Leslie Glass - Tracking Time

"At home in his bed. His mother said he had the flu. He's missed school for two days because of it."

"Not true," April cut in quickly. "She's either lying or doesn't know what she's talking about. Yesterday afternoon he was out in the park with his knapsack looking pretty healthy to me." She sipped her tea and grimaced at the taste. "What kind of mother?"

"She seemed very concerned. Kept saying, 'I love this boy' She was out at a party last night. The father was at work."

"So no one was home to confirm he was there." Leonore perked up. "What about the girl?"

Mike pulled on his mustache. "The girl is a whole other thing."

"I'll say," Woody remarked.

"Her mother's a recent divorcee, recently restructured. She wanted to give me a private viewing of her new butt."

April made a face. "Where was her daughter last night?"

"She said she was at home and Brandy was with her the whole evening." Mike smiled.

"Well, if this is all we've got, you two have a lot of work to do. You have my number. Let me know when you have an autopsy report." Leonore pecked Mike on the cheek before heading out the door.

"Good working with you again," he murmured.

"Yeah, sure. Bye, April, take care." With that she marched out.

April turned to Baum. "Woody, we need a search warrant for Dylan Rodriguez's apartment. Get on it," April ordered.

"Can I finish my coffee?" he asked.

"At your desk."

He pushed himself off the wall, went out, and closed the door.

"What's that all about?" Mike said.

"He almost ran me down this morning. So, you slept with her, too." April clicked her tongue.

Mike looked shocked. "Naw."

"Looked to me like the two of you have something going."

"She's got a serious boyfriend. They've been together for years. What's the matter with you?"

"Doesn't matter, I can tell."

"Naw. She's nice, though, isn't she?"

"Who dumped who?"

"The whole thing, nada. Two ships passing in the night."

"My mother warned me about the perfume. I absolutely despise womanizers."

"Maybe a long time ago, but that's all over. If a man has a perfect woman, why keep looking?"

She tilted her head to one side, like a bird, considering. He smiled. One good thing about April was she could move on. She moved on now. "This is some kind of bizarre kid thing, isn't it?" she murmured.

"Looks like."

"What's your take?" She swiveled in her chair.

"We need to bring them in and talk to them together. There's something here. I know it."

"It's the dog, isn't it?" she said. "We keep getting back to that."

"Yeah, it's the dog thing. No doubt about it."

Afew minutes later April called the ME's office to find out if the autopsy on Pee Wee was done yet. As she hung on the phone in her office, she thought about Grace Rodriguez being in the dark about the activities of her own child, about Mike and how much she loved him. She thought about Skinny Dragon's wanting the best for her like any mother, and like many mothers, not getting it quite right. Skinny had spent many hours educating her about all the Pernicious Influences in the bodily landscape that led to trouble with men. Skinny had learned these things from the Chinese "fake" doctors she consulted frequently in Chinatown.

Chinese medicine was complicated. It dictated that the precipitating factors in illness could be external, as in the case of attacking diseases, or they could be internal, arising from one of the seven emotions. Running from woman to woman was one of those disharmonies that was caused by emotion rather than germs. Mike told her she was the perfect woman. If he believed it, then happiness must be the cause of his problem.

According to Skinny Dragon, excess joy scatters the Shen Qi -heart energy. Skinny warned that men get reckless when feeling too good. The heart gets muddled and uncontrolled and can't be contained. Skinny herself worked on the principle that being mean to her husband and daughter was good for them. Happy, softhearted people were notorious for wasting their money and bodily Qi outside the house. The Dragon was dead set against that. April tapped her fingers impatiently, waiting for the ME.

After a long time, Dr. Gloss came on the line.

"This is Dr. Gloss."

"Sergeant Woo, Midtown North."

"Oh, hi there, April, interesting case."

"Tell me."

"I haven't got anything down on paper yet, but this guy James was a walking disaster."

April had known Pee Wee for a year or two and wasn't surprised. "What killed him?"

"Oh, he had lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver, and a number of other things that must have made his life pretty uncomfortable, including gangrene in his left foot. Let's put it this way, the man didn't exactly have a bright future. But I'll give it to you in a nutshell. He has a number of bumps on his head, recent cuts and bruises on his face. Looks like he was beaten repeatedly with a branch. Tree bark and leaf particles in his wounds. Big hematomas on his chest. Looks like he'd been stomped and kicked in the side, too. A real brutal thing. He was lying down during the attack. There were no defense wounds on his hands…scalp lacerations on his forehead. The important head injury, however, was on the right side of his head. It put quite a dent in his squash and caused a subdural hematoma. Blood clot on the brain to you. Here's the interesting part. When the skull is cracked like an egg and begins to bleed inside, there's no place for the blood to go except down to the brain stem, and when it does that, the brain gets choked. Death comes fast. But this was a focal injury, in one spot, and it caused slow bleeding in his brain that occurred over a period of many hours. If he had been a healthy person in a car wreck, and been taken to a hospital promptly, we could have saved him." Gloss paused.

Pee Wee had left the precinct at noon. When April last saw him, he'd just peed in his pants. He'd been drunk but had no head injury. "What are you suggesting?" she asked.

"Well, depressed in the hair and scalp were fragments of cement and brick. You know what these homeless guys die of most frequently?" the ME asked.

"Exposure."

"Exposure is not a cause of death, April. No, a lot of these guys die because they drink too much or take an overdose and fall down."

"Dr. Gloss, the man was badly beaten and someone cut off his finger. You're not going to tell me he died of falling down."

"Well, the cause of death is a subdural hematoma, but his skull depression was probably caused by a sidewalk."

"You're telling me he fell down?" April was incredulous.

"Or he was pushed down. Anyway, he got up and maybe walked around for a while."

"With his brain bleeding? Is that possible?" April asked.

"It's possible."

"Then later somebody beat him with a tree branch. Was he alive when his finger was cut off?" April said.

"Yes, but probably unconscious. One hopes so."

"Can you give me a time frame?"

"I'd say he died between eight to twelve hours ago. Some time between midnight and three."

April thought about it. The sidewalk did it some time after noon. What did Pee Wee do after he left the precinct? When did he enter the park? He met someone there and was attacked, and sometime between midnight and three, he died. Ducci, the dust and fiber man, had his clothes and the bagged items they'd found in the area. The park bench had been dusted for fingerprints. If they were lucky something would come up.

The DA wasn't going to like it, but her boss would. There wouldn't be too much paperwork, and no one was going to blame the death on what might or might not have happened in the station house. No one beat him with a sidewalk there. No fodder for Internal Affairs in this.