Raging Heat

  “Let’s all remember,” she began, “open minds. This could turn out to be an accidental, not a homicide. Either way, we are going to go about this case a little differently.”

  “As in, we’re not looking for lurkers or suspicious persons fleeing the area,” said Detective Feller. Like his colleagues, he had jettisoned the grab ass and gone all business.

  “Exactly. Let’s focus our efforts instead on establishing what happened. Starting with two priorities: victim ID and mode of death.”

  Rook raised a hand. “I’m going with kersplat.” God, how Nikki hated and loved having him back. He read their reactions and, instead of backing off, joined the circle and doubled down. “Indelicate perhaps, but come on. The guy was basically a bug on a windshield. Except this bug actually went through the windshield, so he must have been going, what…five hundred miles an hour?”

  “No way,” said Ochoa.

  “For a lawman you seem quick to doubt the laws of gravity, Detective.” He appealed to Nikki, “What height did Dr. Parry say the injuries were consistent with?”

  Heat felt wary of having her briefing hijacked but answered, “Over one hundred stories.”

  “So we’re talking an altitude of at least one thousand feet. I’m surprised he didn’t achieve Mach-One.”

  “Doubtful, Rook. An object falls at thirty-two feet per second per second until it reaches terminal velocity.” Ochoa turned a few heads with that one. “What? Back in the service, I was Airborne. Trust me, before you go jumping out a cargo door you buddy-up with ol’ Ike Newton.”

  Rook couldn’t let it go. “I don’t doubt your courage, but aren’t we splitting hairs here?”

  The detective smiled to himself, then recited, “Mach-One is the speed of sound, which is seven hundred sixteen miles per hour. Terminal velocity for the average human in free fall is one hundred twenty MPH and takes approximately twelve seconds to reach.”

  After absorbing his calculus beatdown, Rook paused and said, “‘Approximately.’ I see.”

  “The variable is the drag coefficient. Drag is created by things like clothing, body position…”

  “…Facial hair, such as a G.I. Joe beard,” said Detective Rhymer.

  Heat jumped in. “All right. I know how much you guys like to measure and what not, but can we just stipulate our victim fell from a height that suggests an aircraft and leave it there?” They all nodded. Then, when Rook opened his mouth, she said, “Moving on” and he closed it and gave her a smiling salute with his forefinger.

  Nikki assigned Rhymer to scrub the Missing Persons database for an ID on the John Doe. “Obviously start with New York City and the tri-state,” she said, “but since this poor guy probably came from an aircraft, tap the FBI and Homeland, too. Also, do a run of prison escapees and active NYPD, county, state, and federal manhunts.”

  She gave Randall Feller the neighborhood to canvass beginning with the tourists being held between the sawhorses on Eighty-first. “What am I looking for, though?” he asked. “I mean, since we’re not seeking a lead on a perp.”

  “This is one of those times that we won’t know until we find it,” she replied. “It’s the lottery. All it takes to learn something is one person who saw the fall.”

  “Or heard something,” added Raley.

  Heat nodded. “Sean’s right. Plane in distress, a scream, a gunshot, whatever. And take a platoon of uniforms to knock on doors in those apartments.” She gestured to the block of pale stone encasing the Upper West Side’s most fortunate and texted him her iPhone shots of the looky-loos in their windows. Next she turned to Detective Raley and said, “Make a guess.”

  “Show me: video cams.”

  “Ding-ding-ding.” Rales wore the crown as the squad’s King of All Surveillance Media. Over the years he had excelled at scrubbing hours of sleep-inducing closed circuit television footage of everything from neighborhood traffic cams to bank and jewelry store lipsticks, and scored major breaks in their cases. Today Nikki tasked him with finding CCTV mounts at the planetarium and the surrounding businesses and residences.

  “There’s a plus side,” she said. “What you’re looking for happens within a very tight time window.

  “Detective Ochoa, I’m going to split you off from your partner to work the skies.” He flipped open his notebook and took notes as she directed him to contact the FAA and Air Traffic Control for any Maydays, distress calls, or unusual activity in the local air space. “Get a list of all aircraft—commercial and general aviation—that came anywhere near here around ten this morning; anything that might have veered off course or acted erratically or raised notice from other pilots.”

