Heat asked, “So did you get the supplies he wanted?”
“I did. I put a bag together, and when I finished, he was out of it. His head kept dropping down and up. I offered to call an ambulance again but he refused. Then his cell phone rang and he asked me if there was a hotel nearby. I told him the Key Largo is on the corner, and he told me to help him to his feet. Then he gave me a bunch of cash, took the shopping bag, and left.”
“Do you know who called him?” asked Rhymer.
Hugo shook his head. “It just sounded like someone was coming to meet him and needed to know a place.”
The lobby of the Key Largo was dark and carried the stink of every scuzzy hotel Nikki had ever investigated—a mix of stale mustiness, harsh cleansers, and dead smoke. The floorboards creaked under the soiled carpet leading to the front desk. Nobody was there, and a plastic sign with missing moveable clock hands said, “Back in …”
Nikki called a hello and got no answer. Rook said, “Wow, they’ve re-created the elegance and charm of Key Largo right here in the Bronx. Makes me feel like I’m Bogey and you’re Bacall.” He tapped the service bell with his palm. It did not ding. Then, to Rhymer’s amusement, he examined his hand with a frown and wiped it on the thigh of his pants. Heat was about to call out again when her phone vibrated. It was Malcolm checking in from Staten Island.
“Have something juicy for you, Detective Heat.” Nikki turned away from the desk and started to pace. “The squad from SI is still going over Damon’s house, but Reynolds and I discovered he rented a public storage unit one town over in Castleton Corners. Guess what’s inside.”
“Just fucking tell her, man,” said Reynolds in the background. Heat agreed.
“A van,” he said, making her heart quicken.
“Maroon?” she asked.
“Affirm. And the lettering on the side? ‘Righty-O Carpet Cleaners.’”
“You guys did great.” But Heat held the brake on her excitement and went practical. “Now, please tell me you’re both gloved up.”
“Yes, ma’am, we are the Blue Hands Group.”
“Excellent. Have you touched anything?”
“No, just shined a light in the rear window to make sure there was nobody in there, alive or dead. It’s clear.”
“Now here’s what I want you to do. Step out of there and stay out. Leave the door up where it is, don’t touch the handle again. Just stand guard and get the Evidence Collection Unit on this with a fine-toothed comb. And when I say ECU, I want Benigno DeJesus and only Benigno DeJesus. No screwups.”
“Got it.”
“And Mal? You and Reynolds rock.”
Heat had just finished filling in Rook and Rhymer when the front desk clerk, a large middle-aged white woman with bleached cornrows, emerged from the back, followed by a trail of cigarette smoke. “Booking a three? That’s a fifty-dollar damage deposit.” She plucked the be-back sign off the counter and pulled some keys from a cubby behind her. When she turned back, she was looking at Nikki’s shield.
The clerk’s name was DD, and they followed her down the second-floor hallway, stepping over numerous duct tape repairs to the carpet. “Think again, DD,” said Nikki. “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone else come up here to visit him?”
“I don’t see anything, anytime, anyhow. People come and go.”
Rook asked, “What about another person staying with him, you’d have to know that, wouldn’t you?”
“Technically. But come on.” She stopped mid-hall and gestured to the joint with both arms spread out as a woman in bright yellow hot pants and a halter passed them on the way to the elevator. The picture made it hard to argue. “Dude paid up two weeks in advance in cash. Alls I care about.”
They stopped at a door at the end of the hall with a “Do Not Disturb” dangling from the handle. Wondering about site contamination and forensics, Nikki asked, “Has housekeeping been in here?”
“Yuh, right,” DD scoffed and pointed at the sign. “No little chocklits on his pillow.” Then she rapped twice and said, “Yo, manager.” When she slid the key in, Nikki motioned her back. She and Rhymer rested their hands on their holsters and went in first.
“Holy fuck,” said DD, summing it up for all of them. She backed away and said, “I gotta call the owner,” and rushed out.
