Judging Time (11 page)

Emma Chapman strode into the room, wearing soft black trousers and a black sweater. Looked like cashmere. Probably was.
As
Emma took the chair opposite, April wondered what it would be like to have long legs, peach-colored skin and blond hair, to wear such expensive things, and walk with such authority and grace.

"Ah, Sergeant Woo, congratulations on your promotion," Emma said with a brittle smile.

"Yes, congratulations," Jason threw in.

"Congratulations to you, too, for your new play. I see your name in the top place at the theater every day. I'm downtown in Midtown North now," April explained.

"Your new phone number confused me," Jason said. "Someone told me you're a supervisor now."

"Yes, it's true."

"Well, you'll have to come and see the play—and bring your friend. What's his name—Mike . . . ?" Emma made a face, trying to remember the name of the cop who'd saved her life.

"Sanchez," April said softly. "He's in Homicide now."

"No kidding? Then who's left to take care of us in the Twentieth?" Emma asked lightly.

April thought of Aspirante and Healy. "No one," she said. Her stomach gurgled. She put a hand over it to silence it. Time to go to work. "I'm sorry about your friends," she began, taking her Rosario out of her purse.

"Thank you." Emma twisted her wedding ring around on her finger. She glanced at the notebook, then at Jason. He had his bland shrink face on. April had her cop face on. The actress had her . . . actress face on. April wondered if she'd be able to get past it.

"Let's start with your relationship with the—uh, with Mrs. Liberty," April suggested.

"I've known Merrill for—a long time. We went to acting classes together more than ten years ago. That's how we met. We both wanted to be actors. Merrill made it first. She got a part in a soap. I did voice-overs for a long time. We were very close, even after she married Rick."

"Rick?"

"That's what Liberty's friends call him."

"So the three of you go way back."

Emma took a bite out of an unpolished thumbnail and spoke impatiently. "We all go way back. Rick and Tor were friends the way Merrill and I were friends. This is a devastating thing. Just horrible." She glanced at Jason, sitting silently beside her, then reached for his hand. "For Rick especially. I can't imagine losing both my husband and my best friend at the same time."

April felt a twinge of jealousy at the way Jason was looking at his wife. It triggered a thought, then she lost it. "Did Merrill and Petersen have any enemies?"

Emma chewed on her nail. "Well, of course. I'm - sure they did. Successful people always have enemies."

"Can you think of anybody in particular who might want to kil them?"

"Tor just fired twenty percent of the people in his company last week. A lot of people were mad at him. He was a charming man, but he could be ruthless, you know."

April wasn't acquainted with people like Petersen, so she didn't know. She waited for Emma to go on.

"Maybe the killer was someone he'd fired. Sergeant, do you think Tor was the target? Or both of them?" Emma frowned.

"Please call me April. Why do you ask?"

Emma shook her head. "It doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?"

"It was an accident that they were together last night. Merrill and Rick were supposed to come to see me in my new play. I didn't know Rick wasn't coming until after the show when Merril showed up in my dressing room with Tor. I have to admit I was surprised."

"Why?"

Emma smiled weakly. "Rick is a fan."

"Is Tor a fan?"

"Oh, I don't know. I hardly knew him. I don't think he even knew who I was before last night."

"You're too modest. So what changed the plans?" "Rick had to go to Chicago on business. Tor took his ticket. For him it was a last-minute thing. Nobody even knew he was going to be there."

That triggered another question. April made a note.-"What about his wife?"

"Tor's wife? I've never met her. The gossip was they were breaking up."

"Maybe she knew where they were going."

"That's—horrible. How would she even pull it off?" Emma shuddered.

"Maybe she had help," April said softly. "And Liberty knew where they were. Either could have—"

"No!" Emma said explosively. "I know Rick couldn't hurt anybody."

"What kind of marriage did Liberty and his wife have?"

"Devoted," Emma said firmly.

"There must have been stresses."

"Every marriage has stresses," Emma said vaguely.

"Merrill was a beautiful woman. She must have had admirers. Was her husband jealous?"

