Driving Heat

  Rook tilted his gaze upward when he heard Nikki approaching, then let his head sag into his palms.

  “You all right?” she asked, resting a hand on one of his shoulders to give it a gentle squeeze.

  “Yup.” But when he got to his feet to prove it, his face blanched and his eyes drifted under half-closed lids. “I’m good. Really.”

  Not entirely proud of herself for doing so, Nikki decided to exploit Rook’s moment of vulnerability. “So tell me how it came down. What were you doing all the way out here at this place? Foren”—she looked up at the sign—“Forenetics?”

  But even with his defenses down, Rook’s instincts as an investigative journalist kept a toehold. “Nothing out of the ordinary, really. I sort of had an appointment.” He took the bottle of water Ochoa held out and cracked it open.

  “With the victim?”

  He took a sip and nodded. When Rook saw that he wasn’t going to get away with a mere head bobble, he allowed, “Yes. I had an appointment. With Fred Lobbrecht. He works here.” He blanched again at an inner vision and corrected himself. “Worked here.”

  Unsure now whether Rook was obfuscating or traumatized, Nikki cut bait. She told him they would continue the conversation later. She logged into the crime scene and led her group past the empty coroner’s van and inside the building.

  Heat had never before set foot inside a vehicle crash test facility, but the scene felt immediately familiar from so many all the 20/20 investigations and car commercials she had seen, as well as all the ghastly videos they had forced her class to watch back in Drivers Ed. To her right, inside the cavernous half acre of the impact laboratory, a two-tiered modular structure sat against one wall. The first floor of the glass booth appeared to be a command center full of electronic gear set into consoles and equipment bays. Up top, accessible from a steel staircase, a line of camera tripod mounts formed a picket fence along the outwardly slanting window of an observation deck. Both booths were empty of life, as was the rest of the facility, except for emergency responders.

  Embedded in the concrete floor in front of the control room stood the firing mechanism for the vehicle propulsion system used to catapult cars and trucks the same way fighter jets got launched from aircraft carriers. At the fire command, compressed nitrogen would blast the test vehicle the length of the hangar at up to seventy-five miles per hour. To enhance the video image, the floor was painted snow white and punctuated at strategic intervals by yellow-and-black checked stripes and reference markers. To Heat’s left, at the far end of the track, almost the length of a football field away, a small Japanese import had smacked into three hundred thousand pounds of concrete and steel at full speed. Even from a hundred yards away, she could see where the rusty cloud of brain matter and now-dried blood had spattered the impact barrier like a Jackson Pollock. No wonder Rook was so shaken.

  “Anybody bring a spatula?” asked the medical examiner, popping up from his kneeling position at the front end of the squashed car. Nikki had not seen Stu Linkletter—or heard his grating cackle—in the four years since he had transferred from the Manhattan ME’s office. She counted each year as a blessing.

  Detectives Ochoa and Feller clearly shared the same sentiment and muttered the “Fu-u-u-uck” that Heat was only thinking when the ass-hat in the contamination suit popped up from his crouching position like a gopher.

  “By the way, anybody up for lunch after? I don’t know why, but I’m thinking pizza.”

  And with that, Nikki forgot all about her inside voice. “Fu-u-u-uck.”

  “Oh, I hear ya,” said Linkletter, oblivious. “It’s not like a Road Runner cartoon, is it? You don’t go straight through the wall leaving a perfect cutout of your body. Not even at seventy-five miles per hour.” He turned to the splotched wall, then back to his colleagues with a grin. “Am I right?”

  “How about just giving us a briefing,” said Heat.

  “What’s the fun in that?”

  Even Randall Feller, Mr. Gallows Humor, had had enough. “Linkletter. Save it for open-mic night at Governor’s.”

  It took the sober glowers of three cops and one investigative journalist to get Linkletter down to business. “Victim was not wearing a restraint and became a projectile, ejected from the front driver’s seat of the vehicle upon high-speed impact with the fortified concrete barrier. Preliminary cause of death: blunt impact injuries of head and torso. Temp, lividity, plus the degree of congealing and dryness at the edge of the blood spatters all lead me to estimate the postmortem interval at twenty-four to twenty-eight hours.”

