Heat folded the pages in three and held up the warrant. “You want us to rip this place apart, or just show me where they are?”
“They’re not here, that’s for damn sure.” He chuckled. “But I can tell you where to find them. Each and every one.”
“You have a storage unit somewhere?”
“Even better.” He almost told her. Then pursed his lips and simply sat back. “Later. Maybe.”
Back at the precinct an hour afterward, Heat and Rook stood in the Observation Room looking through the magic mirror at Timothy Maloney as Raley and Ochoa conducted his interrogation.
“You’re not getting shit from me until you cut me loose from these.” He jerked his manacles upward, filling the ob booth with rattling metal and prompting Nikki to turn the mic volume down slightly.
“‘I wear the chain I forged in life,’” said Rook, in a ghost’s voice. “Or was that forged in Pittsburgh?”
“Still waiting,” said Ochoa. “Tell us where you were yesterday between three and eight P.M.”
“Listen, Paco, you can ask me ten more times. We’re not talking.”
“What about me then?” asked Raley.
“What about you? You’re what, the Lucky Charms leprechaun?”
An administrative aide entered, handed Nikki a file, and left. She opened it and skimmed. “Well, this makes sense. Lon King’s diagnosis of Maloney was paranoid personality disorder.”
“Wait, his name starts with M. I thought those files were stolen.”
“They were. This is a copy of the psych eval King sent to Personnel. The report that got him discharged from the department,” she said as she continued to read. “‘Detective Maloney exhibits the classic signs of PPD, including repressed anger, cognitive dissonance, rage, unjustified blaming, impulsively violent behavior, and oversuspicious projection.’”
Rook cupped a hand over one ear, announcer style. “If your projection lasts more than four hours, consult a physician.”
“Come on, Tim, you were on the job, just like us,” said Ochoa, playing the blue card. “You know where this is going, so give it up now.”
“Just like you,” Maloney repeated with disdain. “You mean they hired me from the sidewalk outside Home Depot to fill a quota, too?”
Raley slid in. “When was the last time you fired one of your weapons?”
“Your peons did my paraffin test. You tell me.”
“What about your guns? Where are they?” countered Ochoa.
Maloney wagged his palms with a jangle of chain links, then let them drop. “I want the lady cop. The captain. I want someone with rank.”
The risk of giving him what he wanted was that it would empower him and feed the beast. The potential advantage was that it might shake something loose if he did feel he had some leverage. Heat tagged in; Roach tagged out.
She began in silence, immersing herself in his file, letting the hunger for validation he had just exhibited push him to talk. Five minutes can be a long time in a room. But at last, her tactic did its work.
“So, was that your boyfriend?” Maloney said. “The one I let take me down?”
“Perceptive.” Then she poked at him. “I bet you miss being a detective.”
“Hey, fuck you.”
“Sore spot? Not surprised. All those years out the window?” She could see a hint of turmoil fermenting under the surface pose of arrogance and dug at it. Her approach was to knock Maloney down off his stone wall by using his own volatility against him. Nikki glanced at the file and chuckled, shaking her head. “And you never made it above grade three. What’s that about?”
“You know what that’s about.”
“How would I?”
“Because you’re with them.”
“Please.”
“Don’t deny it. That’s the way it always comes down. Lies get put in my file, and I have to sit and deal with the bullshit. My loot had it out for me, and now you’re taking it all on his word.”
“Your loot. You mean…” Heat ran her finger to a signature on the page. “Lieutenant Branch?”
“Asshole tanked my whole goddamned career.”
“Why would he do that?”
“The fuck I know. He just got it in his head I rubbed him wrong and he started jerking my shifts around, like putting me on the cabaret shift just when I got a new girlfriend. He wanted to ruin my love life, so he put me on the eight P.M. to four-thirty A.M., and it worked.”
“Why would he want to ruin your relationship?”
“And then when I called him on it, everything I did started getting written up.”
Nikki consulted the file again. “You mean like these excessive force complaints?”
