“She was.”
“Just like her daughter.”
“Thank you,” she said as neutrally as possible.
He finally read the signs and handed over the memory key. “May I ask who they are? The pair you’re looking for?”
“Sorry, I’d like to, but it’s a confidential police matter.”
“Can’t blame me for asking. Curiosity comes with the job description, right? Can’t switch it off.”
Oh, did Nikki hear that.
Heat hoped to find more in those photos than something to spark leads on Tyler Wynn and Salena Kaye. She also sought a clue to solve her big secret.
A few weeks ago, Nikki had stumbled upon a series of strange pencil notations her mother had left embedded in her sheet music. She believed it was a coded message. The dots, lines, and squiggles followed no pattern she recognized. Nikki had Googled Morse code, Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Mayan alphabet, even urban street graffiti, all to no avail. To satisfy her police objectivity, she’d even researched to determine if the symbols were simply shorthand for how to play the music. All she found was another dead end.
She needed help to crack it, but, acutely mindful of its sensitivity—this code could be why Tyler Wynn had her mother killed—Heat knew she had to keep it secret. Absolutely secret. She weighed the notion of telling Rook about it, knowing Mr. Conspiracy would throw his body, soul, and hyperactive imagination into breaking that code. But Nikki decided to hold on to it herself, for now. This wasn’t just a secret.
This secret was deadly.
After their meeting at Quantum Recovery, Heat signed her and Rook out at the lobby security desk. She took a step toward the Avenue of the Americas exit but sensed Rook lagging. “Change of plan,” he said. “That call? Jeanne Callow, you know, my agent?”
“Gym rat, too much makeup, Jeanne the Machine, that Jeanne Callow?”
He smiled at her snarkiness and continued, “The same. Anyway, I’m going to hoof it to her office on Fifth so we can plan publicity for the new article.”
A familiar claw dug into Nikki’s diaphragm, but she smiled and said, “No problem.”
“Catch up with you at your place tonight?”
“Sure. We can go over these pictures?”
“Um, yuh. We can do that.”
Heat drove back to the precinct alone, reaffirming her instinct to withhold the code from Rook.
Nikki shot a tense look from her desk across the bull pen and once again felt torn between her big case and another homicide. The team of detectives she’d called in on the Conklin murder sat cooling their heels because she was late for her own meeting. Desperately trying to get a lead on Tyler Wynn, Heat had thought she could squeeze in this call before the squad briefing but found herself stalled by a gatekeeper. “This is my fourth attempt to reach Mr. Kuzbari,” she said, trying not to let her anger seep through. “Is he aware this is an official inquiry from the New York Police Department?”
Fariq Kuzbari, security attaché to the Syrian Mission to the UN, had been one of her mom’s piano tutoring clients. Heat had tried to interview him weeks ago, but he and his armed goons rebuffed her. She wasn’t about to give up. A man the likes of Fariq Kuzbari could well shed some light on a spook colleague the likes of Tyler Wynn.
“Mr. Kuzbari is out of the country for an indefinite period. Would you like to leave another message?”
What Nikki would have liked to do was throttle her desktop with the phone and shout something very undiplomatic. She counted a silent three and said, “Yes, please.”
Heat hung up and caught a few antsy glances from her squad. On her way to the front of the room, she started wording her apology for keeping them waiting, but by the time she reached the whiteboard and turned to face them, the homicide squad leader had decided her call and the delay were police business. Screw John Lennon, she thought. Then Detective Heat dove right in.
“OK, so we’re looking at Roy Conklin, male, age forty-two…” Heat began, running down the basics from the crime scene. After placing on the board blowups of the victim’s ID photo and a color head shot cropped from the Health Department Web site, she continued. “Now, there are a few wrinkles in this death, to say the least. Beginning with the condition and placement of the body. A pizza oven is not involved in your everyday homicide.”
Detective Rhymer raised a hand. “Do we know yet whether he was killed in the oven, or if it was used just to dispose of the body?”
