Nikki hit the highway with a smile. She wanted to see his face by candlelight when she told him she’d poached one of his wacko theories. She suppressed the tingle she felt about what else the night would bring. For now, she was happy things might be settling back to normal between them.
On the way out of the Hamptons she started counting the round blue metal signs posted a half-mile apart that read: COASTAL EVACUATION ROUTE. Those warnings had been there for years, but she never really noticed them. Like so many things.
What had she missed in this case? Asking herself that, as she did at some point during every investigation, Heat succumbed to the detective’s disease. To always feel something got overlooked or was lost in all the complexity and lies. But what experience had taught her was to just push forward. That there’s always more going on than you think, but the answer is usually simpler than it appears.
Nikki passed another sign indicating she was still on the evacuation route and wondered if she was leaving a hazard zone or heading toward one.
The answer to that came during her debrief of Detective Rhymer shortly after she returned to the precinct late that afternoon. Opie had spent the day with CSU combing the apartments of the known members of the hit squad that had attacked Heat. So far, they had found nothing to connect Bjorklund, Victor, or Floyd to the Port Authority commissioner. As they talked, Heat’s cell phone started to come alive with texts and e-mails from friends and colleagues. Their content only gave hints. Brief messages said things like, LOW BLOW! or DIRTY POOL! And from Lauren Parry at the ME’s office, WTF?! Lauren’s contained a hyperlink to one of the scummier Webloids, city’s-edge.com, a step down from the Ledger, if that was possible. Nikki clicked on it and it opened to the blog’s front page. WTF was right.
The headline, big and bold, screamed:
HEAT SNAP?
Underneath was a half-screen picture of Nikki confronting Keith Gilbert outside the Widmark Hotel prior to his arrest. The caption read, CELEBRITY COVER-COP NIKKI HEAT SNARLS AT A COOPERATIVE AND CONFUSED COMMISSIONER KEITH GILBERT JUST BEFORE SHAMING HIM WITH AN AWKWARDLY PUBLIC MIDTOWN ARREST. IS THERE FIRE, OR DID SMOKIN’ HEAT SNAP? It got worse.
The article, quoting only unnamed insiders and sources preferring to remain anonymous, painted a picture of a formerly stellar NYPD homicide detective with a penchant for obsession.
People in the know have come out about Neurotic Nikki’s single-mindedness. Like flogging her murdered Mom’s case over ten years, always at the expense of other investigations. “Don’t get in her way when she’s on a tear,” said one ex-cop. It seems Heat has no problem multitasking when it comes to the bedroom, though. Although romantically linked to über-journalist Jameson Rook, a buff gym buddy was shot dead in her tony Gramercy apartment not long ago. When responders arrived, the hunky stiff was naked in her foyer. “I think she kinda cracked,” spoke another on background only, fearing retribution from the swingin’ dick. “But cut her some slack. Her mom got knifed and her dad’s turned into a lush.”
Is this what Keith Gilbert meant when he invoked Steinbrenner to mask his threat to throw her over a wall? Maligning her family? She stopped reading and immediately picked up the phone to call her father. The sad reality was, Nikki had to look at the clock to see if it was early enough in the day to reach him while he was still sober.
“Hi, Dad, it’s me, Nikki. Listen, just thinking about you. Hoping you’re all right.” She paused. What do you do in these situations: leave a message telling him not to read a paper or answer any e-mails or calls? “Give me a ring right away when you get this, OK? Love you.”
As Heat ended her voice mail, a sharp rap on the captain’s office window startled her. She turned to see Wally Irons standing inside his fishbowl, with one hand holding the ballpoint he’d used to tap the glass, and the other holding the phone to his ear. He used the pen to point at Nikki and then jerked it back to beckon her in. He wore the expression of a man whose sloppy joe had started coming back up on him.
“She just came in the office, I’m going to put you on speaker,” said Irons who then cradled his handset, accidentally disconnecting his caller. “Fu-uck.” Then he turned to Nikki. “It’s Zach Hamner from One PP; park yourself.” The line purred again in a redial instant and he stubbed a finger down on the speaker button to answer.
