Hanging Time (32 page)

Sergeant Joyce frowned. “That’s not so crazy. I’d agree with her on that. What else?”

“Eyes roll back in head. Growling noise. That meant she was thinking about the dog. She said she was worried about the dog catching it, then said the dog couldn’t get precinct cancer as long as she was holding it.”

“Great.” Sergeant Joyce impatiently tapped the desk with a pencil.

“She said the sister had been projecting radiation rays at her. She wanted to report it, but didn’t think the police would do anything about it. She said the sister tried to kill her in other ways, too. I asked her what ways. She said poison, through radio waves. She has a whole list.”

“Uh-huh, so why does the sister want to kill her?”

April continued reading from her notes. “She said Milicia was always trying to kill her. Said she’d be dead now if she didn’t have Bouck to protect her.”

“So what is this? Some kind of sibling-rivalry thing?”

“Yeah, Camille said Milicia was jealous because their parents loved Camille more. She said Milicia killed her parents and she—Camille—was the only one who knew. So now Milicia has to kill her, too.”

“Okaaaay.” Sergeant Joyce tapped the desk with the
pencil. Two sisters and two boutique salesgirls in a dance of death with a poodle.

“Anything in that?” she asked about the murder of the parents.

April shook her head. “Milicia told me their parents died in some kind of car accident about two years ago. Greenwich, Connecticut. I have someone checking it out.”

Sergeant Joyce sighed. “What about the boyfriend?”

“Name’s Nathan Bouck. I’m going to run a check on him. Camille says he owns the whole building and the chandelier shop downstairs. She says he’s God. He can do anything he wants.”

“Must be nice,” Joyce murmured.

“Yeah, even Milicia the witch is scared of him.”

“So, ah, what do you think?”

April closed her notebook. Her neighbors next door in Chinatown when she was growing up had a cousin. Name of Lee Hao Chung. Fat boy, stupid-looking. His movements were jerky just like Camille’s. Lee Hao did a lot of naughty things, stole the best food, tortured the other kids. Got away with everything because he was kind of crazy upstairs. April remembered Skinny Dragon Mother telling her again and again, “Lee Hao not crazy, smart. Do anything he want, never have to work in life. Family always make excuse. Pah.”

Could be like that with Camille. Maybe crazy, maybe not. Maybe parents made excuses. Maybe sister not so tolerant. April could see how Milicia would not like being troubled with a sibling who covered her face with her hair whenever she got upset and talked about cancer traveling in radio waves—not that such a thing was completely impossible. April had read somewhere that power lines near farms out west had killed whole herds of cattle. And lots of people in New Jersey were getting leukemia. Could be radio waves. Why not?

“So, is she a murderer?”

April shook her head. “I have no idea. The crime scenes were very—organized. Crazy, but organized, know what I mean?”

“Yeaaah,” Joyce said doubtfully.

“So the homicides look like the work of a crazy person, doesn’t mean they are.” April leaned forward, trying to gather her thoughts into a coherent whole. “Camille acts crazy. Lieutenant Braun was completely freaked. Maybe she’s too crazy to do anything. Braun thinks so.”

“What do you think?” Joyce pressed some more.

“I don’t know, Sergeant. I wish I did.”

“Let’s go have a look at her.”

“Sure.” April stood. Last she saw Camille, the curtain of red hair was covering her face. Sergeant Joyce was going to love this.

J
ason picked up the phone on the first ring. “Dr. Frank.”

“It’s Milicia.”

Jason waited.

“Am I calling at a bad time?” she asked after a beat.

“No, I’m between patients. I have a few minutes.”

“Jason, I’m so worried.”

Jason cringed just a little. The situation slipped into the background as he worried about a patient calling him by his first name. No matter what Milicia thought, they were in a clinical setting and had a clinical relationship. He didn’t allow anybody to use his first name in a clinical setting. His first name was reserved for colleagues and family members.

For a second he considered changing the footing by insisting they use last names. Then he elected to let it pass.

“Jason, what’s wrong?”

