Leslie Glass - Burning Time

The smells of cooking oil, garlic, and roasted meat finally overcame her desire to give Jimmy a chance to redeem himself. She simply wasn’t going to sit there starving for any man, especially one who had less than six hairs on his entire chest and had never had a truly sexy moment in his whole life. She got up, her head lowered a little with shame for drinking a whole pot of tea and eating the whole bowl of fried noodles and then leaving without ordering a thing.

She shook her head at the waiter. “Guess my mother got lost,” she told him. “I’ll go find her and come back.”

April took her usual position on the subway going uptown. She stood on one end of the car by the door. Even though she wasn’t on duty, she took the demands of her job seriously and didn’t consider herself ever off duty. On the street she watched the parked cars and who was standing near them. In the subway she kept an eye on people’s hands, where they were, what they were doing. But today, even as she studied the scene constantly playing before her, she was thinking about getting her car back. She had decided, without even knowing she was thinking about it, that there would be no more monkey business with Jimmy Wong. She’d tell him today. The decision cheered her up.

She was further elated when she found a message waiting for her from Sergeant Grove. Her desk was occupied, so she had to take an empty desk to make the call to San Diego.

“Yeah, Sergeant Grove speaking.”

“This is April Woo in New York.”

“How’s it going, April.”

“The sun is out, Sergeant.”

“That’s very good news. The name is Bob, April. You can call me Bob. Do you have a positive ID on that girl in Potoway Village yet?”

“No. I’ve sent out the data. They’re probably working on it now. But I’m not calling about the Ellen Roane case. Something else has come up. It’s probably not connected. But maybe it is.”

“All right, April. What do you have?”

April waited while a suspect in handcuffs, screaming obscenities, was led through the detectives’ room into an examining area behind it.

“April, you still there?”

“I’m having a little noise interference. Can you hold for a second?”

Two doors slammed on the curses. A few phones rang. “It might be kind of a Hinckley case,” April told Grove when it was finally quieter. “An actress is getting some threatening letters.”

Anyway, her husband said they were threatening. April hadn’t been so absolutely convinced about any of it until the postmark on the envelopes came up San Diego.

“Uh-huh,” came the noncommittal reply from the other coast. “So what can I do for you? I’m in Missing Persons.”

“I know that, Bob. But these threatening letters are coming from San Diego.”

“No kidding.”

“Yeah, I was surprised, too. Six years on the force and I’ve never had a case with any ties to San Diego. Now I’ve got two.”

“So, do you figure they’re a conspiracy?” Bob gave a little laugh.

“No, I think they’re just a coincidence. But the thing is … that other unidentified female body you’ve got out there, the one that has a similar burn on it?”

“You got me on that, April. What Jane Doe?”

“Don’t you talk to each other?” April asked. “There’s another case of a girl, tortured, burned, and apparently left in the desert to die.”

“There’s no desert in San Diego.”

“What?”

“I’m in Missing Persons, San Diego Police Department. We don’t have desert areas in the City of San Diego. You’re talking about other jurisdictions, and I wouldn’t hear about missing persons in other jurisdictions unless other authorities like you ask me to check them out.” Grove was peeved.

“Well, if there get to be a few more of them, I guess you’ll hear about it.”

“You talking about some kind of serial thing?” His voice sharpened.

“I really couldn’t say. I’m a detective here in New York. It’s not my jurisdiction. I’m just trying to put a few pieces together, and I thought you could give me some advice.” She let that sink in.

“All right, April, I have to admit you’re persistent, and let’s say you’ve caught my interest. What can I do for you?”

“Okay, at the bottom of these letters there’s a—kind of a biker symbol.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I need to know if anybody out there is getting threatening letters with a signature drawing like it. I need to know, maybe from Sex Crimes, if maybe anybody’s been branded with a symbol like that and lived to talk about it.”

“You don’t want much, do you?”

“Look, your computer may have come up with the first missing person I was looking for, Bob. Now I’m looking for a guy who’s writing letters. He’s kind of a missing person, too, isn’t he?”

“Uh-uh. Doesn’t work that way. But did you say this was a brand or a drawing? I’m a little confused.”

“The letters have a biker’s symbol drawn on the bottom, kind of like a signature. The guy writing them talks about branding. The two Jane Does you got out there in other jurisdictions appear to have been branded. See?”

“So you think there might be some connection?”

“I really don’t know,” April confessed. “But both cases seem to involve bikers.”

“Uh-huh,” Sergeant Grove said. “Bikers aren’t usually big on letter writing. But I’ll ask around and see what I can find out.”

“It might not be a biker,” April said quickly. “It’s just a biker symbol. Harley-Davidson.”

“Lot of Harley fans out here.”

“I’m sure there are, Bob. I appreciate your asking.”

April took his fax number and sent off copies of the two strangest letters Emma Chapman had received. She hadn’t had the delicious Chinese lunch with Jimmy she had hoped for, and her stomach was growling ferociously. She decided to ignore it. She’d go up to the dorm to look for Ellen’s roommate.

32

Ronnie’s broad face puckered with rage. “What’s the matter with you? What’s going on? A whole week goes by and I can’t get a straight answer from you. What kind of shit is this?”

She covered a block of Sixth Avenue with quick little steps, her heels pounding the uneven sidewalk. It was the last day of April. The sun was finally out. Tomorrow was May Day. Ronnie went on without an answer.

“I’ve been telling Elinor Zing every day for more than a week that we want to do this film, and now you say you’re not sure you do. How much longer do you think I can hold them off? I can’t hold them off.” She stopped and turned to Emma. “Are you listening to me?”

Emma had her eye on the street behind her.

“What’s the matter with you?” Ronnie demanded fiercely.

“Nothing.” Emma shook her head, looking puzzled. “It’s weird.”

“You know what Elinor told me? She said they like you very much, but just between us, she doesn’t think Jack and Albert have a long attention span.”

Emma took a few steps forward and then turned around again, frowning.

“What is the matter with you?”

“I don’t know. I have the strangest feeling.…”

“Emma, look at me. Elinor told me not to jerk them around. She told me to tell you that no one who turns Jack down gets a second chance.”

Emma studied the array of people behind Ronnie on Sixth Avenue. Nothing out of the ordinary. The usual mix of business people and street people. There was a crowd around two huge black men playing three-card monte.

“I told her you adore Jack,” Ronnie went on. “I said you’re dying to work with him. What are you looking at?”

“I told you, I have a funny feeling someone is—Oh, forget it.” She shook her head.