Judging Time (3 page)

This was the time of yin in a new case, the time when the door to a puzzle of huge dimension—something new and altogether unknown—opened to a vast space of churning, primal chaos. And she had to enter it. Yin was the time of discovery, before the forceful action of yang must be taken. Hagedorn cut the motor. April felt anxious. Despite all the people around who were supposed to be on her side supporting her actions and authority, she knew she was alone. From the number of cars and the attitude of the people standing around, it looked as if this was going to be the Big One every detective both wanted and feared. She shivered, afraid of messing up.

From the car she couldn't see the bodies. They appeared to be on a lower level, down two steps in a tiny yard enclosed by a row of dwarf conifers that twinkled merrily with dozens of white Christmas lights. A number of uniforms hung over the outside railing in a clot, stamping their feet and blowing steam as they looked down. Opening the car door, April was hit with a blast of killing winter air that felt even more penetrating than it had only a few minutes earlier. A single snowflake smacked at her cheek. Great, it was beginning to snow.

In the street, ice was crusting over the slush. On the sidewalk, snow powdered between patches of ice. These were the worst possible conditions for a crime scene. The temperature was dropping. And with a dozen people walking the area since the murders, it might well be impossible to determine if the perp had left anything of himself behind.

The sight of the thickly padded uniforms brushing the snow off the railing and stamping the sidewalk to warm their feet gave April a flash to the mirror in the Bed-Sty precinct that had been her first house. The mirror had been inside a closet, was dappled with ancient grime, and had a jagged piece broken out of one corner. All the patrol officers had been complaining about her—the skinny Chink, probably a dike, talked so soft no one could hear her.

Steve Zapora had been her supervisor at the time. About six foot four, red-faced, the size of a minivan. Every day in roll call this red-faced giant yelled at her that her hair was too long, had to be higher than her collar. Insisted that she shave her neck and personally checked to make sure it was done. And every day he took her downstairs. He made her stand in front of the stupid filthy mirror and he made her growl like a dog, made her raise her voice saying, "Hey you, there on the stairs, stop. Hey you in the red jacket, stop. Hey you, stop over and over until she could say
stop
loud enough to command attention.

Then Zapora got the biggest guy in the house and told her to take him down. April took the guy' down so fast he was on the floor before he was aware she'd made a move. Then, like a complete idiot, she'd put her hand to her mouth and said, "Gosh, I'm sorry." Things changed for her in the house after that, though.

April got out of the car. Her breath made great clouds of steam. Right in front of her two guys with black knit caps were busy rigging spotlights out of a van. "What are they doing here?" she demanded.

Hagedorn shrugged. "TV crew. They must have picked up the call. I know these guys. They hang out around here." Five networks had studios in the area. Hagedorn's baleful eyes were full of scorn that his new supervisor didn't know that.

"I know what they are," April snapped. "Get them out of here."

"Huh?" He looked shocked at her change of tone.

"Now." She ducked under the tape, hating him for making her have to act like one of them. The clot of uniforms turned around to stare. One said, "Lady, you can't come in here."

Then they caught sight of Hagedorn, who jerked his head at her. "Sergeant Woo," he explained.

April nodded brusquely to them. "Anybody ever tell you what the procedures are for protecting a crime scene? Would you like me to tell you now?"

No one said anything. The uniforms just edged away to let her take over, as if they were glad there was someone else to take command of the situation. April moved into the other space in her mind, began to concentrate on al the things she would have to remember when she was back in her office and had only photos to remind her of what she'd seen. Her former boss, Sergeant Joyce, had not always bothered with a notebook. She'd relied on other people's notes; but old habits were dying hard with April. She pulled out her regulation steno pad that the DAs always called Rosarios and began taking everything down. Who was there when she got there, what they had done so far, what they were doing now. She would follow the sequence for the rest of the night, noting the times from that moment through the Crime Scene Unit's work, the investigator from the ME's office pronouncing the deaths, right up to the end when the bodies were bagged and everybody went home for what was left of the night.

