Tracking Time

"What time?" Woody asked.

"Seven, I already told you it was just seven. I opened the front door for him. He went upstairs. I drank my coffee. A few minutes later he came out in shorts and took off."

The bells sounded like a swarm of angry bees.

"Then what?"

Ben shrugged. "That's it."

"What time did Dr. Atkins come back?"

Ben scratched his cheek. "He didn't come back."

"Are you sure?" Woody asked.

"Of course I'm sure. No one gets in here unless I let them in."

The swarm got angrier.

"Can I do something about this?" Ben was getting desperate.

April shook her head. "What about when you go to the bathroom?" she asked.

"The door's locked. They have to wait. Just like now." He licked his lips.

"So Dr. Atkins went out in his shorts. Did you see where he went?" Now Woody.

"Of course I did. I watched him. He went across the street to the park. A girl was waiting for him. They spoke. They went into the park together. He didn't come back."

"What did the girl look like?"

"Real pretty. Black hair. Pink sweater. Tight pants. Looked like she might be a hooker." Ben smiled for the first time. "But you know girls these days. She might have been a debutante." He smirked some more.

April glanced at Woody.

"Did you ever see her before?" he asked.

"Maybe." The phone in the elevator rang. Ben picked up and said, "No problem, I'll be right there."

April shook her head. No, you won't. "Did you ever see this girl go up to Dr. Atkins's apartment?"

"Not that I know of."

"How about a name?"

"Nope."

"Okay, that's it. You can let us out now."

The elevator doors slid open. April and Woody crossed the lobby and went outside. At a little after ten, a full sun beat down. The chilly morning had become a brilliant day, summer all over again.

"The park?" Woody said.

April hesitated. Last night they'd been on a radio run when they'd gone into the park. Now was different. The park was not like any other precinct. It was almost another country. When she'd been in the Two-O, every time a detective or officer from another house stepped foot in the park, they'd had to notify the captain of the Park Precinct that they were working there. It was an ownership thing, a protocol thing.

But, for the second time that day, she strayed off the straight and narrow. She nodded at Woody. He gri

By all appearances the doctor had gone out to run in the park, met a girl, maybe changed his mind about

Jason-or forgot about him-and gone to her place for the night. That was a nice clean possibility. A nastier one would be, he'd been mugged. The mugger wouldn't have gotten much of anything, though; Maslow had left his wallet at home. April made a quick co

Above April, the sun filtered through the trees, dappling the light and warming her face. The temperature must be up to seventy-eight already, and the heat felt good. Please let Maslow Atkins not be a mystery, she prayed. Anything but a mystery. Cops hated mysteries.

She unbuttoned her light jacket and inhaled. After the rain of yesterday, the park smelled fresh and green. Na

This was the famous Frederick Law Olmsted triumph, the park he designed more than a hundred years ago that was still so wild in places that if one ignored the skyline at its perimeter, a city person could imagine the country. Just over a mile to the south, Midtown North waited for their return. The park ended at Fifty-ninth Street, where her own precinct boundary began, and the stu

They were silent as they retraced their steps to the place near Seventy-seventh Street, where they'd entered the park last night. The tire prints of the 4x4 and hoofprints of the mounted officer's horse were still there, embedded in the grass, telling the story of their convocation. April slid down the bank to the water's edge, wetting her feet in the marshy ground.

"Damn."

"Something?" Woody asked, sticking to dry ground.

Stuck on a branch, the tail of a condom snaked gently with the current. Next to it, nestled in the mud, was a brown beer bottle bottom, showing the jagged edges of a broken neck. Half the label turned out giving the name, New Amsterdam. At a couple of dollars a bottle, it would hardly be the first choice of a vagrant.

"Just my new shoes."

"Whatchu looking for, Detective Woo?"

April was startled by the sound of a gravelly voice. "Who's there?" she called.

A balding man dressed in khaki pants and a blue parka who smelled of human waste crawled out of a space between two boulders. April recognized him immediately from the old days when she'd worked the Two-O.

"Pee Wee, what are you doing here? I thought you'd cleaned up your act and joined the Doe people."

"I tried it, didn't like them blue suits. All those rules."

He looked drunk and dazed, not fit for any kind of structure, certainly not the Doe Fund that put homeless men to work cleaning the streets, gave them food, a salary, and a place to live, but also required them to wear bright blue jumpsuits, not so different from the ones worn by prison inmates.

"And my people out here missed me too much. I help out here, keep the peace, you know that, Detective." Pee Wee tried to focus his swimming eyes. "Ain't seen you around for a while. You been on vacation or something?"

"I've been promoted. I'm a sergeant now, and I don't work in this area."

"Whatchu doin' here, then?"

"Got a 911 call last night, Pee Wee; know anything about it?"

"Yeah, I saw you," he said, nodding.

"You saw me?" She gave him a surprised look.

"Yeah and him, and 'nother cop on a horse, and two in a jeep."

"No kidding." Now Woody was interested.

"Yeah. A guy got whacked. Too bad." Pee Wee shook his head. "One of those ru

"Where?" The news was like a punch in the belly. April's blood beat in her temple.

Pee Wee scratched his whiskers. "I'm real hungry," he said.

"I'll get you some breakfast. Where's the dead guy?"

Pee Wee looked down at them from where he stood higher up on the lake bank. He scratched his beard some more. "I don't know. Dincha see him?"