Blood covered everything. The bed, especially the pillow and head end of the top sheet, was a dry lake of deep rust. A pile of towels on the floor beside it was likewise saturated in red. The desk, which had been moved to the middle of the room, was covered by the ripped-down shower curtain. On one end of that vinyl sheeting, there was yet another pool of blood that had separated over time, with amber at the edges and deep maroon in the center of the stain. Cinnamon red, like drippings from a candle, clung to the sides of the shower curtain where blood had leaked and made small puddles in the rug, which also looked dried. Clumps of bloody gauze decorated the floor there beside their torn, discarded sterile packaging.
Rook said, “I haven’t seen this much blood in a hotel since The Shining.”
“Looks like I found my ER,” said Opie.
“And makeshift ICU,” said Heat. She left Detective Rhymer in charge of the scene, hoping that, in the middle of all that, Forensics could get some prints and find out who administered to Carter Damon.
When Nikki came back from the Bronx with Rook, Roach was waiting and pounced on her at the door of the bull pen. They led her to their side-by-side desks, where they had organized a briefing. “Bank, first,” said Detective Raley. “Turns out Carter Damon had a money trail of his own.” He opened a file on his monitor and clicked through pages of bank statements as he talked. “Look here. A three-hundred-thousand-dollar deposit went into his account the Monday after your mom got killed. And then, see here? Smaller sums—twenty-five grand—every six months thereafter.”
The shocking conclusion was too obvious not to draw—that a member of the fraternity, an NYPD detective, might have killed her mother by contract and then been retained to screw with the investigation’s progress. Obvious or not, Nikki fought the instinct to close her mind by racing to that conclusion just yet and asked, “How long did he get the payments?”
“Till last month. Then, big change.” He brought up the next page. “Another deposit for three hundred thou, two weeks ago.”
Nikki looked at the date. “That’s the day we found Nicole Bernardin in the suitcase.”
“And the same day we met ex-Homicide Detective Carter Damon for lunch,” added Rook. “Was that a payment for doing Nicole, or for trying to kill you?”
“Or both?” wondered Ochoa. “Phone records tell a story, too.” He gave Heat a copy of the printouts he had researched. Rook read over her shoulder.
“I highlighted three major calls of interest. Bottom of page one, note that Damon made two international calls to a disposable mobile number in Paris. One the night Nicole was killed—to refresh your memory, that would have been two nights before we found the suitcase—and the second call to Paris, same burner cell, right after meeting you and Rook for lunch.”
Nikki took a moment to quiet her mind and said, “All right, just trying this on. Let’s suppose, for argument’s sake, the first call to Paris was about killing Nicole Bernardin. Either to get the order or confirm that he’d killed her. What’s the second call about, do you think?”
Rook said, “Maybe Damon was calling in the hit man who killed Tyler Wynn. He could have been your sniper last night.”
“Yeah, but we checked incoming passengers from Paris through U.S. Customs, remember?” said Ochoa. “No knowns on the watch list.”
“So?” said Rook. “Maybe whoever it was came in through another port of entry, like Boston or Philadelphia. Or isn’t on a watch list.”
“Let’s keep thinking on this,” Nikki said.
“Did Damon make any calls to the Bernardins in Paris?” asked Rook. “Any chance he was the elusive Mr. Seacrest?”
Detective Ochoa shrugged. “No record. But
that call came from a burner, remember?”
Heat turned to the next page of Ochoa’s printout. “What’s this call here?”
“It’s not the call, it’s the timing. Check it out. Carter Damon made this one immediately after he hung up on his Paris call following your lunch with him.”
Raley said, “If it’s like Feller said, and Damon was a blunt instrument, looks to me like maybe somebody told him what to do, and he did it.”
“Miguel, I assume you ran the number,” said Nikki.
“You assume correctly. No wants or warrants on the party he called. The number is listed on Second Ave to a Salena Kaye.”
Heat and Rook whipped their heads to each other. He said, “Salena!? That’s my naughty nurse!”
