Hanging Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

other what?” He frowned.
    “She said there were two girls here. Didn’t you hear her?”
    “Shit.”
    They left the storeroom and went back into the store. The woman was sobbing into a sodden tissue.
    “No one’s safe anymore. And with you just across the street. I got to get out of here. Move to Florida or someplace. I checked the register. It wasn’t even money.” She cried some more.
    “You said something about another girl.”
    “I don’t know where she is. Maybe she got away. Maybe they took her someplace else. I bet she’s dead, too.”
    Mike made a face at April and went up the circular staircase. In seconds he came down again, shaking his head. No bodies upstairs.
    “Was she raped?” Elsbeth Manganaro cried. “Poor thing. Was she raped?”
    “We’ll know that later,” April said, and nodded as the crime-scene unit arrived. She looked at her watch. Twenty minutes. Must be some kind of record.
    Mike went out, and April turned to the store owner.
    “Mrs. Manganaro? Why don’t you come across the street with me?” she suggested.
    “Are you a cop?” the woman demanded, blowing her nose and finally focusing on April.
    April nodded. “I’m a detective.”
    “You don’t look like a cop.” Elsbeth frowned, examining April’s navy trousers and navy jacket, pale blue and white printed rayon blouse, with its soft bow at the neck.
    “I’m a Chinese cop,” April said. Uptown people found that surprising.
    “You don’t sound Chinese.”
    The woman wouldn’t give up. Was it still so unusual for an Asian to speak English? April was an ABA—American-born Asian. In Chinatown there were clubs of them. They met and networked. Asian networking didn’t work too well in NYPD. In fact, there weren’t enough of them in enough high places for them to network at all.
    “I was born here. I could run for president.”
    “Oh.” The woman blew her nose again, apparently satisfied for the moment.
    Mike had returned and was watching this exchange. His amused grin brought a flush to April’s cheeks. With Crime Scene there, the store had crowded up.
    April took the store owner’s arm and helped her up. “How about a cup of coffee?”
    “Are you going to question me?” Elsbeth demanded.
    “I’m going to ask you some questions.”
    “What about my store?” the woman cried.
    “Sergeant Sanchez will watch it for you.”
    Mike nodded gravely. April introduced them.
    “You won’t let them take anything.” Elsbeth frowned suspiciously, now looking Sanchez over. He appeared to be Spanish and his eyebrows weren’t even. The left eyebrow was only half there. There was a scar where the rest of it should be.
    “No, ma’am,” Sanchez assured her.
    The only things that would be taken away were the corpse, the evidence, and the belongings of the victim. April turned to Mike. “I’ll take her statement and meet you back here.” She glanced at her watch again. “An hour at the most.”
    She wanted to get back before they moved the body. Sanchez nodded. “Welcome back,” she murmured. It was the best she could do. She’d been taught to watch her back and save her face, hide her feelings no matter what, so persistently, over such a long period of time, she had a lot of trouble figuring out what her true feelings were.

5
     

     
    J ason watched Brian leave, pleased to note that for the third week in a row, he was taking with him all the possessions he came with. Jason gave himself five minutes between Brian, his ten o’clock patient, and Dennis, his ten-fifty patient.
    He closed the door to the waiting room, returned to his desk, and carefully tucked a piece of blotter paper under one leg of his newest skeleton clock. Earlier, with some irritation, he had watched the hammered brass pendulum slow down and finally stop at the same time Brian stalled in the middle of a sentence and stared off into space. In the past, at such moments, Brian’s eyelids used to droop and he actually drifted off for a few