Stealing Time
Page 15
"Do you ever get mad enough to pop her one?"
"Hell, no. I don't hurt her. She hurts me. Look at this whole thing she's—"
"You think she somehow engineered this?"
Anton shot him a look, raising his hands to his face.
"You mean these injuries could be self-inflicted?" He seemed interested in the theory.
So did his buddy, who now spoke for the first time. "Could be that."
"Shut up. Marc."
"She has some burn scars on her arms," Jason prompted. Anton shook his head, didn't want to talk about that.
"They look as if they must have hurt her pretty bad."
Anton clicked his tongue. "I shouldn't have brought her here. Now she's an exhibit, on trial. That has nothing to do with this."
"Who knows? Maybe the two are connected."
"What are you, some kind of shrink?"
"Yes."
"What!" Anton exploded. "Now I'm talking to a fucking shrink? I thought I was talking to a doctor. I shouldn't have to put up with this. Somebody kidnapped my baby."
"Since there aren't papers for the baby, I gather the police have widened their investigation. They're looking for the birth parents now," Jason murmured.
"I know." Anton shook his head some more. "Isn't this something?"
"What's the problem about telling them?"
"I don't deserve to suffer like this. I've given this woman everything. Do you know what her family is like . . . huh? You know where she comes from? These people are primitive. They didn't have a pot to piss in."
"Where did you meet?"
Anton's chest puffed up. "At Yale."
"She must be pretty smart to go to Yale."
"I wouldn't marry a dummy, would I?—This is my brother, Marc," he said suddenly.
"Hi," Marc said to Jason. "Heather's smart as a whip," he added helpfully. "She's not just a dumb Chink."
"No one ever implied that. You told me there are some problems in the marriage, though, and Heather has scars on her body. Let's not beat around the bush here. Either she scarred herself, or someone else has been burning her repeatedly."
Anton looked at his brother, then dismissed it. "She fries things in hot oil. You know how they like fried food."
"You told me she's been depressed, you couldn't have children."
"I said she couldn't have children. But she was not depressed. She lives in luxury, gets everything she wants. I gave her a baby, didn't I?"
"Do you think she might have killed the baby because it wasn't hers?"
"No, absolutely not ... I don't know." Anton lowered his voice.
"Is there anything else she might have done with the baby? Do you think she might have given him to someone, a family member, a friend—"
Anton interrupted. "Not possible. Her family is in California. She doesn't have any friends. I can't think. . . ." Miserably, he sought help from his brother.
Marc leaned over and gave him a reassuring hug. Anton pushed him away roughly. "Get off me."
"What other options do we have? How about the baby's biological mother?"
"No, she doesn't even know about—" His face purpled. "I've had enough of this."
"Well, thank you for talking with me." Jason rose from his chair and put his notebook back in his briefcase.
"What do you think you're doing? Give me that."
"Come on, Anton. Let's not fight with a doctor."
"He's a shrink. The man's a fucking shrink."
"Yeah, so what can he do?" "Without your help, not much," Jason told them. "What about my wife? What did she tell you?" Anton was nearly in tears.
"Oh, she's still unconscious. She hasn't said a thing yet," Jason told them.
CHAPTER 23
Milton Hua was not back from work at the restaurant when April Woo finally returned Nanci's call, soon after ten P.M.
"Hey, Nanci, I got your message. What did you do, go and move to Long Island?" April demanded when Nanci picked up on the first ring.
"April, oh God, thanks for getting back to me so soon. Yeah, Milton has his own restaurant now. We bought a house in the suburbs, can you believe it?"
"Sure, I believe it. Food any good?"
"You know it is." Nanci's voice dropped. "April, are you at work?"
"I have time for you, Nanci. We go back a long way. So there are big changes in your life, huh? You two breeding yet?"
"What?" The question startled her.
"Just wondering if you've started a family."
"Oh, that." She twisted the phone cord. "Funny you should ask that. No, not yet. You know Milton. He had to have every i dotted, every t crossed, money in the bank, the whole bit before he'd commit to family. How about you, married yet?"
"No, but I've been promoted. I'm a sergeant now."
Nanci could hear the pride in her voice. "Congratulations. That's—great." There was a lot of noise in the background that stopped her from going on. April was at work. Nanci couldn't help being afraid of the police. Now she was nervous because April had a higher rank. She wasn't sure how that altered the situation. Would she be more sympathetic to the situation or less?
"So, you called me, Nanci. What's going on? You have a problem?"
"Yes, I have a big problem. But we haven't seen each other for a while. Things have kind of changed. I don't know where to start." Nanci dropped the phone cord and started twisting her wedding band around on her finger.
"Nothing's changed between us. I've known you since you were seven."
"And you were a real goody-goody twelve-year-old."
"So give."
"Did I ever tell you about my cousin Lin?" Nanci knew she probably hadn't.
"What about her? Is she the one in trouble?"
Nanci was ashamed of herself, ashamed of this story. She was sitting in a comfortable house and her cousin was sick somewhere and a lot of people who should be taking care of her were lying about where she was and what had happened to her.
"Yes, and she's all the family I have left. Except for Milton, of course. She came in from China last summer."