  “Like did they see anything up there or hear something on the radio that was freaky, got it.”

  “And don’t forget the helicopters. Not just NYPD but the TV, radio, tourist, and commuter choppers.” Heat looked up. The sky was brightening but still oystery. “Not sure how many of them got up in that, but if they did, somebody might have registered something.”

  Rook raised a hand but didn’t wait to be called on. “Stowaways. Every once in a while you hear about dudes hitching a ride in the wheel well of an airliner. The pilot opens the landing gear and…well, you get the idea.”

  “Won’t hurt to check, Miguel.”

  “Oh, and skydivers. Write that down.” Rook annoyed Ochoa by tapping his finger on his notepad.

  “No helmet or parachute turned up,” said Heat.

  “Maybe the plane banked and he fell out. Or jumped.” Feeling their stares, he added. “Did anyone here see Point Break? Keanu Reeves dives out of a plane to chase Patrick Swayze, who left with the last parachute? Anybody?”

  Ochoa clicked his pen and winked at Raley. “Skydiver one word or two?”

  Heat knew it was time to send Rook home when she asked the group if they had any other theories about the victim and he didn’t chime in. No speculation about an untoward application of the Monty Python cow catapult. No conjecture about a boozy wing walker stumbling off a biplane. No nothing. In fact, he had returned unnoticed to his spot on the stone bench and sat with a fixed vacant stare into the middle distance.

  “Maybe you should get a nap,” she told him when the others had dispersed. Logging thirty-six hours from Central Africa to Paris to JFK to that bench had finally taken its toll. He nodded blankly and she watched him amble away with his duffel after giving her an unsteady hug and a vow to catch up with her after some shut-eye. That bastard knew she was looking, too, because, at the top of the driveway, he lifted the vent of his sport coat and shook his ass. “Welcome home,” she said to herself.

  Back inside, Dr. Parry looked up at Heat over a grim container of human morsels and declared she would be at this for hours and that movie night was definitely off. “Although I had already assumed so now that handsome’s back. Go ahead, you fickle bee-otch. Have fun.”

  “I will. Think I’ll take him to see the new Bourne movie.” Nikki turned and walked off to hide her grin.

  As the detectives began to filter into the bull pen to report at the end of shift, Heat was surprised to see Rook arrive with them. “Not much of a nap,” she said when he took a seat on her desktop.

  “A nap’ll kill ya. You want to know how an experienced traveler blows the gum out of the carburetor? Hit the treadmill, instead. Three miles and a hot shower, I’m good for, oh, another twenty minutes.” He scanned the squad room. “What’s with the empty desk?”

  “We, um, lost one of our detectives this week.” Before he could follow up, she cut him off. “A little sensitive, a little public right now, all right?”

  “We won’t discuss it here, then.” He nodded, but continued, “Let me guess. Do I smell the handiwork of one Captain Wally Irons?” She gave him a sharp look and he put up both palms. “I think we best not discuss this here, if it’s all right with you.”

  Detective Ochoa came ov
er, turning pages to the front of his notebook. “No hits at the FAA or ATC. No commercial air traffic over this part of Manhattan at that time. One outbound from LaGuardia over the Bronx ten minutes before and two JFK approaches: one, five minutes after—that was over the Hudson; the second traversed the West Side at about ten-thirty.” Nikki recalled the sound of that plane on her walk-up, then asked about general aviation. “Nada. Same for Maydays, distress calls. And yes, Rook, I did inquire about stowaways. None reported, plus they said it wouldn’t be procedure to drop landing gear this far out.”

  According to Rhymer, Missing Persons didn’t kick out any matches. “And still waiting on callbacks from various law enforcement on fugitives and escapees.” Mindful of the polite Southern nature that had earned Rhymer the nickname of Opie, Heat directed him to be a pain in the ass with those agencies. She also suggested he widen the window on Missing Persons to include the past week; you never knew.

  “Sure thing. And I’ll check MP reports throughout the evening, just in case somebody comes home tonight and finds it empty by surprise.” When he said it, it sounded buttery, like “bah supprahs.” Opie in the big city.

