Hanging Time

by Glass, Leslie

  Bouck didn’t look at it. “Get out of here.”

  April glanced down at the bundle of Maggie Wheeler’s clothes on the top basement step, her heart racing. The man was probably their killer. And he was up on something, really high. She’d seen guys like him so high, they didn’t feel pain, couldn’t be stopped by half a dozen officers with stun guns, or even a .38 slug. She was scared.

  “Just calm down,” Braun said. “We have a warrant to take a look around.”

  The guy had no intention of calming down. “Oh, yeah, what for?” he demanded belligerently.

  “A woman in the shop across the street was murdered. We’re investigating the case.”

  “Are you nuts? What does that have to do with me?”

  “Like I said, we’re investigating the case.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not. Not in here.” Bouck spun around. “Who the fuck is this?”

  “Sergeant Roberts,” Roberts’s voice replied.

  Now two detectives were in the hall. There were five in the house. Where were the others? Adrenaline pumped through April without showing her the job to prepare for. She needed to tell Braun and Roberts what she’d found, to warn them, but they were jammed into the narrow space of the hallway. She didn’t want to provoke an incident. Where was Mike?

  “You can’t just bust into innocent people’s houses in the middle of the fucking night. Are you nuts?” Bouck screamed at them.

  “Unh-unh,” Braun said conversationally. “We have reason to believe someone from this house may be involved in two homicides.”

  “You got to be crazy. No way,” Bouck said furiously. Then as if surprised by the thought, “Who? Jamal?” That stopped him. For a few seconds, while he thought it over, he had nothing to say. Then he got his voice back. “No way.”

  He looked from one cop to the other. “Where’s Camille?”

  Braun didn’t say where the woman was. His voice got cold and his confidence came back. “You want to see Camille?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine. Then do what we tell you to do. Got it?”

  Wrong thing to say. Bouck stuck out his arm and tried to push past Braun. “I want to see her now. Get out of my way.”

  “Hey, watch that.” Braun stood his ground.

  “I want to see Camille.”

  “Fine. Come with us to the precinct. You can see her there.”

  “You took that sick woman out of my house?” Bouck’s voice rose to a shriek.

  The three of them were in a tight space, two without much patience and the third walking off the deep end. April’s thoughts whirled. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know Braun and Roberts, didn’t have the language developed with them to say the man they were so busy provoking was probably their perp. Ducci had suggested the killer might be a cross dresser or a transvestite. Bouck was clearly the one in charge here, kept his girlfriend in a restraint in the maid’s room. Maybe he was the shopper, wore the clothes on the racks upstairs. Maybe he signed Camille’s name in The Last Mango’s guest book.

  April didn’t have many options. She didn’t see how she could warn them without making matters worse. If she just came out of the kitchen with the bundle, Bouck might freak.

  Calamita, the detective who had been searching the living room, made the choice for her. He pushed into the hallway.

  “Shit, what’s that?” Bouck spun around and hit the banister.

  “We have a few more officers here,” Braun said. “So don’t get excited.”

  “Jesus Christ. Gimme that!” Bouck screamed.

  “What is it, Calamita?”

  April stepped forward to see it. It was then she saw Mike at the top of the stairs. No, stay where you are. Now there was a fourth. Four against one, and the guy was going to resist anyway. Suddenly April realized that the bulk at Bouck’s waist was not all fat. He had a pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Shit.

  Bouck grabbed for the open box in Calamita’s hands. Inside was a 9mm Colt All-American. Fifteen-round magazine and 3¾ barrel brushing kit. One automatic, two barrels.

  “Stand back,” Braun told him.

  “What is that? Where’d you get that?” Bouck’s rage escalated.

  “It was behind a false back in an old desk, sir,” Calamita replied.

  “Would everybody stand back, please.” Braun’s voice was tight. “Put your hands out,” he said to Bouck. “I want to see your hands in front of you.”

