Judging Time Read online

  "Do you think Emma was holding a little something back about Merrill yesterday?"

  Jason frowned. "What do you mean?"

  April flipped back the pages of her notes and read. "She said Merrill and Petersen were just friends, and Rick wasn't the jealous type."

  "I remember." Jason didn't comment further.

  "Daphne Petersen has a different story about them. She says Rick was extremely jealous and that he beat Merrill frequently."

  Jason shook his head. "April, if the woman's a suspect, she would say that."

  "Maybe."

  "Anyway, it's hearsay."

  "Not if there are witnesses to Liberty's abuse."

  "Come on, April. This is garbage. You know that. Emma would have told me if she had seen evidence of abuse. And Merrill wouldn't have put up with it."

  "What if she was fearful and ashamed?"

  "No.' '

  "We have a record of a 911 call about a domestic disturbance at the Liberty apartment," April went on unperturbed.

  Jason's stomach growled. It had been a long morning. And this was news he didn't want to hear. He didn't want to believe this of Liberty. "You hungry, April? I have about forty-five minutes. You want to get something to eat and talk about this some more?"

  April shook her head. "Sorry, I can't." She let him stew for a moment. "Jason, I need your help."

  He heaved a deep sigh. "April, April, what am I going to do with you?"

  "You're going to help me."

  He shook his head. He knew whatever he indicated, his no meant yes, and she knew it, too.

  She argued anyway. "Don't you want to find the killer?"

  "I'm not a cop."

  "That's never bothered you before."

  "Well, it bothers me now."

  "Look, all I want is for you to talk to Liberty, explore his violent fantasies a little, his true feelings about women, especially his wife. Find out if he could get mad enough to kill. You can uncover that."

  Jason smiled. "I know how to do an evaluation, April."

  "I know you do."

  "Why don't you just give him a lie-detector test? That should do it."

  "If it turned out he had opportunity, I'm going to need a psychiatric evaluation. Come on, Jason, you're talking to him anyway." April had her notebook in her lap. Her booted foot was vibrating with impatience. Jason stared at it. April was wearing a different kind of outfit than he'd seen on her before. Suddenly he realized that she was a different person now. She was all dressed up and a department big shot.

  "He's still in denial, April," he murmured.

  "Oh, yeah, what's he denying?"

  "He can't believe they're dead yet."

  "Could he look like a woman getting out of a cab?"

  Jason laughed. "I think Emma would have known if she'd seen Rick that night. Have you searched his place?' '

  April shook her head. "We don't have a warrant yet."

  "What makes you think the person whose cab Emma took was the killer? Didn't she leave sometime before it happened?" "The killer could have been waiting for them to come out."

  "Have you worked out your time frame for Rick's arrival and everything?"

  "Working on it."

  "Is a search warrant for his place forthcoming?"

  "It's possible. Will you talk to him?"

  "If you want a formal evaluation, my fee is a thousand dollars." Jason said it deadpan, but his eyes twinkled at April's shock.

  "Jason . . . I'm not authorized to spend that kind of money."

  "And you wouldn't anyway," Jason laughed.

  "No, I wouldn't anyway. Why let money ruin a great friendship like ours?"

  Jason smiled. A cop was telling him they had a great relationship. "What about my friendship with Liberty?" he pointed out.

  "I'm not asking you to be an informer. This is not a formal thing. You probably wouldn't have to testify in court or anything."

  "You're putting me in a difficult position here. I could get subpoenaed to appear in court."

  "Look, it's getting late. I have to go. If you don't want to do it, just say so." April slammed the notebook into her purse. "It's not a big deal."

  It was a big deal. Jason owed her. And so did Emma. He sighed again. Yesterday Emma had the night off because the theaters were dark on Mondays. Tonight she'd have to go back to work. He didn't like either of their positions. He and Emma were going to have to betray the secrets of a friendship to save a friend and repay a debt to a cop.

  "You have the autopsy reports yet?" Jason asked.

  "They're in the middle of Merrill's right now."