The gumball on the roof of the Roach Coach reflected in Heat’s rearview mirror as they ran a convoy, Code Two, across Central Park and uptown to Salena Kaye’s address on Second near 96th Street. Nikki chirped her siren crossing Fifth Avenue as she came out of the transverse. As she steered onto Eighty-fourth, Heat checked her mirror to make sure Raley had kept up, and Rook said, “Well, now I know why Carter Damon lied to me about getting shot. He was just BSing me into swapping rehab stories so I’d give him Gitmo Joe’s name. He must have tracked him through my agency and had him replaced by his girl Salena.”
“I’m right there with you.” Nikki blasted her horn and jerked her wheel to pass a delivery truck that had dead-stopped her lane. Turning uptown, she continued, “Damon placed her with you to keep tabs on the case. Think of it, Rook, she saw Murder Board South, our case notes, and everything before she left.” Nikki couldn’t resist, and added, “Smiling those big white teeth the whole time.”
Rook caught her needle and countered, “She gave one helluva massage, too.”
She pulled to the curb at Ninety-sixth and threw it in park. “Time to pay a house call on a naughty nurse.” But when Rook got out, she said, “Oh no, you stay here.”
“Why? Is this payback for what I said about the massage? I was thinking of you the whole time, I swear.”
She joined up with Raley and Ochoa at the front steps to the apartment building. “Not going to debate this. Stay in the car, I mean it.”
“What is he, like, six?” said Ochoa on the way in.
“You flatter him,” said Raley.
Up at the apartment door on the fifth story, Raley knelt beside the lock, holding the key from the super at the ready. Heat and Ochoa flanked him with guns drawn. “Salena Kaye, NYPD, open up,” she called. No answer. Heat gave Rales the nod and he keyed the lock. Nikki turned the knob and pushed, but the door hit something solid, a piece of furniture, and stopped.
“Mine,” said Ochoa. He backed up and gave the door a flying kick with his foot. It opened only a few inches. “Together, pard,” he said, then he and Raley hit the door with both their shoulders, and they were in.
“Bedroom, clear,” said Ochoa.
“Kitchen, clear,” called Heat.
Raley came out from the bathroom and holstered. “Not in the bathroom, either.”
Detective Ochoa said, “She busted out of here in a hurry. The drawers are open and there’s a half-packed duffel on the bed.”
Nikki saw the open window. On her way out the door she shouted, “Fire escape. One of you go high. I’ll take the street.”
Heat blasted out the lobby stairs and raced through the vestibule onto the sidewalk. Rook was standing beside the Crown Vic, pointing. “A car service picked her up.”
“Get in,” she said.
“I saw them take a left on Ninety-seventh.”
“Buckle up,” she said and lit the gumball.
As they rounded the corner, he got out his cell phone. “I also got the medallion number of the car.” He got Dispatch for the car service. “I’m declaring a police emergency, I need to know the drop route for your car number K-B-four-one-three-one-nine.” At Lexington he pointed frantically to make a left, and she did. He asked for the plate number and wrote it down. “Appreciate the assist,” he said and hung up. “JFK, via Midtown Tunnel.”
“You did that a little too easily,” she said, reaching for her radio mic.
“Hey. Investigative journalists have their tricks, too.”
Detective Heat called in to alert the duty officers at the tunnel entrance to detain a black Lincoln Town Car and gave the plate number Rook had gotten. Nikki still kept her speed up and, just after they crossed 42nd Street, Rook said, “There! Right lane, passing the Pret A Manger.”
One bleep of the siren, and the sedan pulled over and stopped. She called for backup and opened her door. “Stay,” she told Rook.
The windows were not tinted and the backseat appeared empty. She approached in the blind spot with her Sig up and threw open the rear door.
No one in the backseat.
Nikki opened the front passenger door and that was empty, too. The driver still had his hands up as she holstered her weapon. “Where’s your passenger?”
“The lady told me to let her out right after the pickup. I dropped her way back at Sixty-sixth, up near the Armory.” Heat looked uptown, feeling hopeless. “I told her she paid for an airport run and she said to keep going there.”
“Do me a favor, sir, pop your trunk,” she said, knowing it was futile.
She allowed Rook to accompany her back up to Salena Kaye’s apartment this time. Raley and Ochoa were gloved up, going over the living room when she came in. She handed Rook an extra pair from her case.
