Deadly Heat

  He paused and signaled his surrender by telling her to watch her ass and to call in backup even if she heard an alley cat screech. Heat left his office feeling relieved. Good thing she didn’t tell Irons about the return call she’d just gotten from her NCAVC friend in Quantico. The FBI analyst told Nikki she had gotten two hits when she added the terms “law enforcement outreach” and “electronic voice alteration” to her database search for multiple unsolved homicides. In each case a suspect claiming to be a serial killer had made anonymous contacts with detectives, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 2002 and Providence, Rhode Island, in 2007.

  Both detectives were dead.

  Heat called Helen Miksit to tell her she’d be a half hour late for the appointment she’d made with Algernon Barrett that day. Predictably, the Bulldog bristled, accusing Nikki of playing a mind game to throw her client off balance. “Counselor, if I wanted to play a mind game, I wouldn’t have made this courtesy call. I would have left you sitting there wondering where the hell I was.”

  She needed the extra time to contact the homicide squads in Bridgeport and Providence. Heat could have delegated these checks to her own crew, but that might have raised alarms, and next thing, she’d have been shackled to a protection detail. The detectives in both out-of-state departments recalled the cases clearly and didn’t need to research old notes; cop killings never go cold.

  The cases in both cities remained unsolved. Referring to the Murder Boards across the bull pen, Detective Heat shared bullet points from her own serial killer, including victims and MOs. None matched hers: no colored strings; no props; no apparent connections between victims. The only similarity was the killer’s outreach to the case’s lead investigator by phone with the altered voice. When she asked how each detective died, she got one additional similarity. Each one had been shot unexpectedly after being lured into an ambush set up by the killer.

  The glorified closet Rook and Detective Raley had commandeered to follow the consumer trail of Tyler Wynn had outgrown itself with the addition of Malcolm and Reynolds to the detail, so the operation moved to more spacious digs in a far corner of the bull pen. The three detectives chattered simultaneously on calls to retail distributors around the country, accumulating tracking data from the RFID chips in the packaging of Wynn’s favorite brands. They relayed their findings to Rook, who, between his own calls, pushed colored pins into a tristate map to mark the delivery zones for everything from outerwear to whiskey to sunglasses to artisanal sausages.

  “The thing is,” said Rook to Nikki as she came over to him, “that we don’t know which—if any of these—are products going to Wynn. But the idea is that if enough of these items intersect with his consumer habits, we’ll be able to narrow the list when we see a discrete pattern.”

  “Right, so if only five people are buying, say… Barbour coats, Whistlepig rye, and D’Artagnan rabbit-and-ginger sausage, you’ve, at least, tightened the likely prospects and we can go knocking on doors.” She looked at the colored pins on his map and added, “Not seeing much of an overlap yet.”

  “It’s slow going.”

  “But it feels promising. Keep at it. I’m heading over to interview Joe Flynn’s assistant and then on to Algernon Barrett.”

  “Really.”

  She didn’t like the judgment. “Rook, you know how hard I’ve been working to brace him.”

  “I do. It’s just… first the Tyler Wynn–Salena crew wants you dead. Now the serial killer? Is it really wise for you to be gallivanting around with two killers hunting you?”

  If life wasn’t shitty enough, Nikki felt him planting the fear seed, and if that took root, she knew she might as well be dead. So she pushed back. “Rook, I refuse to live my life in paranoia. And the only sure way for me to stop them is to get out there and stop them.”

  “Oh, splendid logic,” he said with some bite. “Maybe with any luck they’ll both come after you at the same time and you’ll be able to duck so they’ll kill each other.”

  Heat interrupted his sarcastic laugh, snatching him by the shirt and drawing him out of earshot of the others. “I will say this once. This is what I do. I multitask. I spin plates. I live in danger. I have to. Why? I’m throwing John Lennon back in your face, Rook. Murders happen while I am making other plans. But I see my plans through. And yes, that includes following up on persons of interest like Algernon Barrett.”