“Heat?” asked the voice of The Hammer.
“Right here.” Nikki tried to sound nonchalant, but all her defenses were on high alert. Irons and Hamner despised each other, so having them together on a call, combined with Wally’s dyspeptic look, signaled a DEFCON-3 event. Her first thought was that this would be about the sleazy article. She wasn’t that lucky.
“I hear there was no gun,” said Zach, getting right to it, actually, helping Heat relax a little because she was prepared to address that.
“A bit of a surprise after his lawyer called to help us locate it in the house. But it happens.” Captain Irons emitted an audible sigh and grimaced some more. She ignored him and continued, “I’m not sweating that.”
“How can you not? It’s physical evidence in your case.”
Nodding at the speaker grid on the gray phone, she said, “Which has disappeared. Or been hidden. Or lost. I’m not happy about it, but it just means we have to recover it. Or chalk it up. In any event, I see this all in keeping with Gilbert’s duplicity. Embracing the search to appear innocent and cooperative, knowing the whole time that I’d spend half a day chasing my tail to find an empty holster.”
“Must be nice to be so blasé.”
“Uh, anything but, Zachary. Listen, this is the pick-and-shovel work we do out here in the field. It’s a setback, but that’s all. I continue to get new and promising leads on this guy.” She almost told him about Conscience Point, but that was still so theoretical it would only feel more speculative, rather than less. Nikki tried to remember when she ever had to work so hard to sell a case, but sell she did. “The missing gun is one detail we’ll work around.” She didn’t like the sucking pause from the downtown end of the phone line. She disliked it even more when he filled it.
“To this office that gun is more than a detail. As is your Russian doctor who’s not even a doctor. What happened to him naming Gilbert?”
“He spooked. Somebody got to him.”
“There’s a pattern. No gun, your witness recants…You still don’t have a link to Beauvais and Gilbert and an airplane.”
“He owns a helicopter.”
“Which he couldn’t have been in because he was giving a speech when your Haitian took his skydive.”
“So one of the goons he sent to attack me did it.”
“Oh, you didn’t tell me you had proof they were working for him.” The weasel’s sarcasm made her wish he was there. If Zach had balls, she would kick them.
“Gilbert is solid for this.”
“Heat, I know this is a passion for you,” said The Hammer, “but my passion is keeping this department from embarrassing and costly lawsuits.”
“Yeah, well, mine is putting away killers.” Something slipped its chain inside her and she leaned over the phone to add, “Even if they play golf with your bosses.”
Irons lurched forward in his chair. “Detective, that is out of line.”
“If you’re rich and connected, you get a free pass?”
“And insubordinate.” Wally checked the light on the telephone to make sure his objections were on the record and added, “Careful now, somebody’s living up to her tabloid rep.” Heat cut him a sharp look, but decided she’d done enough damage with her outburst.
If the senior administrative aide to the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for legal matters took offense though, he didn’t sound it. In fact, when he finally spoke again, he came across as downright laid-back. “I think we’ll all do ourselves a favor to take a breath here.” Nikki, who had bolted to her feet in the exchange, sat back down.
/> Zach’s calm tone gave her a sense that since his second official caution of the day had been voiced, the worst was over. At least until he said, “So I’m taking the pressure off this right now. I got the consent of the brass here, and I’ve conferred with the DA. We are withdrawing all charges against Keith Gilbert.”
Surrounded by her squad, Heat stood craning up at the TV on the bull pen wall watching live coverage of Keith Gilbert’s statement to the media about his dropped charges. The whole thing, although hastily called, had the taint of orchestrated theater, and it turned Nikki’s stomach. Tie loosened, shirtsleeves rolled perfectly to the let’s-get-to-work spot, the commissioner had posed himself in front of the Emergency Response magic board in the Port Authority’s Hurricane Sandy Situation Room. Why didn’t he just wrap himself in the flag positioned behind him next to the blinking green lights marking bridge and tunnel status?
Rook called her cell phone. Heat stepped away from the cluster of detectives to take it. “Are you watching this?” he asked.
“It’s like a highway accident. I tried not to, but I just have to look.”