  Rook stood. “Hang glider.”

  Ochoa shook his head. “From where, the Empire State Building?”

  “You’re right. He’d have to get it up there undetected.” But Rook kept going with it. “How about the big skyscraper they’re erecting on West Fifty-seventh.”

  “And what happened to the actual hang glider?” asked Heat. “Rook, you should have taken a nap instead.”

  Rhymer beamed. “A wing suit could do it.”

  “Madre de dios, it’s contagious.” Ochoa stared at the ceiling tiles, shaking his head.

  Rook clamped an arm around Opie’s shoulder. “You know something? The halls of this precinct are going to ring with sweet laughter when one of our brainstorms leads to a break in this case.”

  Detectives Feller and Raley strode in together, urgency on their faces. “You’re going to want to see this,” said the King of All Surveillance Media.

  The six of them could barely fit into the storage closet Raley had converted into his digital domain, which basically consisted of two tables resting on filing cabinets, a scrounged assortment of yesteryear’s technology, and a cardboard Burger King crown, presented to him years before by a grateful homicide squad leader. “While I was canvassing the crowd for eyewits, some old dude from Canada is getting real freaked over near the tour bus, so I check him out,” said Detective Feller. “He and his wife—by the way, I’m betting she’s a recent trade-up, if you catch my meaning—Anyway, the two of them were posing for a video the bus driver was shooting of them in front of the planetarium.”

  “Makes sense,” said Rook. “What’s a trip to New York without a picture of Uranus?”

  Feller couldn’t resist joining in, adopting the voice of a tourist. “‘My God, Harry, I can’t believe the size of Uranus.’”

  “Wanna talk massive?” said Rook. “Feast your eyes on this space junk.”

  Heat turned to them. “Boys.” Then, admonishing Rook, “Definitely a nap next time.”

  Raley resumed. “The tourist couple volunteered the video so I could make a digital copy. This part’s in slo-mo. Ready?” Rales didn’t bother waiting for a reply. Everyone gathered a little closer to the monitor when he rolled the footage.

  The screen displayed a barrel-chested senior citizen with silver hair sprayed into a meticulous pompadour embracing a buxom woman of about fifty who wore her jewels proudly and rested her head on the love of her life. Both smiles seemed frozen, but that was due to the video speed, apparent when their eyes blinked in slow motion. “Here comes,” said Raley. A few seconds later, a dark form shaped like a bullet descended from the sky at a steep angle and crashed into the roof of the cube. Nobody on the video noticed or reacted, but the video room sure did, resounding with moans, gasps, and a long “Fuuuuck” from Ochoa.

  “Can you zoom in?” asked Heat.

  “Already done. Now, the more you zoom, the more this stuff pixilates, so it’s not real sharp, but there’s something interesting. Ready?”

  His zoomed version excluded the couple, except for the top of the silver pompadour. Raley had also slowed the video down a step further so, as the body appeared, its movement played somewhat jerkily. A second before impact, he froze the frame.

  Rhymer said, “Oh, man, headfirst.”

  “And check it out.” Raley used a pencil to indicate the victim’s hands. “Tucked behind his back.”

  “Who doesn’t put his hands out?” asked Rook.

  Detective Feller said, “Might be unconscious.”

  Ochoa shook his head. “If you’re unconscious, your arms are all loose.” He posed to demonstrate.

  They all studied the image. After a few moments, Raley played it out to impact. This time it was met with silence. Which was broken by Rook. “I guess that’s what the kids today mean by photobomb.”

  It turned out Nikki Heat’s fantasy about a trail of clothes from the door to the bed wasn’t so far off—the two main differences being it was Rook’s loft, not the Excelsior Hotel, and they never made it as far as the bed. At least not the first time.

  Separation had created a hunger and they eagerly flew at each other in a frenzy, the time apart making this reunion feel fresh. Even their familiar ways and places carried a sense of novelty and wild excitement. And abandon. Definitely abandon. Afterward, with her head nestled into his shoulder, Nikki reflected how she had never been with a man who could make her forget everything so completely and lose herself in the instant they were creating. Of course, he could also break the spell.

