“Let’s hold right there,” said the lawyer. “All this is fine stuff, very entertaining. But, Detective Heat, you do recall this victim was not killed by a Chevy Impala, right?” He smiled at his colleagues, enjoying his own joke. “I believe he was dropped from an airplane, and that my client was twenty miles away in Fort Lee, New Jersey. So what’s our issue?”
“Continuing, Commissioner,” she said, pointedly shunning Lohman. “This morning I mentioned the use of the Port Authority vehicle to you. Four hours later—what a surprise—the Impala in question is not only missing from the motor pool, but somebody at your Port Authority just happened to notice—this afternoon—that it was stolen a month ago. I’d like an explanation why that remarkable coincidence doesn’t smell like obstruction.”
Frederic Lohman brought up something grisly with a ragged cough, and said, “My client is not required to theorize on your speculations.”
“No, Freddie, I want to answer that. My reputation’s in question here.” Ignoring the don’t-do-it headshake from his attorney, Gilbert went on. “I never deal with the Automotive and Technical Center directly. I only know they have a lot of vehicles to account for. My guess about the timing is that the Impala probably came up stolen as they took inventory of assets for Sandy preparation. That would have less to do with me, and more with the hurricane, I assure you.”
“Shall I be assured like when you said you didn’t know Fabian Beauvais?”
Lohman knocked on the table as if it were a door, a first in Nikki’s experience in that interrogation room. “All right, I am going to strongly counsel my client exercise his right to silence,” he said with a glare to Gilbert. “And Detective Heat, your innuendos do not become any more credible through repetition. In fact, I expect we will be out of here soon due to the motion we have filed now that new evidence raises serious and fundamental doubts about your case.”
She didn’t know exactly where Lohman was heading, but it was more than his theater of relaxed confidence that began the slow rise of warning chimes inside Nikki. He was holding something. But what? “I’m not sure what you mean by new evidence,” she said, testing the waters, “but if you’ve retained a private investigator, those findings will have to wait to stand the test of a public trial.”
“Really? When a specific and credible threat was made against the life of the deceased by someone other than my client? To wit, a credit card fraud and ATM theft ring with motive, means, and opportunity to do so?”
Those alarm bells rang louder.
Frederic Lohman raised his tangle of eyebrows. “You don’t know about this? That surprises me. Detective, your own, ah…let’s call him friend…Jameson Rook, the respected investigative journalist, has uncovered sufficient evidence for me to file a motion for immediate release on own recognizance without bond. I expect we should hear quite soon because Commissioner Gilbert is so vital to the preparation for the coming natural disaster.”
Rook? What the hell did he say in that meeting with Keith Gilbert’s press aide? How many other of his people did he talk to about this case? Heat’s brain spun. She had intended to rock them in this session, but now it was she who’d been shaken. While Nikki tried to gather herself, the lawyer continued in his offhand monotone, “Now the release on OR is only a start. We’re going to press hard for a bench dismissal based on these new facts. Of course, that’s a tougher road, but worth a wild shot. We all take wild shots, don’t we, Detective Heat?”
Her cell phone buzzed on top of the file beside her. The caller ID said it was the DA’s office. Across the table, they were all smiles. The room indeed had become a shark tank. And to Nikki, it felt like it was filling with water.
Minutes later, Heat stood peering through the glass watching Keith Gilbert get processed out. Not to Rikers Island but, as his fossil of a lawyer repeatedly claimed, to fulfill his irreplaceable role at the Port Authority leading storm crisis preparation. Rook looked on behind her, and, as the shipping magnate fastened on his nautical racing watch, he said, “I swear, Nikki, I did not tell them anything.”
She didn’t turn to him or even raise her voice. “Funny coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, sure, I know how it looks. Especially when you’re already in a twist because I met with Gilbert’s press guy.”
“Today.”
“Give me some credit here. I know better than to divulge inner workings of a case to somebody connected to your suspect.”
“They got it from somewhere. And they kinda said it was from you. No, they actually said it was.”
