Tracking Time

by Leslie Glass

  She freed his cock from his underpants and played with it, clicking her tongue pierce as she squeezed and rubbed it. He went to another place in his head, an amusement park where there were all these colors and rides. His brain was whirling as she pulled down her own jeans. When he tried to get in, there was that wall again. He was in an amusement park, lights flashing bells ringing on her body that was so soft and curvy, and still he couldn't get through that wall. Then, suddenly Brandy changed course and put his thing in her mouth for a second, just a second, and he felt the steel knob that was her tongue pierce. After that she put it down there where the wall was. This time she guided him inside her. She bucked with her hips a few times-and it was unbelievable.

  Just unbelievable. David found paradise at last. God finally smiled on him and he felt bliss. In the middle of his bliss, his cell phone rang. He knew by the way it rang and then rang again that the caller was his mother, but he was too busy thanking God to answer it.

  Forty-four

  Ten people including Janice Owen's boss and her boss's boss were in a meeting in the conference room when her secretary, Denise, came in and handed her a note about David. Janice had been paying strict attention to the proceedings. She knew what everyone in the room was wearing. She knew from the expressions on their faces all their feelings about the contents of the ten-page memo they were discussing. She knew the substance of the memo's communication. She had not, however, listened to a single thing anyone had said since they'd all gotten their little coffees and nondairy creamers and sweeteners and sat down to strategize.

  Janice couldn't concentrate because she was thinking about her bed, a king so wide it enabled her husband night after night, month after month, never actually to touch her no matter what his position or how much he tossed around. If he didn't snore like a pig, she wouldn't know he was there at all. No good-night kisses, no messing around in the kitchen. Nothing. Janice was on a rampage, her every feeling offended by Bill's humming in the shower as he fondled his very large erection while he no doubt fantasized doing it with the ugly bitch Peggy, who was now giving him expensive ties with lovebirds on them.

  Janice was furious at herself for having been so nice, so accepting of his long work hours, his exhaustion, and his worry over his work, which he had the bad taste to keep reminding her brought in the bacon. Peggy was twenty-eight, blond, thin as a rake, and a conniving bitch who wanted a husband even if she had to resort to stealing one. Janice felt like a jerk for not taking this Peggy thing seriously a lot sooner. Murder was too good for the girl. The bitch deserved a lingering painful death. How could this be accomplished, she wondered. Shooting her would be too easy. Poison? Disfiguring disease? Cancer?

  Janice's thoughts turned to money. Bill made three quarters of a million a year, plus a big bonus. Janice made a hundred and fifty thousand. She could not live as well if he divorced her. She could not manage their son's behavior on her own-but maybe she could. Maybe divorce would be better for them all. She could take Bill for everything he had. New York State was great for women. She could get a lawyer to calculate the value of Bill's partnership in his firm over a lifetime and demand half. It happened all the time. Bill would either have to pay her big-time alimony every month or give her many millions of dollars up front. Either way, she would keep the apartment and get child support for David-who needed tutors and doctors and college money and heaven knew what else. Bill wouldn't have much left for any kind of life with Peggy. Ha!

  But who would she go out with? What kind of life would she have with a troublesome teenager and no husband? Janice took the note from Denise and read it. Her bad day suddenly got worse.

  David's school is on the phone, was what the note said.

  "I'll take it." Janice folded the piece of paper and was out of her chair without a beat. What was it, ten in the morning? She checked her watch. Uh-uh, not even. It was nine-forty-eight, way too early for something like a broken bone in sports. Second period was Contemporary American History. No, David hadn't gotten hurt in some accident. The school hadn't burned down. She knew what this was about.

  She changed gears in an instant. See what a wonderful mother she was. She was at work in an important meeting, she had a life of her own; she was good at her job. Did she hesitate when the boy's school was on the line? Here they were in the middle of a merger, she had important things to do. She could not afford to jeopardize her career, but, as always, her son came first. That was more than Bill could say. The school never called him.

  Janice sailed down the hall to her office and took the call on her own line. "Yes, Janice Owen," she said sweetly.

