Nikki wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear any of those echoes.
The place felt so strange and beyond silent to her. When this was all done, another practice would fill this space. Maybe another psychologist. Perhaps a dentist or pediatrician, creating a more active and noisy suite. For now, though, there was the hush. And Josie’s sniffle. The box of tissues hadn’t been packed yet. Nikki pulled one and handed it to her. Heat waited for her to settle and continued gently, “But you can confirm the incident, right? I have an eyewitness, Joseph Barsotti, who says he walked in on an altercation in the waiting room.”
“Yes, two and a half weeks ago,” the receptionist said. “I can confirm that much because I was there. It was ugly. But I am ethically bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability regulations not to disclose confidential patient names or records.”
“Well, Lon King was there. And you also confirmed that Fred Lobbrecht was there.”
“Yes, but they are deceased.” Josie choked up a little at that and took a moment to recover. “Our lawyers say it’s all right to cooperate about decedents. And I want to cooperate. But I can’t give you the names of anyone else who was there because they were patients and are living. Or could have been patients.”
“Explain that, if you don’t mind.”
“Even if someone wasn’t formally enrolled, their presence assumes a privileged doctor-patient relationship.”
“So you mean someone seeking help? Shopping doctors? A guardian, a visitor, what?”
“You can get what’s called an administrative subpoena, then I’d be free to answer all these questions and help you.”
“Thanks, Josie, I understand. I’ll do that.”
“Or, if you’d like, I can contact the individuals and see if they’ll give permission.”
“No, don’t.” Nikki said it sharply enough to make the woman flinch. She smiled and softened her voice. “Sorry, I just don’t want to set off any alarms for people unnecessarily.” Meaning, Don’t tip anyone off. “I’ll look into the subpoena, as you suggested.”
Heat paused before she left for one last look at the beige-and-creamy-vanilla room where she had cried, laughed, worried, sighed, and ultimately found a measure, if not of peace, at least of herself. No box could contain that, she thought as she closed the door. Nikki was glad she had stolen a few tissues for herself.
Rook had lunch waiting on her desk when she got back from her visit to York Avenue. “How did you know I’d be starved? And Spring Natural Kitchen, great.” Heat lifted the takeout lid. “And you got me my favorite.”
“Thai falafel salad, madame.”
“And what the hell is that?”
He held up his container. “Continuing today’s international salad motif with organic quinoa.”
“I have never seen you order quinoa.”
“Never knew how to pronounce it. Now that I do, turns out it’s delicious.”
After a few bites to cushion the dent, Nikki called the DA’s office to request whatever paper she needed to get past the HIPAA regs so she could get a full accounting of the incident in Lon King’s waiting room. As with the thread that had started with Nathan Levy’s visit to the ER, Heat wasn’t sure of the importance of Barsotti’s information. But the purpose of investigating wasn’t to decide instantly which data were important. You had to collect it all first before you knew. Sometimes it meant nothing. Sometimes it meant nothing for years. Heat thought of those twin lions outside the library, Patience and Fortitude. She didn’t need to conquer all things; just this one case would be nice.
“Sorry, Captain Heat,” said the assistant DA.
“What do you mean, sorry?” Nikki set down her fork and pushed her food away. “It’s my understanding this isn’t even something that has to get judicial approval. I thought I could just file a written request with my justification and scope, and we’re good to go.”
“That’s correct. The sticking point is in what you just said. The scope is too broad. Looking into a patient, we can do. Like this Timothy Maloney.”
“I don’t need to know about him, I already know he was there. I want the names of the others in that room.”
“You’re coming full circle, Captain. The others in that room can’t be confirmed as patients—ipso facto, too broad.”
“Here’s an ipso facto: This is why people hate lawyers.” Heat hung up and felt ashamed and oh so good at the same time.
The call had soured Nikki’s appetite, and she was marking her initials on the takeout carton before she put it in the fridge when Detective Rhymer skidded into the break room. “’Scuse me, Captain?”
“Hey, Opie, what’s up?” Rhymer didn’t have much of a face for poker and she could read his excitement. Nikki shoved the refrigerator door closed and strode to join him even before he had answered.
