Hanging Time by Glass Leslie

Author:Glass, Leslie [Glass, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2011-01-26T06:00:00+00:00

40

By the time April got there, over fifteen vehicles and thirty cops jammed the area that was already roped off with sticky crime-scene tape. The two beat officers from the 17th Precinct who got there first and were responsible for securing the scene were still fighting a losing battle trying to keep interested colleagues out of European Imports. At least a dozen people had marched into the store to have a look. All had come out in a hurry, green as the corpse.

The ABC news van that April had seen the week before outside the bagel store on Fifty-sixth Street must have picked up the police call while they were getting breakfast. They were already setting up for a special broadcast.

“Get them out of here!” Lieutenant Braun barked at the beat officers, pointing to the news team.

Two other officers from the 17th were trying to direct the traffic. The street was a mess. Vehicles, including half a dozen blue-and-whites from each precinct, the news van, an EMS ambulance, and a crime-scene station wagon were all triple-parked on Second Avenue, slowing the traffic to a frustrated trickle.

April had double-parked her white Le Baron a block down and walked back. She heard Braun barking orders before she could see him. The first person she saw was Igor unloading his equipment—the cameras, evidence boxes, kits, and the vacuum. Good, they called for the same team that worked the other case. She waved.

Lieutenant Braun and Sergeant Sanchez were deep in conversation on the sidewalk in front of the store.

“Ah so, Detective Woo, thanks for joining us,” Braun said without turning his head in her direction.

April nodded at him, brushing off the sarcasm with a smile. She figured him for a heart attack in the not too distant future and comforted herself with the thought that someday she’d be the Lieutenant and he’d be dead.

“Morning, sir,” she murmured. From downcast eyes she noted that Braun’s stringy hair was thinning fast. He was wearing the same powder-blue jacket he’d worn the week before. It still looked clean. Maybe he had more than one.

“How ya doing, Mike?”

He looked at his watch, then at her. “You made good time.”

“Yeah, I took the tunnel.”

She didn’t have to ask why they were hanging around on the street. The air conditioner was on, and the unmistakable odor of a not-so-recent death pumped out to the sidewalk like the frying garlic from Chinese restaurants.

“Nobody reported this all weekend?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Nope. Apparently the owner turned on the air conditioner when he got here. He said he wanted to air out the store, didn’t want to lose his merchandise,” Mike told her.

“Oh.” They’d all been contaminated often enough to know how persistently this odor lingered in the nostrils, on the skin, in whatever clothes they were wearing. It would cling to the walls and carpets of the store itself, like smoke after a fire.

“Did he touch anything else?” Igor, loaded down with cardboard evidence boxes, stopped beside them for a second.

“Igor, do you know Lieutenant Braun?” April asked.

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