Anton clutched his chest. "Is my wife—?" "No change. Do you mind if we come in for a few minutes?"
Anton took a deep breath and shook his head. "It's eleven o'clock; isn't it a little late for a visit?"
The Chinese gave him a strange look, as if that might be an inappropriate response. He didn't like her, and realized he had to watch himself.
"I'm Sergeant Woo. This is Detective Baum."
"I spent the afternoon with you. I remember who you are." He took a step back onto the white rug, which had a gaping hole cut out of it where one of Heather's bloodstains had been. The other stains were still there and already turning brown. Anton didn't look down. To see it would make him lose control.
The two detectives came right in. Anton hadn't had anything to eat or drink since lunch. He swallowed, surprised that he was hungry at a time like this. He really needed a drink. He didn't dare take one.
"I've already talked to about a hundred people. What do you want?" He looked wearily from one to the other.
The two cops looked at each other, then through the arch into the living room where the other detectives were still playing with the phones.
"There's a detail we need to take care of right away," the Chinese sergeant said.
Anton's expression became wary. "What's that?"
"It's about your baby."
Anton's jaw tightened. He didn't say anything. He stood in the small vestibule and waited for the bomb to drop.
"We need a birth certificate."
"What?" He genuinely looked surprised. "Why?"
"For identification."
"I thought you said you haven't found him."
"We'll need it when we do find him, and we believe it might help us locate him."
Anton stopped breathing. "What do you mean?"
"Mr. Popescu. The doctor told us that your wife has not given birth to a baby, so we know she's not the birth mother. We need to establish—"
"Oh, my God," Anton blurted out in an anguished voice. "Oh, God. I told you I didn't want them all over her. Oh, this is outrageous."
Sergeant Woo did not seem moved. "We have to have the facts of the situation."
Anton looked at the men in the living room and lowered his voice. "I don't want this to get around."
Detective Baum shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but Anton didn't continue.
"If the baby's adopted, we'll need to see the papers," the sergeant said.
"Oh, God." Anton rolled his eyes.
"We have to see the adoption papers," she repeated.
"I don't see what this has to do with it. It's our child, period."
"Well, that can easily be established." She kept at it.
"You're out of your territory here. It has nothing to do with getting my son back."
The two detectives exchanged glances again. "That's what we need to establish. Maybe the birth parents have abducted their own baby." The woman again.
Anton clutched his chest. "Oh, Jesus, that can't be."
"Why not?" she asked.
"I'm the baby's father."
"Who's the mother?" Deadpan Chinese face.
"She lives in another state." Anton gulped for air.
"We'll need to talk to her."
"I don't know where she is now."
"We know how to find people. Where did she give birth?"
"She had a home birth." He gulped again. "Look, this is complicated. I had an affair, okay? The woman was married. Let's leave it at that." Sweat was pouring down his face. He wiped it with his starched white shirtsleeve.
"Maybe she changed her mind and wanted the baby, after all," Sergeant Woo wasn't letting up. She didn't seem to be buying the home-delivery bit.
"No." It was an agonized cry.
"Did you beat up your wife, Mr. Popescu?" This from Detective Baum.
"No!" Anton was reeling.
"Somebody beat her up," Baum said.
"I know, I know. It wasn't me."
"Mr. Popescu, you could save yourself a lot of trouble if you told us where the baby is," Sergeant Woo said.
"I told you I don't know. Do you think I would have called you assholes if I knew where he was?"
"Are you calling the sergeant here an asshole?" the detective demanded.
"That's okay," the sergeant said smoothly. "I'll let it go. Mr. Popescu, we're going to have to locate the baby's mother. This is not optional. We have to do it. We have to have the birth certificate. We can't investigate without it."
"It's not her. I know it isn't. She isn't even in the country. I couldn't do it to her. Her husband would kill her. He's a military man. And I just can't. My poor Roe. You don't know what this would do to her."
"And I need the phone number of your wife's parents," Sergeant Woo said suddenly.
That really stopped him short. "They don't know anything about this," he said, almost meekly now.
"They may know more about their daughter than you think."
"Oh Jesus. I don't want them in this. They're— emotional."
"It's procedure," the detective said flatly.
"I don't want them here, understand? I can't put up with wailing parents in my house. . . ."
"No one's bringing them here."
"They'll come here, believe me."
Anton couldn't help it. The weight of the situation broke him. He began to sputter and cry in front of them. Once he started crying, he couldn't stop. It was a whole big mess. There was no way he could contain it. He cried as if his fragile heart would break over the terrible things that were happening to him, and then he gave the two cops part of what they wanted. He gave them Heather's parents' telephone number in San Francisco. They stayed for a while longer, and then the detectives left. But the cops manning the phone stayed put. He could watch from the windows as the search in the park widened and went on. He couldn't leave the apartment. He couldn't communicate with anyone on the outside. And he had no idea what the police had found out.
CHAPTER 8
A
t half past one on Wednesday morning, the squad room of Midtown North was still jammed, noisy, and hot. April and Woody returned to the collection of small, windowless rooms on the precinct's second floor after talking with Anton Popescu and checking on the progress of the dozens of officers searching for the missing baby in the park. Before they went in she told Woody to go write up his notes and not to talk to anybody about what they'd learned.
The information they'd uncovered about the baby's parentage was for Lieutenant Iriarte's ears only. It was up to him to pass it on. Although Anton had not given them anything specific on the birth mother, he was beginning to crack in the first twelve hours, and would probably give it all up in the next twenty-four if they kept the pressure on. April hoped the child was still alive.
Feeling encouraged, she went into her very first office with actual walls and a door that gave her a little privacy and indicated her status in the department. At the moment it was occupied by a middle-aged detective she'd never seen before. He was wearing a black toupee, was wiry, and wired. He was talking on the phone, gesturing with his hands, smoking and scattering ashes all over her desk.
"This your seat?" he queried, putting his hand over the mouthpiece.
"Sergeant Woo," she murmured politely, indicating the nameplate in front of him.
"I was just leaving." He hung up without saying good-bye and went out to join his buddies squatting at other people's desks in the main squad room.
April put her purse down, fell into her desk chair with a sigh, and called Iriarte at home in Westchester. He was most interested in her report and said he'd call Hagedorn to start searching for the birth mother. After she hung up, April placed the difficult call to Heather Rose's parents in San Francisco, where the time was now a little after 10:30
P.M
. A woman picked up after the third ring.
"Wei."