"Illegal?"
"You going to make trouble about it?"
"Immigration is not my department, you know that. Go ahead, what's the problem?"
"You know how difficult sixteen-year-olds can be. Lin got here, thought she was too old to go to school, didn't want to live with us. Went to work in a factory. I couldn't get a word out of her. I thought she might have a boyfriend in the gangs and that was the reason for her being so secretive."
"What kind of secretive? Was she into something, flashing money around?"
Nanci sighed. "No. That was the thing. She was a mess, living in a dump. I didn't hear from her for a while."
"Could you hurry it up a little, Nanci? I'm working on something."
Nanci's voice got very small. "I know you're busy. But I didn't have anybody else to call."
"Hey, I'm sorry. I'm under a lot of pressure right now. Go ahead."
"Well, we had a fight. I wanted to apologize. So I went to look for her, but the people where she used to work told me they've never heard of her. The people where she lived say the lady from work took her to the hospital. I went to Beekman Downtown; she wasn't there. Then I called all the hospitals. She's not anywhere. I even checked the morgue. That's pretty crazy, isn't it?"
"I hope so." The noise intensified on the other end of the line.
"What's going on there? Did something happen?"
"Don't you read the newspapers out there on Long Island? We got a missing-kid case."
"Are you working on that, April?" Nanci said faintly.
"The mother's Chinese. ABC, but they thought she might not speak English. I got lucky."
"American-born, huh?"
"Yeah, she got herself beaten up. Nice mixed marriage. He's a lawyer. Looks like it's not working out. You're lucky you have Milton."
"I know." Nanci fell silent. "I'm sorry to bother you, April. Maybe I'm making too much of this."
Nanci was doubting the wisdom of having made the call. She should be able to deal with this herself. Why involve the cops? She might even make it worse. "Could be she's just run off with a boyfriend," she said slowly.
"Could be."
"People lie all the time," Nanci said.
April agreed with her. "They do. But you're worried. I'll check it out. Where did she work? Where did she live? What's her name?"
"Tsing, same as mine was. Our fathers were brothers. Maybe I should give it another day, huh? Do you think I'm overreacting?"
April sounded impatient. "I'm not going to fight with you. You want help, you give me the info. I'll handle it discreetly, okay? Do you have a picture of her?"
"We just moved. Stuff is everywhere. If I look around, I might be able to find one. Can I let you know about all this tomorrow?"
"You can let me know any day. You have my number."
"Really, thanks. I appreciate it." Nanci hung up. She didn't even know where to look for a photo of Lin, and she knew April was mad at her because she was afraid to follow through. That made her feel worse. Even so, she decided to wait another day before pursuing it further.
CHAPTER 24
Thursday morning dawned bright and warm. The air was fresh in New York, and April drove into the city, breathing in the promise of a summer like no other. That morning, for the second time in her life, she'd had coffee in bed with a naked man. It happened to be some bitter Mexican brew, but the man was suave and muy espresivo.
Thinking about her travels back and forth from Queens last night ending with an unscheduled return to Mike's apartment for all of two hours before returning to work—instead of going home to sleep as she'd promised herself she would do—made April bold. She was determined to get out of the fog on this case and find the baby today, so she was full of purpose when she strode into the squad room of Midtown North at 7:48 A.M. The press was still all over the Paul Popescu case, and the squad room looked pretty much the same as when she'd left it late the night before. Three strangers were drinking coffee in the path to April's office. None of them said good morning to her. No one was in her office, however, and Special Agent Gabe Samson was nowhere to be seen. He wasn't her problem, though, and she didn't give his whereabouts another thought.
In her office, she filed her purse in a bottom desk drawer and inspected the pile of complaint forms that had accumulated in the last few hours and now awaited assignment to a detective for investigation. Since becoming a supervisor, she had the power to hand over the shitty cases to guys she didn't like. She tried to avoid succumbing to that temptation, though, because they often did a shitty job in retaliation. Nothing major had come up, just the usual stuff: drunk and disorderly, a couple of muggings, a car theft, break-in. Assault. Now everybody on the squad had the shitty stuff.
Before dealing with the complaints, she spent a half-hour going over what they had so far on the Popescu case. The available paperwork included some preliminary lab reports on the crime scene, Hagedorn's background information on Heather and Anton, notes on the canvass of the comings and goings of people in the building and around the neighborhood that day, notes on as much as was known so far about the twenty-four hours preceding the incident. There were lots of pages but many gaps in every category. Most crucial of all: the baby's arrival in the Popescus' lives had not been dated, nor had his origin been discovered. April glanced up and saw her co-workers starting to straggle into the squad room with their containers of coffee.
"Hey, Sergeant." Baum walked by her door without stopping.
Hagedorn and several of the other detectives didn't bother to make eye contact at all. April wondered what it would take to make friends, wondered if she really wanted to, and knew in the bottom of her heart that she did.
Lieutenant Iriarte called his new gang of five favorite detectives into a meeting in his office at quarter past eight. For the first time since April had arrived in the squad, one of the three chairs had been saved for her. Baum had secured it and was now ignoring the snickers his action elicited. Iriarte raised his eyebrow at the preferential treatment.
