Driving Heat

by Richard Castle

  LK: Interesting answer. So it seems that the issue is giving up your apartment, Nikki.

  NH: [Pause. Seeks composure] I grew up there. I…lived my life there. [Very long pause]

  LK: Your mother was murdered there.

  NH: Can we…? [Stands] Can we deal with this later?

  LK: Sure. Let’s plan another session. Is that what you’d like?

  NH:…I think I need to.

  “Captain?…Captain?” Raley and Ochoa, both in her office. Both calling her name. Nikki startled out of her blank stare at the streetlight on 82nd and turned to them.

  “Got something,” said Raley. “I asked Personnel to gather that list of patient referrals made to Lon King.”

  “The idea being,” continued Ochoa, “that a cop psych referral would be the shortest distance between no client list and a pool of likelies for us to work from.”

  “What did you get?”

  Ochoa gestured with a thumb and Heat followed the partners to Roach Central, where their paired desks were shoved in one corner of the bull pen. Miguel gestured to his task chair, and Heat rolled it up for a view of his monitor. A color NYPD identification photo stared out from the top quarter of the screen. On sight, she profiled the man as a handful. Every cop got told not to smile for their ID pics; this one had followed procedure but managed to dab a hint of a smirk on his face. Or maybe it wasn’t the mouth so much as the wise-guy squeeze of his eyelids.

  “Detective Third-Grade Timothy James Maloney,” said Raley.

  “Actually, homes, it’s ex-grade-three.” Ochoa double-tapped the space bar, opening the next page, which was watermarked in red as confidential. It was a single-spaced report on the events leading to the suspension of Maloney for numerous complaints of excessive force, followed by a mandatory referral to a department psychologist after the detective cleared the desk of his Burglary Division squad leader with the sweep of an arm.

  “A little tightly wound, wouldn’t you say?” said Heat.

  Raley said, “You don’t know the half of it. Go to the next screen.”

  On page three of Maloney’s digital Personnel file was a list of suspected multiple tire deflations and auto-paint scratchings of his Burglary lieutenant’s personal vehicle, a pickup truck. None of the vandalism could be unequivocally attributed to Maloney. Heat tapped to the next page, which displayed the transcript of an anonymous text message to Lon King from an untraceable burner cell phone:

  You are the worst kind of coward. You always sit there pretending to care, always acting like my friend when I open a fucking vein to you, but it’s all more Department Bullshit. The fix is in. As always. You’re in their pocket. You think you can squeeze my balls just because you give blowjobs to the Commish? Well, here’s a dose of honesty, which you NEVER showed me, you sanctimonious prick. I know where you live. I know where you park. I know about your stops on the F Train. I know about your dick-substitute canoe. I know about that organic café you were at last Friday night with your boyfriend. Now who’s paranoid, motherfucker?

  Heat swiveled to Roach. “Personnel knows this was from Maloney?”

  “Knows. Proving is something else,” said Raley.

  “Why him?”

  Ochoa gestured to the bottom of the screen. “For one thing, date of the text. Same day Lon King wrote Maloney up, recommending he be permanently removed from duty.”

  “Lon King got him fired,” said Raley, with the distinct sound of advocacy.

  “We have an address?” asked Heat. When Raley held up his notepad in reply, she stood. “Let’s make a house call for the doctor.”

  When Rook saw them saddling up to go, he had the good sense, for once, not to call shotgun, and he let the homicide squad co-leaders compete for Heat’s passenger seat. Ochoa won a curbside round of Rochambeau with a surprise repeat of paper to Raley’s rock, so Sean rode in back with Rook on the brief ride uptown. “Careful he doesn’t yack on you back there, Sean,” called Ochoa over the headrest.

  “Not to worry,” said Rook. “Yes, I am prone to motion sickness, but I know better than to spoil the new car smell in the captain’s sweet ride.”

  A blue-and-white from the Twenty-Eighth was waiting for them at West 128th, just outside the south entrance to St. Nicholas Park, a block from Maloney’s Harlem brownstone. Heat pulled up, driver’s window to driver’s window, thanked them for their precinct’s cooperation, and coordinated with the pair of uniforms to cover the back of the building and its fire escape while her crew doorstepped him from the front. The officers held up cell phones to confirm receipt of her text of Maloney’s ID photo, then split off to their position.

  As the four of them got out and mounted the stoop, Rook asked Nikki, “By the way, what got this guy in hot water in the first place?”

  “A volatile disposition and citizen complaints about back-alley beatdowns.”

  Rook stopped and took a few steps backward onto the sidewalk. “May the excessive force be with you.”

  The three others also exercised prudence, but in a different way. Heat, Raley, and Ochoa rested their hands on their holsters as they took positions beside the door. After several knocks and calls through it to Maloney without a response, they returned to the car to wait for the search warrant they had requested.