“Good question,” said Heat. “OCME is still testing to determine both cause and time of death.”
Detective Ochoa said, “We did get word from the ME that traces of chloroform were found on the front of the victim’s jacket.” Heat whipped her head his direction. She hadn’t known that. Her mind shot back to a missed call from Lauren Parry while she was in the thick of it with the Syrian Mission. The medical examiner’s boyfriend gave Nikki a small nod. Ochoa had her back.
“So…” Nikki picked up her rundown quickly, “it’s possible Mr. Conklin was either chemically subdued at the crime scene, or else beforehand, and transported. Until we know COD, we won’t know if he went in the oven alive or dead. If he was alive, we can only pray he was totally unconscious from the chloroform.” The room stilled as the cops contemplated Roy Conklin’s last moments.
She resumed. “The other wrinkles are the unburned items on and near the body.” She recited each as she posted Forensic photos on the board: “The lanyard and ID around his neck; his folded jacket; and the coil of red string with the dead—unbaked—rat beside it. At the very least, this bizarre MO suggests kinkiness, revenge, or a message killing. Let’s not forget, he was a restaurant health inspector, not only killed in a restaurant—potentially by one of its pieces of equipment. The placement of the rat plus the preservation of his DHMH badge mean something. Exactly what, we need to find out.”
Ochoa reported that the unis had come up zero on neighborhood eyewits. And his visit to Conklin’s apartment revealed no signs of struggle, burglary, or anything. The building super said Conklin’s wife was away on a business trip, and the super gave him a cell number. Raley had found a half dozen surveillance cams in the area and was poised to begin his video surfing. Feller, back from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, had spoken to Conklin’s supervisor, who characterized him as a model employee, using terms like “motivated” and “dedicated” and calling him “one of those rare types who lived the job and never went off the clock.”
“Nonetheless, we have to see what else he was about,” said Heat. She assigned Rhymer to run his bank records to look for irregularities, with an eye toward bribes, big vacations, or living beyond his means. She put Feller on digging deeper with his coworkers and to see if there were any complaints about him from the places he inspected. “Rales, along with your surveillance screening, you and Miguel pair up and hit the restaurants and bars on Conklin’s roster. Listen to what they say about habits, vices, enemies—you know the drill. I’ll put in a call to the wife and try to meet her in the morning.”
Afterward, at her desk, Nikki studied the slip of paper with the name Olivia Conklin on it and the 917 number under it. She put her hand on the phone, but before she lifted it off the cradle, she paused. Just ten seconds. To honor the body. Ten seconds, that’s all.
When she came into her apartment, she found Rook twisting the wire cage off the bottle of Louis Roederer that First Press had sent him to commemorate his role in launching their Web site. “The amazing day I’ve had, Nik, what I really want to do, is saber this thing off. I’ve always wanted to try that. You wouldn’t, by chance, have a saber, would you?”
As he filled their flutes, Nikki said, “You never told me about your ceremony. I only saw the glitter on your shoulder.”
“I confess it was fun. Of course, I pretended it was a pain in the ass, but truly? It was so cool. We were all behind this rope line on the sidewalk right there on Broadway, across from GMA. Me, the mayor, Green Day, the magazine suits…”
?
??Wait a minute. Green Day was there?”
“Well, not all of them. Only Billie Joe Armstrong. American Idiot opens this week at the St. James, and he had his PR haftas to hafta do, also. Anyway, the moment comes, the editor in chief, Elisabeth Dyssegaard, gives me my intro. The cameras are flashing and/or rolling, and I press this huge red button.”
“Like for dropping the New Year’s Eve ball?”
“Mm… More like the That Was Easy button. But the whole deal was about me making the ‘first press’ of the button that posted the first article on FirstPress.com.”
“Clever.”
He raised his glass. “Here’s to ‘Bringing Heat.’ ” The title of the article brought her a sudden gut twist. But she smiled, rang her glass on his, and sipped the Cristal.
