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.
Gloss was still talking. "Another interesting thing. There were some small black flecks on the dead man's clothes. At first we thought it was car paint, but there were several little chips and one bigger one, and they were brittle but nowhere near as hard as the spray paint used on cars. Our guess is nail polish. Ducci will know."
"Black nail polish? So there was a woman involved," April said.
"That's right. My guess is that maybe he attacked her."
"With a dent in his squash?"
"Head trauma victims can get pretty aggressive sometimes. As I said, they don't collapse right away."
"So you think he got into an argument with a woman. She fought him off, chipped her nail polish, and hacked off his finger while he lay dying. I've heard of revenge, but this seems a little extreme. The amputation was pretty messy. What did she use, anyway? The nail clipper?"
"A knife. Obviously not a very big one, maybe a boning knife."
"How about a razor?" April asked. Dylan used razor blades for her tummy cuts. But she wasn't wearing nail polish yesterday when April saw her.
"Uh-uh. Not sturdy enough. Maybe a pocketknife. Or a small Swiss Army knife. Would have been a struggle though, if he were awake."
"Maybe that's how the nail polish got chipped."
"Did I say he was lying down?"
"Yes, you mentioned it. Okay, I guess I'm getting a picture. It was a savage attack and he was already pretty out of it," April said at last.
"Do you have anyone in mind for the assault?"
"Nothing solid yet. Thanks," April said.
"We'll have a full report in a few days," Gloss told her.
Few weeks would probably be more like it, April thought. Poor Pee Wee. She sat brooding at her desk. Now she knew some of the physical evidence they were looking for-the knife that had cut off Pee Wee's finger, black nail polish. Diaries, letters, anything to indicate state of mind. The problem was they had been looking in the wrong places. She peered out the window of her office at the swarm of detectives in the squad room. She knew Brandy Fabman had been one of Pee Wee's attackers. Now she was worried about Maslow, really worried.
She dialed John Zumech to give him the news.
He answered on the first ring.
"Hey, John," April said.
"April, I was just going to call you. What happened to you this morning?" he demanded.
"I had to follow up a lead. Sorry, I didn't mean to run off. Anyway, we have a preliminary death report on James. Gloss says he fell, and the sidewalk hit his head. But he bled for hours and had plenty of time to get into a fight and have his finger cut off before he died."
"Sounds complicated."
"Yes, and I'm bothered by how it all fits together. I'm thinking maybe Pee Wee knew where Maslow is. When I was questioning him, he kept telling me about someone who was taking care of him, paying him off. Maybe he hid Maslow somewhere, then moved him later. Anyway I think he's still in the park." The pressure to get going was killing her, but she didn't want to start with the bad news.
"How can I help?" John asked.
"How well do you know Central Park? Maybe we missed something. What about tunnels or hiding places we don't know about? There must be maps or something that would show everything over and under the ground. Surveys, whatever."
"I don't know anything about maps and plans. Parks Department would have that." Zumech was sounding very cold.
"It was just a thought. It popped into my head." April wondered what was up with him. "You know, I can't help thinking, if Maslow isn't on top of the ground, he may be under the ground. We know Peachy can find a buried man. She's done it before. What do you say we try again?"
"Well, she could if there's a breathing hole for his scent to escape," Zumech said slowly.
"But even if Maslow's scent is gone from, say, the street, I could still show you where Slocum's dog was working and where she got stuck. We could take it from there," April suggested.
"Fine, I'll do it. Do you have a clean scent item?"
"I can get you one."
"You get it, I'll be there in an hour."
"John, I really appreciate this, but I think I'm hearing something in your voice." Now she could tell him the bad news.
"I was going to call you about those soft tissue finds we had this morning. I knew there was something weird about them."
"For sure," April murmured. She could feel him squirm on the phone.
"Well, I think I know where they came from."
"Where did they come from, John?"
"When my wife got home from work a few minutes ago, she thanked me for cleaning up the garage. And the thing is, April, I didn't. I planned to, but I never got around to it. You know how it is."