The Silent Bride (24 page)

The foot stopped bobbing. Wendy clenched her fist. "Look, I know what you're getting at. I had an accident a long time ago. I was young. I was engaged.

I changed my mind. The man had other ideas and threatened me." Wendy's face showed pain. It looked pretty real to April except that was not the way the story went up in Massachusetts.

"I was afraid for my life, but I did not mean to shoot Barry. Even cops are allowed to shoot someone if they're afraid for their lives, isn't that right?" she asked defiantly.

April shook her head. Nope. They were not allowed to shoot. A good defense lawyer could get a cop off for killing someone sometimes. But allowed to shoot, uh-uh. Shooting someone was always a bad career move. "We're looking hard at you, Wendy. What do you have to say?"

Bellaqua wandered back into the room. Wendy gave her a hostile stare and bobbed her foot some more. "The bullet grazed his arm. He's still playing golf, has a twenty-four handicap. Believe me, if I'd meant to hurt him I would have taken his driving arm off." Wendy said this with a dght little smile, acknowledging her prowess.

April locked eyes with Bellaqua. This was a dangerous adversary, a competent person flawed in some fundamental way who could think in terms of taking a man's arm off to spoil his golf game if he angered her. It clicked again. Tovah's death had been an assassination. The perpetrator hadn't wanted her to see what was coming and be afraid. Sadists were people out for revenge and liked the face-to-face high of seeing their victims paralyzed, frandc with terror. They got their kick from the squirm, the fear. Tovah's murder had been a cold hit.

Wendy's mouth twitched. She was smiling now. "You really don't have anything at all, do you? You're going to keep harassing me even though I had nothing to do with it. And the maniac who did it is going to get away. It makes me sick."

Made them sick, too.

Bellaqua replied angrily, speaking for the first time. "This is how we run an investigation. We put the pieces together one by one. You have a better way, let us know."

"Well, it's a fucking insult. You know I didn't do it. Why would I kill that poor girl? I haven't shot a gun in years. I don't even
have
a gun anymore."

There.
Bellaqua and April connected again. Smart people like Wendy became more sophisticated as they developed, but they didn't necessarily change in the fundamentals. She had guns, they were sure of it. The search of her apartment had not come up with any, but April guessed she still had some somewhere. People who loved guns didn't give them up. She also guessed that Wendy had been lifting things from the gift tables of her clients, judging from the merchandise that had been in her cupboards two days ago, but was missing this afternoon when the police did their search.

Wendy grimaced suddenly, and April knew that she was still a shooter, still a thief, but they didn't have what they needed to arrest her. It made the two detectives sick as they headed home for the night. Nothing from Mike in many hours. April was anxious with him out there in the wind.

Twenty-eight

M
ike called on April's cell at midnight just as April was pulling onto her street in Astoria.

"Thank God! I was getdng worried. Are you okay?" she asked when she heard his dred voice.

"Yeah, dne, why?"

"You sound ftinny." And she hadn't heard from him. That made her uneasy, especially when she hadn't seen him all day.

"Nah, I'm fine. What's up?"

"You first," she said.

"Okay. Something's way off about that guy Louis, the florist. Everybody he has working for him has a shadow past." Mike's voice crackled on the cell phone, and she wondered where he was.

"What kind of shadow past?" The reference made her think of Citing's chef Gao Wan and his tall tale about the river god he claimed was his father. Immigrants frequently invented mythic histories for themselves. They all had shadow pasts.

"He hires young men who fought in wars."

April parked in front of her house, killed her engine, doused the lights, and sat in her car in the dark. Boys who fought in wars. Where was this going? "Any wars in particular?" she asked after a pause.

"Nope. He's an equal-opportunity employer. He's had them all—Tutsis, Hutus, Bosnians, Angolans, Cambodians, Iraqis, Afghans."

"Jesus, Mike, what does that mean?" She shivered in the quiet of her Astoria street.

"It means he puts his clients in contact with a bunch of unstable young men with a history of violence. I called a social worker friend of mine about it. She said we've still got boys coming in from all over the world who participated in mass killings back where they came from, civil wars on many continents. Also survivors. There are a lot of traumatized EDPs out there who get through INS."

Were they back to terrorists? "Aren't we doing anything about screening who comes in?" April asked, checking the row of silent houses where most of her neighbors had already gone to bed. EDPs were emotionally disturbed persons.

Mike didn't answer, but April knew perfectly well that nothing the FBI, CIA, and INS did could stop the flood of people who sailed, flew, walked, swam, and were smuggled into the USA every day. Some of them were persecuted back home, some persecutors. There had never been a treatment protocol for killers, walk-in clinics for the tortured and traumatized. One of April's motives for becoming a cop long ago had been to help Chinese immigrants negotiate the system, get the services and protection they needed.

Mike's voice became stronger. "The guy we picked up calls himself Brother. He came in from Africa about six months ago through a church group. I haven't been able to contact them yet. They're based in Liberia. He's young, possibly psychotic. Louis told me he tried high school in Brooklyn for a few weeks, couldn't hack it.

Has very little English. He lives in a basement in Brooklyn with a bunch of other guys like him. It's not a healthy place. The Health Department's going to be all over it if any of them have TB.

"Louis seems to have a network of illegals going. He calls our guy Jama. We don't know what his real name is yet. He has scratches all over his body, and we found bloody clothes. Somebody may be torturing him, but the injuries look like they could be self-inflicted."

