Judging Time (31 page)

"Aren't we friends? Don't you realize what it would do to me?"

"This isn't personal," April insisted. "1 have only the highest admiration for you. I'm not trying to
do
anything to you. 1 just want to find out why Merrill Liberty was killed."

"It seems clear enough to me and everyone else associated with the case that her husband murdered her."

"We haven't come up with a why. Without a why we don't have a strong case to prosecute."

"That's not my problem. That's your problem. The guy's taken off. They were friends; maybe he's a doper, too."

The cop shook her head.

"All 1 can say is
Petersen
was loaded with cocaine. The physical effort of running for a taxi, or even lifting his hand for one, would have been enough to overtax his heart. Seeing his lover assaulted could easily have caused the massive MI." Rosa tied it up neatly. What else could the cop want?

The cop sat in the dark, watching her like a cat. She shook her head some more. "It doesn't play. Ducci says the bloodstains indicate that Petersen died first."

"So what does all this have to do with me?" Rosa was illuminated by her desk lamp. Suddenly she felt at a disadvantage and moved the beam away from her face. She knew exactly what it had to do with her. The corrupt cop wanted to twist the facts. It happened all the time. But she wasn't going to let anybody cast doubt on her work.

"If Petersen died first,
he
might have been the target, and Merrill Liberty might have been an afterthought."

"He died of a
heart attack.
You saw his face. Blue," Rosa insisted.

"Any cyanide in his blood? That also would make him blue."

"Petersen died of natural causes, I'm sure of it."

"I know it seems that way, but maybe someone wanted it to
look
as if he died of natural causes."

"But how? How would it be done? This line of questioning is very upsetting to me. You're implying 1 could have made a mistake. It's not possible."

"You've made mistakes before," the cop said quietly. "Last time 1 believe it was kept quiet, and your ass was saved."

"This
man died of natural causes, I'll stand by my word. I'll stake my career on it," Rosa hissed. "I'll stake
your
career' on it."

"Well, 1 hope neither of us has to." April Woo rose from the chair and picked up her coat. "Anyway, the widow will be happy you feel so strongly about it."

Blood rushed to Rosa's face at being questioned so blatantly, then suddenly dismissed. She was further insulted by the reference to Petersen's widow. What did she care about the widow? Rosa was taller than the cop by several inches. The Chinese woman was thin, didn't look as if she had much muscle. Rosa watched the small woman drape her coat over her shoulders. It was the
office
that occasionally made mistakes.
She,
Rosa, didn't make mistakes. Why should she have to justify herself to a dumb cop? Rosa wanted to say something about how vulnerable the medical examiner's office was with Dr. Abraham in the hospital, how dangerous it would be for the prosecutors, for the police, for everyone involved if doubts were raised about the reliability of an important autopsy report. There would be no case, no trial. The perpetrator of Merrill Liberty's homicide—the black bastard who was her husband—would get off. Abraham would lose his trust in her. It would be a disaster. But she didn't dare say anything more.

"Well, thanks for clearing this all up for me. I'll sleep a lot better tonight." April Woo gave the deputy medical examiner the fakest smile Rosa Washington had ever seen, and then the sergeant left the dark corner where she'd waited in ambush and swept out of the office with a wave of her hand. Rosa got up to wash April off her hands.

32

W
ally Jefferson knew the cops were looking for him. His wife told him the detective called Sanchez had telephoned her three times in the last two days. The cop didn't believe her when she told him her husband was not at home. So tonight he'd driven out to New Jersey in the early evening to check out the situation himself. She was hysterical because the cop had asked if he could look around, and she hadn't known what to tell him.

"Wally, are you in trouble?" She called him on his cell phone and started crying at the sound of his voice.

"Did you let him look around?"

"Yes," she wailed. "He went into the garage, into the backyard. What was he looking for?"

”A body. Did he find one?"

She screamed. "Oh, Lord, have mercy. A body. Oh, you're funning me."

"Yeah, that's right. I'm funning you."

"Well, he didn't find a body."

"That's good. He ask you where I was the night Petersen was killed?"

"Yes. He-"

"What did you tell him, hon?"

"I told him you were with me from ten o'clock on, just like you said. Oh, Lord, Wally, what's happening?"

"Some bad things are happening, but I didn't have nothing to do with none of them. Don't you worry about a thing. Do you believe me?" "But you weren't home that night," she wailed. "Please come back now, I'm scared."

"You got to trust me. You got to not worry, and let me fix this."

"How you gonna fix it? Where are you? I gotta know."

"No. You don't gotta know nothing. I'll call you later and tell you what we're gonna do." Wally hung up his cell phone and dialed Julio's cell phone.

The Dominican picked up and babbled some Spanish into the phone.

"It's Wally, where are you?"

"Where you, man?"

"Don't jerk me, Julio. You wiped somebody in the wrong car. You got to make things right with me now."

"No kill nobody. This guy, he ate his gun. Dumb
hijo de puta.
He want everything."

"Why'd you have to do it in the car."

"I tole you
accidente.
No do
nada."

"Julio, you fucked my life. 1 have to get out of here. And I have to get out of here now."

"Where are you, man?"

"I don't know. Somewhere. I need my share of the money."

"Yeah, tomorrow. I tole you."

"Tonight. I need it tonight. You hear me. You give me the money, I'm out of here. If you don't give me the money and I talk to the pigs, I go down for car theft max. Not even possession, man. You go down for murder.
Comprende?"

"My
ingles
is bad,
pero
tonight I bring. Okeydoke?"

"Same place?"

"Si One hour, two hour."

Jefferson sighed. He knew he had to dump his car now, rely on public transportation. He hated doing that. He knew he had to change his clothes, too. It was raining again. He'd have to find another car when he got uptown.

