a chance to wave them on, she jumped out of the car and joined the fray. She hurried toward the building, briefly looking up at two detectives on the roof. They were wearing vests, had double-barreled shotguns cradled in their arms, and were peering over the edge from above at ledges and anything else that protruded from the building.
Then she caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd of blue in the lobby and went to talk to the precinct patrol supervisor, Lieutenant McMan, a steely type with startling green eyes and no lips at all. He had called the special units in after receiving the call from the 911 dispatcher.
'Hey, Lieutenant. What's the story?' she asked.
'Hey, Woo. Woman's name is Popescu. It appears she was assaulted in her apartment. Her baby is missing.'
'She still here?'
'No, she's in the ER at Roosevelt.'
'Anybody go with her?'
'Her husband claims he found her.' McMan shrugged. 'I have two uniforms on him.'
'Upstairs?'
'Four detectives trying to get the phones tapped in case there's a ransom demand. ESU's canvassing the basement, roof, elevator shafts, tops of the elevators, trash, trash compactors.' He smiled grimly. 'The building superintendent freaked out at the heavy tools and the floodlights. He didn't want them breaking down any walls or doors.'
'Any sign of the baby?'
McMan shook his head. 'Nothing yet.'
'What about CSU? Wasn't the crime scene secured for their first shot?'
'Yeah, yeah, they're up there, too. Apartment 9E. You going up?'
'Just for a quick look-see. I want to go over to the ER to Q-and-A the victim right away. What's her status?'
'She was unconscious when she was taken out.'
'Hey, boss.' Woody bounded up.
'We're going up,' she told him, nodding toward the front elevators, two pink marble-fronted horrors.
'Not those, we got people in the shafts. You'll have to go up the back elevator,' McMan told her.
Uniforms were swarming on the back stairs as April walked through. One was also guarding the back elevator. The elevator operators and doormen were being questioned by detectives. Tenants unable to get home stood in a clot, having fits. April and Woody commandeered the elevator, stopped at the ninth floor, and tried to enter the apartment through the kitchen.
'Forget about it, I'm not even started here. You can look in and that's it,' came a voice from behind the door. The unseen criminologist added, 'I don't give a shit who you are,' in case somebody planned to put up a fight.
'Sergeant Woo. We just want to take a look,' April said.
'This is where it happened. One look, don't touch,' came the warning.
'Fine.'
The door opened a little and April and Woody got a partial view for all of three seconds of some bloodstains on a marble floor. Somewhere in the front of the apartment another feisty crime-scene investigator and more detectives were locked in a noisy conflict over preservation of the scene versus the need to get the phones up right away so they could tape all incoming calls. She'd have to come back later.
April glanced at the garbage can by the back door and repressed a strong urge to go through it. Victim first.
'Okay,' she said to Woody. She turned to leave and realized he'd frozen the elevator on the floor so she wouldn't have to wait when she was ready to go. Good man, he was taking care of her.
Roosevelt Hospital was only a short distance away, on Ninth Avenue at Fifty-ninth Street, just a block down from the Manhattan branch of Fordham University. Woody negotiated the car through the streets and April was lost in her own thoughts. Her antennae were up, and she was bristling all over. By now there would already be detectives from the Major Cases Unit. They would move in and take over the precinct squad room, maybe even her own desk. They'd be setting up their easels and starting the clocks ticking on their chronological time sheets. It rankled that no one thought precinct detectives could handle important investigations. From now, until this missing baby was found dead or alive, the precinct squad would be doing the scut work. No precinct squad detective liked it one bit.
What April always did was to work around the members of the specialized units as if they weren't the hotshots with all the muscle. Right now, she didn't want to vent her feelings about how things were to the new kid. She wanted to manage the case correctly so the outsiders wouldn't make a mess in her territory. And she'd do her best to ignore the frenzy of the media, too.
'Leave it here,' she said. Baum abruptly pulled the car up to a no-parking zone by the emergency room entrance. Then she jerked her chin to indicate that Baum should accompany her inside.
They hurried into the ER entrance. Right away April picked out two uniforms flanking a nervous-looking man in a blue suit. She decided to take the time to stop at the reception desk before speaking with him. She didn't say anything to Woody. He didn't say anything to her. Good. The young detective, Baum, recently promoted and new to the squad, was following her lead.
At the desk a harried-looking woman with permed red hair saw the shields, then returned to her computer screen.
'Where's the assault victim? Po-pes—'
'Popescu. It's Romanian,' the woman snapped. She kept typing and didn't look up.
'Thanks, that's the one. Where is she?' She didn't glance at Baum.
'She's in treatment in room three.'
'I'd like to talk with her.'
'She's unconscious.'
'How about the doctor?'
'The doctor's with her.'
'You have any idea when I could talk with him?'
'No.' The woman returned to her typing, pleased to thwart. She filled out her uniform and then some, had angry eyes, and a patch of fiery red pimples on each cheek. After a pause, she added, 'They've finished with the X rays. Shouldn't be too long now.'
'Thanks.' April turned back to the rows of seats, occupied by a motley bunch that formed a little pond of human misery in the waiting room. She didn't want to think about the bacteria and viruses circulating the room. She recognized Duffy and Prince. Both were white, five ten or so, beefy, a few years younger than she, and not much for taking initiative of any kind.
Duffy worked a wad of gum around his mouth without actually chewing. The two cops flanked the victim's husband in an informal kind of way. The obviously upset, dark-haired man sat on a chair between them, wringing his hands. She noticed that his tie had alligators on it, that his pink shirt had a white collar and the cuffs were stained with blood; and that his blue pin-striped suit looked expensive.
'Mr. Popescu?' she said.
His head twitched her way. 'Yes.'
'I'm Detective Sergeant Woo; this is Detective Baum.'
He looked from one to the other. 'Who's in charge?' he asked testily.
'I am,' April said.
'What are you doing about finding my baby?'
'A lot of people are working on it.'
'What about my wife? I want to see my wife,' he demanded.
'The doctors are with her.'
'I don't give a shit who's with her. She's my wife. I want to see her.'
'The doctors are with her,' April repeated. Then she changed the subject. 'What happened?'
'I said I want to see my wife. You can't keep me from her.' Popescu had a wide mouth and wide-set eyes as black as April's. The voice was cold, the eyes were on fire. He looked about to blow.