“Thanks for calling to let me know.”
“I would have,” said Nikki, “except apparently, Gilbert knew before I did. Hang on, what’s he saying?”
Up on the TV, Gilbert was addressing a reporter who was offscreen. “There never was anything to this, so it never concerned me—beyond my thoughts and prayers for the victim of this crime,” he said. “I hope the NYPD will now be able to concentrate its resources on bringing the true killer of Fabian Beauvais to justice while I concentrate on the looming storm headed our way.”
Rook scoffed in Nikki’s ear. “Where’s the patriotic music? This guy should have some John Williams or Aaron Copland backing this.” His cynicism was welcome, but little comfort to Heat. Rook not only didn’t believe the commissioner was responsible, his own investigation may have created the first tiny crack leading to the collapse of her case. For her own sanity, she tried to put that in her back pocket for now. Gilbert himself made it more difficult to do so.
“Commissioner,” asked another reporter, “A source told me you had planned to sue NYPD for wrongful arrest. Is that still in the works?”
Keith Gilbert smiled a wan smile and slowly wagged his head from side to side. “Let me say this. Now is a time to be present-and-future focused. Ultimately, the NYPD and the DA did the right thing. This didn’t add up, and they knew it. Even a top investigative journalist, Jameson Rook—who, ironically is the romantic partner of the lead detective of this case—raised huge doubts as recently as today on a blog posted on First Press-dot-com.”
Her detectives, nearly in unison, rotated a 180 to regard Nikki. She turned from them and whispered into the phone, “…What?”
Rook cleared his throat. “Ah, maybe this would be a good time for me to hang up.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Nikki, there is nothing in that post we haven’t already discussed. And, just so you know, I did not publish it. The magazine did without telling me as a teaser because this is such a hot case. You believe me, don’t you?”
What could she say? Something to start another argument? “I can see how that could happen,” is where she found both truth and neutral ground.
“I’ll help you forget all about this at dinner, I promise.”
“That would be a welcome change.” And then she added, “Whatever you’re making, just no crow, all right?”
When she had gotten out of her car an hour before upon returning from the Hamptons, Nikki felt every ache, scrape, and bruise from the prior evening’s street fight, and had planned to call it an early end of shift. The intervening events changed all that, so she convened her crew for a regroup session.
“We’re back to the Murder Board and, I guess, the drawing board, too,” she observed, but without a bit of whimsy. The four detectives seated around her weren’t smiling, either. “Before we break camp, let’s share what we’ve got.”
She began by filling them in on the missing gun and her theory about Conscience Point. From there Nikki shared the medical examiner’s certainty that the scratch marks on the late Roderick Floyd would most likely confirm her hit squad member as one of Jeanne Capois’s killers. Heat also mentioned her frustration at trying to link the quasi-SWAT crew that went after her and Capois to the gangsta pair that shot at Fabian Beauvais. When she admitted she was open to the fact that any one of them could have done Beauvais, Roach looked to each other, not at her. Oh, well.
Detective Raley recapped his efforts trying to get a line on Opal Onishi, whose Chelsea apartment Heat had found empty that morning. “Got her DMV photo,” he said, handing the picture of the young Japanese-American woman for Nikki to add to the gallery on the Murder Board. “Age twenty-six. No arrests. No warrants. I went back to her crib and the neighbors said she cleared out late Monday night.”
“Same day Fabian Beauvais made his planetarium plunge. Same night Jeanne Capois bought it.” added Ochoa.
His partner said, “You are correct, sir. Neighbors didn’t know where she went, so I spent the day tracking Opal Onishi’s jobs over the past few years. Turns out she’s an NYU film school grad. She started as a gopher at Food Network on Iron Chef and moved up to her current position hauling equipment for Location Location. That’s an AV company in Astoria that rents sound and camera gear to movie and TV shoots around the city.”
“Why do you suppose Jeanne Capois would be carrying Onishi’s address around?” asked Heat.
“Housekeeping job, maybe?”
“From somebody humping an hourly-wage gig?” said Feller. “Doubtful.”
