.

He gasped when Woody braked suddenly. "Oh, God."

"Gee, I'm so glad to see you. It's been a while." April grinned some more again.

"Same here, I think. You look great, April." In fact, she looked gorgeous—radiant—in a red jacket, a navy skirt, and a white shirt with an oversized collar. In her ears were the jade studs she sometimes wore for good luck. His eye caught a chain around her neck.

"What's that?"

April reached to the middle of her chest for the medal hanging there. "Oh this? It's St. Sebastian. He's the patron saint of soldiers and policemen. Kind of like an evil eye, so I'm told." She said it deadpan.

"I didn't know you were a Catholic."

"I'm not." She smiled, shrugging.

"Boyfriend?"

April cocked her head in the direction of her driver. "Don't ask."

"Oh, I forgot how secretive you cops are. So what happened to Mike?" Jason couldn't help teasing, pretty sure the gift came from her old partner, Sanchez.

"He's in Homicide now." End of subject.

"Is Baum your new partner?"

"Jason, you're just full of questions, aren't you? We don't have partners in detective units. You know that. How's Emma?"

"Emma's great. She's taking a leave from the play, may or may not go back to it, depending." He grinned, didn't want to tell her why now. "So what's going on? What do you want from me?"

"I could have handled this myself if I had a few more days," she said airily. "But this is a right-now kind of thing. Sorry to haul you in on such short notice."

"Apology accepted. Now what's with the cloak-and-dagger?"

"Oh, God, will you look at that cutie?" April turned to admire a baby in a stroller stopped at a red light near them. Big fat cheeks, pink. Curls to die for. About twenty pounds, kicking feet in tiny red-white -and-blue sneakers. And a happy grin on her face that could conquer the world in a heartbeat.

"Adorable." Jason's eyes went all gooey.

"Jason, tell me about women who kill babies. And

I'm not talking about abortion here. I mean a full-term, three-week-old baby. Married woman, well-to-do, in her late twenties."

Jason clamped his jaws together to stop himself from showing his alarm at the way April always led him into things. He'd been through several investigations with her before, and each time whatever little problem she'd wanted his advice on had blossomed into a horror story that he couldn't wander out of. Baby killing! Nice of her to tell him.

"Someone with a character disorder," he said slowly.

"Does that mean a nutcase?"

"Someone who's insane? Not necessarily. A lot of high-functioning people have character disorders."

"Oh yeah? Maybe I know a few."

Jason smiled suddenly. "I'm sure you do."

"Okay—for Baum here, would you define the term?"

Jason went into teaching mode. "A lot of different kinds of symptoms fit under the umbrella of character disorder. Some people with character disorders relate to the world and other people only on the basis of how those 'others' make them feel. This kind of person loves whoever makes him feel good and feels angry at whoever makes him feel bad. Or her, as the case may be. Say you have a narcissistic mother with a new baby. If the baby cries and won't be comforted when the mother wants to console it, she might feel the baby was preventing her from feeling good about

herself.

She might think the baby was doing it purposely to hurt her. Narcissistic people have no conscience when it comes to hurting others. They are sometimes driven to punish people who they think are hurting them, to make the hurt stop." He paused for breath before going on.

"Another possibility might be a woman with a really extreme case of postpartum depression."

"Nope. Isn't her baby," April said flatly.

Jason groaned again. "It isn't her baby! Whose baby? Give me a break here, April."

She frowned at him through the wire. "What about revenge? Do you think a woman might kill a baby to get back at her husband who was cheating on her? I mean, if she was nuts."

Jason scratched the cheek where his beard used to be and wished he were back in his office where he didn't have to deal with baby killers. "Pretty extreme. Can you enlighten me a little further?"

"Did you listen to the news or read the paper this morning?"

"I heard something about a missing baby. Jesus, did you find—?" He couldn't bring himself to say the word "body."

"No, we don't have anything. We searched the building, the area. There's no evidence of an abductor. The woman who had the baby was beaten up. The baby is gone. In the emergency room we find out, it wasn't her baby."

Jason groaned a third time. "Why me, April?"

"You're my favorite shrink. Aren't you always telling me you have the best mind in the business?"

"That's a crock, and you know it. This isn't my field. I'm not forensic."

"No, but you're always telling me you're the best. So be the best."

"This is not my area. Can I refuse?" He knew he couldn't refuse.

"No."

He sighed and resigned himself. "Okay, so you're the detective, what scenario do you have in mind?"

"I have no scenario. It's not a clear picture. I was hoping for your input." "What's the problem?"

"She may be a self-mutilator," April admitted.

"Hmmm." Jason raised his hand to scratch his beard again, remembered it was gone, and dropped the hand. "Is there a history?"

"She'd been hospitalized with injuries before."

"Has she been hospitalized for mental problems?"

"We're still checking into that."

"What does she say about what happened?"

"Er, we haven't questioned her too closely about it. We were hoping you could help."

"Who found her?"

"Her husband. He called the police."

"Do you think he would have called the police if his wife killed the baby, or if he assaulted her himself?"

"Yes, if he feared it would come out, he might want to be involved in the investigation. Sometimes they want to be the focus of the world's sympathy. Sometimes they just want to explain it away."

"There's something else you haven't told me, isn't there?"

They pulled up in front of Roosevelt Hospital. Baum stopped with a jerk, throwing Jason against the backseat again. "April, you didn't tell me she's in the hospital."

"Yeah, it's the first thing I said. I said, 'Jason, she may be feigning a coma.' "

"You never said it. And you can't feign a coma, April." Now Jason was really disgusted.

"She's Chinese. Let's go."

"What does that mean, she's Chinese?" Jason tried the door. It was locked.

"Woody." April reminded him to get the door. Woody got out, ran around and opened it.

Jason looked disgusted. He couldn't get out on his own. The door had a suspect-proof lock on the inside.

"April, didn't it occur to you that if the woman's unconscious, I'm not going to be able to help you?"

"You deal with the unconscious all the time," April said smoothly.

"Unconscious

when the patient is

awake,"

Jason said, suddenly feeling testy. "You're jerking me around, kiddo. I don't like that." Woody opened the door, but Jason didn't get out.

"Oh come on, unconscious is unconscious," April insisted. "You can do this, Jason. I told you I think she's feigning. She's not really out."

"April, you can't feign a coma," he said again, still not moving.

"Come and take a look at this. I know you can help. You always do."

"Oh shit." He got out of the car. He'd promised an hour. He'd give her an hour. "What's the baby's name?" he asked.

"Paul," she said. "His name is Paul."