What was wrong was he let the temperature drop when she put him off. Now he let it drop some more.

“What’s going on?” he said finally.

“I’ve been so nervous since you opened this whole thing with the police. I can’t contain myself.”

Her voice took on a baby-talk quality. Childish was not a style that appealed to him. Jason had to remind himself that this was how Milicia acted with all men. It had nothing to do with him. She had learned to appear vulnerable because most men could be relied on to respond well to cute and cuddly. But Jason knew this girl had a steel blade for a heart.

“But you’ve been to the police.”

“I know, but it really weirded me out.”

Jason didn’t say anything. He could see how it would.

“I need to see you. I need to compare notes with you. We need to be together on this.”

“Why?” Jason looked at the bull clock on the shelf. He had thirty seconds before he saw his last patient. Then he was going to go out into the evening and get something to eat.

She’d already seen him that day. Why did Milicia need to see him again? He told himself that this was how she was with men. But at the same time, in the sleeping part of his mind, he thought maybe this wasn’t the way Milicia acted with all men. Maybe this was how she chose to be with him.

“Remember when you were a kid, and sometimes you had to go to a scary place that seemed to have monsters in the shadows? Well, I want you to tell me there are no monsters in the shadows. I want you to tell me my fears are silly. Jason, I need to feel protected, and you’re not protecting me.”

Jason shifted in his chair, genuinely irritated now. He was really put off when grown women talked baby talk to him. He struggled to shake off his annoyance. This was an open clinical situation. The idea of murder—homicide—was disconcerting. It was a horrible thing. He didn’t have patients who came to him worried their siblings were killers.

Milicia had held that piece of information back until the second murder. Horrible.

He felt manipulated.

“When I was there,” he said suddenly, “they gave me a tuna fish sandwich. I was surprised how homey it was.”

“You were at the precinct today?” Milicia jumped on the revelation. “What did you say?”

“Not today,” Jason told her. “I was there for something else.”

“Well, what did you tell them today? Tell me exactly what you said.”

“You were here. You heard what I said.”

There was a brief pause. “Are you sure?”

What did she mean? Jason couldn’t let it go by. What was she really asking?

“Do you think there’s something wrong with my memory?” he persisted.

“No, no.”

“Do you think I’m not telling the truth?”

“No, silly. Sometimes little things slip away, that’s all.”

The door closed in the waiting room. His next patient was there. It was time to go. Jason did not reassure Milicia there were no monsters in the shadows.

B
y nine-thirty Jason was exhausted and overstimulated. He had returned from California only the night before, had seen ten patients that day, one of whom ended up at the police station accusing her sister of murder. All through his session with his last patient, the conversation with Milicia played over and over in Jason’s mind. He didn’t want to think about it. He had other things to think about.

When he returned home, he lingered in the kitchen debating whether to ratchet down with a beer or a martini with three olives. He’d have a drink, think about Emma and California. Later, he’d read a book.

He decided on the martini, built it, threw a frozen pizza in the toaster oven, and took his first burning swallow. Yes. Alcohol helped. He grabbed three more olives from the jar and savored the salty taste. Glass in hand, he wandered into the living room, thinking about making love to his wife. He concentrated on that, didn’t want to crash with the weight of being alone again.

Sipping the martini slowly, he told himself this was okay. He didn’t have to have a wife with him every second. They could live together sometimes. He tried to walk around a little with that conviction.

But underneath it all the Milicia tape played on and on. Her voice calling him silly, talking baby talk about monsters in the shadows, clicked on without his bidding.

What did you tell them? Tell me exactly what you said
.

He turned on the television and listened to the weather report, couldn’t pay attention, and turned it off. He was
trained to look at time sequences for branch points without making judgments or conclusions.

At every fork in the tree he asked himself what was going on. Why did she say “We have to be together on this”?

Why was she worried about what he told the police? Why did she pretend not to know what he’d said?

He wandered around the living room, picking up one book after another, trying to unwind. He wanted to stay with Emma, think about her. Read a book. But the more he tried to escape, the harder it was to get away from Milicia and Camille.

