The Silent Bride

by Glass, Leslie

  What had been added today for the wedding was a tentlike structure over the altar that was completely covered with real leaves and many varieties of flowers. Even the four poles that supported the canopy were twined with white lilies and the palest pink and white roses. An amazing display. For April, however, white was the color of death. A Chinese wedding might have a bride in white, but only for the ceremony and only to satisfy Western convention. Every other decoration would be in the lucky colors of red and gold. Though Mike liked to tease her with bride magazines full of white dresses, April herself secretly hoped that if the day ever came for her she would wear lucky red.

  In the temple, the magnificent white flower bower alone was not so shocking. What was shocking were the signs of flight. Articles of clothes left behind, ribbon-and-cinnamon-and-white bouquets on stands knocked every which way. Lilies and roses crushed underfoot and mixed with blood. It was a pitiful sight, but probably more fragrant than any crime scene in New York history. Vic and Ken were working furiously to record it all. Strobes of light flashed as Vic meticulously set his measuring instruments and shot photo after photo to document exactly how the sanctuary had been set up and looked. His suitcase contained a number of expensive cameras and lenses for different needs, as well as a video cam, which he was not using at the moment. Ken was nowhere in sight.

  "Hey, April, you want to get us some food?" Vic called out.

  April let annoyance roll off her back. "How long are you going to be? The rabbi needs to clean up. The men want to pray here before sundown."

  Vic lowered the camera to check his watch. "Sundown? That's about an hour from now... no way-Look at the size of this place. We're not half done. You know that."

  "Do you have an estimate? They start prayers here at five in the morning. That going to be okay?" She knew that was not going to be okay either.

  Big sigh. "Oh, that's nearly ten hours from now. We've never gone twelve on a case."

  "We'll be long gone by then. We're not staying here all night!" Ken called out.

  "Don't mind him. We're on an eighteen-hour tour. We can stay on it. If the place is in continuous use, this is going to be our only shot." Vic had a reputation for being a pain in the ass on the subject of leaving before he was satisfied he had everything he could possibly get from a scene.

  "A lot of physics to work out here, and physics takes time. How about some of that food downstairs? Can you arrange that?" Vic was back on the food.

  April shook her head. They always wanted the females on the job to play mother. She outranked him and wasn't buying into it. Not that she was paranoid, or a stickler. She pointed at the froth of white stuffed under a pew down the center aisle, then caught her breath. It was a long swath of veil, glinting diamonds and pearls in the soft light. The wedding veil.

  "Got anything interesting so far?" Mike asked.

  "You won't believe this. I lifted a left ear print from the door out there." It was Ken's excited voice.

  "An ear? Who do you think you're kidding?" April scoffed, still a little put off by the food request. Not that she was paranoid about it. Uh-uh. She trotted down the aisle to find him, saw his white-covered knees and shoes, and stood up again.

  "Don't laugh. We're talking ear print. We're talking second ear print in history. I lifted it with superglue fumes."

  "What's it good for?" April couldn't help teasing a little.

  'Ybu don't get it, do you?"

  "Yes, we get it; you lifted an ear," Mike said, laughing with her.

  "Okay, hotshots, how many body parts are absolutely unique?"

  Mike didn't want to play. He took a little tour of the space, careful where he stepped and keeping his hands to himself.

  "Okay, April, you don't know this; you should."

  April answered. "Fine, I'll bite. Teeth." She counted one. "Fingerprints, footprints. DNA. Thaf s four. What is this, anyway, school?"

  "That's not all. What else?"

  "Totally unique?" April glanced at Mike, now half an auditorium away. "Eyes?" she guessed.

  Ken's voice thundered back. "Retina, yeah, that's five. What else?"

  "Okay—ear, I got it. Ear." April thought about it. Okay, she'd concede. If they had the ear of a guy, they had something. She perked up a little. They had an ear. Great.

  "And hps. I'll give you five of the seven. You didn't get ear and lips. That's a C in my book. You should do some forensic work."

  "Lips. You can always change your lips with a little collagen. You don't happen to have a lip print, too?"