  “This happened yesterday?” asked Heat.

  “Twenty-four to twenty-eight hours. Am I not being clear?”

  “Do you have positive ID of the victim?” asked Ochoa.

  “We are unable to confirm anything other than race and gender.” The ME indicated the bloodstained gnarl of clothing and flesh fused with the crumpled hood. “Lower body is still largely discernable, therefore, male.”

  “What about driver’s license, wallet?” asked Heat.

  He let out a petulant sigh. “First you reject my pleasantries and press for my report. Now you interrupt by pestering me with questions.” A photographer from his team flashed a picture of the victim. Linkletter whirled to face him. “Mr. Roe. Cease photography.”

  “Proceed,” Heat said, politely, but vowing never to work a death scene in his jurisdiction again.

  “In his wallet, a New York State driver’s license for: Lobbrecht, Frederick van; male; cauc; brown over hazel; age thirty-eight. DL photo and name matches the Forenetics laminated ID retrieved from the victim’s tissue, identifying him as a ‘crash reconstruction expert.’ Am I the only one thinking, ‘No shit?’” Linkletter cackled his strangled-goose laugh again, but when he saw the stone faces of Easter Island staring back at him, the medical examiner continued, “Given the catastrophic trauma to the head and upper body, positive ID will involve fingerprints. Failing any record of those, we’ll go for dental records or a chest X-ray, assuming he has one in his medical files. Of course there’s DNA, but you’re looking at time and taxpayer moola.”

  “I’m good for now,” said Heat, eager to put space between herself and the annoying ME.

  “Oh, sure,” he called out as they walked away, “now that you’re a captain, you’re too big to slum with the grunts in the field.”

  “E-mail me your report,” was all she said in reply and without even turning to him as she moved off.

  “What an asshole,” said Feller.

  Ochoa added, “Dealing with dead people’s the perfect job for that guy.”

  “Not even,” said Rook. “No corpse-side manner.”

  “You’re back.” Heat smiled warmly and gave his forearm a squeeze. “Welcome.”

  “I told you I was fine.”

  “Yeah, and you looked it,” said Ochoa. “Get any on your shoes?”

  Heat and her crew met at the other end of the hangar with their counterparts from the One-Two-One to piece together what they could about the crash. “A couple of things I don’t understand already,” she said, kicking things off, “besides wondering how something like this could happen in the first place. First, how could it go unnoticed for a full day?” Nikki scanned the cavernous space and added, “I mean, where is everyone?”

  One of the Staten Island detectives said, “This facility is sort of like a football stadium. Nobody’s really around unless there’s a game.”

  “Kind of an expensive piece of property to sit idle,” said Ochoa.

  “Oh, they make their money, believe me,” said the SI cop’s partner. “Car makers and insurance companies pay big for these tests. And it’s plenty busy here when they do one, about forty of them a year. We come by sometimes to watch—I mean, wouldn’t you? Lot’s empty now, but on test days, you can hardly find a parking place.”

  “I called the Forenetics company headquarters in Stamford while I was waiting for you and Ochoa to get out here,” said Feller. “Their president
told me they were scheduled for an impact test on that import tomorrow. Lobbrecht was the project manager and came in yesterday on a scheduled rig of the sensor cables in the vehicle for Rickles.”

  “Rickles?”

  Feller pointed to the corner beside the catapult where a crash test dummy stood strapped into a dolly. “Irony. Rickles is the dummy.”

  “It’s all part of the timeline they follow. Sort of like a NASA launch.”

  Heat said, “They have a security guard in the shack at the gate. Didn’t he think it was odd that Mr. Lobbrecht came in but didn’t leave?”

