“Gee, I don’t know a thing. Monday’s Olga’s day off. I have no idea where she goes,” her roommate said with so many hesitations and pauses, April was pretty sure she did. “How do I know you’re really from the police?”
“You can call the precinct and ask for me. You want to do that?” April asked. “Or do you want me to come over and show you my badge?”
“How do you spell your name?”
“W-o-o. How do you spell yours?”
“Ah. We just share the rent. I hardly even know her. Do you want to leave a message?”
“No. I need to talk to her now.”
“Why, did she do something wrong?”
“Someone’s been killed in the store where she works.”
“Jesus.”
There was a pause. The girl didn’t ask how or when.
“Now will you tell me where she is?” April said.
“I’ll call around and see if I can find her. I’ll call you right back,” the girl promised nervously, and hung up.
April threw her notebook in her bag and turned to Mike. “Want to take a drive?” she asked.
“That was easy.” He reached for his jacket. “Where is she?”
“Doesn’t want us to know. She’s probably working without a green card. Let’s try the roommate.”
It was seven P.M. on the first day of a big case. The squad room was riotous and smelled strongly of sweat and stale coffee. Five people in the detective squad day shift were still there, the seven-man evening shift had long since arrived, and both shifts were jockeying for desk space and the phones. April and Mike’s departure opened up two desks and phones. In the barred cell which was the main decoration of the room, an outraged mugger screamed obscenities.
11
Well, What did you do for a whole week without me?” Mike said as soon as they were in the car. It was hot, maybe eighty-five degrees. They took the unmarked red Chevy Sergeant Joyce had used earlier even though the air conditioner was broken. They didn’t like to use their own cars while they were on duty, and taking a blue-and-white was beneath Sanchez’s dignity.
“Pined away,” April answered lightly, busy with her seat belt.
It had taken him all day to get personal. It always happened when they were in a car together.
“No kidding.” He pulled out of the police lot. “Where to?”
“Prince Street.”
“Hah. Your old neighborhood.”
Hah. Now he was making the same sounds she did.
“Hah, yes indeed. My old neighborhood. I’ll try not to hyperventilate when we get there.”
He turned at the corner and headed down Columbus. Yellow crime-scene tapes still sealed The Last Mango. April knew she and Sanchez were both having the same thought. That someone should die so young and so grotesquely not even a block from the precinct was an offense that was hard to take.
Sobbing off what was left of her mascara, Elsbeth Manganaro had said that of all her stores, she felt safest in this one. “Because of the police next door. And what good was that?” she added for the fourteenth time.
“How many stores do you have?” April had asked to make the question go away.
“Four, but two of them are on the Island.”
“Long Island?”
“Where else?” Elsbeth demanded.
April lifted a shoulder. There were other islands.
Now she was silent. The beginning of each case was like walking into a fog so dense you couldn’t see to the corner, couldn’t even see your own feet on the ground. Everything was unknown. You didn’t know what kind of awful thing you might find when you put your hand out. What piece you might miss if you didn’t ask the right question. Or look in the right corner when the light was just right. Sometimes the fog didn’t lift to reveal the puzzle pieces for a long time. Sometimes it never did. Anxiety about finding some pieces in the murk caused April’s thoughts to jump around like a bird hopping from limb to limb.
Who would kill a girl with police cars parked all over the place just outside? Sometime on Saturday, probably just after seven when the store closed, but maybe later. The girl could have waited for someone who was picking her up. Maybe there were no police cars out there. Maybe they were all on call. What else happened on Saturday night?
“So where were you on Saturday night?” Once again Mike’s thoughts echoed her own.
“Not on duty. I don’t know what was going on here.”
“I know. I checked.”
“Checked what?”
“I checked to see if you were on duty.”
It was really hot in the car, even with the windows open and the wind blowing through. It was almost theater hour. Columbus Avenue was jammed.
April bristled. “What did you do that for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you were here and saw something.”
“I wasn’t,” she said flatly.
There was an opening in the traffic. Mike speeded up.
“So where were you?” he asked after a minute.
“I was off duty, like you.” She frowned. “Why?”
“I’ve been away for a week. I just want to know what
Very engaging. Very Spanish, just what she needed.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she snapped.
“Go ahead, you want to know what I did? I’ll tell you everything.”
“Some other time. Right now we have a dead woman to think about.”
“She’s not exactly going anywhere. You could take a second to ask me if I had a good time and tell me you missed me.”
April looked out the window. Lincoln Center was lit up like a Christmas tree. She had walked around it with forty other eleven-year-olds on a class trip once, but had never been inside. Mike sped past it.
“I had a wonderful time, thanks for asking,” he said.
She had never been to Mexico either. There were a lot of things she didn’t know. “How’s Diego?” she said to prove she was up on something.
“Diego? Diego, who?”
“Diego Rivera. That painter you told me about.”
“Wow. What a memory. Diego’s dead, but the paintings are fine.” Mike accelerated through a yellow light. Months before he had told her about the art and literature of Mexico to let her know he wasn’t just some Latino from an island with a short history and not much art. His culture was as old as hers.
“Guess I should have sent you a postcard,” he said.
She shrugged as their progress stalled again around Forty-second Street. He held out his hand, wiggling his fingers. Without having to ask, April knew he wanted the turret light. It was on the floor by her foot. She handed it to him. He reached out his window, stuck it on the roof, then hit the hammer halfheartedly a few times. Cars ahead of them moved over slowly at the sound of the siren.
“So?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.
“So what?”
“So, where were you on Saturday night?”
“What’s the damn difference?” April fumed for a second, then relented. “Okay, I was at a wedding.” She finally blurted out the hateful fact. “Not mine, are you happy now?”