  "You got a fucking C, Sarge. Don't make fun."

  "Hey, watch the language around the lady," Mike said. Always the gentleman.

  "You want an educated guess? Here's what we're thinking. The shooter has his head pressed against the door. He doesn't want to open the door even a crack until the victim is walking down the aisle, all eyes on her. The outside doors are closed. Maybe he's assembling his rifle."

  Vic snapped more shots.

  "You have something on the weapon?" Mike asked.

  "Uh-huh," Ken said. "There was a discharged shell casing on the floor under where I lifted the ear print. It must have rolled back against the door, and he missed it when he picked up the others." His voice was cautiously optimistic. "Maybe we'll get a print from the casing. We got a couple dozen prints and partials from that door alone. Couple of partial palm prints. We're doing the whole damn place. It's a nightmare, but it may pay off later if the guy was ever in here."

  Ken was wedged into the narrow space between two pews, about three-quarters of the way down the middle aisle. On his knees with his head down, he was carefully digging at a hole in the blood-spattered wood in front of him.

  "Got it," he said suddenly. Clumsy in the tight space, he wiggled his bulk to his feet and displayed his trophy on the end of calipers, viewing it with his flashlight before bagging it in a paper bag and labeling it with all the appropriate numbers.

  "Might be a hollow-point, and looks like there's something in it," he reported. "I hope it's not just a splinter of wood. Right here, I picked up a piece of the second victim's ear." He pointed, sniffed, took off his gloves, threw them aside, wiped his nose, donned a new pair of gloves.

  April swallowed uneasily, thinking about the piece of ear, the ear print. What was this, an ear case?

  Nothing to a Chinese was without some cosmic significance.

  "Any idea how many shots were fired?" Vic slid across a row of pews to peer into the bag at the hollow in the crushed piece of lead. "Looks like fiber to me. Hmmm."

  "We asked the witnesses what they heard. Not even the pop of a silencer. They said it was like a movie. The music was playing; the bride fell down," Mike said, taking his turn to look at what was left of the crushed bullet.

  "You know, I'm wondering if there were two shooters." Vic returned to his photographing.

  "How do you figure that?"

  "The first shot hit her in the back. But another one hit her in the side of the face."

  "She must have twisted as she fell. ..." April murmured.

  "Twisted toward the first shot, not away? Uh-uh."

  April shrugged. They'd have to figure the path of shots from the dress and body. But none of them had seen the body. Until they saw Tovah's injuries for themselves, everything was speculation. The physics of the thing reminded her of the rabbi's asking for the return of the wedding gown tomorrow. This made her nervous. Everything had to be measured and reconstructed. These things took time. Vic worked with strings of different lengths to map the projectiles of the bullets.

  No, no, the shots couldn't have come from two sources, she thought. More than three people would have been hit. Odds were it was one shooter. If they were lucky, he'd bled, or left some DNA somewhere.

  Who knew if an ear print would be admissible evidence in court. She'd have to ask the DA.

  She shook her head at the bad luck of a Yankees game. None of the five valets who'd parked the cars had seen anyone come out of the building b
efore the screaming started. They had been listening to a baseball game, drinking sodas, and smoking under the beach umbrella set up for them. They'd not been aware of anything wrong until people started screaming and running out.

  "Do you think the perp could have joined the crowd?" Mike echoed April's thought.

  "What are the odds of that?"

  "Why not? He could have stashed the gun and run down the stairs," Ken said.

  Vic put down the camera and scanned the ceiling.

  "What?" April asked.

  "I don't know. Seems pretty clear to me the shots came from the lobby. We have the one bullet here. I got one from the pillar over there. Three people were hit. You don't know how many he got with each shot. Always look up," he murmured.

  "You going to need a ladder?" April asked.

  "Yeah, I'm going to need a ladder."

  And this was going to take all night, she thought.

  She left the three men talking and returned to the lobby to contemplate the door where the shooter might have left his signature ear. Ken had used tape and fumes, not powder, to lift the ear and many fingerprints from the door. There was nothing to see on it now.