While they ate takeout from SushiSamba, Rook went on about the huge number of hits his article had already gotten on the Web site. He asked her about the pizza murder, and Nikki gave him the bullet points but quickly moved off that topic to vent her frustration at trying to reach Fariq Kuzbari.
“Wanna bet that he actually is out of the country?” Rook said. “My correspondent pals in Egypt and Tunisia tell me things are restless. Kuzbari’s probably been called back to Syria because a security pit bull like him has a big to-do list. So many tortures, so little time.”
She put down her chopsticks and napkinned her mouth. “Forget Kuzbari. That still leaves two other persons of interest my mother spied on that I haven’t been able to follow up with. One has been out of state competing with his show dogs and the other has stonewalled me through his attorney. God, talk about pit bulls.”
“Want to hear a win-win idea? Send that lawyer off to trade places with Kuzbari. While she kicks ass in Syria, you’ll have two of your POIs available.”
“Glad you think this is funny, Rook.” Heat shoved her plate away. “I am merely trying to catch the man who ordered my mother’s execution, OK?” He dropped his grin and began to speak, but she rolled over him. “And clearly, since Tyler Wynn also tried to have me killed in that subway tunnel, that old fucker is either still hiding something damaging from the past, or something bad is going on right now. So if you want to treat this like it’s all some sort of fodder to amuse you after I’ve opened my life for your precious article, keep it to yourself.”
She left him looking pale at the dining room table and hoped the slam of her bedroom door gave him a coronary. When he came to her ten minutes later, he didn’t switch on the light and she didn’t bring her face from her pillow. He sat beside her on the bed and spoke softly in the darkness. “Nikki, if I believed for one second that Tyler Wynn was a threat to you, I would drop everything and move heaven and earth to protect you. And find him. But the fact is, Tyler Wynn got everything he wanted in that subway Ghost Station when he got his hands on that pouch you found. Trust me, Wynn’s big concern is to disappear and become a ghost himself. Surfacing to do you harm would only expose him to risk. Besides, DHS, the FBI, Interpol, they’re are all on this. Let them carry the weight, they’re the experts. But I apologize for shooting my mouth off. I don’t think this is a joke at all, and I never, ever want to hurt you.”
A silent moment passed. She sat up, and in the dim light spilling from the living room, she could see a glistening under one eye. Nikki gently thumbed his tear away and held him. They embraced each other long enough that time evaporated.
At last, when the silence had done its healing, he spoke. “You said fucker. You did. You called Tyler Wynn an old fucker.”
“I was upset.”
“You never swear. Well, hardly ever.”
“I know. Except when we…” She let it trail off and felt the heat come to her face. Then the speed of his pulse rose and thrummed against her ear where it rested against the soft of his neck. They turned to face each other without a sign, just the knowing, and kissed. It was a tender one, at first. He tasted her vulnerability, and she his gentle care. But soon, as they shared breath and space, passion filled her. She pushed hard against him. Rook arched toward her, and she clasped both hands on his backside and pulled him closer. Then she traced her fingertips to his lap and felt her palm fill with him. His hand found her and she moaned, then fell back under his body to let his weight find all of her there for him.
Later, after they’d dozed in each other’s arms, he left the room, giving her a choice view of his magnificent ass. He returned with two flutes of Cristal, which they sat up and sipped. The bubbles were still tight and the wine rolled clean on her tongue.
They nestled against each other, and Rook said, “I’ve been thinking what hell all this has been for you for ten years.”
“Ten-plus,” she said.
“Know what I can’t wait for? I’m longing for the day when this whole Tyler Wynn case is closed and I can take you away someplace where just the two of us can sit and veg. You know, sleep, make love, sleep, make love… Get my theme?”
“It’s a good theme, Rook.”
“The best. Only to be interrupted by kicking back on tropical sand with a rum drink in one hand and a nice Janet Evanovich in the other.”
“Let’s get back to the make love part.”
“Oh, count on that.”
“I mean right now,” she said. And placed their champagne glasses on the nightstand.