"Rick?" Emma took another bite of nail, ripped it, and winced. A spot of blood appeared at the quick. She dabbed the blood on her handkerchief, staining it. "I don't think so."

April glanced at Jason. His mask was still on. He wasn't saying. "Are you thinking about it?" she asked Emma.

"Yes! I'm thinking about it. I just don't think he's the jealous type," Emma said firmly.

"Not an Othello," April murmured.

"You've read Shakespeare?" Emma seemed surprised.

"I saw the movie. How did he seem that night?"

"Tor?"

"No, Liberty."

Emma looked confused. "I didn't see Rick that night. He was in Chicago."

"What about the phone call?"

"What phone call?" "He called the restaurant. What was Petersen like?"

Emma started on the other thumb. "We were drinking a bit. Tor was excited—" She stopped short.

April guessed the man had come on to Emma that night, not to his date, Merrill, and that might have been the real reason Emma had left the restaurant before dinner was over and missed hearing the phone call. Maybe she kept looking at Jason now because she didn't want him to know something. April wondered what it was.

"Were Tor and Merrill involved romantically?"

Emma sighed. "Jason asked me that. I—really don't know. I guess they'd spent more time together recently. I know Merrill held his hand whenever he had marital problems." Emma shook her head.

And maybe Liberty was tired of the hand-holding. April changed the subject again. "What time did you leave the restaurant?"

"I don't know. Maybe around midnight. Maybe before." Another check with the watchdog husband.

Jason shook his head. Al those clocks everywhere, and he didn't know either.

"Why didn't Petersen send you home in his car?"

"I don't know. The car wasn't there. I think he sent the driver on some other errand."

"An errand? What kind of errand?"

"I don't know. I just know the car wasn't there. Tor mentioned something, but I forgot."

"How did you get home?"

"I took a cab. A woman was getting out a few doors down, so I got lucky, I took her cab."

A surge of dizziness swept over April. "Could I have a glass of water?" she asked faintly.

Jason got to his feet. "When did you eat last?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said. "I just need a little water."

"I'll get you some juice." He left the room.

"It's nice to have a doctor around," April murmured. Then she put down her notebook and asked Emma what she really wanted to know.

11

M
el Auschauer glanced at the figure retreating through the kitchen door of Liberty's apartment, then attempted to lean forward in a conspiratorial manner. His anxious eyes darted around the room as if to make sure no one was listening who shouldn't be listening. Then he tried again to sit up and bend in closer to his host. Mel's midlife belly, fed for many years with the very best of Manhattan restaurant offerings both at business lunches and social dinners, had a different plan. It listed to the left, pinning his bulk to the soft down cushions and giving him the distinct appearance of a beached whale. Still, his message was chilling.

"Rick, have you thought about getting a lawyer?" Mel said softly, darting more glances at each of his other partners.

Mel and Daniel Rothhaus, the two men with most authority at James Dixon, the brokerage house, sat on the section of white sofa in front of the windows overlooking the Park. Rick Liberty and a third partner, Christopher Richardson, sat on the section that curved into the room. Beside them was a huge Dogon mask with a raffia skirt.

"A lawyer?" Rick was taken aback.

Rick had been watching Mel's eyes follow Patrice as he went into the kitchen for more desserts and coffee and didn't like what he saw. But he knew he was particularly sensitive to nuance at the moment. His whole body hurt as if he had been in a rough game and just had a ton of linebackers use him for a playing field. His flesh felt bruised in places he hadn't known existed.

But maybe the bruises didn't exist. Rick couldn't tell.
All
day he had had trouble identifying the sources of his pain. This was new. As an athlete, he had had to know where it hurt so he could compensate and go around the end zone of
his
physical weak spots. Now he couldn't tell whether the pain he felt came from his body or his mind, which made it difficult to know how to handle it. He had that queasy feeling that came after a really crippling migraine, when his clarity of thinking had returned but he was aware that some crucial period of consciousness was missing. At such times, he wasn't exactly sure what had occurred when the system broke down, and he was afraid nausea might make him vomit without warning, or crash out again.