"Okay, let's get the little stuff over with first. Tell me about this incident with Thomas," the lieutenant demanded. His face was showing the strain of having a high-profile case and dealing with the extra bodies it brought into his space. He wore a tan spring suit with a green shirt and tie. Canary-yellow handkerchief in his jacket pocket that clashed with his shirt. He was the kind of guy who didn't take his jacket off in his office unless he was alone. He had it on now, very formal. He gave April a little smile that told her he'd dump her first chance he got.
Creaker reported. "Carmen Montero, twenty-two— real good looker—driving a '96 Saturn. Officers Thomas and Crater observed suspicious behavior and told Montero to pull over. Officer Crater walked around the car for a look. Thomas approached the driver and asked for her registration. When she reached under the seat, he pulled his gun on her, cocked it, and ordered her out of the car. He held the gun to her head as Officer Crater patted her down."
"What did she do that was suspicious?" April asked.
"At 0300 she was in the Forty-second Street area, what else?"
"So why did she reach under the seat?" April asked.
"Apparently that's where she keeps her registration."
Six of them crowded in Iriarte's office thought about this poor judgment call. If the woman had been soliciting, she would have been used to being hassled and would not have complained if the officer in question had pointed an AK-47 at her. But Carmen Montero was not a hooker; she was a night nurse for a lawyer recovering from bypass surgery.
"Thomas says he thought she was reaching for a gun and was afraid for his life," Creaker elaborated.
"What does his partner say?"
"Guy's only a month on the job. His partner said he was a little shaky."
"What's ID doing about it?"
"Pulled to an inside job."
"Some people shouldn't be carrying a gun." Iriarte drummed his fingers on his desk. So much for that. In other years the incident might have gone unnoticed. Young woman scared by an officer new to the job, big deal. But now sensitivity toward the public was a big issue. The guy had to go down for shoving his gun in a woman's face. Iriarte quickly went through the other cases they had on the burner. Finally he was ready to discuss the one on all their minds.
"What about you? Anything new on the building canvass?"
Skye had been on that. He shook his head. "The tenants don't know the couple very well. The woman apparently doesn't talk to anyone, and they stick to themselves pretty much. Family members visit. That's about it. I get the feeling somebody on the building staff was out on break a lot longer than he should have been, or else knows more than he's saying. We'll keep at it."
"So, what's going on in the apartment?" Iriarte looked at Creaker.
"Popescu's mother was there last night, his brother Marc. His father; the cousin, Ivan. They all left at 22:07 except the mother, who spent the night. About two dozen crank calls on the phones. Nothing else."
"Charlie, what have you got?"
Hagedorn took out his notes. "A few interesting things. Anton Popescu lives a very regular life. In the morning he goes to his office. He has a temper, annoys his coworkers all day. He's a litigator, so he goes to court. He makes it a point to get home early in the evenings. He and his wife have most of their meals at home. They go out for dinner maybe once a week. This guy has no diversions—no golf, no clubbing, no drinks with his partners, no gym. When he travels, it's strictly business. Apparently, he's a devoted husband and did not like to leave his wife overnight. Associates said that on some cases he commuted back and forth daily to Philadelphia or Washington or Boston for weeks at a time to avoid spending a night away from her. He was lying about having
a girlfriend. This guy didn't have time for a ten-minute Pop-Tart."
Iriarte glanced at April. "How about a surrogate mother?"
"Surrogate mother, on the sly? I don't think so. The guy's a lawyer. In a surrogate situation, wouldn't he be sure of securing papers?" April mused. "His wife would know."
"Yes, he'd want it down on paper. He'd have a birth certificate."
"Whatever," Hagedorn said. "The baby was born. There has to be a record of it somewhere."
April nodded. "Did any of the hotshots out there check on missing babies in other jurisdictions?"
"Meaning?" Hagedorn demanded.
"They could have bought it, could have stolen it. who knows? This was no spur-of-the-moment thing. Heather's mother thought she was pregnant."
"Maybe someone they knew had a baby she couldn't keep. That's an angle to look at." Iriarte pointed at Hagedorn.
"Friends with babies." He made a note.
"Okay, say they acquired a baby from an acquaintance, and the woman changed her mind about wanting to set rid of it. That would explain the birth certificate question, but not the beating and not the 911 call," April said doubtfully. "And say they'd done something illegal getting this baby. Why would Anton bring all this attention on them?"
"Yeah, but remember this guy loved her. He might go nuts if someone beat her up."
"He beat her up." Baum downed the last of his coffee.
"I like the surrogate-mother or pregnant-friend angle," April said.
"This guy has connections. I'd put my money on some illegal adoption maybe from out of the country . . . China?" He raised his eyebrow at April. "They have ties to China, right?"
"It's not so easy to adopt from China these days," she murmured. This had come up before.
"We're talking illegally."
"It's a big bureaucracy both directions, getting them out, getting them in. You couldn't do it without people knowing. Baby's only a few weeks old. More likely it was born here."
"Someone knows." Iriarte drummed his fingers.
April thought of the baby picture. "You know what puzzles me about this? The baby looks like them."