  "Will you call me with the results?"

  April looked surprised. "Anything particular you want to know?"

  Jason pulled on his ear. "Cause of death, bruises, old injuries, condition of female organs—tox results."

  April jumped up, excited. "Thank you, Jason." She grabbed her coat. Jason got up and came around his desk to help her put it on.

  "Okay," he said. "I'll talk to Liberty. But I can't give you my results without his permission."

  He was gratified by her many expressions of gratitude.

  Still, he didn't rush to make the call. It took a few hours for Jason to dial Rick's number. When he did, the phone rang ten times before Rick's machine finally picked up.

  "This is 555-8830. No one is available to take your call. Please leave your message after the beep." Beep.

  "Rick, this is Jason Frank. If you're there, please pick up." Jason waited for a few seconds, then spoke again.

  "Rick, this is Jason. It's four-thirteen in the afternoon. I'm between patients right now. How are you doing? Let's keep in touch. I want to talk with you about what's going on. Do you want to have some dinner with me later? If you're busy with your family, I could drop by for a few moments. How's your head? Let me know. I'll be screening my calls. . . ."

  Finally Rick replied. "Yeah, Jason, what's up?"

  "Ah good, Rick, You're there."

  "I'm here."

  "Thanks for picking up. How are you doing?"

  "A lot of people are asking me that dumb question. I don't have an answer for it."

  "Well, try. I can translate."

  "I'm going crazy."

  "Oh, yeah. What's happening?"

  "I pace around and can't feel anything. It's nuts. I don't know what to do. I keep turning to Merrill and she isn't here."

  "How's the head?"

  "I have a hundred clients. Every single one has called me. They're hearing things about me and Merrill. There are these bulletins on TV. Every hour.

  They're saying I'm suicidal. They're speculating about Merrill and Tor being lovers. It's crazy. She didn't even like him. He was my friend—"

  Jason said, "Look, I'm going to have to go in a minute. Can I call you in an hour?"

  "What are the police saying? What was the cause of death? Do they know what happened? Do they have any leads on who killed them? I can't stand this. I have to know!"

  "I may have some news later. Do you want to meet?"

  "Yes, but I can't get out of here. There are—" "—Yeah, I know, press everywhere. They don't know me. I'll come there." Jason told him he'd be over around seven and hung up. For the next few hours he tried to convince himself he was doing the right thing.

  14

  April always tried to learn from other people's and her own mistakes. On the evening of the murders, she had been dressed in her usual uniform: a turtle-neck sweater, jacket, slacks. Functional, not classy. The next day she had worn the same outfit most of the day until she had the chance to change into the wrinkled pants and jacket she kept in her locker for emergencies. Sometime during the night in a random dream about the ADA on this case, she suddenly felt that it was time to improve her image. She knew lawyers thought themselves many steps up from cops. She knew they thought cops were uneducated bullies who beat people up on the street, then lied about what their victims had done to deserve it. To appeal to a man like Dean Kiang, she knew
she had to make herself look better than a cop.

  Her former supervisor, Sergeant Joyce, had always worn suits with skirts to work. At six that morning, April decided it was time for her to wear suits with skirts to work. She prepared for class warfare with a slim, calf-length burgundy skirt with a slit to the knee, a powder blue turtleneck sweater (that looked like but was not cashmere) with a long silk scarf that incorporated both colors, and a short burgundy jacket that was just loose enough to disguise the gun bulge at her waist. She wore boots that did not hide the small size of her feet or slimness of her ankles. She wore makeup and small jade studs in her ears for good luck in all ventures, but especially in love. She knew from the way he smiled that Jason Frank had noticed.

  When she entered Dean Kiang's paper-strewn downtown office, she was glad again that she'd made the effort. The Chinese DA was drop-dead handsome by anybody's standards, and she was smitten anew. He was taller and better educated than her former lover, the scrubby and manipulative night-watch-in-Brooklyn Jimmy Wong. He was more elegant and self-assured than the chubby and permanently disappointed-in-love (by a white girl who'd jilted him for a Pakistani in medical school) Dr. George Dong, the Chinatown eye doctor April's mother still wanted her to marry. He was more appropriate and had a higher status in life than the steamy but all-talk-and-no-action Sergeant Sanchez. For a minute April forgot about the victims in the case and stared at him openly.