He kept turning to Merrill, wanting to tell her how awful it was without her. He couldn't believe she wasn't coming back in a minute, breathless and apologetic for taking so long. But she wasn't coming back. Someone had killed her. Someone had reached into the very center of his life and ripped his heart out. The police said Merrill had been stabbed in the neck. It was inconceivable. It made him sick to think about it. He couldn't imagine how such a thing could happen. He just couldn't envision a situation in which Tor was not in control. Tor had been in control of everything. Rick had seen him in tight spots more than once. The threat of a mugger, even one with a gun, would not have caused Tor to lie down and die. There had been no mention of a gun, or a struggle. Why not? Something was wrong, and they weren't telling him the real story. But why not? Rick didn't get it. He felt dead, destroyed—and yet he was alive—dazed and puzzled at the same time.

Jokingly, Merrill used to tell him that dazed and puzzled were the two reactions actors had when stinking reviews came in. He and she had received some pretty stinking reviews when they got married, but the hate was never murderous, never struck at the heart.

Snide remarks on either side of the color line were like graffiti on city walls. It was everywhere. They saw it, they didn't like it, but it wasn't going away. So they'd had to get used to it.

They had told each other having to defend their reasons for being together made them stronger. What had made them vulnerable was the inability to have children, for which no doctor could find a medical reason. That flaw in their life was what had kept them from feeling normal, from feeling right as a couple. Rick had believed it was his fault; Merrill had believed it was hers. Now they would never see their love mirrored in other faces. Al Merrill's battles were over. Rick thought about that as his partners stared at him with disbelief.

"Don't you know what's going on? Haven't you seen the news?" Mel echoed incredulously.

Rick shook his head. Two cops had given him the news at four in the morning. He didn't need to hear the uninformed versions.

Chris Richardson, a man who had his suits and everything else including his underwear made at Sulka and who trained in a gym for three hours every day after the market closed, was still slim enough to bend at the waist. He leaned forward and put a hand on Rick's knee. "This is going to get ugly," he said ominously. "Really ugly."

Dan Rothhaus was a small wiry man with intense blue eyes, curly white hair, and a long thin nose the nostrils of which he constantly teased with a pinkie. Rothhaus radiated anxiety. Rick shot him an inquiring look, then stared at his other two partners as if he had never seen them before. Both were wealthy, well-fed men whose only adversities were having to endure spoiled first and second wives, spoiled and aimless children, and frequent turbulence in national and world markets.

Now the three men were galvanized with what they seemed to see as a real problem, were catching each other's eyes and isolating him with their concern. Rick took a few moments to get a grip on himself. It was going to get ugly? It was already ugly.

He drifted back into his own thoughts. Earlier in the day, Patrice had given him the feeling Merrill's murder hadn't been a random act. Now he was distracted by the word "ugly," and other, familiar irritations like the way his partners made a point of waiting for the restaurant staff to leave before saying anything of importance. All four men in the room had a stake in Liberty's Restaurant—all had a part ownership. But the other three considered it Rick's thing. They considered some of the patrons, and all of the staff, aliens, from another planet. Rick had the feeling that secretly they believed blacks were Martians. He had to stop thinking about that.

He thought about Merrill's face when he'd gone to identify her body. It seemed to rebuke him with its emptiness. Her eyes and mouth were permanently closed, had no comment about what was going on, couldn't tell anyone what happened to her. Now, hours after he had left her there, he found himself trying to remember something else about Merrill other than her color.

For the first time, her color seemed an unbearable offense. She had been frighteningly white at the medical examiner's office, as were the walls of the closed viewing room that he hadn't been allowed to enter. Rick had seen his dead wife through a window and was shaken by how white and alone she was. When he touched the window, that, too, was cold.

"I want to go in," he'd said. He didn't want to leave her there with no crowd of mourners, to be dissected alone. It was so cold, so very cold. He was shaking all over.