  The lead detective from the 121st shook his head. “The guard says just the opposite. That Lobbrecht only started coming here six weeks ago, but, in that time, was a 24/7 guy whenever there was a launch. Worked all hours, brought his lunch, always pulled all-nighters. It was not out of pattern for him to show up and not clock out for two days. And this place is soundproofed, so they’d have no clue out there across the lot, especially with a radio or TV going.”

  They all looked downrange at the crash site, where Linkletter and his team were gathering what teeth they could find. “So what do you think, misfire?” asked Ochoa. “Or this guy Lobbrecht pushed the wrong button or plugged the wrong cable in the wrong socket while he was setting up?”

  “Could be,” said Feller. “Systems fail.”

  But Nikki had her attention on Rook and could see that he wasn’t buying an accident. Neither was she. There are coincidences in life, but in Heat’s experience, very few in murder investigations. His connection to two corpses in as many days flashed some mighty big strobes in her brain. “Are you ready to tell me what you were out here to see Lobbrecht about?”

  Rook turned slowly away from staring at the crash, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. He stared at the bright-white floor and said nothing. Nikki considered a moment. But it didn’t take her long to make a decision, painful as it was. In truth, she had made it already the evening before when she ordered the tail on him. This would just be the extension of that call. “Detective Feller?” she said. “I want you to drive Mr. Rook back to the Twentieth.”

  “Can’t I ride with you?” Rook asked. “Tell you what. I won’t even call shotgun.”

  But Heat wasn’t smiling. “You’re not riding back to the precinct. You are being taken there.” She turned to Feller. “He travels in the back. And when you get there, put him in Interrogation One.” Nikki gave Rook her all-business glare and walked out with Ochoa, leaving her fiancé behind.

  Lon King, PhD

  Counseling Transcript

  Session of Feb. 26/13 with Heat, N., Det. Grade-1, NYPD

  NH: Thanks for fitting me in again. I’m sorry about last time.

  LK: I could see you were working through something. Are you ready to talk about it now?

  NH: [Long pause] There’s not really much to talk about. [Longer pause] So you’re going to make me talk about it, aren’t you?

  LK: Would it help if I brought us back to where we left off? In my notes I see that you were beginning to talk about the difficulty of surrendering your mother’s apartment—I mean, your apartment—and moving into Rook’s. Am I right?

  NH: Is that stupid? I mean, we are getting married.

  LK: The things we feel are never stupid. They are simply what we feel. What we try to help with here is to find out why you are feeling them. If your feelings are holding you back from life or keeping you upset, then it’s constructive to explore them. Do you want to explore this?

  NH: Yes, yes, I do. I just don’t know where to start.

  LK: Why don’t we start with these feelings?

  NH: Oh, God…

  LK: What is this bringing up in you? Can you name it?

  NH: I know it’s logical that I should just move into Rook’s loft. Maybe I should just do that.

  LK: Nikki, you’re going back to logic, your safe ground. Let’s get you back to your emotions and explore them.

  NH: I’m just trying to picture moving day. Looking back inside before I close the door on that empty place where I’ve lived so much of my life.

  LK: And where you mother was murdered.

  NH: Yes. And where my mom was murdered.

  LK: There are many reasons we form attachments to places or things. Is that why that place is so significant? Your loss? And if so, why do you feel you need to hold on to loss?

  NH: I feel like I would be…I don’t know. I just feel like I would be…quitting.

  LK: Help me understand ‘quitting.’ You found her murderer. You honored her memory. You did your job. She would be proud, don’t you think?

  NH: [Nods]

  LK: And yet you still feel conflicted.

  NH: [No response; long pause]

  LK: Sometimes an attachment isn’t what it appears to be.

  NH: I feel like I know what it is.

  LK: Well, maybe there’s more to this.

  NH: Oh, I am completely committed to Rook.

  LK: Interesting.

  NH: What?

  LK: I didn’t mention Rook.

  Heat felt the familiar tug on her eardrums as the air seal broke when she pushed open the door of the sound lock that separated the Observation Room and Interrogation One. Completely foreign to her, however, was to see Jameson Rook waiting for her in the interviewee’s seat, elbows on the metal tabletop, anticipating his promised third degree. She dropped a blank notepad and a stick pen at her place and sat down across from him at her customary spot for examining suspects, conspirators, and persons of interest. He kicked things off, but not with any information, only to state the obvious. “This is nutty.”

