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ghost kept the hair raised on the back of her neck. It was telling her not to be intimidated by any of the bosses, not to be pushed into the background by the special units so someone else's career could get a lift. She was sure there was a ghost in the room, and the ghost was telling her that baby Paul had gone missing in her precinct on her watch. And further, since they didn't know who his biological parents were, she and the rookie detective, Woody Baum, who was all she had in the way of support, had better find Paul very soon.

CHAPTER 6
    T he hall was empty when April and Woody came out of the Popescus' apartment. "What do you see here, Detective?" April asked him.
Baum looked worried. "What do I see?"
"Yeah, what's going on here?" A hint of impatience crept into her voice. If Baum wanted to be useful and go somewhere, he couldn't answer a question with a question. He had to answer a question, period.
"Is this a test?" Baum was a preppy-looking guy; he wore a blue blazer and kept a second gun strapped to his ankle. His brown hair was so short it was hard to tell whether it curled. He rubbed at it with a free hand, as if trying to make it grow.
"Everything in this life is a test," she told him.
He walked along, chafing the stubble till they reached the elevator, where he punched the Down button. "The beating happened in the kitchen," he said finally. "This looks like a domestic case to me. Maybe they'll find some of the husband's blood in or around one of the puddles on the floor. Then we could nail him for beating his wife." He looked hopeful.
"What about the baby?"
Baum frowned at the second part of the equation.
"If he battered the wife, what do you think he did with the baby?" she elaborated.
"He didn't seem to know where the baby was."
"He could be lying, though. What else?"
"Isn't it your turn yet?" Baum hit the elevator button again.
"Are you some kind of smart aleck, Detective?" April wasn't amused.
"Nah, just a Jew," he cracked.
"Well, keep it in check, will you?"
"Yes, ma'am." Baum saluted.
"You have a problem with a supervisor who's going to run you over hot coals every day to teach you something?" The way my supervisor did to me, she didn't add.
"No, ma'am. It's just what my mother does."
"Good. So what about the baby?"
"The doc said it's not hers."
"So what do we do about that, Woody?"
"We question Popescu."
"Right. Now you just saw a crime scene where all the violence occurred in the kitchen. Was there blood on the back door?"
"No."
"Blood on the back doorknob?"
"No."
"Blood on the outside of the back door, or on the walls in the back hall, on the fire-stairs door, or on the fire stairs?"
Baum shook his head.
"There was blood in the front of the apartment. So what does that tell us?"
"The perp didn't go out the back way."
"What if he washed up first?" April demanded.
"He didn't wash up in the kitchen sink. There's a duck in a bowl of water in the sink, and there's no blood in or around the bowl of water. How long does it take to defrost a duck?" Baum wondered.
"Where I come from we buy the duck already
roasted. Would a frozen duck begin to soften in about two hours? It's fully defrosted now. We'll have to ask CSU how hard it was when they got here at what, four-fifteen? Might help with the time frame."
The elevator door slid silently open. They got in with a woman in a pink halter and purple pedal pushers who had a toddler in a stroller. The toddler was busy gnawing on a bagel.
"They talked to me already. The detective said it was okay to go out now," she said, looking at the badges on April and Baum's jackets. "Terrible thing. Terrible." She put her hand on her blond baby's head.
    "Cute baby," April murmured.
On the main floor, the woman pushed ahead of them and exited the elevator first, pushing the stroller out into the lobby, then on out into the crush of cameras.
April wondered where the woman was taking her baby at this hour. Then it occurred to her that anybody could wheel a baby out, and no one would