  On her drive to midtown, Heat calmed herself to the rhythm of her wiper blades in the rain. Rook had hit a hot button but apologized, saying he was freaked about that orange string ending on her picture. Nikki cut him slack for that. In fact, she found herself extra vigilant, scanning windows and rooftops outside the precinct on the walk to her car. Even the thunder cracks made her jumpy. By the time she ascended the elevator to Quantum Recovery’s floor, she decided snapping at Rook called for some smoothing over later.

  Joe Flynn’s assistant sat with the lights off in her dead boss’s office. Grim midday sun, filtered through rain clouds, erased the colors from the large-format paintings on his walls. The young woman’s eyes were puffy and cried-out. Nikki approached the interview gently, empathically. But her questions about the private investigator’s recent activities, behavior, new clients, etc., brought no more light into that room. The PI’s schedule had been to-pattern; his attitude remained good-humored; he had no conflicts, disputes, or threats in his life. The only thing out of the ordinary was that Flynn had misplaced his iPad, prized because it was a beta version, a gift from Apple after he recovered a lost prototype. It still hadn’t turned up. The assistant said her last communication with Joe Flynn had been when he left the office a few days before. She didn’t find it odd that he didn’t check in, because he did that sometimes when he was on a case. He called it the romance of chasing international art thieves, and had always surfaced, eventually, with jet lag and cool stories. “Did he say where he was going?”

  “Not specifically,” said the assistant. “Just to meet someone with information about a stolen painting Joe wanted to recover.”

  “The Cézanne?” asked Heat. The assistant raised her head up in surprise. Nikki took out her photocopy of Boy in a Red Waistcoat.

  “How’d you know?”

  Randall Feller arrived, and Nikki put him on checking phone logs, e-mail, Internet history, and bank records. He suggested his routine checks could wait, and that he should ride shotgun with Heat to her meeting in the Bronx. The detective didn’t take his no easily.

  Heat did a little bit of self-talk crossing the Harlem River. Her encounter with Algernon Barrett about a month ago had been contentious and, essentially, nonproductive. Back then, Barrett was a person of interest in her mother’s murder hiding behind his lawyer’s pantsuit, so Nikki bad-copped him into losing his temper to see what shook loose. Nothing did, so this time—especially since she didn’t regard him as a potential murder suspect—she decided to play nice, to be the kinder, gentler cop, and see if that got any more out of him.

  The Jamaican had risen from poverty, coming to New York in the early 1990s as an immigrant running illegal horse bets from his sidewalk food cart. His live-in girlfriend, a business major at Fordham, drew up a marketing plan for a company to sell Algernon’s Caribbean spice rub recipes, and within two years, Do the Jerk broke the million-dollar profit ceiling and kept climbing. When Heat pressed the button to announce herself at the driveway on an industrial block of 132nd Street, the iron gates that rolled aside led to the headquarters of a food empire built on the lore of a New American’s success story.

  She found the pair as she had left them a month ago. Except for the clothing, Algernon Barrett and his lawyer might have never departed his office. The jerk spice magnate in the track suit sat behind his desk with a turquoise Yankees cap floating atop his shoulder-length dreadlocks. At a side chair, Helen Miksit acknowledged Heat without standing. Nikki began her charm offensive by leading with a smile and energetic handshakes for both.

  “Thank you for making the time. You mus
t be busy. I noticed a lot of people lined up in your parking lot. Are you holding a job fair?”

  “You don’t have to answer any of that,” said the Bulldog. “Detective Heat, you said you had a few questions about helping you ID suspects. Let’s stick to the agenda.”

  Algernon slid off his Kate Spade Vita sunglasses. “I don’t mind. Lets her know I’m not some punk to fuck with, right?” He turned to Nikki. “I’m expanding. The food truck thing is so yesterday, mon. Pop-up stores, that’s the thing. I just secured permits to set up surprise locations at all the prime New York spots. No more playing Where’s the Jerk? on social media. This week people are going to be seeing my Do the Jerk stores springing up at Grand Central, Empire State Building, Columbus Circle, Union Square, outside all the stadiums.” He slipped the Vitas back on. “You want a job?”

  “You never know. But congratulations, Mr. Barrett. I’ll have to come by.”

  He stood and opened the desk drawer. “I’ll get you a free coupon.” He found one and handed it to her, an oversized fake dollar with his picture in the statesman spot. Helen Miksit then suggested the detective move along to business.