  She went down the winding stairs, scrutinizing the steps for blood or evidence. She didn't see anything big enough to catch her attention on the carpet, but Vic would no doubt comb it for fibers. A piece of gum was stuck under the banister. She didn't touch it. At the bottom of the stairs, she caught her breath at a sudden display of wealth. Palm trees and fruit trees with real oranges on them marked the passage from the ho-hum to the extraordinary.

  Not broken down yet because the caterers had not been allowed back inside, the party room still had its fifteen tables set with lace tablecloths, silver flatware and silver goblets, crystal glasses, floral arrangements so striking in their appearance it was impossible to imagine anyone thinking them up. Tovah and Schmuel was printed on white ribbons that wrapped the party favors. Blue Tiffany boxes were on the plates in front of many seats. Dishes full of candies were scattered around. On one of the many stations where food had been set out, a large ice sculpture of a bridal couple was slowly melting.

  Sad, very sad. A few minutes later, April found the dressing room with the gowns hanging on a rolling coatrack, the table scattered with some hairpins, a comb and brush, containers of makeup, a mirror, and other odds and ends, including a honey blond wig on a white Styrofoam head. The head was labeled Tovah Ribikoff. Another wig. April caught her breath.

  Six

  At eight-thirty April was on the road, heading back to Queens. At this hour the ground was in total darkness, the sky was her favorite deep blue, still backlit just a little by the dying sun, and the traffic wasn't too bad going south. Her mood was queasy, queasy. Mike was attending the autopsy without her. She didn't want to admit that she was glad. She had these groceries to take home. Then she was meeting Mike at his place. She felt unsettled. With Ching's wedding coming up, her family would be upset about the murder. Every bride in New York would be.

  Her cell phone rang. With one hand on the wheel she fumbled around in her annoying purse that just couldn't stay organized with its numerous pairs of rubber gloves, her private notebooks and the Department-issue notebooks called Rosarios, her all-important address book, powder, lipstick, blush, hand cream, tissues, pens, .38 Chief's Special. Ah, right at the bottom she found the precious StarTAC. She flipped it open on the fourth ring.

  "Sergeant Woo," she said, hoping it was Mike even though they'd parted only a few minutes ago.

  "Hi, it's Ching. What's up?"

  "Ching, how are you?" April said cautiously.

  "You sound weird. Where are you?" Ching demanded.

  "Oh, on the road."

  "Working?"

  "Yeah. What's going on?"

  "Just wondering how it went with Gao. Am I a brilliant genius or what?"

  April didn't answer. She knew Ching was a brilliant genius, but not why in this instance. She sighed as her lane suddenly slowed nearly to a stop.

  "April, you did have lunch with Gao Wan, didn't you?" came the perky, happy voice of the one person in the world she didn't want to alarm right now.

  "Oh, yeah. Sorry, it's been a long day." Seemed like a month.

  "Nice guy, huh?" Ching prompted.

  "Very nice," April said. Neutral.

  "You don't have to do anything for him. I was just thinking he might be useful to you."

  April sighed again. How could the off-the-boat be useful to her? People had such funny ideas. "I'm sorry, Ching. It's been one of those days."

  "Oh, God. Don't make me feel guilty. I thought you were on your day off."

  "I was, but something came up."

  "A murder like the Wendy's?" Ching said, a little breathless now because the cop stuff always scared her to death. "The Wendy's" was a seven-person homicide and the worst case April had ever seen.

  "No! No, no, nothing like that," she said hastily.

  "What, then?"

  "Nothing to worry about. Just a police matter." The lane opened up, and she hit the gas.

  "You all right?" Ching sounded worried.

  "Yes, of course. Talk to me. I'm sorry about Gao."

  April hit a dead zone and the connection broke. Nothing came out of her phone but a reminder of a phantom ear print. She tossed the phone back in her bag, vowing to call Ching back when she got home.

