Yes, she knew exactly how much ten thousand pounds of steaming guilt a day weighed on a child’s shoulders. She liked the image and his joking about the accent, liked the gold signet ring on his finger.
He drank down half the beer and looked at her appraisingly. “What made you become a cop?”
She tasted hers, considering an answer. She didn’t want him to think badly of her parents for not insisting she go to Columbia. Didn’t want to insult her parents by implying poverty. She put her glass down. The beer was warm. “There seemed to be a need.”
In response to that, her beeper sounded from inside her lucky red blazer.
George looked surprised. “What’s that?”
“My beeper. Something must have come up. I’m sorry. I have to call in.”
She pushed her chair back and made her way through the crush to the front of the restaurant, where a pay phone hung prominently behind the cash register. She dialed the squad number.
“What’s going on?” she asked when Sanchez came on the line.
“Where are you?”
“Doyers Street.”
“Chinatown. What’re you doing down there?”
“It’s lunchtime, my day off. I’m having lunch.” April tried not to sound impatient. “What’s coming down?”
“Braun wants you in here now. Third floor, examination room.”
“Yeah, what for?” Adrenaline and alarm shot through her in equal measures.
“He’s got Maggie’s boyfriend.”
“No kidding.” April’s heart thudded. How did he do that, when she and Sanchez had missed him? Son of a bitch. This wasn’t going to go down well with Sergeant Joyce or Captain Higgins.
“No kidding. And get this. Braun wants his team there with him.”
Oh, now they were a team, great. April looked at her watch. She’d been with George Dong all of twenty- three minutes. So much for dating. “Twenty minutes max,” she promised.
Sanchez hung up without comment.
April pushed her way back to the table through an even larger crowd than had been there earlier. George Dong, the doctor, was smiling at her. She noticed he was not so very ordinary-looking when his mouth turned up at the edges. As she approached the table, she had a minute to wonder if he really played tennis or if he just carried the racquet around for show. Lot of people were sneaky like that.
“You have to go, right.” It wasn’t even a question. He knew.
“Sometimes it happens. I’m really sorry. The case I’m working—something’s come up.”
“It’s okay. I know how it is,” he said magnanimously.
But she knew it wasn’t okay. All the way uptown, she had a really sick feeling about the whole thing. She didn’t know if there was any way to make it all right with him. She figured the worst case was he’d bad-mouth her to his mother. His mother would bad-mouth her to her mother and her mother would kill her. Best case he wouldn’t say anything.
37
Lieutenant Braun was still wearing his powder-blue jacket. April spotted it across the squad room when she arrived. Braun was crowding Mike’s desk, talking fast, and poking a finger at the air. He turned around at Mike’s welcoming smile.
“Ah. Detective Woo,” Braun said. A hint of sarcasm edged into his voice.
“Lieutenant Braun.”
April’s desk appeared to be unoccupied by anyone on the Sunday shift. She put her bag down on it. “What’s happening?”
Mike raised a crooked eyebrow, jerking his head at the farthest desk down the line. A preppy-looking young man in a seersucker sport jacket seemed to have tied his body in a knot around a telephone, and was relating to it intimately.
April took him in. Light brown hair, blue eyes, a spattering of freckles across the nose. Medium build. Looked not unlike Dan Quayle, the former vice president. Five eleven to six foot. Where did Braun dig him up?
Braun nodded. “I’m pretty hot shit” was written all over him. He smirked and folded a fresh stick of gum into his mouth. “Name’s Roger McLellan. Says he left town a week ago Friday. That’s the day
“What kind of guy that young knows a lawyer? He knew the number by heart, didn’t even have to look it up. I’m running a sheet on him,” Mike added.
“Maybe they’re friends,” April murmured.
McLellan’s body was still wrapped around the telephone receiver as he whispered into it heatedly.
“Who?” Braun looked at her.
“Him and the lawyer.”
“Yeah, sure. Who’s friends with a lawyer?”
They watched McLellan reluctantly put the receiver back on the phone and straighten up, visibly pulling himself together. When he approached the three detectives, it was with an air of nervous belligerence.
“My attorney is on his way. He told me to tell you I have nothing to say until he gets here. Where would you like me to wait?” McLellan glanced at the barred enclosure opposite the line of desks.
Braun shook his head at the holding cell. Not so fast. “We’ll go downstairs. You want something? Cup of coffee?” he asked. Real friendly.
McLellan said no. They all trudged downstairs to the same questioning room April and Mike had used to interrogate Albert Block five days earlier. April guessed Braun still wasn’t thrilled with his accommodations next to the men’s room.
Peter Langworth, a near-twin of Roger McLellan’s right down to the seersucker jacket, appeared forty-five minutes later.
“Okay, what’s this all about?” the attorney demanded.
What a pair of tough guys. April glanced at Mike, who had one of his sudden coughs.
Braun introduced himself, then nodded at the chairs. “Why don’t you gentlemen take a seat. Mike, go check on the sheet you were talking about.” Braun turned his back on Sanchez.
Stunned, April caught Mike’s eye. What was that little power-play all about? First he gets Sanchez down there on his day off and then he sends him out of the room. She watched Sanchez’s retreating back. Not one to show his frustration, Mike closed the door quietly as he left.
“Sit down, Detective.” Braun pointed to a chair, then waited for the sitting and scraping to stop. Finally he addressed Roger McLellan. “You know Maggie Wheeler?”
“She’s not in the movement,” McLellan said. “It’s my thing. She has nothing to do with it.”
Braun furrowed his brow at April. What movement?
“Why don’t you tell us about it,” he suggested.
“Maggie has nothing to do with it. She doesn’t want to be involved—”
His lawyer leaned forward. “You don’t have to say anything else, Roger. Lieutenant—”
“Braun.”
“Lieutenant Braun. Why don’t
“Fine. Maggie Wheeler was murdered last Saturday night—”
The gasp was audible. “What?” McLellan croaked.
April’s heart plunged. Shit. The guy didn’t know.
Braun went on, unperturbed. “So we’re looking into who killed her.”
“Maggie’s dead?” The lawyer paled. So he knew Maggie Wheeler, too.