  Bouck ignored him. “You brought that in here. You brought it in,” he screamed. “I never saw it before. I don’t even know what it is.” He reached for it.

  Calamita moved back.

  The top stair creaked. Bouck turned his head and saw Sanchez. “Whaa—”

  Instantly April was out the kitchen door, gesturing to Mike and Lieutenant Braun that Bouck had a gun.

  “This is a frame,” Bouck screamed at the sight of two more detectives. “You’re going to be history. You took a sick woman out of here. You’re threatening me—I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Give me your gun.” Lieutenant Braun’s voice was soft now. “We don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

  Bouck froze.

  April let her breath out.

  “Come on, let’s let the boys finish up in here.”

  “Unh-unh. You can’t do this.”

  “Come on. Give me the gun. Don’t you want to see your girlfriend?”

  “Yeah, I do. Why don’t you go outside and wait for me? I’ll come out on my own.” Bouck’s voice turned cunning.

  Braun shook his head. “It’s not happening that way. You give me the gun and we all go out together.”

  Bouck tried something else. “What, are you nuts? I don’t have a gun.” He reached his hand across his body.

  Roberts moved forward to grab him. Everybody changed position, moving in, moving back. Bouck’s pistol was out. Someone shouted. Roberts lunged at it.

  Two shots exploded in the small space. Bouck crumpled, shot in the back. Braun sagged against the banister, screaming that he’d taken a hit. Blood poured out on the floor from a neat hole in his right shoe. Braun slid to the floor. More people began crowding in.

  “What happened?” Penelope Dunham, the assistant D.A., running late, plunged through the front door with the two cops who’d let Bouck in without stopping him. She skidded in a puddle of blood on the floor. “Dear God …”

  For an instant Mike and April stared at each other. Then Braun pointed at them, told them to stop gaping and get the hell out of there.

  58

  It sounds like you’re under a lot of stress right now,” Jason said. His notepad rested on his knee below the level of the tabletop. He made a quick note.

  Camille lowered her head and nodded. “I’m worried,” she said softly.

  “Sometimes when people get tense and nervous, their ears play tricks on them. They hear things when no one’s there.”

  Camille nodded again.

  “Have you ever heard people telling you things when no one’s there?”

  “No.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  Camille glanced down at where she’d bitten her arm. She was silent for a long time.

  “I’m worried about Bouck,” she said at last. “I’m worried about my relationship with my sister.” She looked up at Jason. “I’m worried about my future.”

  “You sound blue.” There was nothing quite like stating the obvious. It usually worked.

  Camille’s eyes filled with tears. She shook her head fiercely. “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Sometimes when people get depressed and worried they feel they don’t want to go on living. Have you ever felt like this?”

  “Yes.” Camille mouthed the word.

  “When?”

  She shrugged.

  “Within the last forty-eight hours?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever felt life was not worth living?”

  She bristled. “I
already told you that.”

  “You said yes. Did you ever try to end your life?”

  “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Who told you that?”

  She shrugged again.

  Uh-huh. “You mean you did try to end it?”

  “Nooooo, I mean I never went all the way.” She brushed her red hair away from her face, looked defiant. “I could do it. If I tried, I could do it.”

  “So you went part of the way? What does that mean?”

  Camille kissed the dog. “I have my baby to live for.”

  “Yes.” Jason looked at the bloody marks on her arm. “But you can hurt yourself. You bit your arm.”

  “I got nervous. I was upset. I don’t know why I did that. I feel better now. I don’t think I’ll do it again.”

  “What else do you do to hurt yourself, Camille?”

  She glanced at the pocket where Jason’s key chain with the knife on it was. “I cut myself. I burned myself.” She chewed on her lips. “I break things.”

  “What about Bouck?”

  “What about him?”

  “Have you ever hurt Bouck? Or your sister? Have you ever hurt Milicia?”

  She looked shocked. “No. How could I?”

  “Anybody else?”

  “What?”

  “Have you ever hurt anybody else?”

  She shrank back from the table. “You’re just asking me that because I’m in the police station. You think I’m crazy.”

  Jason didn’t say anything.

  She gnawed on her lip.

  “Have you hurt anybody else?”

  “No. Only myself,” Camille said firmly.

  Okay. “You said you were worried about your relationship with your sister. You want to tell me about that?”

  Camille shuddered. “My sister is making me sick.”

  “How is she doing that?”

  “Ever heard of voodoo?” she whispered.

  “Your sister is making you sick with voodoo?”

  “Yes, you got it.” She nodded vigorously.

  “How does she do that?”

  “It happened a long time ago, and she won’t stop. That’s why Bouck has four locks.”

  “What happened a long time ago?”

  “I can’t say.”

  Okay. “Is your sister doing anything to you now?”

  Camille nodded fiercely, her face brittle with pain.

  “What?”

  Suddenly her eyes squeezed shut. With her wild mane of reddish hair, the trancelike expression, and the loose gauzy clothes, Camille looked like a parody of a fortune-teller struggling for an omen. “I’m not sure. It’s hazy. I can’t see.”

  Jason changed the subject. “Why don’t you tell me about the last few days before you came here. What were those days like?”

  Camille opened her eyes. “You want to know what I do?” She looked around wildly, as if for something to say.

  “Yes. What time do you wake up in the morning? What do you do? Things like that.” Jason sat back in his chair.

  Camille took some time to answer. The dog pawed her hand for attention. It gave her something to focus on. She smiled.

  “I have to get up early because Puppy likes to get up early.”

  Then her face clouded over.

  “You take Puppy out for walks?” Jason asked.

  “Sometimes,” she said vaguely.

  “Then what?”

  “I read the paper. If the stock market’s up, I go shopping.”

  So Camille read the paper and went shopping. He asked about the newspaper first. “What’s your favorite section?”

  “I like the stock market. But I read the whole thing. Then I put the paper on the floor for Puppy.”

  “What was the Dow today?” Jason asked. He didn’t know what it was himself, but he’d look it up later to see if she was right.

  “Thirty-five twenty-five,” she replied without hesitation.

  “Is that up or down from yesterday?”

  She shook her head, looking at him shrewdly again. “You’re trying to trip me up.” Her shrill laugh was startling. “But you can’t trip me up.”

  “Oh, why not?”

  “Because I know the trick.” Camille clapped her hands triumphantly.

  “What’s the trick?” Jason was careful not to frown. He was puzzled.

  “You asked me what the market did yesterday.” He nodded. So?

  Camille laughed. “Yesterday was Labor Day. The market was closed.”

  “Oh, yeah. It was.” Jason smiled. One of his supervisors used to say, “Never underestimate the mentally ill. Just because they’re sick doesn’t mean they’re stupid.”

  So, she wasn’t hallucinatory, knew what day it was, followed the stock market. Might be slightly delusional. Focus drifted in and out. She thought her sister was hurting her with voodoo that started a long time ago. What kind of voodoo? Jason checked his watch. It was nearly midnight.

  59

  April Woo looked through the glass viewing panel and mouthed “Come out.”

  Leisurely, Jason got up, stretched, said something to Camille April couldn’t hear, then moved to the door. April opened it.

  He gave her a piercing look. “What’s going on?”

  April didn’t answer. She was deeply aware of the brown stains on her shirt and the blood spatters from the gunshot wounds of Lieutenant Braun and Bouck on her shoes and trousers. There had been quite a bit of blood on the floor. She’d waded through it. There was a lot of other trace evidence all over her, too. From the upstairs, from the basement. Crime Scene would have a hell of a time putting together the last few hours of her day. Just a routine day that started with a dead girl on one side of Second Avenue, then segued right into a shootout among five officers and a suspect on the other side of Second Avenue.