Raley shrugged. “I dunno. Be nice to ask Opal Onishi. But I called her boss. He told me she hasn’t come in all week.”
Heat said, “Go over there first thing tomorrow and talk to her coworkers and friends. And, Sean? Nice job.” He acknowledged the shout-out, but barely. Body language told her that he and Ochoa were still peeved. “Miguel, you’re up.”
“Trying to chase down the two dudes from the ATM crew that shot—sorry. Shot at—Beauvais.” It sounded like an honest slip, and may have been, but when Ochoa dropped that preposition it resonated palpably in light of the hour’s developments. Nikki wondered how many more blows she could absorb, and just wanted to get home to be with Rook and start fresh in the morning.
He pressed on. “Both still at large. Thug-One, Mayshon Franklin, has no active warrants, so he’s not getting a lot of love. However, Thug-Two, Earl Sliney, is still a wanted fugitive for his home invasion murder. His case got kicked up to New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation. I got the name of the BCI detective holding the jacket. We ended up trading calls and e-mails.” Ochoa slid the cuff back off his watch. “We finally set a time for a call this evening, so I expect I’ll have my what’s-the-what before too long.”
Detective Rhymer shared his day in the Bronx at the various apartments of the three men from Heat’s hit squad. “All three sort of lived in the same block on Bathgate, so it made it easier to cover the venues simultaneously.”
“Bite me,” said Feller. “I spend half my life on bridges and the other half in tunnels. Opie gets one-stop shopping for three crime scenes.” The others chuckled, but Rhymer seemed preoccupied.
“What you holding, Detective?” asked Heat.
“I made a progress check with CSU when you were in the captain’s office on your…um, call. First off, at Stan Victor’s place—he’s the lucky fella you got with the nail gun—they found an index card with the home invasion address on West End Avenue where Jeanne Capois worked as the housekeeper and where they killed the old stockbroker.” He paused and kept his face to his notes. “They also found your addresses, both here and at your home in Gramercy Park. And a list of your habitual spots. Rook’s loft, your gym, your Starbucks.”
In the dead quiet that had descended ove
r the room as they reflected on the surveillance implications, Heat said, “Well. They went to a lot of trouble. Glad I made it worth their while.”
Nikki backed up closer to the Murder Board, which had grown so full of pictures and congested with marker notes in all colors and sizes that it looked like one of those urban buildings that, unbidden, becomes a tagger’s paradise. She declared to the group, “And guess what? I’m not done. Legal Affairs may have wimped out, but I am not erasing this. Instead, I am digging in. Gilbert is dirty, and the fact that he’s flipped from own recog to no recog changes nothing. He’s not going anywhere. The storm will keep him around, and tomorrow, or the next day, or the one after that, we are going to find the thing we don’t have up there yet.…” She paused and surveyed the history of the case on the whiteboard, then continued, “…And we will do exactly what he hoped for in his press conference: Bring the true killer of Fabian Beauvais to justice. And I know who that is.”
When she turned back to face her homicide squad she guessed only half of them were with her. That was a start.
When she unlocked the door to her apartment, she almost called “Lucy, I’m home” to set a lighter tone with Rook, but something gave her pause. Heat knew the feel of her own place—the sounds, the scents, the atmosphere—through many years and countless moments. She’d known it as a party space and a work space; a love scene and a crime scene; and all shades in-between. What was off?
The quiet? No, not that, because it wasn’t exactly quiet. The city ambience of car horns and far distant sirens seemed too present, as if a window were open.
Heat dismissed the notion of going downstairs to the cruiser posted across Twentieth Street, but mindful of Detective Rhymer’s briefing, she closed the door quietly and rested her hand on her holster as she crept forward. Nikki reached the end of the rug where her entry hall met the corner turn to the kitchen and saw a white cocktail napkin on the floor. She chanced a peek around the edge and saw another napkin two feet away. A doorman’s taxi whistle drifted across the square from the Gramercy Park Hotel and one ply of the far napkin lifted in a breeze to wave hello and then settled at rest. The warmth of a fond remembrance enfolded her and she took her hand off her gun. Then Nikki stepped around the corner and smiled.