“They’re lying.” He gave her a eureka look. “Or they have an inside source. Maybe a mole at First Press. I’ll bet that’s it.”
Wally Irons interrupted, joining them at the window. “Talk about a travesty.” He shook his head. “I put my face out there in public, and now this? Makes me look like a dumbshit.”
“Sir, nobody’s unhappier about this than I am,” said Heat, “but it’s just a setback. It’s an OR release. We still have a case.”
“Yeah? Sounds like you’d better start plugging holes. Beginning with asking your boyfriend to excuse himself from the precinct premises.” The captain left on that note, retreating to his office so he wouldn’t have to deal with Rook himself.
“Did he just throw me out of here?”
Heat witnessed a brisk round of handshakes between Gilbert and his Dream Team as they paraded out. Then she turned to Rook. “Probably best for all concerned.”
“What?” His head whipped to her. “Did you really just say that?”
“It’s orders, Rook.”
“But I can help. Especially now that this has blown up.”
“You’ve already done plenty for one day.”
“Nikki, are you saying you don’t believe me?”
Angry and disheartened as she felt, Heat knew better than to take it that far. “I’m saying my commander has asked you to go. We’ll sort the rest out later.”
He gave Nikki a pained look. Disappointment, it seemed, was a team sport.
The first call Heat returned when she got back to her desk was to Lauren Parry. “Bad news up top,” said the medical examiner. “Forensics can’t verify the bites on Beauvais’s trousers as any breed or specific dog. They’d been laundered and there was no dog hair or DNA. But I also had the lab study the abrasive indentations on Jeanne Capois’s wrists. They were absolutely consistent with the disposable zip-tie handcuffs found near the planetarium following Fabian Beauvais’s crash.
“Got something else that’s interesting,” said her friend. “Under the victim’s fingernails we found the usual defensive residue of human skin from scratching her assailant or assailants. Got it all tubed and tagged for DNA potential matches.”
“Let’s hope,” said Nikki. Lauren kept it clinical when she talked about normal defensive residue, but Heat found it difficult to remain detached. All she could envision was a woman brutally hauled behind some trash cans clawing against hope to survive.
“We also found some unusual fibers.” Nikki scrawled in her notepad as Dr. Parry continued. “Both under her fingernails and, as Forensics found, snagged on the clasp of her watchband, we’ve got black fibers of ripstop nylon mixed with spandex. Nikki, these suggest the kind of materials you find in police uniforms. Most especially, police tactical uniforms.”
“You mean like from ESU or SWAT?”
“Inconclusive, of course. We’re going to do some more testing on these, but I wanted to give you the preview.”
And with that short phone call another puzzle piece landed on Heat’s table—an orphan with no place for her to fit it. Why would Jeanne Capois’s attacker be wearing a tactical uniform? Was this about something that was going on with her or her boyfriend, Fabian Beauvais? Or both? The two guys Nikki chased from the SRO had a military demeanor. But how did that profile connect to Keith Gilbert beyond a Port Authority car
they had been seen using? It seemed the more information Heat got, the more it muddied her thinking, rather than clarifying it. The only thing Nikki could be certain of was that a guy falling from an airplane was complicated enough. And this went deeper than that. What was the context here? Heat didn’t have it yet, but, as Rook would say, there was a story to be told. Figure out the story, figure out the murderer.
She decided it was time to fill in some blanks.
Reese Cristóbal, the so-called Gateway Lawyer that Rook mentioned, worked out of a storefront office on West Thirty-eighth near the hansom cab horse stables, not exactly a neighborhood must-see on the tourist maps. Heat found a parking spot and badged herself to the receptionist in the tiny suite with the cracked window facing the street.
After she shook the attorney’s clammy hand, she knew his peppery cologne would linger for the rest of the day—a dinnertime reminder of the visit. Cristóbal wore a short-sleeved, pink dress shirt with a harmonious tie that probably came with it in a boxed set. He returned to his place behind a stack of papers on his messy desk. Nikki took the sole guest chair and worked not to stare at the hair plugs. “I’m trying to make contact with a few of your clients. Fidel Figueroa and Charley Tosh.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “I’ll wait, if you need to check your files.”