  Upstairs they were saying the bureau got their perp within twenty-four hours. Great work. They were heroes. There were only a few crucial things wrong with that though. They got him in the wrong twenty-four-hour period. After he killed Maggie Wheeler, they’d been looking for someone who knew her, not a stranger. So he had time to kill again. They’d been meticulously working the wrong angle. April felt kind of queasy. A lot queasy, in fact. Like everything about this case from beginning to end was all messed up.

  Once in a while in social situations she’d indulge and have a beer. She hadn’t had one since Sunday, when she ate part of a lunch with Dr. Dong, but now she felt as if she’d been drinking steadily ever since the case began just over a week ago. She was tired, thick-headed, and a little nauseated.

  And now Jason Frank’s eyes were boring into her, increasing her uneasiness. This was a guy who didn’t just look at people. He looked into them. She’d seen this before in him. His gaze made her wonder if he could tell what she was thinking. It used to throw her off balance until she got to know him. Then she decided he was all right, couldn’t read her mind after all.

  “What’s going on?” he asked again.

  “End of shift is all.” She answered his question evenly, but her face was stiff with strain.

  Mike was in Sergeant Joyce’s office, on the phone with the Captain. For some reason, the people downtown didn’t think it was as great work as Captain Higgins did. They weren’t happy. They were talking about an internal investigation of the shooting. That made Captain Higgins nervous. He knew his people could be made to take the fall somehow just because they were on the scene and it would look better. Wouldn’t look better for the Two-O though.

  “Thank God, we’re clean” had been April’s first words when they got in their car to return to the precinct.

  She said things like that because thinking the American thing was a reflex action with her. At the same time as she thanked the generic American God that actually had no meaning to her, she had another thought. She worried about which of the many Chinese gods that Sai Woo claimed were hovering around in the air all the time, waiting to decide which moments to make danger and which to
protect from danger, was appropriate to thank on an occasion like this.

  “Not so fast,” Mike replied. “They’ll check our guns to make sure we’re clean, and then what they find will show maybe we’re not so clean after all.” He rolled his window down.

  “Better pray they find you clean,” he added.

  April was driving. She had the keys, and it was her turn. She saw Mike’s hand drift up to the knot on his tie and knew he was reaching for the cross around his neck. She could tell he believed in God, and might even be praying to Him right now. She found that kind of puzzling, because it was clear when people believed that kind of stuff, they got in a lot of trouble.

  She couldn’t get over the fact that Mike’s wife hung on to him for years, even though she didn’t want him anymore. That wasn’t like the Chinese. But the Chinese were different in lots of ways. Each had his own name, different from anyone else’s. The Spanish all had generic names, like the generic God they worshiped. The men were all José or Alfonso, Jesus or Juan. The women were Maria or Maria Rosario or Maria Elena, or Maria Magdalena. It got confusing sometimes. All the women in Sanchez’s life seemed to be just plain Maria. His mother, sister, cousins, the Maria who didn’t want him.

  The thought of Mike’s Maria who didn’t want him sliced through April’s stomach like a knife through a bitter melon. She felt the mix: the bitterness of the melon and the sharpness of the knife. She didn’t understand her feelings about Mike. Everybody else she thought about with her head. She felt Mike with her body. That was boo hao. No good at all.

  She thought about her reaction when she realized Bouck had a weapon. She had broken into a cold sweat, her first thought of Mike, up on the stairs, unprepared and in the middle of everything.

  After the shots were fired, she had wanted to rush into the melee and make sure he was okay. That was not good. A cop couldn’t think with the heart, or any other part of the body. A cop could think only with his head. Anything else was dangerous.

  And the way she reacted to Mike was all physical. Sometimes when she was close to him she got a sharp pain in the stomach. And it wasn’t because she missed lunch. Sometimes it was a piercing pain behind the eyes. Other times, sweat. It occurred to her maybe Skinny Dragon Mother was right and some Chinese god had gotten to America after all, had personally homed in on her, and was making mischief.