  Then she was back on ears, reviewing what she knew about prints. Not a whole lot. Skin on the hands and soles of the feet had their distinctive swirls and ridges but no oil glands, which meant the telltale marks often invisible to the naked eye that were left behind on certain, but not all, surfaces by "sweaty" palms and fingers were in fact 98.5 to 99.5 percent secreted water. The thing was, not everybody secreted equally. Some people didn't secrete enough moisture to leave prints, and cold hands didn't secrete either. April pondered the issue of secreting ears. Ken had fumed the moisture from this ear almost from the air itself. Impressive, but hardly conclusive.

  The ear in question turned out to be located at such a low height, less than five feet, that Ken had to admit in the end that it might have come from a child, hiding out from the service. Or alternatively, the shooter was a young boy, or a girl. This was another idea that reason resisted. Yet April knew well enough that kids could kill. Or the shooter could have been hunched down, crouched, even kneeling. He said it was a very attractive ear, pretty as a sea-shell.

  At ten to nine she pulled up in front of her personal albatross, the Woo family house in Astoria, Queens. Two stories high and red brick, it was a cookie-cutter copy of the five best, but all distinctly modest, houses on the block. Her rooms were on the second floor. The living room faced a small backyard where the tiny French poodle called Dim Sum ran around and did her business. April's small bedroom, large enough for a chair, a bureau, and a single bed, faced the street. Separating the two rooms was a tiny kitchen where she never cooked. Her full bathroom was well stocked with flowery bath-and-body products.

  From the outside the only notable feature of the house was a bit of decoration over the windows that had been installed by the previous owners. Shaped like the NBC logo, the "awnings" were useless. They provided no shade against the southern exposure of the morning sun and caught rain with all the noise of a tin roof in the tropics. The fans were purely for show, as was April's signature on the mortgage, since she had debt but no title to the property.

  Every time she looked at it, she was reminded that at the time of purchase she had not been included in the selection or the location of the house. She hadn't even known the transaction was in the works until she was pressured into the double bondage of using her savings for the down payment and assuming the mortgage so that her parents would be secure in their old age. At just twenty-one and new in the cops, she'd assumed a thirty-year debt. Nearly ten years later, she'd learned a lot. She'd discovered that many grown children could say no to their parents in bigger ways than choosing a career they didn't like. But someho
w she wasn't turning out to be one of them. She'd fallen in love with Mike, but was afraid to tell him about the debt hanging over her head. Even worse, she was afraid of her mother's curse should she marry him. Her fears and her family loyalty made her ten thousand times a jerk, for no one was happy with her lack of decisive action. Her least of all

  With these thoughts in her head again, she slowed the car. The pathway of small red-for-luck azalea bushes that her father had planted on each side of the walk two years ago hadn't bloomed the year of their planting. Four days ago when April had last seen them, they'd still been covered with buds. Now they were finally, spectacularly in flower and every bit as delightful as he had predicted. Sighing, she parked in her usual space in front of the house and killed the engine.

  Skinny Dragon Mother, who must have been waiting for her by the window, came running out before she'd opened the car door.

  "Ayeeai, ayeeai! You so late," she screamed. "Nothing for dinner." Skinny was wearing one of her mismatched outfits. Plaid pants, flowered shirt, knitted vest, all of different colors, as if she'd picked them up willy-nilly from a Goodwill pile at a disaster site.

  Chinese people could be very noisy, or very quiet. Either way could be trouble. Tonight was noisy. "Where you been?" the dragon screamed.

  "Hi, Ma," April said, trying to think of a story that would not spook her.

  "You said five o'clock. Now nine o'clock." Sai Yuan Woo ran toward the car, sniffing at her daughter as if she were a dog that had gotten into the garbage.

  "I'm really sorry, Ma. Something came up."

  "Today day off," Skinny grumbled.

  "I know." April opened the back doors and started gathering the plastic bags of staples she'd been careful to purchase before her meeting with Gao, just in case she didn't feel like it later. Lucky it hadn't been too hot a day and she hadn't bought a squirming fish that her mother would definitely reject now. Everything else looked okay.

  "Bu hao. Murder every day." Skinny correctly intuited murder even though April had not touched the corpse.

  "I know, Ma." How many times could she say she was sorry? One time for every leaf in all the trees in the neighborhood. One time for every star in the sky. Ten billion times, more than the national debt, would not be enough.