Stealing Time

CHAPTER 43

M

ike was preoccupied when he and April left the 5th Precinct. It was still a beautiful day, now over sixty-eight degrees, and the enticing aromas of Chinatown lunches issuing from dozens of restaurants charged the air with delectable temptations. Even as he prepared to go over the Popescus' building with a Crime Scene Unit, his mustache twitched at the odors of frying garlic and meats, baking pizza and calzone, and the outdoor fish and vegetable stands set up on the sidewalks. He wanted to get April fixed up and to eat something himself, but there was no arguing with her. April always had her own agenda.

The detective squad of the 5th had been responsible for a thorough crime scene investigation. The ME's death report made a mockery of the witness's statement and ruled out suicide or accidental death. Bernardino had caught the case, and the way it had been handled did not speak well for him. A more thorough search of the inside of the Popescu building was now a must. As was her wont, April was neither moaning nor complaining about what had gone wrong. In fact, she revealed no feelings about anything as she stared blankly up into the sun as if for guidance.

Mike had grown up with Latina girls who smiled and giggled,

mintiendo mas que siete,

sending a constant string of white lies up the flagpole for no reason other than to practice for the whoppers. He always got the feeling their intended purpose in life was to beat one system or another every day just to prove who was the real boss. Beating the system wasn't a goal for April. She rarely giggled and never lied. When she wanted to stay in control of a situation she just beamed out a don't-mess-with-me message, the way she was doing right now.

"iComo estas tu

?" Mike asked solicitously.

"No me preguntas, mi amor."

She was thinking in not too favorable terms about mixed marriages and the woe they could bring.

"Too bad, I'm asking."

She wasn't going to say how she felt about Baum's handling of the order she'd given him, or about their interview with Heather Rose and her parents, all three at odds with the man she had married. The Kwans and Heather were now being driven to Midtown North by the overreaching Baum to hang around some more while she took care of other things. Heather still would not identify Anton as her attacker in the kitchen.

"Where's the car?" April asked.

Mike pointed down the narrow street lined with stores selling trinkets, toys, clothes, foods, spiritual necessities, important antique porcelains, and other antiquities—all made yesterday in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. April saw the red Camaro parked in front of the Chinese apothecary that her mother used.

"You want to stop off and see your friend?" he asked.

The pharmacist happened to be a well-known and venerable member of the community who often advised the police about tradition and neighborhood matters. Chan Wang was a wizened creature, hardly four feet tall, with three or four really long hairs sticking out of a few sites on his face and not a single hair on his head. He smelled of star anise and had begun stating his age as a hundred years back in 1968. Mike had met him twice.

April ignored the suggestion. She marched down to the car, then stopped. "I think we should split up," she announced.

"No, go ahead inside, find out what your mother poisoned you with. I'll wait for you." He leaned on the car, preparing to wait.

"Querido,

no one has talked to the people where the dead girl lived. I don't even have a name for her. I have to go over there." April looked past him, furious because he couldn't possibly understand what it meant to be her, with the parents she was trying to manage and the case she had to solve. Two of her countrywomen had been destroyed by men not of their culture, and her own mother would rather poison her than have her end up like one of them. How could she reconcile the love Skinny Dragon must feel for her with the destructiveness of her act?

"You have to take something," Mike insisted. He pointed to the filthy window display of nasty powders and roots. "One whiff and he'll know what to give you."

"I don't want any more nasty stuff. I'm going to get over it myself. I'll meet you on Allen Street." She gave him a look that dared him to challenge her.

"How are you going to get there if I have the car?" he demanded, wondering if this was the time for their first fight.

"I existed before you came along," she snapped. "I know how to get around."

He shrugged and got in the car, didn't say goodbye. Okay, he was hurt. Try to be nice and thoughtful and kind and what do you get? A smack in the face.

April's mother had tried nagging, tried whining, tried threats and dirty tricks; they didn't get her anywhere. Walking away was the only thing to do. He got in the car and didn't look back.

When he pulled up at the Popescus' building, the CSU van was already there, its back door open. Inside, Saul Bernheim, the skinny criminologist who claimed he never ate, was sitting cross-legged on the floor gnawing on a massive deli sandwich.

Mike pulled up behind the van, got out, and locked the car. "Hey, Saul."

"Mike, Mike man. You on this one? I thought you were working the

cojones

case. Mean." He shook his head over the mutilation.

"Nah, we got him."

"Him? Homo case? I thought as much."

"No, boyfriend-girlfriend. The wife went back to her husband. The boyfriend sent her his crown jewels."

"Doesn't ring." Saul shook his head. "Wasn't the victim with a he/she before he got wiped?" He took a bite of half-sour pickle and chewed.

"Yeah, but the he/she didn't do it."

"It wasn't the hooker? You sure?" He ate more sandwich and gave Mike more puzzled looks.

"No, it was the guy's business partner." Mike was salivating over the sandwich. "He sent her the guy's nuts. The package had a return address." Not a hard one to figure.

"Listen to me. Three guys, one a he/she? The other two fighting over a

woman,

and the winner gets his jewelry whacked. Come

on.

This is a homo thing."

"Thanks for your input, Saul. What are you eating?"

"Best pastrami in the world, right here at Katz's. Nothing else like it. Want some?"

Mike shook his head. "You been inside?"

"No, I'm waiting for Carmine. He went out for cannolis."

"Jesus, all you guys do is eat."

"This is an aberration. We never eat. Want to fill me in? I told them I don't like coming back after the body is gone. This is a big fuckup, a contaminated situation from the word go. But do they care? What are we looking for, anyway?"

Before Mike could answer, Carmine Cartuso trotted up, carrying a white bakery box by its string. "Hey, Sanchez, how ya doin'? You in on this idiocy?"

Saul eyed the box. "You know how long pastry cream will hold up in weather like this?"

"Ah, stuff it."

"You don't want to die of food poisoning. Come on, just one. Then you'll thank me for saving your life. How about it?"

"No way. This is for my wife."

Mike interrupted the banter. "Last night an employee in the building said she saw the woman jump. The ME's report says the victim had already been dead for several hours before the 911 call. Head injuries suggest her head was banged repeatedly against the wall or floor. She died inside."

"So we're looking for wall and floor samples. Okay." That was simple enough. Saul glanced at Carmine.

"Where was the body found?" he asked.

"In the back."

"Okay, let's take a look." Bernheim threw a knapsack over one shoulder. Carmine grabbed another, stowed the bakery box, and locked the van. The three men crossed the sidewalk. A chain-link gate, padlocked, barred entry to the narrow walkway between the old building and the high-rise next door. Mike glanced around quickly, then pulled a tool from his pocket and picked the lock.

"Thirty flat. Getting rusty," Bernheim remarked as they sauntered into the backyard, where there was nothing to see but some old junk and garbage. And the yellow police tapes, indicating where the body had been. It wasn't a nice place to end up. The men looked up. A body tossed from any window in the high rise would fall on the other side of the fence. The ground-floor windows of the Popescus' building had air conditioners in them. The windows on the next two floors were closed and shrouded in black.

Carmine made a face, hunkered down, and crawled around examining the broken surface of the concrete. Bernheim crammed the last quarter of his sandwich into his cavernous mouth, snapped on plastic gloves, then marched to the building, working his jaws. He tried the back door. Locked. Still chewing, he turned around and studied the ground, mentally measuring the distance between the building and where a body would have fallen if it had gone out a window. Finally he opened his knapsack and pulled out long and short metal measuring tapes, a drawing pad, and a pencil. Springtime had greened the saplings and weeds that rose through the cracks. Carmine's fingers probed the sprouts and scraped up samples of cement containing brown stains.

"You're repeating. They did this part already," Mike said. "I'm going inside."

"They sent me here, I'm doing it again. You never know."

"Sure, go inside, secure the area for us." Carmine and Saul laughed as Mike headed to the front of the building to see if anyone was home to let them in.