Hanging Time (46 page)

“Bouck’s not coming back.” Milicia spoke gently. “He’s dead. I’m the one who takes care of you now.”

“No, stupid.” Camille’s eyes twitched. She was furious. “You can’t trick me. He’s not dead. He’s coming back. I’m going to the hospital to pick him up in a few minutes.”

“That’s a lie. You don’t even know which hospital. And you couldn’t find it if you did.
You’re
the stupid one.”

Camille squeezed her eyes shut. Her head hurt. “Go away.”

Milicia sat on the stairs like a queen and poked at her through the banister bars with her finger. “Unh-unh. You’re stupid, and you’re crazy, too. All your life you caused trouble. And now this. Look at this place. You can’t keep house. You can’t even find food. You’re still little Cammy.”

Camille trembled all over but didn’t say anything. Milicia could do that to her, stop her from talking, stop her from breathing, anytime she wanted. The bad feeling in her stomach wouldn’t go away. Milicia was here to do something to her.
What?

Milicia’s voice turned warm again. “You used to love me. Why do you hate me now?”

Camille shook her head. Her arms twitched.

Give me a lesson, Milicia. I promise I’ll be good
.

W
hat’s going on?”

It seemed to get hotter in the van with every second. April was soaked with perspiration, her hair so wet it stuck to her scalp.

She glanced over at Sanchez, hunkered down on his heels like a cowboy or a Chinese peasant. He looked cool in spite of the temperature, smiled, and raised a shoulder at her. No answer.

April studied him suspiciously. Mike had talked with the Captain before they left the precinct. He might not know what was happening in the apartment, but he knew what was going on at the precinct. In fact, she was beginning to think that all these meetings with Sergeant Joyce and the Captain were getting to him. Sergeant Sanchez had been pretty laid back only a few weeks before. Now April could see that he was walking with a firmer step, his eyes set on the future.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead with a tissue, considering the situation. She knew these high-profile cases could change things. Lots of people in the department got assigned to one job and stayed in it for twenty years. But other people moved around, did different things. Got ahead. Now she saw how it happened. They called in somebody ahead of you, and that person messed up. You got to move up to their place. Just the way she and Sanchez were sitting in this van instead of Lieutenant Braun and Sergeant Roberts.

She knew what Mike was thinking, because people who
worked together had a whole language worked out. Everything meant something. If they were questioning a suspect on the street and Mike said, “I’m hungry. Let’s go for a pizza,” it meant “Cuff the suspect now.”

Braun and Roberts had messed up and now April and Mike were in the van.

Mike smiled at her. “A peso for your thoughts.”

April shook her head. “A whole lot of things. Taking the exam. Passing it and moving out of the Two-O. Failing it …” and staying in the squad.
His wife Maria dying in Mexico. His being free and finding another woman to love
. There were a whole lot of things to think about.

Mike’s mustache twitched. He knew what they were and passed them right back, knocking her flat with the challenge to do what she wanted, say what she felt, be herself, and not some wet rag from a movie he’d seen.

“What is it with you Oriental women?” he had once demanded, swiveling around in his chair in the squad room one day when they were alone for a few minutes. “Don’t you ever want to break out? Go crazy with love? Be wild, smash a wall? Tell your mother off? Get yourself off the hook?” He just had to let her know he’d gone to the damn movie.

“I’m out. What you see is all there is,” April had replied mildly. She never told him she’d seen that cooking movie about Mexicans who went up in smoke when they fell in love. Or that she had thought it was dumb because nobody was
that
hot.

“Washrags,” he had muttered. “I really wanted to slap them all.”

“You want to slap me? Go ahead, try it. See how much of a washrag I am.” She drew herself up and glared at him. “Go ahead. See how close you get.”

“Damn you! You know what I’m talking about. You can tear apart a class-A felon with your bare hands. You just won’t … I don’t know … grab what you want, go for it.” His hand slapped his desk the way he said he wanted to slap the women in
The Joy Luck Club
.

But he only shot her a piercing look. “When are you
going to go for it,
querida?
You got to go for it yourself. It won’t just come to you.”

