“Yeah, he misses you. Wondered why you weren’t the one to come and see him. It’s not my job to carry evidence around.”
“I didn’t know the stuff was ready.”
“You sore?”
April swiveled around the other way so she was looking toward Sergeant Joyce’s office. The doorway was just outside the squad room, down the hall so no one could see in. No way to know what Joyce was up to. Yeah, she was sore. Second day back on the job and already Mike and Sergeant Joyce were being secretive. What did Mike know that she didn’t? Hey, if she was investigating and he was supervising her investigation, he had to share whatever information he had.
“Well, it should be done by now,” April said. “I’ll give them an hour or so and go down and pick it up.”
“What’s the matter?”
April swiveled back. “I asked you if Duke had come up with anything and your response was he missed me. You holding out on me, Sanchez?”
Mike spread his hands. “What’s the matter with you? I think you got a lot of potential. Why would I hold out on you?”
April chewed on her lip. There were a lot of reasons. He was a man. He had monkey business on the brain all the time. He was her superior and maybe wanted to keep it that way. And maybe he just had some reasons of his own she didn’t know about.
“Lighten up,” he said.
“I will not lighten up until I have some answers.”
“Well, there aren’t any answers. Duke hadn’t even looked at what I gave him yesterday. He hasn’t had time.”
Still didn’t have an answer. Why did Mike go to the M.E.’s office first thing this morning? It was on Thirtieth Street and First Avenue, sort of an adjunct to Bellevue. Thirty-fourth to Twentieth, then up here to Eighty-second and Columbus. Back and forth. She shrugged. Maybe there was nothing in it. Most police work was just running from one place to another—getting warrants, moving evidence from one place to another, trying to reach people who weren’t home. Mike’s phone rang. He swung his feet down and picked up.
April looked at her watch, then punched out the number of one of the other male names in Maggie’s book. Still no answer there. She tried Maggie’s mother. Yesterday Mrs. Wheeler had told the sheriff who came to her house that she’d do anything she could to help the detectives in New York. Maybe the mother was ready to answer a few questions.
21
The rusting yellow taxi came to a screeching halt sideways in the middle of Second Avenue, barely avoiding a nasty collision with the bicycle messenger who had cut it off without warning. Skidding into a pothole, the bike tipped over and the skinny, kinky-haired messenger with a number of gold earrings in both ears fell off it. Cars squealed to a stop around him as he got up, shaking his fist.
Out of the battered taxi lunged an Indian of some sort. He was wearing a turban on his head and making angry noises in a language that in no way approximated English. Frustrated drivers in blocked cars started honking their horns.
Milicia leaned forward across the table. “Camille, can you hear me? I can’t take this.”
Camille stared out of the coffee shop window at the two men arguing on the street. It reminded her of Bouck and the gun. One day Bouck was out with Puppy at night, just around here, on Fifty-fifth Street. A guy in a car cut another guy off. The guy cut off was so mad, he jumped out of his car, pulled a gun, and blew the other man away before either of them had a chance to exchange a word. Bouck said there was blood all over the street. Camille smiled, thinking about it, trying to get away from Milicia’s big mouth.
Milicia was spying on her, watching everything she did, just like she used to. Camille stared out the window. When did Milicia have time to build those buildings of hers? There was a new one on Third Avenue, with colored panels on the outside. Milicia took her to see it last spring and told her it was hers.
Camille thought it was ugly. Bouck had offered to get the light fixtures for the whole building, but Milicia said someone had already gotten the bid for that. The bag moved. Camille put her hand on it.
Puppy was in the bag. Bouck had bought her a fancy carrier from Louis Vuitton that looked like a shoulder bag so Camille could take Puppy with her everywhere. Nobody in the coffee shop knew there was a dog on the seat beside her. Her mind shifted to that but her face didn’t smile. She could feel her face freezing as she tried to ignore her sister opposite her in the booth.
“What were you doing in that boutique?” For the last ten minutes Milicia kept asking her the same thing. The tuna salad Milicia had ordered didn’t meet her specifications, too much mayonnaise. Two scoops of it sat untouched on a sheaf of pale green iceberg lettuce.
Camille’s hands twitched in her lap. She didn’t answer. She wanted to eat the toasted cheese sandwich on her plate but couldn’t reach for it with Milicia there. She was thinking that Milicia probably poisoned it. Even if Milicia left, she couldn’t eat it now.
“I saw you, Camille. I saw you in the window. Camille, I know you’re crazy. I know you think this boutique thing is a way to get back at me, but you’ll be punished. Do you understand? Look at me.” Milicia’s voice dropped to a furious whisper. “You’ll be punished worse than ever before.”
Camille turned her head. Now she could see Milicia’s red mouth moving again. She wanted to put a stop to it.
“Why don’t you leave me alone?” Camille finally formed the words. She found the words and her lips moved.
“You know why.”
Camille shook her head. She didn’t know why. She was trying on a dress. Just trying on a dress. She liked to go shopping when she could. Today she could. The sun was burning a hole in the deep blue sky. There was not a single cloud anywhere. No possibility of rain. Camille didn’t like to sit in the sun or let it touch her too deeply, but she could walk in it. She had been having a good day. She’d moved from Bouck’s building out into the sun. A hat with a big brim hid her face from the dangerous rays. It was the hat Bouck liked best, straw with a lavender ribbon around the brim.
She remembered working on getting outside, sneaking away before Bouck could talk to her. Sometimes Bouck talked to her, bothered her, wanted her to do something. She couldn’t ever tell Bouck that she didn’t like that. He got mad at the tiniest things. She pressed her lips together to remind herself what would happen if too many words came out. Sometimes she sat in the basement, hiding all day, listening to the noises in the shop above, afraid to move. Sometimes she got in trouble with herself and didn’t know what she was doing. But today her head felt okay, clear enough to get out.
She had turned left on the street and headed north toward Bloomingdale’s. She passed Bloomingdale’s, though, couldn’t go in. It was too dangerous in there. She even turned her head away as she went by it. All that stuff and the black walls did bad things to her. In Bloomingdale’s sometimes she remembered her mother, stroking her head when she was little after something happened, and promising her everything would be all right. The memory gave her a headache. Other memories, too.
On Third Avenue and Sixty-first Street there was a shoe store. The boutique next to it had a dress in the window that attracted Camille. She wanted to try it on. Camille liked going into stores and trying things on. Bouck always gave her lots of money in hundred-dollar bills. She could have anything she wanted. She liked to think about the cash in her pocket. Sometimes she put her hand in her pocket, or the bag Puppy was in, to feel the money. The money, rolls of it, hidden in the house, shocked Milicia.
Milicia’s mouth was moving again. “Don’t you understand I’m trying to save you? Camille, you’re in terrible trouble. Do you understand that? I’m trying to figure out what to do.”
“Leave me alone.” Camille traced the words on the paper table mat:
