Stealing Time (33 page)

It was one of the doormen at his apartment building. "There's a policeman here. You asked me to let you know."

"I'll be right there," Anton said. He grabbed his suit jacket and left the office without stopping to give instructions or tell anyone where he was going. Out of shape and angry at being called at his office, he stomped down the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians and talking to himself as he ran the four blocks home. He'd told those cops to stay out of it. Rage at the pile of misfortunes that had been heaped on him all his life, culminating in this final public hounding and humiliation, pumped him into a frenzy. By the time he got to his lobby he was gasping for air at the pain and unfairness of it all. But after all that rush, no policeman, male or female, was in sight as he whirled through the revolving doors and charged across the lobby. He put a hand to his head and leaned against the cold marble that framed the elevator.

"You okay, Mr. Popescu?"

Anton didn't look at the doorman. He knew the man's name was Fred; he thought Fred was an asshole. No, he was not okay. He was in agony, anybody with a brain could see that. "Yeah," he muttered, catching his breath.

"The cop's upstairs." He held out his hand for a tip. It hung there.

"Oh shit!" Anton propelled himself off the wall, punched the elevator button, and exploded. "Shit! I told you not to let him go up. You're fired. Get out of here."

The doorman was shocked.

"I said you're fired."

The man's eyes popped.

"You're fired, asshole!
Don't be here when I get back." The elevator doors slid open. Anton got in. The doors slid closed. Mad for a fight, he counted the seconds it took to rise to his floor. Then he marched down the hall and let himself into the apartment. All was quiet. He poked his head into the living room. The first thing he saw was the detective with the expensive navy sports jacket comfortably ensconced on one of his sofas going through a box of photos, the only thing that had escaped scrutiny during the last police search of the place. For a second Anton thought he was losing his mind.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he screamed.

Anton saw the detective holding his special box, the contents of which not even his own wife had ever seen. The antique leather hatbox filled with photos and mementos had been padlocked and put high up behind a bunch of other stuff on a shelf. How had the box wound up in the living room? The fucking detective had gone through absolutely everything in his closets, that's how.

"Give me that." He plunged across the room and grabbed the worn leather.

The cop had the box on his lap and wouldn't let go. They jerked it back and forth a few times, finally tipping it so that photos from camp that awful year spilled across the floor. Anton saw the pictures of himself desperate, mortified, reaching for the cap that had been snapped off his egg-bald head by his archenemy, Brad. In the photo Brad held the hat high over his head so the much smaller Anton couldn't reach it. He could still hear the boys taunting him. The fury caught him in its tide, and he snapped. He punched the cop, catching him by surprise and knocking him off the couch.

But the cop didn't fall awkwardly and recover his balance slowly, as he should have. He rolled as he hit the ground. Before Anton had a chance to bend down and collect the painful images he'd kept hidden all those years, the cop was on his feet with a small pistol aimed at Anton's head.

"Put up your hands."

Anton turned his head and screamed again, this time at the sight of the gun.

"Put your fucking hands up," the cop demanded.

Anton grunted. The action of raising his hands was unfamiliar to him. He moved—but to argue, not to put them up. The gun jerked, eliciting another cry of alarm.

"Stand back and raise your hands." The cop bit off each word, really angry now.

"Are you crazy? Put that thing away!" Anton cried.

"You just assaulted a police officer, sir. You can be prosecuted and sent to prison for that. Put up your hands."

"What are you talking about? This is my
home,"
Anton cried.

"I'm telling you to do something. You don't argue with me. You do it."

Anton lived to argue. No way was he going to stop arguing just because some asshole told him to. "Don't give me that shit. I find a stranger in my home, going through my possessions. I had no idea you were a cop. Put that fucking thing down."

Now he was ashamed that he'd been afraid of the gun. The cop was not going to shoot him. He didn't know why he'd screamed. He glanced down at the scatter of photos on the floor. Let the cop hit him. That would be good. They'd have a hearing. He'd sue the city. He'd get millions of dollars and an apology for everything he'd suffered. It would be in all the newspapers. Roe would be by his side in court. They'd get rich in a hurry. He turned his back on the cop to pick up his pictures. It was then that he saw his wife staring at him. She was wearing jeans and a white sweater. The swelling around her bad eye had gone down. Her bruises were mottling now, but both eyes were open and staring at him as if she'd never seen him before.

"Hi, honey—" Then he choked on what else he saw. "What happened to your hair?"

The cop made a startled noise and looked surprised as well.

"She's dead," Heather Rose said, so softly Anton wasn't sure he'd heard her right. Then her mother and father appeared behind her. For once the bossy woman was silent. Soo Ling Kwan stared at her son-in-law accusingly. No words were needed to express her feelings. His father-in-law coughed and patted his tweed sports jacket, searching for cigarettes and a light. The dry cleaner from San Francisco looked everywhere but at Anton as he prepared to smoke. This was a pointed insult, because Anton didn't allow cigarettes in his house.

The shocking thing, though, was Heather Rose without her hair. He knew now that she knew about the pictures in the box. His in-laws were making faces at him, so they had to know, too. The cop had uncovered his secret. They all knew. Anton's injured pride demanded that he reassert his authority.

"Go to your room, honey," he told his wife.

Her head was round. Her cheeks were flat. Her hair was almost as short as his, but jagged, as if she'd hacked it off in a hurry. She looked different in other ways, too. Nothing like his worried little rabbit from before. Most annoying of all, she didn't move when he told her to.