She shivered, not knowing what to say. “I’ll go for it when I find it,” she told him finally. “It’s just old Chinese wisdom to look very close at the quality of everything before you decide what to take. You Latins just jump at anything that strikes your eye. You don’t even know if it’s first quality. Later, when you get what you think you want, half the time you’re sorry.”

That shut him up for a while. But now she could see the question coming back at her in the overheated sound van. She detoured around it. “There’s nothing coming in here. Some great idea, bugging the dog.”

Ben played with the knobs a few more minutes. “I think she took the collar off. I don’t hear nothing. No breathing, no crying. Nothing. Did you tell her to leave the collar on?”

“She’s supposed to keep the dog and the collar with her,” Sanchez said.

“Maybe she disobeyed you.” Ben sounded sarcastic. “Maybe the dog is no longer with us in this world.”

“She wouldn’t kill the dog,” April said quickly.

“Maybe the other one would.” He tried something different with the buttons. Nothing.

“Doesn’t matter. They already took a mold of the dog’s jaw. The dentist said it was an easy one. Sometimes they have to destroy the animal to get it.”

“Nice.”

April glanced at Mike. “One of those women is a killer. I don’t want to sit here waiting to see which one walks out alive.”

“Detective, are you saying in your considered judgment, the time has come to go for it?” Mike asked.

April wrinkled her nose at the smell of Ben’s feet and nodded gravely. “Yes, Sergeant, I am.”

“Okay.” In one smooth motion, Mike stood, then slid the door open. “Let’s go.”

M
ilicia’s voice was soft again, pleading. “You won’t let me near you. You won’t let me love you.” She talked through the wooden bars, her voice trembling with emotion. “Why?”

Camille pressed her hands over her ears. The pounding in her head felt like Niagara Falls. She was rigid all over. Her body told her why.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Milicia asked sadly.

“Don’t talk to me,” Camille cried. “Don’t—”

“Well, I have to, stupid. It’s all your fault.”

“No!” Camille pushed the old voices away, the old feelings: first so exciting. So much fun. What a secret!

Let’s make a tent with the sheets and hide. Come on, Cammy. Don’t you want to be healthy and feel good? Yes, it does make you feel good. Only big people do this. Only smart people … Mommy doesn’t like you. She wants you little and stupid. It’s good, too, isn’t it? Means I love you
.

Camille inched backward until her spine touched the wall. Her hands brushed at the skirt covering her stomach, trying to wipe away the memory of Milicia’s hair hanging over her bare belly so many times, tickling her until she squealed with helpless laughter. For a while so safe and exciting. Milicia being so nice when she wasn’t mean.

Then not so nice when she thought of more things that gave Cammy a strange, unsettled feeling. Scary feeling. And more scary as Milicia took her secret place from her little by little, turning it into a torture chamber. It was Milicia who created a panic button right in the center of Camille’s body,
trying different things on it until Camille’s secret place was Milicia’s to invade any way she wanted. Cammy couldn’t make it different.

Milicia, it’s
your
turn for a health lesson
.

Nobody gives me health lessons. I’m already healthy. You’re the one who needs it. If you didn’t need it, you wouldn’t ask me, would you? Beg me, Cammy. Beg me now
.

Camille’s head pounded. She tried to stop the voices in the tent, on the bathroom floor. In the back of the car under the blanket. But they rushed back at her. All of them crowding together in Bouck’s hallway, where the frothing soapy water was now tinged pink with his blood.

“My head hurts,” Camille whimpered.

“I can make it stop hurting,” Milicia whispered through the bars. “You want to go upstairs. I know something new.”

If you don’t stop bugging me, Cammy, you’ll never feel good again. Is that what you want?

“No.”

You can’t have it this way forever. This is the baby way. You won’t be a woman until you do it the woman way
.

“Oh, come on. What are you afraid of?”

“I can’t be touched.”

“That’s silly. I’ll hug you and make you feel better.”

Camille struggled with the words. “The police know, Milicia.”

Milicia looked surprised. A flicker of hope penetrated the cavern of Camille’s terror.

