There was no operator in the elevator when the doors slid open and they got in. Popescu was still holding one hand up to his face as if to keep himself together.
"What's your baby's name?" April asked suddenly.
"Paul. His name is Paul." Popescu said nothing further.
When the elevator stopped without a jerk on the ninth floor, they were confronted by a group of impor-tant-looking men at the end of the hall.
"Jesus, who are they?" Popescu cried.
April saw the precinct commander, Bjork Johnson, and two other brass in uniforms, Lieutenant Iriarte and Detectives Skye and Creaker of the precinct squad. Her heart drummed in her chest as she hurried toward them down a hall that didn't seem to curve with the building.
Until a few years ago, she had worked in the 5th Precinct in Chinatown and had never been in a building as luxurious as this. After working in the Two-O on the Upper West Side and Midtown North for the last two years, she no longer unconsciously held her breath when she entered a rich residence. Heather Rose's mother probably annoyed all her friends with her bragging about the castle her daughter lived in.
The scene at the end of the hall was the usual. The people of importance were standing around waiting for something to break while the specialists tried to get their work done. Iriarte and the CO had on their angry-worried expressions, which meant they were unhappy that things had quickly moved beyond their control. Before April said a word, her supervisor's face told her he wanted her to clear this case immediately. He wanted the special units out of his territory. How did he expect her to pull that off? Iriarte didn't even know yet that the baby wasn't Heather's biological child. She introduced him to Popescu, left the men together, and went inside the apartment with Woody at her heels.
Apartment 9E faced the park, but April didn't have time to admire the view. First, she saw the bloodstains on the white carpet in the foyer. Looked like tracks. The perp could have gotten blood on his shoes, or Anton, or the EMS unit, taking Heather out. They would have been working on the victim, not worrying about crime-scene contamination. Fingerprint powder covered every surface that could take it, in three unbecoming colors: white, black, and gray. She moved into the living room, where two detectives were working on the phones.
"Anything?" she asked. They ignored her.
She looked around. The furniture in the living room was slick, shiny, and new, now messy with fingerprint powder. Here a Chinese influence was evident. Differ-ent-sized antique lacquer boxes were displayed on the tables. Silk brocade pillows with themes of old China were neatly arranged on the chairs and sofas. A green-and-white bamboo-patterned fabric covered the sofas. In the middle of the black lacquer coffee table sat a large bowl filled with real pink peonies. The smell of the peonies was strong enough to cover even the powerful odor of police sweat.
April realized with a start that the flowers had just recently been put there: only a few of the blossoms were fully open. A rack by the sofa looked as if it had been hastily stuffed with magazines. She could see no Asian ones. Heather Rose stocked up on
Vogue, Bazaar, House Beautiful, Bon Appetit.
They were current and didn't have address stickers. That meant she'd bought them on the stand within the last three weeks. Did brand-new mothers usually care so much about fashion and food? There were no magazines about babies.
"Guess she's not the
Good Housekeeping
kind of woman," Baum remarked. He'd noticed, too.
April caught sight of a wedding photo in a highly polished silver frame. Though not a classic Chinese beauty, the bride looked stunning in an off-the-shoulder, slim-fitting satin wedding gown with a long train. The groom, standing behind her, was not much taller than she. He was hidden from the waist down by the train on her dress. In the photo their cheeks were touching, and they had dreamy expressions on their faces, as if they were stoned.
April found the first signs of a baby in a room that looked like an office that had been halfheartedly turned into a nursery. A desk with a computer and papers (now gritty with fingerprint powder) sat against one wall, a swiveling leather desk chair in front of it.
Beside it, a bookcase filled with books for adults was covered with more powder. The white crib was placed by the window overlooking the park. The curtains on the window were office tweed; they hadn't been changed for the baby. Maybe she hadn't known it was coming.
The elaborate crib was new and clearly expensive. There was a changing table nearby, but nothing much was on it—an empty box of diapers, a container of baby powder. April opened the diaper pail. A strong odor of a poopy diaper jumped out at her. April felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She was all keyed up, the way she got when there was a homicide and all her emotions and adrenaline were charging up at once. Fear that she'd mess up and ruin her career and thus her whole life, anger at what had been done to the victim, passion for justice, for revenge against the perpetrator; the sight of a crime scene did that to her.
Heather Rose's being a victim didn't go down well with her at all. Chinese were good mothers, were famous for adoring their children except in certain circumstances—like extreme poverty, or if the babies happened to be girls—when they killed them. Paul Popescu, however, wasn't a girl, and the family was rich, not poor. And they weren't in China. And quite possibly the baby was adopted. There was no reason for a woman like Heather Rose to have killed him.
Suddenly April was aware of a small ghost in the room with her. April did not believe in ghosts the way her mother and other old-style Chinese—and even Mike's Mexican mother—did. She knew that ghosts were just an invention to scare people and make them honor their ancestors. All the same, something that felt like a ghost flew by her ear. Then it circled around and flew back, hovering in one place and beating at the air around her head to get her attention. April shivered as the ghost kept the hair raised on the back of her neck. It was telling her not to be intimidated by any of the bosses, not to be pushed into the background by the special units so someone else's career could get a lift. She was sure there was a ghost in the room, and the ghost was telling her that baby Paul had gone missing in her precinct on her watch. And further, since they didn't know who his biological parents were, she and the rookie detective, Woody Baum, who was all she had in the way of support, had better find Paul very soon.
CHAPTER 6
The hall was empty when April and Woody came out of the Popescus' apartment. "What do you see here, Detective?" April asked him.
Baum looked worried. "What do I see?"
"Yeah, what's going on here?" A hint of impatience crept into her voice. If Baum wanted to be useful and go somewhere, he couldn't answer a question with a question. He had to answer a question, period.
"Is this a test?" Baum was a preppy-looking guy; he wore a blue blazer and kept a second gun strapped to his ankle. His brown hair was so short it was hard to tell whether it curled. He rubbed at it with a free hand, as if trying to make it grow.
"Everything in this life is a test," she told him.
He walked along, chafing the stubble till they reached the elevator, where he punched the Down button. "The beating happened in the kitchen," he said finally. "This looks like a domestic case to me. Maybe they'll find some of the husband's blood in or around one of the puddles on the floor. Then we could nail him for beating his wife." He looked hopeful.
"What about the baby?"
Baum frowned at the second part of the equation.
"If he battered the wife, what do you think he did with the baby?" she elaborated.
"He didn't seem to know where the baby was."