  "Oh hi, Mrs. Owen. This is Margery Redich at Prep. I'm just calling about David. He didn't come in yesterday or this morning. I didn't get a call back from you yesterday when David didn't come in, either." Her perky voice suddenly took on a slight accusatory tone.

  The rage caught Janice right in the throat. Both days she'd driven David to school herself. They'd had nice conversations. This morning she'd left him right in front of the door. Her chest constricted with the betrayal of both the men in her life. After the way she'd stuck her neck out for David, she should bust him now, let him get expelled. He should be punished for this. But it never occurred to her to let such a thing happen.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry," she gushed. "I know I should have called. We're in the middle of a merger here, and I'm a little distracted. David is really sick. He has the flu. Must be a stomach virus or something. He'll be in tomorrow for sure. He's at the doctor now."

  "Okay, just checking. Have a good day, Mrs. Owen."

  "Thank you so much for calling. My mistake for not letting you know sooner."

  Janice hung up and dialed her husband.

  "Mr. Owen's office, may I help you?" The precise voice of Bill's male secretary came on the line.

  "You certainly may, Greg. Is he there?"

  "Oh, Mrs. Owen. He's on the phone right now. Shall I have him call you when he gets off?"

  "No, I need to talk to my husband now. It's an emergency," she said coldly.

  "He's on long distance."

  "It's still an emergency, Greg."

  "Okay, I'll try."

  Janice looked at her watch. She'd been gone a minute and a half. They wouldn't miss her for another two. Bill came on the line a full minute later.

  "What is it, Janice?"

  "David is playing hooky again. Fat lot of good you did in your little talk with him this morning."

  "Is this what you're calling me for?"

  "The school just called. This is serious."

  "I thought you took him there yourself. It's not my fault if he doesn't stay."

  "Whose fault do you think it is, mine?" Janice was appalled at this outrageous suggestion.

  "I certainly can't be responsible if you get him all upset in the car." Bill's tone was not nice at all.

  "I don't get him upset," Janice protested.

  "Look, I have to go to court in five minutes."

  "Bill, I want you to come home early tonight. We'll have dinner together and talk. This is very serious. They're going to kick him out if he doesn't knuckle under."

  "It's not knuckle under. It's settle down."

  "Whatever! Bill! We have to do something."

  "Fine. Just get him on the phone and tell him to go to school now."

  "Ah, I can't."

  "Why not, Janice?" Bill was impatient now.

  "I told the school he had the flu."

  "Well, tell David to have a miraculous recovery."

  "Okay, I'll tell him," she said meekly. "Are you coming home tonight?"

  "Of course I'm coming home. Where else would I go?" He hung up without saying good-bye.

  Forty-five

  At twelve-thirty Igor Stanislovski, one of the criminalists from CSU, was just finishing his last sketch of the crime scene. The remains of Pee Wee James were bagged and ready to start their journey across town to the Medical Examiner's office for autopsy. More than two dozen uniform
s from three precincts were keeping away the curious as April consulted with Charles Ding, a new investigator in the Medical Examiner's office.

  Charles was a hail-fellow-well-met type with a wandering eye and distracting tic that got worse when he was nervous. He must have been pretty nervous right then because the whole time his head was bent to examine Pee Wee, his right eye winked steadily at April, giving him the appearance of a lecherous schoolboy. In fact, he was a serious guy.

  "Typical drunk. Lots of scars, sores. Eczema on his hands and arms. Poor circulation in his legs. Look at those ankles. I wouldn't be surprised if he had gangrene in that foot. We'll know later, not that it matters. I'm not removing his shoes now. Bottom line, I'd say someone hit him on the side of the head, then attempted to bury him. Maybe he was interrupted. Looks like a pretty disorganized killer," Charles said.

  "Probably the half-assed work of another drunk. He certainly appears to have died right here." Igor threw his own two cents in. "You notice there's not much disturbance in the ground. Who knows, maybe it was an accident."