“They know you killed those girls.…”

“You’re crazy. How could I do that?”

“You know how to squeeze.” With enormous effort Camille shaped the words. “Remember?”

“Did you tell the police stories?” Milicia was angry again. Her face through the bars of the stairway was fierce and very cold.

Camille covered her eyes with her hair so she wouldn’t have to see it. “About what?” she whispered through her hair. “About the scarf game or the plastic-bag game?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Milicia said, suddenly aloof and uncaring. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs
and have a rest. You’ll feel better after a nap. I promise I won’t touch you.”

“What about the dog-leash game?” From behind the hair. “Those girls were killed with the dog leash, weren’t they? That would be right.”

“Shut up, Cammy, you’re annoying me. You know I couldn’t hurt anybody.”

“You hurt
me,”
Camille said in a baby voice.

“All right, I’m sorry. Is that what you want?” Milicia held out her hands in a gesture of contrition. “I didn’t know I hurt you.”

Stop that complaining. If I said I won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt you. So take off your underpants, Cammy. Don’t argue, or I’ll never make you feel good again. Stop that. You can’t get away. I have to do this for your health
.

Camille closed her eyes behind her hair. Milicia’s hairbrush came from England. It had a handle curved to fit the hand. Narrow then wide then narrow. It was the first thing Milicia thought of to try.
No more Mr. Nice Guy. I don’t care if you don’t want to anymore. It’s a medical problem. I have to fix it
. Camille had screamed and screamed, but the bathroom door was locked, no one was home, no one cared. Milicia had squeezed her neck to shut her up.
I’m the boss of you. I do what I want. Stop that stupid screaming, or next time I’ll make it worse
.

“You’re
the one who killed those poor girls, Camille. Are you still that mad at me?”

The throbbing intensified. “My head hurts,” Camille whispered.

“I can make it stop hurting.”

“No …”

“Look, I said I’m sorry. Forgive me. I gave you a puppy, didn’t I? Look at the puppies. Look at them, Cammy.”

Camille hid behind her hair. Puppy had run away from her. She wouldn’t look at Puppy anymore.

“Go on. Look at them. They’re so sweet.”

Camille turned her head toward the joyful yaps but would not part her hair to take a look.

“Do you want me to take them away? You don’t have to have them if they bother you, Cammy. I’ll take them away.
I’ll do whatever I can to help you. You don’t want to go to prison, do you? We have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Camille made a slight move. Her hair swung from one side to the other. Didn’t want to go to prison.

“Look at that,” Milicia commanded. “See that. Perfectly natural.”

Camille moved out of her hiding place to see what was going on. She parted her hair with one finger and glanced in the direction of the dogs. Just for a second. It was very quiet. Milicia’s dog, very intent and busy, was nudging around Puppy’s stomach. Obligingly, Puppy lifted her leg and stood still while her sister began sniffing and licking at her bottom.

“Time to go upstairs, Camille.”

A
pril and Mike stood crowded together at the top of the narrow stairs. She was so close to Mike she could see the hairs his razor had missed that morning and feel his heart racing about as fast as hers. They’d left the outside door open a little to let the evening breeze drift up the stairs. April’s sweat chilled on her skin. The last time she and Mike had been in a position behind a door like this they’d almost gotten their heads blown off.

Yip, yip, yip
. Dogs. Sounded like more than one.

She glanced at Mike. She could see that under his jacket the front of his shirt was damp.

He frowned. “Did you see another dog come in?”

“No. Milicia was carrying a bag. Maybe it was in the bag.”

“Does it sound like two dogs to you?”

April pressed her ear to the door. There was a whole sound van downstairs on the street, and still she was listening at a door. What technique. “Yes, it does sound like two dogs … but I don’t hear anything else.”

Yip, yip, yip
. The barking grew louder.

Mike came closer, put his hand high up on the door, and leaned into April, breathing on her neck. Damn him. She shivered and retreated, shaking him off, trying to concentrate. What were the dogs barking about? What was going on in there?

“What? Do I have bad breath or something?” Mike popped a Tic Tac in his mouth and offered April one.