“The lieutenant fed them that. Told them what to say. He even worked out a secret set of hand signals. They did what he said, and guess who’s taking the weight.”
“You want me to believe that your loot fed false information to three different citizens? Using secret hand signals?”
Maloney slammed a palm of the tabletop. “See? You’re one of them. Everyone I talk to in this department means one more screwing.”
“Did that include Lon King?”
“Fucker double-tapped my career.”
“So you tapped him?” Heat’s strategy had been working so well, building the pace steadily, encouraging Maloney’s recklessness and eliciting knee-jerk emotional blurts from him, making him careless.
Until then.
The suspect paused and canted his head to the side. A wide-open grin unclenched his red face. The blush faded and the freckles came back to it. “Ach! So close, huh, lady captain?” Links of chain scuffed the edge of the interview table as he swept an arm toward the mirror and called out to it. “You all catch that in there? Huh? See one more One PP stooge trying to sink me? Fail!” He mouthed a video game fizzle sound effect and sat back, self-satisfied, and looked at Heat. But then the amused stare became a glower—invasive and sinister—and even more menacing because he was still grinning. He leaned forward and said in a whisper, “You. Will regret this.”
Chilled, Nikki maintained her detachment and tossed it off. “Are you actually threatening me?” It was her turn to gesture to the mirror, and she did.
“That would be, what? Crazy.” A twinkle came into his eye. “No, I’m just pointing out that your bad judgment today will bother you. Definitely bother you.” He was too smart to be blatant and turned his implied threat into simulated advice. But Maloney’s words came wrapped in hostile intimidation. In anyone else, they would come across as a lame attempt to save face. The psych eval under Heat’s clasped hands told her they spoke of something more. Personalization.
Maloney’s attorney arrived, looking as if she’d been yanked out of a spin class, and took a seat beside her client. “Mr. Maloney will not be answering any more questions,” she began, straight out of the jailhouse lawyer’s playbook.
“Of course, that’s his right,” said Heat, “but it’s my job to keep asking them. Do what you will.”
“Thank you, Captain. Now, a question for you: Are there any charges against him?”
“Not at present. He’s a person of interest in a homicide investigation.”
“Did he resist arrest?”
“No. But he evaded.”
The attorney examined the arrest sheet. “My client states that he ran because he was in fear, not knowing you were police.”
“Oh, please…”
“And the confiscated ankle weapon was registered and conceal permitted?”
“Correct. But I still want to know about his whereabouts during the time of the murder. I want to know about the threat texted to his psychologist. And what I really want to know is, where are all his weapons?”
Maloney gave a side wink to the lawyer. “Tell her.”
“My client has already answered all of these questions today.”
“Excuse me?”
“Internal Affairs came to Mr. Maloney’s apartment this morning, confiscated all hi
s guns, and brought him downtown for an extensive interview, including a paraffin test.” She read Nikki’s expression. “You didn’t know?”
“I…No.”
“You people. Get your shit together.” The lawyer stood. “IA had no grounds on which to hold my client, and they released him. Unless you have something they don’t, so will you.”
Heat tried not to look at Maloney. She didn’t need to. She knew the grin would be aimed at her. And that his eyes would be reminding her that she would regret this.
She already did.
Nikki stormed back and forth with the landline receiver to her ear, pacing along the glass wall of her office like an animal trapped in a zoo exhibit. After a series of clicks and transfers, she heard background sounds of silverware rattling and loud diner chatter as a familiar voice came on the line. “Lovell.”
“Detective Lovell, I’m not sure you remember me. This is—”
“I know exactly who this is. Detective—and, as of yesterday—Captain Heat. So you took the gold bars. Good for you.”
“Maybe not so good for you, Detective Lovell.” She had first met the Internal Affairs man three years before in the very office where she stood at that moment. And, as during that first encounter, she now could barely control her anger at him.