  Igor had some kind of Balkan accent, and a limp that was the result of a hollow-point bullet he'd taken in the calf several years back while attempting to stop a bank robbery one day when he went to deposit his paycheck. By now he'd finished bagging the potato chip bag, the Styrofoam cup, the shoe, three buttons, part of a sock, a crushed Coke can, an Alcoholics Anonymous key chain with its "God-grant-me-the-courage" credo deeply encrusted with dirt, and several gallons of earth, grass, and leaf samples. The ground had been tromped by the hordes. There were no clear shoe imprints from which to make plaster casts.

  Igor was five-four, had the bluest eyes and the biggest head April had ever seen. These days he was wearing his thick blond hair in a ponytail. Of all the Crime Scene people, April thought Igor was the best. She respected his opinions, but he didn't know anything about Maslow's mystery patient. Pee Wee's murder could also be the work of a small female who couldn't possibly bury a body.

  Ding's eye wandered over and winked at Igor. "We'll know more when we open him up." He removed his rubber gloves, bagged them, replaced them with a fresh pair, then trotted off to examine the soft tissue samples Peachy had found. "Bye now," were his parting words.

  Igor frowned and circled the air with his finger. April shook her head at him. Don't make fun.

  "Good to meet you, Charlie. Thanks," April called after him.

  "De nada," the Chinese replied.

  Spanish! April snorted and turned to Igor. Pee Wee was dead and it was all her fault. A Chinese saying fit his life well: "Loss upon loss until at last comes rest."

  Last night she'd trusted Mike and followed the credo "By letting go, it all gets done." Her reward was Pee

  Wee's eternal rest. Now she felt beaten by the mischief of unknown devils.

  "I help out, don't I?" Pee Wee had said only yesterday.

  Not enough, Pee Wee, not enough.

  "Make your eyes bright enough from evil to lead you away" was another saying among the thousands April had learned. None of them fit in America 2000. In the thousand department the worst was "A thousand years is not enough to honor a parent."

  Actually, April thought thirty years of parent honoring was an awful lot. Trying to brighten her eyes from the evil of Pee Wee's death, she turned to Igor with her ten thousand most pressing questions. Her cell phone rang and "Private" popped up on the screen.

  "Sergeant Woo," she said.

  "Yes, hello, April, it's Jason. Is this a better time? I really have to talk to you."

  "Talk away, I have one minute."

  "Have you found Maslow?"

  "No, but we found someone else."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. It's getting spooky out here, Jason. We've got a head case for sure. Can we meet?"

  "Someone's dead?"

  "Yes, a homeless man."

  "Oh, this is not my department."

  "Well, that's not the weird thing, Jason. I need your help here. This isn't pick-and-choose time. You brought this situation to me."

  "Did I?"

  "Yes, you did."

  Jason groaned. "You cops, always playing with the truth. I asked you about one of my students, only that. What's the weird thing, April?"

  "We have some finds of soft tissue."

  "You got me on that, April. Soft tissue from what?"

  "Maybe human, maybe not. Our tracker found it buried, you know, near the body, but in different sites. The tissue didn't come from the homicide victim so it could be a whole other thing. What do you make of it?"

  Jason groaned again. "April, I'm a psychoanalyst. I work with the living. And among the living. Look, it's weirder than you think."

  It was her turn to be surprised. "Really, how's that?"

  "I'd like you to treat this as confidential for the moment if you can. But, I just had a little visit from Maslow's father. He has another family. Maslow has a sister he doesn't know about."

  "He has a sister?" April was excited.

  "Yeah, twenty years old."

  "Who's the mother? Where does she live?"

  "She's a woman Maslow's father works with, an employee of his. Mother and daughter live in Long Island City. Where the hell is that?"

  "In Queens. Jesus!" April was unnerved by the sight of Woody Baum, careening across the grass toward her in Iriarte's Lumina. He was driving the car like an off-road SUV with the lieutenant in the passenger seat and Lieutenant Margaret Mary Joyce, commander of the Detective Squad of the Two-O and April's former boss, in the backseat next to Captain Higgins, the CO of the precinct. From the other direction came the Jeep of Captain Reginald. Shit, what was this, turf war?