  Kiang was a tall man with a slender build but not the skinny, almost emaciated appearance of some Chinese like her father, who could not convert even the best diets to healthy muscle and fat. Kiang's features were bold and open, classical. April figured he had north Chinese, but not Mongolian, ancestors because of his height and build, his excellent nose and mouth, almond eyes. She thought she could feel the power and intelligence emanating from him.

  Both shrewd and clever, his eyes pierced the air. He was a Chinese who didn't even try to seem like the perfect model of Tao teachings, the modest being with downcast eyes who let the wild winds and storms rage around him, deriving power by appearing passive and weak and never saying a word to betray his ambition or true intentions. Here was a prosecutor who could deal with the system and set things right. He was a lawyer in a well-cut gray pinstripe suit, white shirt, and red-and-blue-striped tie.

  The elegance of Kiang's appearance was nicely offset by chaos in his professional space. Stacks of files were everywhere so that there was hardly any place to sit. April decided that Kiang was a flexible person, not the rigid and controlling type of man who had to have everything just so (including her) that she'd known in the past.

  As April stared at him, assessing his looks and character, Kiang shuffled around the mess to create a place to seat her. Finally he moved his square briefcase from the chair closest to his desk, moved the pile beneath it, placed the chair even closer to his own, then gestured for her to take it. He stretched his long legs between stacks of files. Electricity crackled in the small space between their knees and hands. Dean's long legs in pinstripe, his beautiful face and body, even his law degree were attractive. April's lips were dry. She worried that meant that she had been staring at him with her mouth open. Delicately, she licked her lips and dropped her eyes.

  "Well, you're the best-looking detective I've ever seen." Sitting opposite her, Kiang took his turn to look her over, and he did it by aiming his view as if through a rifle sight from the top of her head down the length of her legs all the way to his own right shoe that was close enough to nudge hers. "But then, I've never worked with a Chinese detective before."

  "Thanks." Released, April looked up, beaming. Sanchez was always telling her that professional didn't mean she had to be absolutely stony all the time. Now she took his advice and smiled, assuring herself through the giddy flush of pure female pleasure at being admired by such a handsome man that she was still a cop, still a sergeant, still on the job. Still grinning, she turned her attention to the office and searched for a photo of Mrs. and/or baby Kiangs. She didn't see one, smiled some more.

  "And I've never worked with a Chinese prosecutor," she murmured.

  "This should be interesting then." Kiang was also speculating. His eyes traveled to her left hand where he looked for a wedding ring and didn't see one. "Married?" He found a pen under a pile of papers and carefully set it down beside a new yellow legal pad as if he might take a note on her answer.

  "No."

  He shrugged. "Not that it matters. Boyfriend?"

  April shifted uneasily in the chair, not sure what the right answer was. She had the possibility of an inappropriate boyfriend, one who did not always call and keep in touch as he should. One who only talked about being hot for her. On her side, it was true she often thought about what Mike would look like without his clothes, aroused. How compelling he'd be like that. What he'd feel like touching her, kissing her. What she'd do back. But they always ended up wrestling the bad guys to the floor, not each other. Did such a candidate count? "Who has the time?" she said finally.

  "Exactly. That's it exactly." He picked up the pen and made an exclamation mark on the yellow page. No time. April gathered that he was unencumbered and gave him another warm smile.

  He returned the favor. She was absolutely certain she'd sleep with him, and for about a minute there was a break in time. The appropriate thing on such an occasion of instant attraction was to get right to the important matter of exploring family trees and ties, aunts, cousins, sister cousins, young and old uncles, as well as Chinatown and other connections. Likes and dislikes, and hopes for the future. For sex to be exactly right, it was necessary to determine if there was compatibility in these other vital areas.