"What makes you think so?"

"It's a long story. Have you spoken to your shrink friend yet? This guy's a head case."

"No, I called his office on Monday. His voice mail said he's away for two weeks. Emma and the baby must be with him. Got the machine on the home phone, too."

"You know where he is?"

"Uh-uh." Psychiatrists didn't exactly leave their itineraries for their patients. "But he says self-mutilators hurt themselves, not others. Is Jama organized enough to be Tovah's killer?" April didn't want to get too excited.

"Probably not by himself. But somebody could have directed him to do it, supplied the gun, then took it away afterward. He appears to be in shock."

"Oh, God, I hope he's it. Anything new on the gun?"

"No, no. Nothing found yet. Nothing from FAS, either."

April didn't want to get out of the car, go into her house, sleep alone. She missed him. "FAS, what the hell is that?" she demanded.

"Firearms Analysis Section, don't you keep up?"

"No." She hated the Department's constant name changing. "It'll always be Ballistics to me. What about Tito?" she asked, still sitting in the dark.

"Tito's brothers were among the disappeared in Argentina."

"God, what's the connection with these people? Wendy has a shadow past of her own."

"Oh, yeah, anything new?"

"Her apartment came up clean for drugs and guns. Cupboards were pretty much emptied, though. Looks like she moved a lot of stuff out. We couldn't get anything out of her. I get the feeling she's holding back a lot, but she's toughing it out, hasn't gotten herself a lawyer."

April paused. She knew the type, the kind who thought they could handle anything. She went on, "Wendy's profile doesn't make her a perfect fit for this kind of hit. And there's no motive. But she has some empty cupboards.... Where are you now?"

"I'm finishing up at ER."

What!
"What happened? Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah, it's nothing."

"Mike, you want me to meet you? I could come over," April offered quickly.

"I need to crash for a few hours. Where are you?"

"I just got home. I'm still in my car. I could come over," she repeated. She wanted to clap eyes upon him, make sure he was all right. But he wasn't going to let her.

"Get some sleep. I'll pick you up at seven." His voice cracked and died.

"Damn."

The phone rang again and she answered, hoping it was Mike calling back to enlighten her.

"Sergeant Woo."

"April, thank God I got you. I've called and called. Are you all right?"

"Ching, of course I'm fine." April inhaled deeply.

"I hate not being able to reach you," Ching complained.

April crawled out of the car. "I'm on a homicide, you know how it is. But I'm here now, just got home. I'm walking up the walk. Talk to me."

"Have you arrested the killer?" Ching asked, breathless with hope. "There wasn't anything on the news."

"We're real close," April lied. She put her key in the lock, opened the door. Inside it was still quiet. Her parents had not returned from their little trip to New Jersey.

"It's been almost a week." Her voice sounded accusing. "How can you not know?"

"It's been only three days," April corrected her. It was a complicated case, a bizarre case. There was a lot to sort through. She didn't want to be defensive. "It's coming together," she said. "We'll nail it soon."

"Did you talk to Tang yet?"

"Not yet." April took the stairs to her apartment two at a time. "When is your next fitting? I want to go with you."

Ching hesitated. "Well, sure you can. But April, your dress isn't from Tang's," she confessed.

"My dress?" April kicked her door closed, hit the light switch, and collapsed on her pink sofa. She hadn't had time to think about dresses.

"I want you to be my maid of honor. I want you to stand at my side and say something at the reception," Ching blurted.

Maid of honor? Say something? April was stunned. She'd had no idea this was in the wind. "Did Mike have something to do with this?"

"Please, April. Just a short speech. It's time the girls stand up, not just the guys. The fathers, know what I mean?" Ching was pleading. "You're my sister. I want to honor you. You can't say no," Ching said.

April shuddered at the thought of being on display, making a speech. "I don't know." It was a bad time.

"I got you a drop-dead dress. It will be ready on Saturday. Will you pick it up?" Ching wheedled.

"Ching, I'm very touched, but you didn't have to do that."
I don't want a drop-dead dress.
She didn't say it.
I don't want to think about your wedding right now with Mike's ultimatum hanging over me.

"Of course, I had to do it. My fitting at Tang's is Monday. Will the case be solved by then?"

That was four days away. "Absolutely," April promised.

"You'll pick up your dress on Saturday?"

"Okay, sure. I'll pick it up." She loved Ching. She didn't want to be selfish, thinking only of herself. Of course she would do whatever Ching asked.

"I'll come with you, okay? I want to see your face when you try it on."

"I love you, Ching," April said suddenly. "Don't be nervous. It's going to be a great wedding."

"Love you, too, April. I know it will." Ching hung up, and April was alone in the empty house. Skinny Dragon wasn't home, so there was no late-night conversation, no force-feeding. She didn't like the feeling.

Mike didn't answer either of his phones. He told her he'd picked up a suspect, Louis's African, Jama/Brother. Mike was in the ER, but who had the nothing? Just like him not to make a big deal of it! She brooded as she brushed her teeth and drank down three glasses of water, too dred to forage for food. She hoped Mike was all right, figured he was all right and just didn't want to be with her. That upset her, too. She knew she wasn't going to sleep at all. She got in bed and brooded. Jama had to be their man, had to be. Mike had broken the case. Maybe it was over. But where did that leave Wendy. • • • She fell asleep right away.