She leaned over the railing, her fingers already so stiff from the cold she could hardly hold her pen. The front yard of the brownstone that housed Liberty's Restaurant was about twelve feet square. Partially camouflaged by the twinkling hedge on the side closest to the steps, as if they had been caught while leaving, a man and a woman lay, eyes open, on their backs. The man's muddy hands were palms up on either side of his blond head. He looked puzzled, as if he had raised them with a query and then died before he had a chance to frame the question. His camel-colored coat and black sport jacket were flung open on a nubbly gray turtleneck sweater. Like his hands, his face and hair were scum-streaked, but there appeared to be no blood on him, no sign of an injury that might have killed him. Could be something under the hair, April thought.

The violence done to the woman was an unnerving contrast. In the twilight of a thousand tiny shimmering lights, inky-looking blood streaked her hands, her face, her long blond hair, the front of the tan sweater dress she wore, and the cuffs that peeked out beneath her fur-lined, black suede coat sleeves. All April could see was one small hole piercing her throat. Unless there were other stab wounds she couldn't see, somebody had known just where to strike. April studied the shocking sight from above, not wanting to add her own footprints to the mess below. Her teeth began to chatter.

Sometimes she could tell right away what happened. She could see in the arrangement of the scene how the preceding events must have played out. A mugging gone wrong, guy got scared and used his knife, used his gun. Over in a second. Sometimes he got away with a few dollars. Sometimes he didn't get away with anything. Or a guy killing his woman. There were always precipitating events. You could find out what they were. But this was ambiguous-looking, hard to tell what had happened. It was creepy. Two well-dressed people dead in front of an expensive restaurant where plenty of people must have been passing by, even late on a freezing January night. Except for the hole in the woman's throat, they didn't look as if they'd been interfered with. The woman's clutch bag was closed, wedged under her right foot. The scene didn't feel right. For what reason would someone have taken such a chance in such a public place?

A warm animated voice made April turned around. "Well, this looks like my first double of the year. Know who they are?"

The black woman peering over April's shoulder was taller than she, probably over six feet with the three-inch heels she wore, heedless of the snow. Only a wisp of the woman's hair had escaped her severe French twist that showed off her perfect jawline, the white even teeth behind her magnetic smile, her nose more Caucasian like than April's, and eyes both curious and bold. Large gold earrings glittered with major red stones in her ears, a black mink coat draped her body, and a frothy cut-velvet-and-silk scarf swathed her shoulders. More than just stunning and dramatic, she had presence. Even in the treacherous snow, April could feel the strut in her walk. She had seen the woman before and thought at first she was one of the famous models that appeared on the covers of magazines. Until the woman introduced herself.

"I'm Dr. Washington. Are you in charge here?”

"Yes. I'm—Sergeant April Woo." It took April a few seconds to remember she wasn't just a detective anymore.

"I've heard of you," Dr. Washington said.

April had heard of her, too, and was surprised to see her there. It wasn't common anymore for the deputy medical examiner to come to crime scenes. They'd changed things in New York. Now most of the time an investigator from the ME's office who wasn't even an MD came to the scene. Dr. Washington cocked her head inquisitively at the two corpses, then at the black sky overhead now whitening with snow. "If CSU doesn't get here pretty soon, those bodies are going to be covered with snow in the photos. We better go take a look. Know who they are?"

A tall black man with a down jacket thrown over
his
shoulders who'd been talking quietly with a uniform just outside the restaurant door started to wail. "Of
course
I knew who they were. I knew right away who they were. They'd just left, mon. It's Liberty's wife and his best friend. The owner's
wife,
I'm telling you. Of course I tried to help them. Why wouldn't I?"

The officer said some things that April couldn't hear, causing the man to protest even louder. April shook her head and went down the steps to calm things down.

"I'm Sergeant Woo." April introduced herself to the agitated black man being badgered by an officer half his size whose uniform tag identified him as Matthew Hays.

The officer drew himself up and spoke first. "This is the man who found the bodies. Apparently he moved them around quite a bit."

The tall black man responded angrily. "They'd only been gone a few minutes. I thought they might be alive." His face was wet with tears. He swiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand.

April dug into her shoulder bag for a tissue, handed him the package, then waited while he blew his nose.