  April was too shy and Kiang was too polite to make these inquiries, however. This overlooking of her connections made April think that Kiang's must be vastly superior to hers. His father must be a doctor or an engineer or a very rich businessman. His mother could well have many children, all boys, all professional men who went to top colleges, made much money, and wore pinstripe suits every day to their offices like Dean did. This truly excellent family would no doubt disapprove of a cop girlfriend for their golden son and brother. On this dismal thought, time began again.

  "How about lunch?" Dean asked abruptly. "We should get to know each other better."

  An hour and seventeen minutes later Kiang was in court and April, with a glow on her face and a delicious Chinese lunch in her belly, caught up with Rosa Washington in the medical examiner's office.

  "You can talk if you walk. But shake a leg, I'm in a hurry." Rosa Washington was still drying her hands as she swept out of her suite, forcing April to jog after her. She was wearing a fresh scrub suit but no cap. Her black hair was in a pageboy, and she was all business.

  "Any leads on the killer?" she asked.

  "Yes, some," April said.

  "Well, give. What do you have?" Rosa arrived at the fire stairs and opened the door.

  "You first," April said. "What did you find in Merrill Liberty?" Rosa started down the stairs, again compelling April to follow her lead.

  "Didn't your partner tell you?"

  "Sanchez? He's from Homicide. He's not my partner," April told her back. Rosa knew that.

  "He didn't put you in then." Rosa skipped down the first flight of stairs.

  "Put me in on what?" April spoke to Rosa's back as she trotted down the stairs.

  "The loop. God, those guys screw you every time." Rosa spoke to the air in front of her.

  Guys in general, or cop guys? "Slow down a minute, will you?" April asked.

  Rosa showed no sign of hearing the request. "Why did your buddies hold out on you?"

  "They didn't hold out. I've been in the field all morning. That's why I wasn't present at the autopsy myself."

  "I wondered why you didn't show. I thought nobody told you."

  That too.

  Rosa hit the next floor still running.

  "Maybe you'll keep me informed on the next one," April suggested.

&nbs
p; "We're doing the next one now."

  "Petersen?"

  "No, Abraham's still home sick, but thinks he's coming back for Petersen tomorrow."

  "I gather you have your doubts."

  "Yes, I do." Rosa slowed down suddenly the better to deliver her good news. "His voice sounds like a dying cat. Worse than yesterday. My bet is Malcolm ends up in the hospital tomorrow. You know, you could help me out. We could help each other here, two little minority girls and everything."

  "Oh, yeah." Which one of them was little?

  "How about getting your buddies in the puzzle palace—and the DA's office—to pump up the pressure on getting the autopsy results. If Abraham gets too many phone calls on Petersen, he'll have to give in and let me do the job. He hates negative publicity even more than having a deputy hog the limelight." She turned and resumed her charge down the stairs. "Anyway, it's my turn."

  The puzzle palace was police headquarters. April smiled at the thought of having buddies in that place where a bunch of mortal ghosts she didn't know could elevate or destroy her with the stroke of a pen. She considered herself neither a girl nor a minority. Certainly not a little minority girl. She'd never heard anyone talk like that. Most minority girls like herself and Rosa acted like they were normal people. Like the rainbow pals on TV sitcoms.

  "I'll see what I can do. What about the results of Merrill Liberty's autopsy?"

  "I heard you just got promoted." Rosa hit her third set of stairs, still jogging, not panting a bit.

  "I did."

  "So, you know how it is when it's your turn."

  "Yes, Doc. I do."

  "You can't let those guys keep you out of the loop."

  "No, you can't."

  Rosa laughed. The sound was pleasant, like soft water on stones. "You don't have much conversation, do you?"

  "I was just thinking about the case. What about the Liberty woman?"

  "Okay, okay . . . There were no bruises on the face, or body. Just the one wound in the neck. Neat, precise. The killer knew what he was doing, was not an amateur. What do you think of the DA?'"

  "He's cute," April said.

  "You think so, really?"