“Correction, Detective. Former clients. And I don’t need to check my files because I remember them well, and they are so freaking gone. I got no idea where they got off to, and I don’t much care.”
“Well. That’s pretty top of mind.” Her gaze went to the transplants rimming his forehead.
“I don’t do a lot of criminal casework. Mostly, I’m assisting the huddled masses in transition, et ceter-yadda, et ceter-yadda. You know, landlord issues, securing identity docs, ICE hassles. But if a client gets in a bind, I help. These two, Tosh and Figueroa, abused the situation. I dig them out of a trespassing jam, only to find it’s a fucking scam. They’re getting paid for it as dirty tricksters for some political action assholes. Do I look like I need any trouble getting tangled up in that? No.”
“I don’t understand. What kind of trouble?”
“I am not in the business of helping undocumented cretins come to this country and throw rocks at a man who will be our next U.S. senator.”
“You’re talking about Keith Gilbert?”
“None other.”
This had gone where she hoped it would, to the anti-Gilbert PAC. The attorney’s protectiveness of the candidate intrigued her, so she stayed on that road. “Are you a supporter of Gilbert’s?”
“He’s going to be the one. Get aboard, I say.”
“Are you involved in his campaign?”
“No.”
“Do you know him? Have you ever met him?”
“Huh…I’d have to think.” He made theater of searching his water stained ceiling. “No.”
“Funny that you remembered Figueroa and Tosh, but you don’t remember whether you met your favorite political candidate.”
“Funny?” He shrugged. “Just had to think, is all.”
It wasn’t the stables Heat was smelling, but a lie. But she’d follow up on that in time. Right then, she had other things to pursue. “Do you also recall a client named Fabian Beauvais?” When he furrowed his brow, she showed him the picture.
“Oh, yeah sure. Misdemeanor trespass. Got busted with the other two. But he wasn’t ‘with them-with them.’ Good kid. Smart. But that kinda works against you when you don’t know your reality.”
Heat couldn’t let that go. “Excuse me, but doesn’t that sound a lot like knowing your place?”
“Hey, if it craps like a duck, right? Why do you want to know about him?”
“He was murdered.”
“Mm, tough break. I didn’t know him. Before the trespassing bust, I mean.”
She sniffed another dodge. “Didn’t you place him at a job?” Nikki waited then prompted him. “At a chicken slaughterhouse?”
“Huh, did I? I’d have to look it up, but glad I could help him out.” The lawyer stood up. “Hey, listen I’m late for some rent hearing up in Mott Haven. Can we do this some other day? Maybe make an appointment next time.” Whether the rent hearing was real or a fabrication, there wasn’t much she could do about it, with apologies and good-byes, he applied another dose of cologne to her hand and hustled out the door.
Out on the sidewalk, Heat watched him speed off in his silver Mercedes G-Class SUV. Nikki figured, for a storefront immigration lawyer, Reese Cristóbal was doing pretty well.
Back at the Twentieth, Heat discovered Feller had just returned from New Jersey, so she was able to gather her full squad for a late briefing. She shorthanded the release of Gilbert and skirted the captain’s banishment of Rook from the precinct. Word on that had circulated on its own, and her crew had enough compassion—or sense—not to comment on it. “I’m not suggesting the killers are cops,” she said after relaying the fiber news from OCME and Forensics. “They could be security cops, mall cops, or just buffs who bought from an army surplus. Detective Rhymer, I’d like you to show sketches of our two goons at army-navy shops. I know the clothing could have been bought online, but street-level is a good start.
Feller asked, “What about PAPD?”
“Smart. And since Port Authority is becoming your thing, why don’t you make a friend at PAPD who’ll run Beauvais and Capois through their data bank to see if there are any hits. Arrests, tickets, citizen complaints filed against a cop, basically anything. Roach, have you gotten any traction on those MetroCard swipes in Chelsea?”