"Are you Chinese?" he asked softly after he'd done so, carefully avoiding the eye of Officer Hays.

April nodded, gathered he was asking if she was in charge.

"I've never seen a Chinese cop."

"Well, I was born here." She didn't say most Chinese would rather iron shirts than walk a beat in this system.

The man thought over her country of origin and didn't appear to understand how that should enlighten him. He glanced at Hays, then turned to April again, revealing his confusion over whom he was supposed to address—the white man in uniform or the Chinese woman in plain clothes.

It happened all the time. April gave him a smile of encouragement. "I'm the one in charge. You can talk to me."

"I'm the manager of the restaurant," he said grudgingly.

"And your name is?"

"Patrice."

"Patrice what?" April was shivering but didn't want to go inside yet and leave the bodies.

"Patrice Paul," the man replied impatiently. "Please let me go inside. I have to call my boss and tell him— he has to know."

"Who is that?"

He pointed at the sign. "Liberty. You know who he is? Don't you?"

April hesitated, unsure of exactly who he was. She didn't want to lose face in front of a possible witness if the victim's husband was someone any educated person should know. Since leaving the 5th Precinct in Chinatown, not a single day went by when April wasn't made painfully aware of all the things she had never even considered until she came uptown. At the moment she had all the credits for a college degree and would graduate in June from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. But she was beginning to suspect that one degree didn't prove a thing and was not going to be enough in the long run.

Patrice Paul didn't press her. Now that he had someone else to talk to, he glowered at the uniform.

"I'm going inside and use the phone."

"We'll get to that," April said, not wanting to tell him that was not his job. "Can you describe what happened, Mr. Paul?"

"What happened was I tried to help them. I didn't do more than any decent human being would do," the man insisted. "Someone attacked my friends. They were my
friends.
They were my
patrons.
What was I supposed to do, leave them there to die if they were still alive and I could help them?"

"No one's accusing you, Mr. Paul," April said gently. "We're just trying to establish what happened here, that's all. What caused you to come outside?" She glanced at his hands working in his jacket pockets.

"What do you mean? What caused me to come outside? Two people were attacked."

"Uh-huh. How did you know? Did they call out, was there a struggle?"

"How did I know?" he asked blankly.

"Yeah. What made you come outside?"

April noted that the light-colored jacket hanging on Patrice Paul's shoulders was speckled on the front and on the bottoms of the sleeves with spots that looked like blood. His eyes were puzzled. He was not responding well. He was confused. It was not an uncommon reaction.

"I looked out the window," he said finally. "I wanted to make sure they got a taxi."

"What did you see?

He whimpered. "I saw them lying there."

The officer shook his head. "That's not what you said a minute ago."

"I'm upset, mon. I'm crazy upset. Can I go inside and call my boss now?"

"Officer, would you go and take down names of the people inside, but don't let anybody out here until I say so.
Mr.
Paul, where is
Mr.
Liberty now? We will need to reach him, and the next of kin of the other victim."

"Oh, God, it's Tor Petersen. He's a very important mon, too. You've heard of
him,
haven't you? I have his home number somewhere."

April nodded. "Thank you,
Mr.
Paul. Why don't you go inside and warm up. We'll talk in a moment."

"Can I call my boss?"

"Where is he?"

"I'm not sure, somewhere out of town," he answered quickly. "But I can beep him, and he'll call me right back."

"As soon as we clear a few things up, Mr. Paul."

April turned away, distracted by the sight of Dr. Washington hunkering down on her high heels in the bloody slush as easily as a Chinese peasant in the fields. The tall woman had gathered up her coat and now the shimmering fur was suspended out of the wet, trapped under her bottom as she flexed her fingers, then casually extracted rubber gloves from her evening bag and snapped them on as if it was something she did at the end of every evening outing. April, too, carried a wad of rubber gloves in her shoulder bag for occasions just like this when she had to root around in something horrid that might contaminate her, or she it. She'd never met anyone else off duty who was so prepared. She was fascinated by the professionalism of the deputy ME as Dr. Washington expertly examined first the female and then the male corpse. Standing beside April, Patrice Paul choked back a sob.