"Honey, we'll talk about this privately."

She didn't move. To get away from all the prying eyes, Anton bent to pick up the photos. He saw that the cop had lined up on the table some of the very recent ones: Heather Rose with her gorgeous hair, bulging in a maternity dress at the family Easter party. He'd taken it for posterity to prove she had been pregnant, to show Paul when he was older that Heather Rose was his real mother. Another was a Heather Rose in bed in her long pink nightgown, holding the baby. That one had been taken a few days after Paul's birth, the day his family had come to see him for the first time. It all seemed a million years ago.

Another photo from the same batch of negatives showed Heather, slim, wearing a red cashmere sweater and reading a magazine. Where did that come from? Anton closed his eyes. When he opened them, the tableau was unchanged.

"What's going on?" he asked in as level a voice as he could manage.

"We need a photo of your wife."

"What for?" he asked.

"For identification. Your baby stroller has been located."

"What does that mean?"

Heather's father found his cigarettes. The pack crackled as he extracted one and lit it.

"The woman who has it said she saw a woman with a long ponytail give the baby to another woman."

"As you can see, my wife has short hair," Anton replied.

"She had long hair when I arrived here this morning."

"Are you so sure she had long hair that you would swear it in court?"

"What are you arguing about?" Heather cried. "That poor girl is dead."

"I'm not arguing."

"Yes, Anton. You don't even know what's going on. The baby is gone; no one knows what she did with him. A woman is dead. You can stop arguing now."

"Shut up, you don't know what you're talking about."

Furious, Heather shook her head. "You won't even wait to hear what's going on."

"This is unauthorized entry, unauthorized search and seizure. This so-called policeman came in here without anyone's permission and almost killed me when I caught him. You're a witness. You're all witnesses. You saw him hit me," he said stolidly.

Tears filled Heather's eyes. "I'm not anyone? I'm someone, Anton. I live here, too, and I authorized him to come inside."

"You're crazy. I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's true; you never know what I'm talking

about. But I'm someone anyway," she said softly. "I let him in."

"Shut up," Anton said coldly. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Are you ready?" the cop asked Heather.

"I didn't mean it like that. Don't be a crazy bitch—" He stopped, gaped at the cop, gaped at his wife, his in-laws. The cop pocketed the photos. Anton was stunned. He was tied in knots. He was wearing a suit, one of his best suits, which signified that he was an important person. But the cop had a gun. His low-class in-laws were gabbling in Chinese. His wife was gathering her things.

"Oh, no, you don't!" he cried to no one in particular, and to all of them. "You're not going anywhere."

His wife buttoned the light jacket he'd bought her, slung the expensive purse he'd bought her over her shoulder. He knew how much both those things had cost. He hadn't begrudged her anything. She walked out of the door first, followed by her mother and her father. The cop was the last in line. Anton, in all his wisdom, decided the best course of action was not to follow them at this time. Whatever she said later, he would counter with firm evidence as to her state of mind and her actions. He was certain it would be clear to anyone who saw her now that Heather Rose was insane.

CHAPTER 38

M
ike left the medical examiner's office at 2:35
P.M.
with a set of photos of the dead girl taken at the time of her autopsy and his conversation with the deputy ME fresh in his mind. In the department, homicide news traveled fast. And Mike was always among the first to hear about the new cases. If he wasn't on the scene before the body was taken away, he liked to get the medical details from the horse's mouth first thing.

The homicide in Chinatown interested him only because of April. He didn't like to admit it, but he'd gotten used to working with her, being with her. Now he didn't want to just sleep with her, then take off for the day to deal with other things as if she had a different kind of job. They were still in the same world, and though he didn't like to admit it, he wanted to keep tabs on her and help her. Part of him knew this was bad form. His girlfriend was independent and wanted to make it on her own. He should back off, leave her to come up her own way. She was a good detective and didn't need him to follow her around, giving her tips about how to handle her cases, worming his way in on them whenever he could.

He told himself this, but when the news of the dead woman got to him, he was all over it. He'd missed seeing the victim at the scene and missed the autopsy, but the photos he'd acquired showed her on the table in the clothes she'd been wearing at the time of her death, also without her clothes, face up and face down on the autopsy table before she'd been opened up. There was little tension on her small, battered face. Her features were frozen in a dazed expression, only slightly distorted by her injuries. Although she had no body fat, there seemed to be loose skin on her abdomen. Mike didn't want to ask about that. He'd gotten the photos from Allan Gross, the deputy ME who'd done the autopsy. Dr. Gross told him the girl had been very sick at the time of her death.

"She didn't put up a struggle, so my guess is she was only semiconscious when she was being beaten. I'd be surprised if she could stand up at the time of the assault."

"What kind of person would beat up a sick girl?" Mike muttered.

"Someone who was very mad at her. Her skull is cracked like an eggshell. The hemorrhaging in her brain and the skull fractures suggest somebody banged her head, possibly on a crumbling cement wall, or floor, not once, but many times. Cement and other materials were deeply embedded in her hair and in her scalp wounds. I took a number of samples. Her clothes were sent over to the lab. Looks to me like this happened inside, not outside."

The two men were walking down the hall toward the elevator. Gross was shorter and stockier than Mike. He still wore blood-spattered green scrubs and a green surgical cap on his head.

"I'd like to see her," Mike said.

"No way, not this one," Gross said vehemently.