"She was unconscious when she was taken out."
"Hey, boss." Woody bounded up.
"We're going up," she told him, nodding toward the front elevators, two pink-marble-fronted horrors.
"Not those. We got people in the shafts. You'll have to go up the back elevator," McMan told her.
Uniforms were swarming on the back stairs as April walked through. One was also guarding the back elevator. The elevator men and doormen were being questioned by detectives. A clot of tenants, unable to get home, was having a fit. April and Woody commandeered the elevator, stopped at the ninth floor and tried to enter the apartment through the kitchen.
"Forget about it, I'm not even started here. You can look in and that's it," came a voice from behind the door. The unseen criminologist added, "I don't give a shit who you are," in case somebody planned to put up a fight.
"Sergeant Woo. We just want to take a look," April said.
"This is where it happened. One look, don't touch," came the warning.
"Fine."
The door opened a little and April and Woody got a partial view for all of three seconds of some bloodstains on a marble floor. Somewhere in the front of the apartment, another feisty Crime Scene investigator and more detectives were locked in a noisy conflict over contamination of the scene versus the need to get the phones up right away so they could tape al the incoming calls. She'd have to come back later.
April glanced at the garbage can by the back door and repressed a strong urge to go through it. Victim first.
"Okay," she said to Woody. She turned to leave, and realized he'd frozen the elevator on the floor so she wouldn't have to wait when she was ready to go. Good man; he was taking care of her.
Roosevelt Hospital was only a short distance away on Ninth Avenue at Fifty-ninth Street, just a block down from the Manhattan branch of Fordham University. Woody negotiated the car through the streets and April was lost in her own thoughts. Her antennae were up and she was bristling all over. By now there would already be detectives from the Major Cases unit there. They would move in and take over the precinct squad room, maybe even her own desk. They'd be setting up their easels and starting the clocks ticking on their time sheets. It rankled her that no one thought precinct detectives could handle anything important. From now on, until this missing baby was found dead or alive, the precinct squad would be ordered to do the scout work. No precinct squad detectives liked it one bit.
What April always did was to work around the specialized units as if they weren't the hotshots with all the muscle. Right now, she didn't want to vent her feelings about how things were to the new kid. She wanted to manage the case correctly so the outsiders wouldn't make a mess in her territory.
"Leave it here," she said abruptly about the car in a no-parking zone by the emergency room entrance. Then she jerked her chin to indicate that Baum should accompany her inside.
They hurried into the ER entrance. Right away, April picked out two uniforms flanking a nervous-looking man in a blue suit. She decided to take the time to stop at the reception desk before speaking with him. She didn't say anything to Woody. He didn't say anything to her. Good, he was following her lead.
At the desk the harried-looking woman with permed red hair saw the shields, then returned to her computer screen.
"Where's the assault victim? Po-pes—"
"Popescu. It's Rumanian," the woman snapped. She kept typing and didn't look up.
"Thanks, that's the one. Where is she?" She didn't glance at Baum.
"She's in Treatment Room 3."
"I'd like to talk with her."
"She's unconscious."
"How about the doctor?"
"The doctor's with her."
"You have any idea when I could talk with him?"
"No." The woman returned to her typing, pleased to thwart April. She filled out her uniform and then some, had angry eyes, and a patch of fiery red pimples on each cheek. After a pause, she added, "They've finished with the X rays. Shouldn't be too long now."
"Thanks." April turned back to the rows of seats occupied by the motley bunch that formed a little pond of human misery in the waiting room. She didn't want to think about the bacteria and viruses circulating the room. She recognized the uniforms, Duffy and Prince. Both were white, five-ten or so, beefy, a few
years younger than she, and not much for taking initiative of any kind. Duffy worked a wad of gum around his mouth without actually chewing. The two cops flanked the victim's husband in an informal kind of way. The obviously upset, dark-haired man sat on a chair between them, wringing his hands. She noticed that his tie had alligators on it, his pink shirt had white collar and cuffs that were stained with blood, and his blue pinstriped suit looked expensive.
"Mr. Popescu?" she said.
His head twitched her way. "Yesi"
"I'm Detective Sergeant Woo, this is Detective Baum."
He looked from one to the other. "Who's in charge?"
"I am," April said.
He pulled himself to his feet with an effort. "How's my wife?"
"We don't have a report yet."
"Did she say who did it?" he asked.
"She's unconscious."
"Jesus." He shook his head. "Who could do this?"
"What happened?"
"I want to see my wife." Popescu had a wide mouth and wide-set eyes as black as April's. The voice was cold, the eyes were on fire. He looked about to blow.
April felt sorry for him. It wasn't uncommon for people to get crazy when someone they loved was hurt. "She's with the doctor."
"I told them I don't want doctors to touch her without my being in the room."
"That's not possible—"
"I won't have any emergency room doctor playing around with my wife." Popescu's panic screamed out of his voice. "I forbid them to do anything to her, working on her face—or, or . . ."
"Can you tell me what happened, sir?"
Popescu gave her a crazed look. "Somebody broke into my apartment and took my baby." His voice cracked. "He's only three weeks old. I came home.
Heather was on the floor. There was blood all over the place. At first, I thought the blood was the baby's. Then, I realized the baby wasn't there —"
His hands flew to his face. "Oh God, you've got to let me in to see her. I need to be with her."
"They have to clean her up first. It's procedure."
"She's all right. I know she's all right. It's just a cut on her head. It bled a lot, that's all. These goons restrained me physically. That guy put me in a ham-merlock. I almost choked to death." Popescu pointed accusingly at the offender.
April glanced at Duffy. He stuck the wad of gum in his cheek and gave his head a barely perceptible shake.
No way.
"I don't want her to stay here. I want her to come home with me. I'm sure she's all right." Popescu was raving. April figured him for a lawyer.
"Let's hope so." She took some notes on her steno pad, and frowned at Baum to do the same. The first things people said were often important. The new kid . on the block, Baum dutifully followed her example.
Years ago, when she'd first joined the department and worked in Chinatown, she'd jotted some Chinese characters along with her notes in English on the steno pads the DAs called Rosarios. The DA on the case had gone nuts when he asked for her Rosario and saw the Chinese characters she'd written there. He told her nothing she wrote in Chinese counted and not to do it again. Now her notes were pretty much in English even though she missed the calligraphy practice.
Husband reports that when he got home, his wife was unconscious and the baby gone. The stains on his shirt are probably his wife's blood.
He would have tried to revive her, of course. Unless he'd injured himself and some of the blood was his. She'd noticed a cut on his left palm.