Stealing Time by Glass Leslie

Author:Glass, Leslie [Glass, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Detective, Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Mystery, New York (N.Y.), Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Policewomen, Fiction, Woo, April (Fictitious character), Mystery & Detective - Police Procedural, General, Women Sleuths, Police, Chinese American women, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Literary, General & Literary Fiction, Wife abuse, Women detectives
ISBN: 9780451199652
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2010-10-20T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

After their gourmet lunch at the Franks', April and Woody checked in at the precinct to brief Iriarte. He was alone in his office, talking on the phone, when they got there. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Yeah?"

"We lucked out with Heather Rose, sir," April told him.

He hung up without saying good-bye. "She give it up?"

"Some, not everything. She didn't nail her husband as a beater, but she did tell Jason the baby is with its mother."

Iriarte heaved a great sigh. "Sometimes I think there is a God. Who is it?"

"She didn't say."

"What do you mean she didn't say?" Iriarte erupted again.

Hagedorn appeared at the door, rapped on the window, then plunged in without waiting for an invitation. "Ten," he announced.

"Ten what?" Iriarte looked at him expectantly.

Hagedorn held up a file. "Ten mixed babies." He stood there, grinning, one hand raised and his pudgy body frozen in the pose of triumph as he offered, like a precious trophy, the regurgitations of his computer.

Iriarte blinked. The blink meant he didn't really care ten what, and furthermore he didn't want to know. But for Hagedorn, his favorite, the lieutenant had the tolerance of a saint. "Go ahead, Charlie."

Hagedorn gave his boss another shit-eating grin. "I checked them all out. Guess what?" Excitedly, Hagedorn pushed his lank hair back from his pale forehead.

"What?" Iriarte asked nicely.

"One hundred forty-two babies born in downtown hospitals during your time frame, Sergeant." He nodded at April.

"Uh-huh."

"Eighty are black or Hispanic or mixed. Fifty-two are pure Asian." He looked up. Here was the triumph. "Only ten others are mixed Asian and other."

"Good work, Charlie." Iriarte looked impressed.

"Do you have home addresses for them?" April asked. Only ten was too good to hope for.

"Yes."

"Let's go, Baum." April reached for the file.

In four minutes, she and Baum had once again evaded the specialists and were on their way down to Chinatown to start checking them out. April was too preoccupied thinking about Emma and Jason having a baby, and of the 142 other couples engaged in productive monkey business nine months earlier, to worry about Woody's driving.

She wondered how many of those fornicating couples wanted the babies they got. Were all the parents still together and able to keep their offspring? Had one or more of the infants been sold or given away? These were not terms in which April thought very often. Usually, she tried to avoid thinking about normal people getting married, having babies. She was still reeling from the sight of Emma's protruding belly with a human being inside of it. It was disturbing.

She braced a hand against the dashboard as Woody braked suddenly for a pedestrian. But she was excited about the case now, keyed up for the hunt and undaunted by the fact that searching for an infant born almost four weeks ago might turn out to be like looking for a lost item in a landfill. Chinatown was a maze, but people were connected there; they knew things about each other, even if they didn't tell.

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