A snort of air, his version of a chuckle, came over the line, followed by, “Well, we’ll see about that.” Nikki could picture him. Skeletally skinny, a creased, angular face that belonged to a Triassic flying dinosaur, and so tall, he must have ducked to pass the department’s height requirements. And, like most of his IA pals, not just a bully; a bully with actual clout. No wonder he sounded so unfazed.
From the guest chair, Rook gave Nikki a supportive fist pump, a go-get-’em. She unloaded: about working a homicide with inadequate information that had been withheld by IA; about Lovell usurping her jurisdiction by shaking down her prime suspect without consulting her beforehand or at least informing her of his meddling after the fact; about confiscating Maloney’s weapons without telling anyone, causing lost time and wasted effort; about springing the ex-cop without an advisory. “Basically, Detective, you and your division have made me and my homicide squad spin our wheels and trash day one of our investigation.”
“So what do you want, Heat?”
“Let’s start with an apology.”
After another snort from that pterodactyl nose, he said, “What else you want?”
“Everything you’ve learned.”
“The truth? About the same as you. Otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me, all pissed off.” He covered the mouthpiece of his phone, although Heat could hear him ask for ketchup. When he came back, he said, “Listen, we do what we have to, the way we have to do it. I’m not making any apologies to you or anyone for employing tactics that work.”
“Is that your apology, then?”
“Let’s stay focused. We swooped in, hoping to jam his ass unawares, but he’s a slippery dude. Case in point, that text-message threat. No-traceable to him and, if you read it carefully, contains no threat of specific action.” Heat nodded, recalling how well-parsed his threat to her had been minutes before in the interrogation. “He’s clean on weapons. Of the guns we seized, all are registered. Ballistics is running them now.”
“What do you mean, ‘of the guns’?”
“One’s unaccounted for.”
“Let me guess,” said Heat. “A .22 long rifle with a laser sight.”
“He claims he lost it on a hunting trip.”
“Yeah, during shrink season,” she said.
“Be as mad as you want, Captain, my crew did its job once. We weeded a bad apple off the force. A homicide conviction in a court of law’s going to take a lot more.”
“Well, then help. Stop making my investigation more difficult.”
“We done?” was all he had to say to that.
“One more thing. What else don’t I know? Are there any other crazed cops in Lon King’s practice?”
“You mean besides you?” Then she heard an actual laugh before he hung up.
When she banged the receiver down, Rook crossed his arms and tsk-tsked. “Infernal Affairs. Whatever happened to the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing? One hand washing the other? Where’s the spirit of cooperation? Unity of purpose? And what’s that scary look you’re giving me?”
“Are you hearing yourself? I should get a mop in here, you’re so dripping with irony.”
“What?” He frowned in disbelief. “Certainly you’re not equating the obstructive tactics of those empire builders at Internal Affairs with my reporter’s unfettered pursuit of the truth?”
“You’re hiding behind your journalistic prerogative—
“It’s in the Constitution—”
“Like it provided you some invisible cloak, if such a thing could exist.”
“Oh, they exist, all right.”
“Rook, I’m not talking about Harry Potter.”
“Let us not speak disdainfully of a cultural icon and, all right, my sometime alter ego.”
“Or is it just ego?”
“Know your problem, Nikki? Your problem is, you don’t entertain the conspiracy theories enough. You could benefit from a soupçon of paranoia in your Occam’s razor–sharp mind. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for you and Tim Maloney to hang out. Spend a day. See what rubs off. Suddenly, black-ops projects like time travel, acoustic weapons, and cloaks of invisibility wouldn’t seem so far-fetched.” His iPhone sounded to signal an incoming email, and he stood while he read it.
“Let me guess. Summons from Dumbledore?” But after Rook’s playful nerdist rant, Nikki could see him turn sober and contemplative. “Everything OK?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure.” He slipped his phone into his pocket, gave her a kiss, and told her he’d see her later back at his place.
Heat perched on a file cabinet in Roach Central and briefed Raley and Ochoa on her conversation with Internal Affairs. “Think it did any good?” asked Raley.