  “Reunion sex,” he said. “Nothing like it.”

  “Hotel sex? Sex on the roof? And what about that time in the back of the squad car?”

  “Oh, right. You know I’m very sorry to hear the NYPD is retiring the noble Crown Victoria from the its fleet. Fuel economy is one thing. A spacious and, might I say, firm, backseat is another.”

  “On the topic of firm backseats, how much weight did you lose?”

  “Jungle travel is very slimming.”

  “And what is this here?” Nikki ran her fingertips down from the old indent made by the bullet he took to save her life and traced them over a jagged scar. She slid down his chest to examine it. Even in the dim light she could make out the bas-relief of crude stitchwork, recently healed.

  “Later,” he said, drawing her face up to his. “Let’s enjoy this.”

  “Oo, man-of-mystery.”

  “Yeah?”

  Heat rolled on top of him. “Oh, yeah.”

  They found each other’s mouths again. But this time, tenderly. The two held eye contact as she caressed him and took him inside, and then in wordless synchronicity, they spoke with only their most naked, unabashed gazes, each slowly moving, reaching for, and feeling, the depths of one another.

  Rook called to order dinner in from Landmarc then stepped into the shower with her. As he soaped her back, he asked, “Now exactly which action figure do I remind you of? G.I. Joe?”

  “It was just a wisecrack, let it go.”

  “Then perhaps one of the others in the ensemble. Storm Shadow? Snake Eyes?”

  “Rook, how do you know all these? You’re kinda scaring me.”

  “I ghostwrote a piece on Hasbro for a trade publication once. We all have a past.” Then he resumed, “Shipwreck? Snow Job? I know. Firefly. I sort of feel a connection to him. Can’t explain it.”

  Nikki turned and cupped his face in her hands. “This wasn’t my favorite sport, you know.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. I found you downright gymnastic.” But he read her, and grew serious. “I know the separation sucks.”

  “And I don’t want to be a whiner, Rook, but two months…” It had started as a mere six-day jaunt to Switzerland to file a quick
and dirty glamour piece on the Locarno International Film Festival. But when his editor at First Press dangled an investigative cover story on diamond smugglers in Rwanda funding international terrorists, Rook smelled his third Pulitzer and hurried his rental Peugeot down the E35 to Milan, dashed through La Rinascente for tropical clothing, and hopped the next flight via Entebbe to Kigali.

  “Which is why I said no when they asked me to go to Myanmar next week to cover the human rights situation.”

  “I hope you didn’t do that because of me. Do what you have to do. I mean, you know I pride myself on my independence.”

  “All too well.”

  “That’s what makes us work. We both cherish our independence, right?” Then something odd registered on his face, enough for her to study him and ask, “…What?”

  But Rook didn’t reply. He simply gave her a knowing smile and drew her close to him. After a moment, embracing skin-to-skin, under the steam, Nikki whispered, “Oh. I think a new action figure just joined us.”

  “Please,” he said in mock indignation. “Must we cheapen this?”

  The next morning, Heat brewed herself a scoop of Rook’s stale coffee; and while the water sieved through the Melitta cone, she watched Good Morning America announce that a tropical depression off the coast of Nicaragua had now graduated to a tropical storm with a name: Sandy. Her cell phone rang and Nikki raced up the hall to the bedroom, hoping to hell it wouldn’t wake him. But Rook slumbered in deep oblivion as she grabbed it and finger swiped the screen. Heat spoke in a hushed voice as she closed the door behind her. “Hey, Doctor.”

  “You sound out of breath,” said Lauren Parry. “Please tell me I interrupted something wicked.”

  “He bound me to the bedposts with old typewriter ribbons. I’m lucky I could reach the phone. You still at the planetarium?”

  “Oh, hell, no. But I did pull an all-nighter here at OCME with my recovery.” It always fascinated Heat how professionals found a vocabulary to cope with the macabre. “I’ve sent good DNA samples off to Twenty-sixth Street, but that’s not why I’m calling. I also came across a significant piece of remains. I’m certain it’s a section of upper arm near the left shoulder. Nikki, it has a tattoo. Open your e-mail, I sent you a JPEG.”