“Indeed,” said Raley. “When we went through Jeanne Capois’s purse a second time, we found something on the back of a grocery receipt in her wallet. She had used it to jot down an address in Chelsea on West Sixteenth Street.”
Ochoa added, “It’s an apartment not far from the subway stop.”
“And, ironically, the Port Authority Inland Terminal Building. Before you get excited, it’s no longer owned by Port Authority, but by Google. I Googled that, increasing a seemingly infinite loop of irony.”
“Before you get pulled into a time warp, Rales, why don’t you give me that address? I’ll pay a visit tonight on my way home. I’d like you and Ochoa to go interview Beauvais’s friend Hattie Pate at the address Rook left.”
Before she released them for the night she voiced what swirled within all of them. “I don’t need to tell you this case is far from cleared. I won’t say it’s in jeopardy, but we can’t sit on what’s up here.” She indicated the Murder Board over her shoulder. “Let’s pretend this is square one and get more.”
“Higher, farther, faster,” said Rhymer.
Ochoa shook his head. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
She gave the taxi driver the address in Chelsea and settled into the seat burdened by a downer day and her own bleak thoughts. The surprise turn the case had taken and its collateral fallout was bad enough. The underpinning that kept her brain swirling had a name, and it was Jameson Rook. After the years of intimacy and happiness they had enjoyed together, not to mention the deep respect she had for his character, she had cause to believe him when he said he hadn’t shared any inside information with Gilbert’s man. Then how did this happen?
She took out her phone and opened up the text message Rook had sent her shortly after he left the Twentieth. BTW SINCE YOU BROUGHT UP VOODOO, I ALSO DID SOME RESEARCH ON THAT EARLIER TODAY. NOT AS FRINGY-SATANIC AS PEOPLE THINK. ONE OF THEIR BELIEFS IS THAT THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS OR COINCIDENCES. EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A PURPOSE—R.
Nikki wondered what purpose she could she find in this. Not in sending the text, that was obviously a makeup ping. But what reason was there to find in Rook’s dissent and intrusion? Even if he hadn’t been the direct cause of Gilbert’s release without bail, he’d been more than a loose cannon. She couldn’t escape that recurring feeling he was working against her.
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Ever since news of the task force job came out.
Heat didn’t want even to think he would be trying to undermine her chance for the task force for his personal reason of keeping her in New York.
But she couldn’t stop.
So she touched the TV screen to resume the seat-back news video she had switched off before, just to get some distraction. “Hurricane Sandy Slams Jamaica.” So much for escape. The Eyewitness News report said the storm had become a Category One, moving northward, pounding Jamaica with eighty-mile-per-hour winds. Footage rolled of people walking bent into the sideways force of rain. A reporter in a yellow slicker made his obligatory stand-up report, shouting against the howl of nature from the seething breakwater about dead and missing by the dozens, buildings caving, others being swept out to sea in the surge. The raging hurricane continued its track over the Caribbean, with computer models still predicting landfall in the U.S. Northeast sometime Monday or Tuesday. Like most New Yorkers, Heat looked at the gentle mist reflecting the night-scape on the sidewalks and found it all hard to believe. But a lot could happen in five days.
When the cab let her out at Eighth Avenue at Sixteenth a new unsettling wave rolled through her. After she scoped out this address, Nikki worried: should she go to her place or to Rook’s? Their issues would all need to be confronted eventually. For the moment, that meant later. Heat double-checked the address and walked on, asking herself why the hell she ever went into the trash for that Parisian jewelry bag.
If she had been paying attention to the street instead, she might have seen them coming. By the time the man in the black SWAT uniform tackled her from behind, his partner had already yanked her gun.
Surprise delayed Heat’s reaction. A split second of “what the—?” was all it took, and she toppled face-first, toward the sidewalk. But in the blink after that split second, training kicked in. With a vengeance.
A primary rule of close combat: Don’t get pinned. Nikki spun during the fall to present her back to the ground. On her twist around she jammed a sharp elbow to the ear of the man behind her, which not only stunned him but also pushed him off-line so he would not land on top of her.