  “You think?”

  “Usually, when we’re sitting across a table, there’s far less fluorescent lighting and usually a better class of beverage.” He knuckle-tapped the water bottle before him, making the water inside ripple.

  “We are in here because this is not a game, Rook, and I chose a more formal setting to make sure that you know that.”

  “Oh, trust me, I know it,” he said. “How could I miss it? Hell, my fiancée had me tailed by an undercover detective. By the way, how cool is that? I’m definitely going to have to work that into the toast at our wedding reception. By the way, speaking of: I talked to my buddy Alton Brown of the Food Network. For the event, he is sending me his secret recipe for Jameson Irish Whiskey Punch. He says it follows the classical paradigm of one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. Which I think also describes the Knicks this season.”

  “Rook, will you stop? Just. Fucking. Stop.” While Nikki watched his face grow more sober as he left off his posturing, she chastised herself. On her walk down the hall to I One, her self-talk had been all about not letting this turn emotional; about not buying in. About using this setting as a wake-up call to get him to see what was going on. To give him an opportunity to say, This is real. I need to lay off with the high-and-mighty stance. And here, thirty seconds into the interview, she had risen to the emotional bait and even cursed aloud for the second time that day. Nikki vowed to get it together and to stay up on the moral high ground. If there was any hope of getting Rook to open up and not damage her relationship with him, she had to be the grown-up.

  “Can I have a snack?” he said.

  “No.” She continued in a more measured, even tone. “Rook. Let’s put a Tweet-size summary on what we’re staring at here: In a twenty-four-hour period, we have discovered one homicide victim and one highly suspicious death with one common denominator. You.”

  “Should I ask for an attorney?” He chuckled, then dropped it when he saw the pair of lasers she leveled at him.

  “Let’s be clear,” she said. “At this point nobody assumes you had anything to do with these deaths. But let’s walk it through. Yesterday morning we find a body with a bullet hole in his forehead. And it’s my shrink. Who works for the police department. You say nothing. We visit the practice of the victim and you’re there all through our investigation. You say nothing. You show up o
n video surveillance as having recently been to that very place—the practice of my shrink, the gunshot victim. You said nothing. Today, we track you to the auto safety proving ground all the way out in Staten Island. There, we come upon the suspicious death of the person you had an appointment with. You said nothing. Two deaths in two days. Rook, it’s time for you to say something.”

  He paused to reflect, then shrugged. “Do I need to repeat myself? I am a working journalist, an investigative reporter. Yes, I am working on a story. And yes, I have been acquainted with both victims. But, Nikki, don’t you hold things back when you’re working a case? Well, I am working a story. I still don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle put together yet. It’s still a jigsaw scattered all over the rec room. I’ve seen bits and shapes, but they haven’t taken form yet. I need to continue my investigation—my way—and to do that, I need to be independent.”

  “How can you say you need to be independent when you’re benefitting from all the information my squad and I are digging up? And you are sharing nothing.”

  “Well, that’s a little harsh. I did lead you to the second victim. Wasn’t that helpful?”

  “No, that wasn’t helpful!” she shouted in the voice she had promised herself she wouldn’t raise. “All it gave me was another body. And less to go on, not more.”

  “Hey, know what I just thought of? What if I became a private detective? Jameson Rook, PI.” Then he dismissed the notion with a “Nah” and rose to go. “Well, keep me posted if you start to make more progress. And if anything lights up on my end—that I can share—I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “Sit down.” Heat let him settle back in his seat, then broke the silence. “I think you had better get a lawyer.”

  “Why? A minute ago you said you were ruling me out as a suspect.”

  And then the penny dropped for her. Nikki Heat had found her point of leverage. Something that would really go to the heart of Jameson Rook, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter. “Maybe I’m not so sure of that now.”