33

A
pril had hoped for a little peace, but she returned home to find the air in the family house so
thick
with incense and smoke and shrieks that she thought at first the building was on fire and her mother was somehow trapped inside it. On closer inspection, April realized it was just Sai Woo taking many forms as, on occasion, she liked to do. Sai was slamming the woks and spoons around on the stove in the kitchen like a crazy human, howling like a wolf, and spitting fire like the dragon she aspired to be.

Skinny Dragon did not stop this performance when April rushed into the kitchen, demanding to know what was going on.

"Aaeiiiie." Sai's answer was the universal cry of distress.

With every strike of the kitchen drum, Dim Sum, the French poodle, gave a little shudder and rolled her eyes. The dog lay on the chair that was Ja Fa Woo's kitchen throne with her hindquarters hidden inside the gloomy-colored patterned sweater that had been one of Sai's less inspired birthday gifls to her husband. The dog's expressive black eyes and apricot head positioned on crossed paws made her seem to be praying for the noise to stop.

"Ma, Ma, talk to me. What's happening?"

Sai spoke in rapid Chinese. "Your uncle Dai had a heart attack. He's in the hospital. Your father is there now."

She was too angry to explain further, then couldn't stop herself from launching a furious raft of complaints. April was supposed to be home at four. And now it was nearly ten-thirty. Sai was upset because worm daughter, who had no sense of duty to her mother, was not at home to drive her to the hospital as April should have been. Because worm daughter was not home, Sai had had to resort to long-distance methods of rallying the ailing spirit of Uncle Dai. The hospital was many miles away, and Sai had no idea if Dai's spirit could possibly hear her. •

Not only that, Sai hadn't known April had a new boyfriend, and this new possibility for a husband was
Chinese
! This Chinese (paragon) called three times and spoke to Sai very politely. He said he wanted to meet her soon, Sai reported as she beat metal spoons against the metal stove, screaming at the irony of the gods for bringing her daughter good lucky boyfriends, only to have ungrateful daughter irritate, annoy, and ultimately lose them.

"You no show up," Sai screamed. "Why you no show up? You lose notha boyfriend you triple stupid,
ni.
You ten thousand stupid."

"What are you talking about, Ma? You want to go to the hospital to see Uncle Dai, I'll take you. Put your coat on."

But no, she wouldn't do that. This boyfriend called April on the telephone three times, so Sai would sacrifice her own feelings, even her duty to Uncle Dai, so that April could behave properly and return Kiang's call, maybe have date tomorrow and get married by spring.

"Let me get this straight," April said. "Dean Kiang called here? In this house?"

Sai nodded and lapsed back into Chinese. "I told him you weren't home yet. He said you were supposed to meet him and you didn't come. He was worried,
ni,
nice man."

"He called you here?"

Sai nodded so seriously and sincerely April couldn't help feeling her mother had been upstairs in her apartment again, waiting for her, and that, snooping, Skinny

Dragon had answered April's phone as she'd been instructed never ever to do. "He's not my boyfriend," April said. "He's the DA."

"What DA?"

"He's a prosecutor, a lawyer. He called me for work."

"Didn't sound like work."

April took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Instead she choked on the incense.

"He mallieed?"

"How do I know if he's married. I just met him."

Sai further reported that she'd invited Dean Kiang to dinner and he said he'd be glad to come. Would April please call him back because he said it was urgent?

April left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to her apartment to call the prosecutor back. At 10:53, he was still in his office. April figured he probably wasn't married.

"Hi, it's April," she said, finally falling into a chair in her living room.

"Gee, April, what are you getting into?" Kiang demanded without any preliminaries. "I thought you were smart."

After being yelled at by her mother, April was in no state to answer any questions about her intelligence. Her mouth opened to frame a reply, but her tongue refused to move.

"April, you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. I gather you called several times."

"Yes, we're getting some heat over here about your visit to the ME's office."

"Oh, yeah, who from?"

"Abraham called from his hospital bed. He says he'll personally see to it that you never see the light of day again if you screw up this investigation. And so will I."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," April said angrily.

"Oh, yes you do. You threatened Dr. Washington.

You accused her of mishandling the case, of improprieties—and I don't know what all. Are you crazy?"

"Dr. Abraham told you that?"

"You've got to cut that out if you want to come down here and work with me. . . ." Kiang paused.

April's mouth was dry. She knew she'd pushed a few buttons with Rosa Washington, and pushing buttons in an obvious way was against her culture and the rules of her ancestors dating back to the dawn of time. Chinese did not accuse each other outright, did not have confrontations. In old China the guilty were skinned alive, pulled apart by horses, their limbs amputated, and their heads stuck on stakes. But good behavior was vital throughout. Mao was known to have his enemies to dinner, feed them the very best food, then blow them up in their cars on their way home. Better to have an enemy die mysteriously on the road than lose face by having to execute him or throw him in jail.

April squirmed under Kiang's attack. It was hardly her nature to get under people's skin and ask hard questions. She didn't like doing it. In fact, it had cost her a lot to make the medical examiner so uncomfortable.

"April," Kiang said. "Is this getting through to you?"

"Ducci says Petersen died first," April said finally.

"I heard, but it doesn't change the facts."

"Oh, yes it does. If Petersen died first, it raises questions about his cause of death and the motivation for killing Merrill Liberty. You should be the first one to agree that we have to clear those things up if we want any kind of a case that will stick."

Kiang made a noise of disgust. "What happens to the nail that sticks up, April?"

"I don't know, what?"

"It gets pounded down."

April didn't thank him for the information.

"You said you'd keep in touch," he complained. "I thought you were going to stop by and see me tonight..

I thought we might have some dinner." He paused as if waiting for an apology.

April remained silent. What did she have to apologize for if he never actually made plans with her?