“Like scratching after poison ivy, Rales. Kinda feels good, only makes it worse.”
Ochoa said, “I want to put a plain-wrap car outside Maloney’s apartment. He’s been a cop, he’ll make it. He made us. Lets him know he’s still on our radar.”
“You just want to spend my OT,” she teased.
“That there—that’s captain talk,” said Raley. “First day as precinct commander’s not over, and you’re busting our balls over the budget.”
“Go ahead. Order the car.” Then she added, “More poison ivy, but why the hell not?”
Miguel glanced up at the clock. “We’ve got another good hour to go here. But you oughta call it.”
Nikki almost said good night, then sat back down. “I need to talk about something.”
“Anything,” they said in unconscious unison.
“Lon King.” She cleared her throat. “I may have led you to think I only had my introductory visit with him. Actually, I had about ten sessions with him over the past few years. I don’t know why I held back. It’s personal, you know? Not the sort of thing you advertise.” What she meant was, not the sort of vulnerability you advertise. And Roach’s nods indicated they got it. “But this is a homicide we’re dealing with, and I don’t want to keep secrets from you.”
“There’s enough of that,” said Ochoa. He had second thoughts about that and backpedaled. “I mean IA.”
Heat made it easy. “And Rook. We all know that.”
A still moment passed among the three of them in the empty bull pen. “Must be tough,” said Raley at last. “You and Rook. Both have big jobs. Stressful jobs. Competing jobs, sometimes. Like now. Guess it’s bound to happen, right? What you need smacks head-on into what he’s holding. Guess he’s lucky it’s you, and not IA.”
And in that instant, clarity came to Nikki. This situation was all very complicated, but also very simple, if she let herself see it objectively. “Fellas?” she said. “He knows something about this murder and he’s
getting a pass.”
“A press pass,” joked Ochoa.
But the quip was lost on Nikki, who stayed her pensive course. “Let’s be honest. It’s not just because he’s a reporter, it’s because of our relationship. If he weren’t my fiancé, I know exactly what I’d do. As my duty to the case. And to the victim.” She rested her hands flat on her thighs to steady herself. Then she said the words before her newfound clarity could be muddied by emotion: “Budget one more undercover car. I want you to put a tail on Rook.”
Guilt, second thoughts, self-reproach, more guilt. Like drop-in company, all the unwelcome demons paid Nikki a visit after she ordered a tail on Rook. It bothered her so much that, twice during the night, she even picked up her phone to email Roach and call it off. They would understand. Or they wouldn’t, and they would just have to live with it. Precinct commanders made iffy decisions and reversed themselves all the time. However, Heat didn’t know the stats on such things on her first day in command.
Every time she weakened, though, something would reset her resolve. Like watching Rook furtively respond to a text at dinner without regard to her, and, after hitting send effortlessly resuming his theory on A-Rod’s shelf life in pinstripes. Or when he excused himself to the gents, only to veer instead into the restaurant vestibule for a quick but intense call that was unacknowledged when he returned to the table. Mostly, however, what kept her from rescinding her order was the ineradicable image of Rook on that security video, striding with impunity into Lon King’s office—the safe place where she had gradually learned to let her guard down and bare her soul to a stranger with a trust that did not come naturally to Nikki Heat. So she held firm.
But resolve is not closure. To her, it felt more like a frayed bungee cord straining against the lid on Pandora’s Box.
At the end of the evening, as she tucked into her precinct paperwork instead of their bed, she told herself that she wasn’t doing that to avoid Rook. Being Captain Heat meant keeping up with new responsibilities—memos, emails, and reports. A quick kiss, and it was back to grand-larceny spreadsheets for her; a trip up that hall with the new le Carré for him. But the distant whir of his electric toothbrush triggered a pang of melancholy that led to a confrontation with the truth—which was that she wasn’t retreating from Rook, but from herself. And that she harbored qualms about her own duplicity. Their lovemaking included looking each other in the eye. Nikki was afraid of what he might see in hers that night.