Distant thunder awoke Nikki. She made a curtain check and saw by the city lights that the streets and rooftops in Gramercy Park were dry. The low cloud ceiling pinked up with a flash, probably from a bolt way out east over the Island.
On the couch, cross-legged in her robe, with her laptop cradled on her thighs, Nikki clicked on FirstPress.com, and her breath caught when she saw her own face staring back at her under the title:
BRINGING HEAT.
The shot was a candid, taken by a photojournalist when she emerged from the precinct after her ordeal in the subway the night she arrested Petar. Her face showed all the fatigue and hardness and gravity she’d borne. Heat never loved pictures of herself, but this was, at least, easier to look at than the posed magazine cover shot they had forced her to take for Rook’s first article.
She scanned the piece, not to read it—she had already done that days before—but to absorb the fact of its reality. Some genies come from rubbing lamps, others from uncorking complimentary Cristal. This was out there now, and she only hoped it wouldn’t kill her case.
Nikki Heat braced herself for the next round of notoriety. And the mild irritation that Rook had published some little bits of her investigative jargon, like “looking for the odd sock” and visiting a crime scene “with beginner’s eyes.” If that was the worst that came from it, she could deal.
The next morning, nursing a brain that had spun its wheels all night, Nikki stopped at her neighborhood Starbucks on her walk to the subway. She never used to bother with movie ticket–priced drinks. Blame Rook. He’d gotten her in the habit. To the point that when he donated an espresso machine to the squad room, she taught herself how to pull a perfect twenty-five-second shot.
When she ordered her usual, she got that unexplainable pleasure from hearing “Grande skim latte, two pumps, sugar-free vanilla for Nikki” called out and then echoed back over the jet whoosh of the milk steamer. It’s the tiny rituals that let you know God’s in his heaven and all is right with the world.
She made a scan of the room and caught a twentysomething guy in a sincere suit staring at her. His gaze darted back to his iPad then back to her. Then he smiled and hoisted his macchiato in a toast. And so it begins, she thought.
The barista called out, “Grande skim latte for Nikki,” but when she moved down the counter to get it, Sincere Suit blocked her, holding up his iPad with her face filling it. “Detective Heat, you are awesome.” He smiled and his cheeks dimpled.
“Ah, well, thank you.” She took a half step, but the beaming fanboy backed up, staying with her.
“I can’t believe it’s you. I read this article twice last night… Holy shit, would you sign my cup?” Inexp
erienced at this, she agreed, just to move it along. He held out a ballpoint he probably got for his graduation, but before she could take it, a wooden chair tipped over, followed by a chorus of gasps.
Across the room, near the drink pickup, a homeless man writhed and bucked on the floor, his legs kicking wildly against the toppled chair. Stunned customers fled their tables and backed away. “Call 911,” Heat said to the barista and raced to the man’s side. Just as she knelt, he stopped convulsing and someone behind her screamed. Blood had begun to flow from his mouth and nose. It mixed with the vomit and spilled coffee pooling on the floor beside him. His eyes stilled in a death stare, and a telltale stench arose as his bowels released. Heat pressed his neck and got no pulse. When she withdrew her fingers, his head rolled to the side, and Nikki saw something she had seen only once before in her life, the night Petar had been poisoned in the holding cell.
The dead man’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, and it was black.
She looked at the spilled drink on the floor beside him. A grande cup with “Nikki” grease-penciled on the side. She stood to study the crowd. That’s when she saw a familiar face on the way out the door.
Salena Kaye made eye contact with Heat and bolted.
TWO
Nikki dashed to the exit, shouting, “Police officer, everyone outside.” Few patrons seemed eager to get closer to the corpse, but Heat worried about the poison and wanted to preserve the crime scene for clues. She yanked open the door and called to the barista holding the phone, “Tell 911, officer in pursuit of homicide suspect.”
Heat flattened against the wall of the vestibule then goosenecked a peek up the sidewalk to make sure she didn’t hustle out into an ambush. There. A flash of Salena Kaye, weaving away through pedestrians. She took off after her.