'Huh? No, no. You're getting messed up here,' April fumed. 'That guy Julio something, the one we picked up last night—'
'Well, you caused me a lot of trouble with that. You picked him up. I questioned him. He wasn't the one.'
'What are you talking about? The guy was a—'
'We found the murder weapon. Liberty's prints were on it. It's been confirmed. Liberty killed Jefferson. We figure it's a sure thing that he killed his wife as well.' His face said
April's stomach was all over the place. The man made her physically sick. His spit was in her mouth. She was afraid she was going to hurl. 'Where's Julio?'
'Oh, we let him go hours ago, but he's a witness. We know where he is. He'll come back and sing anytime.'
'Who arrrested Liberty?'-
'Your people. He's at Midtown North.'
And no one had told her. Ducci beeped her, Mike beeped her, she couldn't reach either of them when she called back. But no one from the precinct beeped her about that. April stood and grabbed her coat.
'Wait a minute, we have to talk.'
'Oh, yeah?'
'Ah, I wanted to tell you I can't do dinner tonight. I have to start interviewing Liberty around seven-thirty, eight.' He checked his watch again.
'No problem,' April assured him. She wasn't available either.
'But maybe we could meet later, you know . . .'
Sure, dream on. She didn't look at him as she left.
There was a great commotion on Fifty-fourth Street when April arrived. During the afternoon the wind had picked up. It was a cutting January knife now, slashing through the excited crowd that had gathered outside Midtown North in the early dark. The special breed of people who drove vans with dishes on top, wore heavy cameras around their necks, spoke heatedly into microphones, and manned minicams like soldiers with assault rifles were there en masse. More of them were trying to move in at Eighth Avenue, and no uniforms were down at the light, directing traffic, or out front to keep the predators away from the station house door.
April double-parked half a block away. As she walked back, she was still trembling with fury at the treachery all around. She inhaled some frigid air through her nose to calm down. The cold made her want to sneeze. Approaching the crush, she started shouting instead. 'Move that equipment out of here. Right now. You know the rules. This is a police station. Clear the entrance.'
The sharks moved a few inches back. Inside the precinct there was more pandemonium. At the desk April had to raise her voice to be heard over the din. 'Sergeant, we need some bodies outside.'
'We need some bodies inside, too,' came the reply. 'Got some coming in.'
'Where is he?'
The sergeant didn't have to ask who. His answer was a scowl as his thumb jerked upward. April climbed the stairs, fighting wasteful emotion. As she neared the top, as if on cue, Mike came out of the office he'd been assigned. His face was grave as he waited for her, then drew her into the tiny office and closed the door.
'Are you part of this?' she asked coldly.
'I just got here. I tried to call you. Where were you?'
'It's a long story.'
'What did you do with your mother?'
'I asked a friend of hers to take her home. She'll never forgive me. Not if I have ten thousand lives.' April longed to grab him and hold him tight. Skinny Dragon said Mike smelled too sweet for a man, but he smelled good to her. She breathed him in. He looked good to her, too. Sexy. Strong. He always knew what to do in every situation. She liked his hair, his mustache. Liked his dangerous-looking clothes and the respect he had for her. He'd never grabbed her no matter how tempted he was. In all her years as a cop no matter what happened, no matter how great the carnage or the violence, or the tragedy of any situation, April had never cried on the job. She could feel the tears coming now.
'They arrested our suspect,' was all she could think of to say. He nodded. So they had.
'Did you talk to Kiang?' he asked, changing the subject.
'He's a
'That bad.'
'Yeah.' April vibrated with emotion.
'Hey, take it easy.' His calming tone agitated her further.
'How can you say that when everybody's fucking us over like this?' Eyes blazing, she jabbed a finger at his chest. Hysterical Skinny Dragon on a rampage couldn't have looked wilder. 'You realize what's happened here? They—'
He caught the finger and kissed it. 'It ain't over till it's over. By the way, did you talk to Ducci?'
'No, what's he got on the coat?'
'I don't know. He wasn't there when I called him.'
April shook her head. 'Where is he?'
'He left a message saying he'd call back.'
A few minutes later they walked into the squad 'room. lriarte was hiding behind his closed door, talking on the phone. When he saw them, he turned his back.
Hagedorn was hunched over his desk with the forms. He'd gotten stuck with the paperwork—preparing the arrest forms, the complaint arrest report, the property voucher form, and the On Line Booking System arrest report. The last had approximately a hundred data elements and had to be filled in by hand. He didn't look up when they came in.
'Hey, Charlie,' Mike said, casually opening his leather coat and shrugging at his shoulder holster. 'Looks like you made an arrest here. What's the story?'
Hagedorn's eyes darted over to the window in Iriarte's office before settling on Mike. 'You didn't hear?'
April glanced at the holding cell. It was empty.
'No, man. We didn't hear.'
'Gee, I thought—' Hagedorn's pen tapped the desk. He looked for help from lriarte, but the CO of the squad kept his back to the window.
Mike leaned over and read Liberty's name off one of the arrest forms. 'What's going on, man?'
Hagedorn made a slurping noise. 'Those guys in the Thirtieth really suck. I bet they told you there were no witnesses to the Jefferson hit.'
'So what have you got?' Mike asked.
Hagedorn's body did a little street-boy bob. 'We got the shooter.' Yeah.
'No kidding, and who might that be?' Mike asked, eyes innocent.
'Don't pull that wiseass stuff on me. You know we nailed the black bastard. Got him for one homicide. That'll do for a start.' Hagedorn slapped his knee.
April looked around for a black bastard, didn't see one. Her body made up its mind. She was boiling. 'Where did you make the arrest?' she asked.
He kept his eyes on the paperwork. 'The fucker was in a town house on One-Ten Street with some black chick, probably his girlfriend. He E-mailed your shrink buddy that he was going to make a statement on TV.'
'No kidding.' Mike looked mildly interested.
'We had to arrest him before he could do so.'
'Why didn't you beep me?' April demanded.
Hagedorn ignored her. 'See, our supposition is that Liberty made the Jefferson hit because Jefferson saw him kill his wife and may have been blackmailing him. As soon as Jefferson was out of the way, Liberty was ready to come out of hiding.'
'From what we heard from uniforms on the scene no one saw the shooter. What evidence do you have that it was Liberty?' April's voice was beginning to sound angry.
Hagedorn turned his head to make eye contact with her for the first time. 'Liberty's prints were on the murder weapon.' He made a fist and jerked his elbow back Yeah.