Raley said, “Just heard from Detective Rhymer up at the fleabag. We shot him a text pic of Salena Kaye from the photo over there.” He indicated the picture frame on the bookshelf beside the TV. “He said to tell you DD—you’d know who that is—positively ID’d Salena as the woman who was visiting Carter Damon’s room during his stay.”
What should have been joy at making that key connection to Carter Damon slid into the pit as Nikki’s heart sank at losing her suspect. It must have shown on her. “Pretty slick move, ditching you like that,” said Ochoa.
“Tell me,” said Heat. “I really thought we had her.”
Raley cleared his throat. “Maybe we could just follow the scent of tea tree oil.”
“Hilarious,” said Rook. “What happened to the whole brotherhood of Roach Blood thing?”
“We talked it over. We want our blood back.”
Nikki just let them riff and walked the rest of the apartment. Losing Salena didn’t cancel out the day of progress, but it absolutely left a bad taste. Before the gloom could seep in, she decided to get busy. “You guys get the bedroom yet?”
“Not yet,” said Roach.
The duffel was still open at the foot of the bed, so Heat started there, figuring what Salena Kaye would pack to take with her meant the most to her. The outer pockets contained makeup and toiletries bagged in TSA portions. The end zipper section held a blow dryer and brushes. The main compartment was half-filled with a pair of sandals, a bikini, some Victoria’s Secret underwear, on the daring side—no surprise—and a pair of jeans. She carefully lifted that stack out to set on the bedspread and let out a “Yesss!” to the empty room.
Underneath the clothing, Nikki had found her stolen keepsake box of photos.
EIGHTEEN
In a rare and blatant move of tactical Irons avoidance, Nikki Heat skipped going back to the station house after completing the search of Salena Kaye’s apartment that evening. The last time she had called in, Detective Feller told her that the captain was in his glass box highlighting CompStats but had regularly scoped the bull pen to check her desk. Whatever he wanted, it would have to wait. Nikki had a date with the keepsake box.
After confirming that the APB had gone out on Salena Kaye and satisfying herself that Malcolm and Reynolds had the forensic examination of Carter Damon’s van covered, she took her reclaimed photos and cabbed down to Tribeca to meet up with Rook at his loft.
He had gone there an hour before to keep an appointment with a locksmith, and when Hea
t arrived, Rook handed her a shiny brass key to fit his new deadbolt. “I’d like to think a new lock makes a diff,” he said, “but the way things have been going, I might as well just leave the front door wide open and slap Post-its where to find the good stuff.”
“One good thing,” she said. “Now that we know it was Salena, we don’t need to worry that Forensics didn’t find any prints.”
“Maybe they didn’t score any fingerprints, but they did find my little Scotty dog under the couch.”
“Yay, Forensics.”
“It must have gotten knocked off the table and rolled under there when Salena planted this.” He held up a small black box with a wire dangling from it.
“A bug? So she not only had access to our Murder Board and stole these pictures, she planted a bug?”
“Now I’m all paranoid about things I might have said.” And then he added with a sly grin, “During the massage, I mean.”
“I’ve heard you in your ecstasy, Rook. I’d be paranoid, too.” Then Heat set up shop at the dining room table, opening the lid of the keepsake box and poring over the photos.
The first pass through was to eyeball for jewelry. If that bracelet with the one and the nine charms held any meaning, the first clue would be to see if her mother, Nicole, or anyone else in the pictures wore it or something similar. But after scrutinizing every picture, they had seen no similar bracelets or jewels of unusual note.
Next she set about arranging the pictures in separate piles. When Rook couldn’t detect a pattern to her stacks, he said, “Pardon me if I’m in violation of using your registered trademark, but what are you doing, looking for an odd sock?”
“No, actually I’m looking for the opposite of that. I’m playing around with various sequences and configurations to see what matches instead of what doesn’t. Just letting instincts dictate piles. For instance, these are turning out to be a bunch of poses with tutor patron families. I’ll make that one stack.”
“Got it,” he said. “And these here … What, solo shots of your mother and a piano at various homes?”