“Raley and Ochoa on the line in the squad room. You’ll want to take this.”
The detectives had conferenced together, and Heat got a double hello when she picked up. “Hey, an actual Roach call. You weren’t kidding when you said you’d make it by lunchtime.”
“Yeah, and damn glad we came up here in person, like you suggested,” said Raley. “Let’s walk you through in order.”
Ochoa picked up the ball. “We found the wrecker service here in Peekskill, Dunne Towing. The owner was very cooperative, called in the kid who drives the overnight hook.”
“Name is Dooley,” added Raley.
“Dooley worked the haul-out of Nathan Levy’s BMW on Cold Spring Turnpike. Guess where?”
“Around the hairpin turn from the fatal,” said Raley. Heat felt her pulse accelerate, and when she looked at Opie, he was working his head up and down, knowing, yep, this was something. “You still there?”
“Yes, I’m just…That’s big,” Heat said.
“Not done yet. Miguel?”
“Dooley reports the damage to the M3 was also solo.”
Raley clarified, “Not car to car.”
“Skidded into a small runoff ditch paralleling the shoulder. Bent both front wheels and smacked the spoiler into the gravel siding. The car was undriveable, so Dooley flatbedded it back to his repair garage. But Levy was compulsive about the car and wouldn’t let the locals touch it. So he arranged to have them transpo his vehicle to that body shop Aguinaldo found the paperwork for in the Bronx.”
Nikki processed the implications. “This is bizarre.”
“Understatement,” said Detective Ochoa.
“I mean, you and I both know a fatal accident lights up all sorts of police follow-up,” she went on. “How is it that this wasn’t reported by the hauler, Mr. Dooley?”
“OK, now we’re getting to it. He did report it.”
“That makes no sense. The State Police said it was a solo event. How can he say he reported it? Is he credible? Do you believe him?”
“Oh, he’s high-cred,” said Ochoa.
“Extremely,” his partner added. “You see, this is why we’re glad you sent us up, first-person. He showed us the paperwork.”
Detective Ochoa said, “I’m holding a copy of it now. You ready? It was signed off by a state trooper.”
“Holy—” Heat grabbed a pencil out of a cup on Rhymer’s desk. “I want to talk to that trooper.”
“That won’t be possible,” said Raley. “According to this report, the state trooper who led the accident investigation was their top collision expert at the time: Fred Lobbrecht.”
Opie couldn’t stop shaking his head. “Isn’t this just too weird?”
“Although when you think about it,” said Rook as he dragged his chair with the whimpering caster over to Heat and the rest of the squad in the bull pen, “isn’t ‘too weird’ really just another way to say ‘too cool?’”
“Definite freak factor,” agreed Detective Ochoa, who was still patched in on the speakerphone from Peekskill. Raley, also on the line, grunted his agreement.
Heat was equally intrigued by the news, but her mind was busy
wrapping itself around its implications, and she wanted to get the homicide detectives there with her. “Can we generally agree that Roach has rocked our world and settle into making something of this now? Hopefully leading to finding a killer or killers?”
“Oh sure, if that’s your thing.” Randall Feller put his work boots up on an empty chair and snuck a sly smile. “Guess we could do that.”
Rook raised a forefinger. “May I kick things off by noting that this certainly sheds new light on the emotional turmoil Fred Lobbrecht was grappling with. Obviously he had pangs of conscience about whatever unethical crap he pulled at that accident scene.”
“Try illegal,” added Detective Aguinaldo.
“That, too. But my point is, it sure explains why I got pushed into mediation with Lon King to help this guy into a headspace where he could spill his story to me. Even off the record. Lobbrecht’s bowels must have been a Vitamix.”
Rhymer, who had done the initial bank search on Lobbrecht, leafed through his pages of notes. “And what about our conclusion about the whole lump sum of cash ex-trooper Lobbrecht got right after the accident to pay off his mortgage? What if it was a bribe from Levy, and not the payoff from Tangier Swift, like we’ve assumed?”
