and her gun under it. April knew that even if it got really cold Carmella would keep her jacket unzipped so she could get at her gun. They'd talked guns at lunch once, so April knew Carmella still carried the old .38 Chief's Special and took good care of it. She told April she'd tried a automatic at the range once and couldn't get over how light and easy it was to grip. But then the gun jammed when she pulled the trigger and that was it for her. In the department you still had to buy your own gun, and she wasn't taking any chances laying down big money for a weapon that might fail her when she needed it. She was taking some chances with the hair, though. April wrinkled her nose.
Carmella's eyes flashed. 'What chu looking at?' She took the attitude position with one foot splayed and a hand on the opposite hip.
She was an inch or two taller than April, maybe five eight. The extra inches she got with her heavy winter boots put her at about five ten. April jerked her chin up at the hair.
'Anybody ever tell you you could get your scalp ripped off?'
'With Bobby here to protect me?' Carmella laughed as a white uniform about five five with his shoes on chugged up grinning and raised a hand to pet her hair as if it were a friendly animal he hadn't seen in a while. She slapped the hand away.
April ignored the horseplay. 'Make me happy. Put the hair up. Our lady may be in a loving mood this morning and feel the need to protect her man.'
'Shit happens,' Bobby agreed, hitching at his belt as if the rise was too short in his uniform trousers.
'Nah, this one's my buddy. She won't give me no trouble.' Now Carmella was grinning.
Still struggling with his balls, Bobby did a quick knee bend and hitched at his pants some more.
Carmella watched, speculating. 'You all twisted up again, Bobby?'
'Yeah, you want to help me out?'
Now April was getting annoyed. These two were pushing al her buttons and knew it. Sometimes when you went to arrest a batterer, it was the wife who went berserk pulling a cop's hair, hitting him with a frying pan, biting. Horseplay might calm these two down, but it was dangerous.
Bobby's partner, a guy they called DodQ, showed up. 'Ready?'
'Put up the hair,' April said.
'Sure.' Carmella wrapped a scarf around her neck.
'She says 'sure,' but she'll only take it down later in the car.' Bobby grabbed a handful and tweaked the hair.
Carmella punched his arm.
'It's trouble all around. Put it up, and keep it up,' April warned.
Carmella's cheerful expression soured, and April knew she'd made an enemy. A perfect Chinese person knew how to get her way without giving offense. A perfect American didn't give a shit. April wasn't perfect in either culture. She turned away, suddenly depressed. 'Go on, safe landing,' she muttered.
The elevator door opened and Mike swaggered out with his leather jacket on. 'I hear you're looking for me.'
Where did he hear that? April swung around, irritated that she'd waited too long to get out to the lab without him.
* * *
They took an unmarked gray unit, and April was glad to let Mike drive slowly through the dirty slush. He was thoughtful, didn't offer his opinion of her boss, Iriarte, or the surveillance officer who'd lost their suspect, or anything else about the failures in the precinct where she worked. She was grateful for that. Then he spoke.
'Look, April, I know how you feel about me. I see how it is with your boss. Now I guess it was stupid to think I could charge into your new house, into a big case like this, and there'd be no repercussions for you.'
She was touched by his sensitivity, didn't trust her voice to reply.
'Pretty dumb, huh?'
'Hey, it's not your fault. You didn't know.'
'Wasn't a hard one. We never liked strangers in our cases.'
She couldn't help smiling. 'Is this an apology?'
'Maybe. The problem is, it wouldn't look good for either of us if I backed off now. We'd have a mess and no sure way to clear the case. We'd both be fucked for sure, no pun intended. We've got to work together on this one, are you agreed?'
'I agree we have to solve it, yes. Do we have to work together every minute? No.'
Mike fell silent. After a while he changed the subject. 'I checked with security in Liberty's building. Guess what?'
'Liberty isn't on the videotape going out on the night of the murder or last night, either,' April said.
'Worse than that.'
'He isn't on the videotape coming in on the night of the murder.'
'Nope. Guess again.'
'Why do I have to guess? Why don't you just tell me?'
'You're no fun.'
'I know.' Nothing new there.
'So, there's no videotape.'
'Someone took it?' April prompted.
'Uh-uh. There hasn't been a videotape in a year. It was too expensive to run it. There'd never been a robbery in the building, and the constant spying was getting some of the people in the building in trouble.'
'Nose picking or affairs?'
'Whatever. The board voted to stop the twenty-four-hour-a-day filming. Now a guy sits in the screening room from eight a.m. when the building opens to six p.m. when it closes. Inside the building complex the residents can go anywhere. But delivery people can't go up in the elevators unescorted after that.'
'So security is only for nonresidents. Liberty must have known that.'
Mike shrugged. 'It's how he got out unseen last night. Must have gone downstairs into the basement and walked out through the garage. He didn't take his car because it was stolen the day before the murder. The garage attendants confirmed that Jefferson took it the fifth, not the week before as he told us.'
'We've been looking for witnesses who saw Liberty leaving the scene. Maybe it's time to check for someone who saw his car on the scene.'
Mike nodded. He cut the motor, and they left the car double-parked in front of the Police Academy building. Upstairs, Ducci was standing by the wired window, watching the street when April and Mike strode into his lab. Glowering, he pushed up a white cuff on his blue shirt and made a big show of tapping the dial of his heavy gold watch. It was 9:43.
'What took you so long?' he demanded.
'Haven't you noticed we've got weather and traffic conditions out there?' April replied, smiling a little at Ducci's sudden hurry to get them there after three days of putting them off.
'We've always got weather and traffic,' Ducci grumbled. He liberated a Snickers bar from his pocket and tore at the wrapper.
'So what's up?' April asked.
'What's up is very big. 1 didn't want to talk about it on the phone. Have a seat.' Ducci chewed off half a chocolate bar, then rolled Nanci's vacant chair over for April.
Mike had to move Lola the skull and a pile of files from the chair next to Ducci's desk, which was piled with bloody clothes from the Liberty case. Mike looked around for a clear surface, couldn't find one, finally put the files and the skull on the floor by his feet.
'You know, they're making these things fat free now,' Ducci mused, holding up the rest of the candy bar. 'Little bitty things. Now who would go for something like that?' The second half disappeared into his mouth, and he chewed angrily.
Merrill's sweater dress and Tor's cashmere coat and sweater had been carefully dried to preserve the shape of the stains. Now they were spread out across Ducci's desk with their tags dangling. Of all the pieces taken as evidence from the bodies and the crime scene, these were the items that held Ducci's interest at the moment. April guessed it was something about them that made him angry, not the idea of fat-free candy.
