Tracking Time

Forty-eight

Mike had worked the Special Case unit out of Mid-town North before. On the last case he'd used the tiny office located outside the detective squad rooms. He didn't want to go there now. April had not yet returned from the park so he decided to use the desk she shared with the other supervisor of the squad, Sergeant Teeter. Today was Teeter's day for the desk, but Teeter was out in the field. The department was going nuts on the homicide.

Mike was aware of the meeting of commanders in the park, but it had nothing to do with him. He got his assignments from downtown, and precinct politics didn't affect him one way or the other.

His job was to find Maslow Atkins. When he arrived at Midtown North at half past one, Lieutenant Iriarte was downtown at a press conference, and the squad was packed with detectives from several units, working the time lines to trace Pee Wee's last hours and the people who had been in contact with him.

The roundup of street people had already begun. In the holding cell four bedraggled males were cursing and spitting, muttering to themselves, protesting their innocence of whatever crime had come to the attention of the police. They didn't know that they were a gathering of Pee Wee James's known associates and that the police were looking for his killer. Several were too drunk to process anything. Mike made a quick survey of them. He didn't know any.

Several detectives were smoking. Toxic fumes filled the room. Mike hadn't had a cigarette in nearly two years. Sometimes the smell of smoke bothered him, but he longed for a cigarette now. He couldn't help feeling Pee Wee's life had ended because of his need to show April who was boss. He felt bad about that. She'd stayed behind with the criminalists. It made him think he was in trouble with her again.

Because he had neglected the situation with Pee Wee James last night, he went to interview the last detective to see him alive. He found Detective George Maas typing at the computer on his desk, a number of people crowded around him. George was short and wiry, had kinky hair and a big nose with an ugly red spot developing into a pimple on the tip of it. The man looked unhappy. His mustard yellow tie had a massive coffee stain streaking the front. Under his arms and all around his shoulder holster, he was sweating profusely in his khaki shirt. He appeared to be thinking hard and ignoring the talk around him. Mike had never heard April mention his name. Either the man was new or a nonentity.

"Hey, George, I'm Lieutenant Mike Sanchez, Special Case Squad." He held out his hand to be friendly. The crowd made room.

George examined the hand to see if a demotion was lurking there. "IAB?" he asked suspiciously.

Mike shook his head. He had nothing to do with Internal Affairs. "Special Case," he repeated.

"Everything I know is going in here." He tapped his fingers on the computer board. "It wasn't my call to release the guy."

"What happened?" Mike asked, taking a seat on the corner of the desk and edging out the listeners.

"The lieutenant told me to interview James, then to report what he said. I did. After that, he told me to give him a fiver and let him go." Maas shrugged. "That's what I did."

"Is that usual?"

"What, sir?"

"The fiver."

"Not exactly usual. We do it sometimes." He didn't look happy with this.

"Why this time?"

Maas shrugged. "No idea. I just do what I'm told."

"Did you drive him anywhere?"

"Are you kidding?"

"So you gave him a fiver but didn't drive him anywhere."

"That's right."

"So what did you and James talk about?"

"The guy was a hard-core wino. We've had him in here before. A big troublemaker. Whenever he could stand up, he was fighting."

"What about yesterday?"

"Yesterday he couldn't stand up. He had the DTs. He was shaking all over, thought the sky was raining with insects." George shrugged again. "He couldn't tell a tree from an elephant."

"What did he tell you about the incident on Tuesday night?"

"By the time I saw him, he'd forgotten all about it. All he told me was there was some kind of fairy godmother who was going to give him a twenty every day for the rest of his life. That's about it. At the time he was in here we had a situation with some South American tourists…"

"Oh yeah, what was that about?"

"They were upset a homeless person was sharing the planet with them." Maas smiled.

"What was their complaint?"

"Oh, I'm not sure what they came in about. I didn't handle the complaint. But the lieutenant didn't like it when Sergeant Woo brought the wino in. When she left, the lieutenant told me to get rid of him. So I gave him the five dollars and told him to get going." George seemed pretty stressed. He lit up an unfiltered Camel.

Mike inhaled the secondary smoke, not liking Maas one bit. "Turns out that wasn't such a good move," he murmured.

"The homicide could be a coincidence. Nobody believed a word he said." Maas went back to his typing.

"Time will tell." Mike got off the desk. The crowd in the squad rooms was thinning now. People were going out into the field.

He returned to April's office and sat down at her desk. Her office had remarkably little of her in it. Not a single thing of a personal nature was on her desk. Only a little plaque with her name on it indicated she even sat there. A tissue box was the extent of niceties. Mike swiveled back and forth in her chair. Last night on the news a Department spokesman had quoted the highly favorable park safety figures. Today, dozens of detectives were heading out to the homeless shelters, train stations, and public parks looking for people who had known and fought with James, and for the knife that cut off his finger.

A lot of people were asking questions. Mike wanted to talk with the two kids who had spoken to April about Zumech and his dog. Something wasn't right there. Zumech was convinced of a Vietnam angle. He wasn't so sure. He dialed April's number. When she answered, she told him there was a break in the Atkins case.

"Maslow's father has a girlfriend," she said through static.

"No kidding," Mike said.

"And Maslow has a twenty-year-old sister."

"How'd that come out?"

"Maslow's father told Jason Frank. He'd wanted to keep it confidential."

"How does the sister fit in?"

"This may sound a little far out, chico, but my guess is the girl is his mystery patient."

"The one you saw last night?"

"Yes. Where are you?"

"Sitting at your desk. Look, I'm sorry about last night. The whole thing. You made the right call on Pee Wee. I blocked you. My mistake."

"Yeah," April said.

The deadpan Chinese used to be impossible for him to read. Now it was way too easy. Chinese silences were full of meaning.

"You have an address on the sister?" he asked

"I do."

"Have you located her?" he asked

"Not yet."

"You coming in?" he said finally.

"Uh-huh."

That was the best he could get out of her. "Fine, I'll be waiting. We'll find him," he assured her. About Maslow.

"Do you have a plan?"

"Yeah, I have a plan. Go back to square one."

"Better hurry up," April murmured. "The clock is ticking."