Heat sucked one of his cheeks, ruminating. “If you’re right, Ope, that nails him as the source of the windfall, but it then removes a link to Swift’s involvement. At least on that score.”
“I hate that,” said Feller.
“Don’t,” cautioned Nikki. “Remember—”
“‘Follow your evidence, not your bias.’” After Randall had recited Heat’s maxim for her, he added, “I know all that. I just felt like we had the sucker.”
“And we may still. We just need to be open to all the possibilities. Do I need to mention this is a case with a lot of moving parts?” She turned her attention back to Rhymer. “I wonder if Nathan Levy had the kind of money to pay off Fred Lobbrecht’s house. Run his financials. Visit his bank or stockbroker, if he had one. Check for fat withdrawals. Obviously, anything that coincides with the accident date a month and a half ago and Lobbrecht’s big deposit.”
“Something’s a little funky for me the more I chew on it.” Feller crossed one leg over the other and picked at a dangling strand of elastic from his sock. He left it alone and said, “This fistfight between Lobbrecht and Levy. Didn’t Wilton Backhouse tell you it came after Levy talked smack to Lobbrecht at their whistle-blower powwow in Rhinebeck?”
“They called it their Splinter Summit,” affirmed Heat. “Professor Backhouse’s account was that Levy accused Lobbrecht of being on the take from Swift, and Lobbrecht punched him.”
Randall went back to tugging the errant string on his ankle. “That’s the part that doesn’t jibe. If Lobbrecht saved Levy’s ass—and got a jumbo gratuity for it from Levy—why would Levy accuse him of taking money from Swift? Unless Levy was cranked because Lobbrecht was shaking him down for more.”
Rook wagged his head. “Judging from my sessions with Lobbrecht at Lon King’s, Fred Lobbrecht didn’t seem like a shakedown kind of guy.”
Over the speakerphone, Raley said, “Well, maybe Fred was double-dipping, squeezing Nathan Levy and taking money from Tangier Swift to be his inside man at the same time.”
“And nice guys extort, too,” added Ochoa. “If a cop’s going to take a bribe to cover up a fatal accident, all bets are off for me.”
“I’m still trying to hardwire a connection to Tangier Swift in all this,” said Rhymer.
“And the congressman,” added Detective Aguinaldo. “Kent Duer is a war hero who checks out clean. So far, Captain, his only transgression seems to be a display of throwback notions about women when you saw him at The Greenwich.”
Nikki was right there with them all. Additionally, she was groping at a loose end of her own: Rook’s kidnapping and how that fit in. It was a phenomenon of contradiction she had experienced in many cases over the years. The closer they got to an answer, the further it took them from other elements of the case.
Rook said, “As long as we’re kicking things around, is anybody else seeing the obvious? That Lobbrecht got a job with the same company Levy worked for?”
“Before we found out Lobbrecht worked the accident, I never got bumped by it,” said Heat. “I assumed it was a natural progression. Work for the state troopers on the CRU and then, when you go private, consult for a collision forensics firm. DAs become defense litigators, politicians become lobbyists, quarterbacks move to the broadcast booth. It seemed normal.”
“Right, to me, too,” said Rook. “We all just sort of bought it. But now, there may be more to it. Like the job itself was a payoff, too.”
By instinct—and habit—Nikki paced in front of the Murder Board. “OK, moving forward. Here’s what we’ll do.” Not letting her zeal diminish the enthusiasm of her squad co-leaders on the phone, she halted and took a figurative step to the side. “Miguel, Sean. How do you want to deploy the rest of your squad?”
For a half breath, they were taken aback, but Ochoa jumped right in. “I’m feeling like the hot lead is Lobbrecht. What about you, homes?”
“Totally agree with Miguel,” said Raley. “Randall, you have prior contact with management at the forensic company Lobbrecht consulted for, right?”
“Affirm. Company’s called Forenetics.”
“Get his employment recs from HR. Look for basics: salary, whether he got a bonus for signing that might account for the sudden cash, any grievances against him, especially beefs on the job with Levy.”