  “First of all, Mr. Barrett, you are not under any suspicion. I am merely seeking your help because my mother tutored your daughter in piano…”

  “Ah, sweet lady, that Cynthia.”

  “… Thank you. Anyway, I wanted you to think back to that time. May I ask if you ever saw any of these people?” She came to the side of the desk and set out twin head shots of Tyler Wynn, one circa 1999, the other present-day. He studied them at length then shook no. When she placed the photo of Salena Kaye on his blotter, Nikki caught a reaction. “What, Mr. Barrett? You recognize her?”

  “No, but I’d sure like to. I’d have a fine time with that.” He chuckled salaciously.

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t.” She moved on to her last picture: the surveillance shot of Dr. Ari Weiss and François Sisson, Wynn’s Paris doctor, taken as both men talked in the front seat of a parked car.

  “I’m sorry,” said the Jamaican. “Don’t know them, either.”

  “So we’re done,” said Miksit, getting to her feet. “And by done, we’re done-done, right? My client will be left in peace?”

  “Absolutely. But just one more question.” Nikki sat. The lawyer sat, too, but not without checking her watch. “Mr. Barrett, would you try to think back? Do you ever recall seeing my mother with anyone, even if it was before or after those piano lessons?”

  He tilted his head toward the acoustical tile to ponder, twirling the end of a dread. He began to shake his head but then said, “You know, one time I remember. I remember because, hoo, I got pissed off.” Heat gently opened her spiral pad. “I got pissed off because my little Aiesha’s lesson got interrupted. See, that day we had our tutoring session in Cynthia’s place in Gramercy Park because I had business in Manhattan. Right in the middle of the lesson, buzz-buzz, someone’s at her door, and Teacher Heat says, ‘pardon me,’ and goes into the hallway, leaving my girl to sit there while she argues with someone.”

  “Did you hear what they were arguing about?” Nikki leaned forward in her chair, full of new anticipation.

  Miksit stuck her nose in. “Detective, it was over ten years ago, how would he remember what they were arguing about?”

  “Money,” said Algernon Barrett. “When somebody talks big money, it’s not something you forget.”

  “What money? How big?” asked Heat. “Can you remember?”

  “Not only can I remember how much, I remember what your mom said.” Nikki paused her note taking and glued her eyes to him. “Teacher Heat, she say, ‘Two hundred thousand dollars is nothing to you people, so get off my back.’ ”

  Barrett had just named the exact amount of FBI seed money Agent Callan gave her mother to bribe her informant. “Did you hear any more of the argument?”

  He thought about that and said, “That’s all that sticks.”

  “By any chance, did you happen to see who my mother argued with?”

  “Lady, you kidding? Anybody says two hundred long is no biggie to somebody, I’m gonna see who it is.” He curled the fingers of one hand to his palm and looked at Nikki through the tunnel he’d made. “I peeped the peep hole in that door.” He paused. “Looked like a cop.”

  Heat had expected that. Just for drill, she asked, “Can you describe him?”

  “Him? Wasn’t a him, it was a her.”

  “And she looked like a cop?” Nikki drew a line through Callan’s name. “Can you describe her?”

  He thought again. “Sorry… It’s just been too long.” He laughed. “And too many spliffs.”

  His attorney quickly added, “That is a figure of speech, not an admission of guilt.”

  That evening, Rook’s only response to Nikki’s conversation with Algernon Barrett, including his plans for jerk chicken pop-up stores, was to say he was starved and insist they dine like human beings. “We can still be dedicated, nay, obsessed investigators and enjoy at least one meal that isn’t delivered in a greasy bag with a menu number instead of a food name.”

  “I don’t know,” said Heat, “I really enjoy my forty-sixes, hold the elevens.”

  “They all start tasting like number two to me.”

  “Appetizing.”