Against his will Jason had been drawn deep into their story. That bothered him. He was a quick study. He could put together any number of disparate elements of personality and character almost from the very start. It wasn’t like him not to be able to come to a conclusion right away.

It occurred to him that maybe the reason he couldn’t get it this time was that Milicia was lying about something. He reviewed how she had started with him. Bits and pieces about the day in the Hamptons, the ride home in her car. How she had asked to see him. Her calls when he was in California. It was all unusual, ambiguous. Nothing in this life was truly random.

He turned away from the books, looking for another diversionary tactic. He had to calm down or he wouldn’t get to sleep that night. He didn’t want murder hanging over his dreams.

The martini was almost gone. He decided to have another. The phone on the table rang. He picked up on the first ring, hoping it was Emma.

“Hello, Jason?”

He sighed. It was April the detective. Now she was calling him Jason. Earlier that day she’d called him Dr. Frank. He couldn’t help smiling. He knew if she was calling him by his first name, she wanted something.

“Hello, April.”

“It’s nine-thirty. Am I getting you in the middle of dinner?”

Jason jerked his head toward the kitchen, suddenly remembering
the pizza in the toaster oven. Shit. “No, I haven’t had it yet.”

“Ah. Then you’re probably sitting there with a gin martini. May or may not have olives in it.”

“Yes, gin martini, and yes, it has olives.” He looked down at the glass. Had olives. It was empty now.

“You’re unwinding after a long day of patients. Am I right?”

“Yes, again.” He wouldn’t mind a few more martinis so he could unwind further. He had a strong suspicion by the way she was talking to him that he wasn’t going to get them.

“It’s really nice to chat with you, April. But I have this really uneasy feeling you’re not calling to chat. And I don’t really feel like chatting right now anyway. Am I right?”

“You’re right. Something’s come up that’s a quasi-emergency—well, it’s not the Twin Towers blowing up, or anything like that. But I need some input about a medical problem I have here at the precinct this minute.…” Her voice trailed off.

Jason heard some noise in the background. He knew this call was about the Honiger-Stanton sisters. April wouldn’t bother him about anything else. The karma must be bad for his getting away from those women tonight.

He had been committed to clearing his mind and getting into a quiet place where he could refresh himself. Now a wave of nausea swept over him at the thought of having to gear up again so late in the day. The smell of burning pizza drifted out of the kitchen. Shit.

“Hold on for a second, will you.” Jason put down the phone and charged across the hall.

In the kitchen, black smoke spewed out of the toaster oven. Shit. Inadvertently he thought of the burning house where Emma had been held in Queens. Thick clouds of reeking smoke jetting up into the sky. Rubble everywhere. Talking to April Woo must have triggered the association. Shit.

He burned himself yanking the small metal tray out of the oven. Tonight wasn’t turning out to be so great. He raced back into the living room.

“You still there?” he said breathlessly.

“You okay?”

“Sure.” Just depressed and anxious and starving. It was clear he was going to lose sleep over this and feel rotten through all ten patients scheduled for the next day. He studied the burn on his left index finger.

“You were telling me the Twin Towers are not the reason for this call.”

“Yeah. This is the thing. I have your patient’s sister here as kind of a suspect in a homicide investigation. You with me?”

“Of course.”

“And this woman does fit the description we have of the murderer.”

“Really?” Jason was appalled.

“Yeah, well, but there’s something odd.… She’s—ah, bizarre, to put it mildly. We need a psychiatric evaluation of her to determine what to do with her. At the moment we’re getting a warrant to search the house where she lives and there’s a BOLO out on her boyfriend.”

“You lost me.” Jason shifted the phone to his other ear. “What’s the connection between this woman and the murder—murders—and what’s a BOLO?”

“She has a dog. Similar-colored dog hairs were found on the first murder victim. She has red hair. Several red human hairs were found on the dress the victim was wearing. Bruises on the neck and shoulders of the first victim show the woman we have here is the right height to have caused them. She lives across the street from where the second victim died. We don’t have anything yet on the second homicide. You still with me?”