Ochoa picked up without missing the cadence. “We also want to do a thorough vet of Lobbrecht before Forenetics, when he was a statie. If this guy was a dirty cop, I want the paper trail to prove it. Detective Aguinaldo, you reach out to New York State Police. Go for his job file, any IA paper, you get the idea.”
“I do,” said Inez.
Raley added, “Plus get hard copies of his accident report. Not just the MV-104s, but maps, statements, evidence pictures, the whole jacket.”
Detective Feller leaned close to the speakerphone. “What are you two going to do? Besides bark orders at us while you walk hand in hand through apple orchards up there?”
Detective Raley laughed. “Jealousy’s an ugly thing, Randall.”
“Which explains your face,” said Ochoa. As they all chuckled at that, Nikki enjoyed it most because it sounded like Roach was being Roach again. Then Miguel continued, “We’re going to have Mr. Dooley from Dunne Towing take us to the accident scene for an eyes-on.”
“Then a stop at the hospital on the way back to talk to the ER nurse and doc who treated Levy,” said Raley.
Heat moved closer to the phone. “I’m going to have another chat with Wilton Backhouse about all of the above. Meanwhile, nice work, guys. Don’t forget to stop and smell the apples.” She hung up before they could say anything.
No voice mail this time. The engineering professor answered her call on the second ring. “Hi, it’s Nikki Heat.” She kept her tone light and casual. Nikki had some bad news to give him about finding Nathan Levy dead in his pickup, but since Backhouse had proven so jittery, she wanted to ask him first what he had known about one colleague’s apparent acceptance of a bribe to hide another colleague’s probable involvement in a fatal auto crash. Things like that had a tendency to derail even the most grounded interview subjects.
However, it was a more strident Wilton Backhouse who greeted her. Or, to be accurate, did not greet her, but jumped right to his own hot topic instead. “I’m only taking this call because I want to know why the fuck your boyfriend is dragging his feet on my whistle-blowing article.”
“Whoa, Wilton. First off, hello. Let’s not get off on this foot, OK? Whatever issue you have with Rook about his article is separate from why I’m calling you.” Even as she said it, Nikki stood and waved a signal arm through the glass into the bull pen. Rook was immersed in his laptop screen at his rear desk, but caught her in his peripheral vision and hurried in.
/> “Your dude was all over me to get access to my research—my smoking gun that buries Tangier Swift. Honeymoon’s over. Now where is he?”
“Hang on,” said Heat, switching the call to the speakerphone as Rook took a seat across from her. “You there? I’ve got Jameson Rook here with me.”
“Hey, Wilton.”
“Hey, Jameson,” Backhouse echoed his cadence back mockingly. “Know what? Since we last talked, there has been one more highway death and two critical injuries caused by Swift’s defective system. If you’re going to just sit there stroking me with one hand and parking your thumb up your ass with the other, I’ll just post this motherfucker on the Web myself. Do I have your attention?”
“Absolutely. But you don’t want to do that.”
“I think I do.”
“I understand your eagerness, but you need cred. My cred. And I have that because I am thorough.”
“Somebody thinks this has cred. They keep offing everyone involved.”
Rook raised his eyebrows and shrugged to Nikki, who hand-signaled him to keep it rolling. So Rook did. “Wilton, if you rush this out—dump it on some, what? blog?—you’re running a risk of a major fail. Either you’re going to come off as some wacko ax-grinder, or get lumped in with the likes of Dateline when they took on GM about exploding gas tanks. The only thing that blew up was the story, in Dateline’s face. Or, worst-case scenario: It’s not going to get any traction. Let me keep doing what I do: gathering all the facts so I can write a comprehensive exposé that will do the job.” He finished convincingly and waited for Backhouse’s response. When none came, he said, “Wilton, did you hear me?”
A shot—it had to be a gunshot—rang out. Every cop knew the sound. It turned heads in the bull pen when it came over the speaker. Heat and Rook heard the sound of Backhouse’s phone receiver hitting the floor. Nikki jumped up. “Wilton! Wilton, what’s happening?”
His voice was quiet. A gasp. “Holy shit…”
“What just happened?” Nikki said.