  “I’ll make it up to you.” And he did. Just stepping into Bar Boulud, Daniel Boulud’s French bistro, across from Lincoln Center, Nikki’s guilt about taking some downtime melted away. “Besides,” as Rook pointed out, “we can still talk shop, if we keep our voices down.” They scored a back table at the far end of the charcuterie, and as she sipped her Sidecar and he his Prohibition Manhattan, Rook observed, “Here’s how immersed I am. I look at all the saucissons and fromages behind that bar, and all I can see are Tyler Wynn’s buying habits and how far we have yet to go.”

  “Nice to get away from the office,” she said, rubbing her toe against his leg under the table.

  “Actually, it is.” He set down his glass and lowered his brow. “I miss the ‘us’ part of doing this.”

  “We’re working together.”

  “Yes and no. It feels more to me like parallel play instead of teamwork. You’re doing your thing, I’m off doing mine. I miss you. I miss our connection. I want it to be like old times. And by that, I mean a month ago.”

  “Likewise. But welcome to police work. This is what you do when it all piles on—and why I flared at you earlier today. I’m sorry. However, the beach and the Janet Evanovich are still out there.”

  “And the sex.”

  “Count on that.” Both their cell phones were in front of them. She swept them aside with her forearm and patted the tabletop. “Right here. Wanna?”

  “Detective, please,” he said in mock reproach. “You’re a marked woman. Behave.”

  They ordered the grilled day boat scallops and a Colorado lamb cavatelli. While they shared plates, she recapped her visit to Quantum Recovery. After her rundown, he said, “You know what I can’t shake about this Joe Flynn murder?”

  “Uh-oh. I know that tone. Do I hear the revving of the conspiracy engine?”

  “You hear an inquisitive journalist with an open mind shining light on inescapable considerations. Like how Flynn’s murder just created an intersection of the two cases you’re working. Like how is it that Rainbow happened to find the link between you and Flynn?”

  “Rook, did you seriously just call him Rainbow?”

  “Hey, even a serial killer needs a brand. Anyway, my point is that the real connection may not be from Flynn to you, but from you to whatever this Tyler Wynn conspiracy is all about.” She smiled dismissively while she chewed a bite of scallop. “Don’t scoff, I’ve thought this through. Tell me it wouldn’t suit Tyler Wynn’s purposes to see you dead.”

  “I’m going to ask the waiter if he can go in the kitchen to get some foil to make you a hat. Rook, it’s too convoluted. Kill four people just to get to me? Get real.”

  “Curse you, logic,” he said.
“Well, at least we discussed it.”

  “Don’t feel too bad. I do agree with one thing. You ask a very smart question: How could Rainbow know Joe Flynn was connected to me?”

  “Rainbow,” he said. “Catchy.”

  After their dishes were cleared, she asked Rook if Yardley Bell had ever worked for Bart Callan. When he said he didn’t know, she told him about her interview with Algernon Barrett and the argument he said he witnessed with the woman who looked like a cop.

  “First of all, is the Jamaican jerk your most reliable witness? And secondly, what would that mean, anyway? Is it your turn under the foil hat?”

  They both got a chuckle out of that, but she said, “You never know what something means. You just gather what facts you can and hope they land, eventually.”

  “Fair enough. Want me to ask her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Just don’t.”

  He paused and said, “You could ask Agent Callan.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? I know you and Bart are on speaking terms. Didn’t you two have cocktails while I was in France?” She eyed him, and he said, “Relax, I didn’t go all jealous. People have business meetings all the time over cocktails. Even at hideaway bars at the Carlyle.”

  Nikki felt annoyed and a bit exposed but smiled and said, “But you didn’t go all jealous.”

  The cell phone in front of him vibrated. The caller ID read, “Yardley Bell.” “Perfect,” said Heat. “Go ahead, take it.”

  He picked up the phone but then handed it to her. “These must have gotten mixed up. This is your phone.”

  When Nikki took it from him, the vibration pulsed all the way to her wrist. She pressed to accept and said, “This is Heat.”

  “We found him.”

  Nikki’s head swooned. She looked to her martini glass, which was still over half-full, and knew it wasn’t the cocktail. “Found whom?” The question sounded dumb to her as the words came out of her mouth—and, damn, sounding dumb to Yardley Bell, of all people—but Nikki sought grounding; she wanted to hear something concrete while she sat there with her vision tunneling and the world slowing down. She wanted to be sure.