  "What?" Jason asked.

  "Look, Jason, something's come up. I have to go-"

  "Wait, I have an address for you," Jason cried.

  April turned the page of her notebook. "Okay, sure. Give me the address. I'll go see the sister, where does she live?"

  Jason gave her the Long Island City address. She wrote it down quickly, then shoved her notebook into her purse, her eyes nervously on the Lumina that seemed to have her targeted for a hit. She stood there trying to be cool, and Woody stopped just short of crashing into her.

  Then, still dressed for summer in a butter yellow suit, mango shirt, mint green tie, and straw hat, Lieutenant Iriarte jumped out of the car and slammed the door. "Woo, what the mother-fucking hell do you think you're doing?" he screamed.

  The sudden loss of face like the bang of a popped balloon in front of her former bosses made April's head swim. Neither Captain Higgins, who didn't like girl cops, nor Lieutenant Joyce, who didn't like her, had ever spoken to her quite like that.

  Joyce, a big swearer herself, looked pretty surprised by the attack. She got out of the car moving one plump leg at a time, a frown gathering on her pugnacious face. Higgins was out of the car. Baum jumped out. Captain Reginald, CO of the Central Park Precinct, was out of his Jeep, running toward them, too. April prayed for bloody turf war.

  "Good morning, sir. Lieutenant Joyce, congratulations on your promotion. Good morning, Captain Higgins, Captain Reginald." April gave them all a second, covered all the bases except for Baum, who had seemed a little too happy with the opportunity to run her down.

  "Yeah, and congratulations on yours. I always knew you'd make good." Lieutenant Joyce glanced at Iriarte and gave April a real smile. "And congratulations on your upcoming nuptials, too," she added.

  "My nuptials?" April blushed some more.

  "Yeah, I heard you and Mike are getting married. I like it when my best people get together. Mazeltov." This was for all the captains' benefit. A few courtesies before the ax fell.

  Higgins guffawed at the Yiddish.

  "We're just friends, Lieutenant-" April said. She was freaked by all the brass and saw her career careening toward a desk job in Housing for sure.

  ''Enough of the chitchat," Iriarte interrupted her peevishly. "I've had complaints about you, Woo." He eyed Captain Reginald.


  Thousands of years of prescribed correct Chinese behavior for people of lower rank, including and especially females, had coded April's genes to make her bow to the ground, to smack her forehead on the earth, and beg for forgiveness for her lack of wisdom and any involuntary foolishness that she might wrongfully have committed. Correct Chinese behavior warned that the tongue was dangerous to the throat. In other words, shut up.

  Being in a new country and new century altogether, however, a reasonable modification of forehead knocking might be to wither to half-self, cast her eyes down, and attempt to disappear. This self-effacement tactic to appease an irritated boss, though, was at odds with her more recent training from Lieutenant Joyce and Mike Sanchez, who were big stand-up-for-yourself people. For a second she was almost conflicted about which way to go.

  "I'm with Lieutenant Sanchez," she said officiously. "He's working Special Case on the Atkins case. Last night he requested a second dog tracker, I suggested John Zumech. I worked with Zumech when I was in the Two-O. Do you know him, sir?" she asked Iriarte.

  "He's worked in here before." Captain Reginald affirmed Zumech's credibility, then waited for the shit to hit.

  "What does Zumech have to do with it?" With the comment from the CP CO, Iriarte's mood darkened further. His tongue worked its way around his mouth unhappily.

  "It was his dog that found Pee Wee James." April glanced at Lieutenant Joyce. She nodded. Way to go, April.

  "Is that the victim?" Baum blurted out.

  April nodded at Captain Reginald. Now was not the time to mend fences with him. She turned to Iriarte again. "What happened, sir? I had the vic in an interview room yesterday morning. When I returned last night at 2100, I found out he'd been released at noon. Now he's dead. Unfortunate." Now she was stepping way out of line.