  “If he skipped, I’m blaming Personnel,” said Raley.

  “Freakin’ A,” echoed his partner, cleaning up his language in deference to Heat. “This homicide report went into the system at six-thirty this morning. Dude’s had a twelve-hour head start because they didn’t notify us of his threat. Aren’t we allegedly in this together? What the hell happened to sharing information?”

  “Sure makes you wonder,” said Nikki. She found Rook in her rearview, but he was occupied watching an elm’s spring leaves rustle under the coppery street lamp and missed the dig. Either that, or he was just ignoring her.

  “Update from Forensics,” announced Raley, scrolling an email on his phone. “Says, ‘the forward deck of the kayak also showed gunshot particles that were adhering to a fresh coating of a small patch of an undetermined oily residue.’”

  “That’s weird,” said Ochoa. “Oil on a paddle boat? Like olive oil from a sandwich?”

  “Nah, Detective DeJesus says that it’s a machine lubricant of some kind. Thin, like someone might use for a gun.”

  “Or a fishing reel?” asked Heat.

  “Yeah, but—remember? No fishing reel, no fishing tackle. Plus it’s in an odd pattern, diffused in a fine spray. Forensics is going to lab it, but also send off a sample for analysis at the National Lubricating Grease Institute.”

  That brought Rook’s attention back from the treetops. “There’s an institute for lubrication?” he said with a naughty grin. “Imagine the possibilities.”

  Raley, Ochoa, and Rook all exchanged smiles, all imagining. Heat said, “Boys? Don’t even.”

  “Agreed,” said Rook. “It’s a slippery slope.”

  Ochoa said, “Got our man.”

  The others followed his gaze up the block. Timothy Maloney was approaching with an unhurried swagger, his eyes inside a Popeye’s takeout bag. As they prepared to move, he paused at the curb a few yards ahead, across from his brownstone. He pulled out an onion ring and munched it. “Soon as this van passes,” said Heat with a side-glance at the approaching headlight in her mirror. But when it came alongside her, Maloney dropped the Popeye’s and bolted into the street in front of it. The van screeched to a stop, blocking Nikki’s door and Raley’s behind her.

  “Go, go, go!” shouted Raley to his partner.

  Ochoa leaped out and scrambled around the front of the car, but the confused driver of the van lurched forward, nearly hitting him. With their doors clear, Heat and Raley jumped out, scanning the block for Maloney. “Got him,” called Raley. He and Nikki dashed off up the middle of the street toward their suspect, who disappeared at a sprint into the shadows of St. Nicholas Park.

  Heat and Raley made a sharp turn between the waist-high wrought i
ron fences that bordered the footpath and bounded up the double flight of concrete stairs. In the darkness, Raley jammed a toe into one of the steps but grabbed the pipe railing before he went down. “I’m good,” he whispered without her asking. She didn’t turn. Her focus was straight ahead.

  At the landing, they paused to get their bearings and to listen. At that hour of the evening, right near the entrance the park, street noise dominated everything. If there were footfalls, they were lost in the city wash of car horns, megabass, and a basketball slow-dribbling somewhere in the night. Detective Ochoa arrived, and Heat told him to radio the unis covering the rear of the apartment.

  “Done and done,” he said as they moved forward. “They’re flanking in the cruiser to the entrance on a Hundred Thirty-Fifth and will work their way down to us on foot. Hopefully, we’ll box him. They’re also calling in air support.”

  The box tactic was a sound one, thought Nikki, as the trio fanned out in a sweep line heading north, but ex-Detective Maloney had the same training that they did. At night, in a twenty-three-acre wooded park with thick stands of shrubs, jagged schist outcroppings, and hilly meadows, it wouldn’t be hard for their quarry to vault iron to the street, or just go jungle and hide in a laurel or rhody until they passed. He could also be armed, which must have crossed Raley’s mind as well, because he cautioned Heat to watch herself under the approaching lamplight in her white uniform shirt.

  Just as Heat was about to ask Ochoa if Rook was coming, a flash of silver caught her attention. “There.” She pointed to the reflective safety strips from Maloney’s running shoes that were disappearing fast around the bend a hundred yards ahead. Nikki sprinted after him with Roach only one yard behind.

  Alert for an ambush, they rounded a curve that offered too much cover from hulking sycamores. Nikki palmed the grip of her Sig Sauer but kept it holstered. They came to a basketball court where a high school kid was practicing threes in the urban lightbleed and stopped. “NYPD,” said Heat. “You see a guy?”

  The kid hesitated, then straight-armed to their right, down a sloping grade, at a dense thicket, darker than the night surrounding it. The three cops took the incline slowly, then stopped at the edge of the brush to listen. They got nothing, only the approaching footsteps of their uniformed comrades, completing their pincer move. The pair held up, waiting on the path above them. Heat hand-signaled, using the spread of her arms to define the area of brush where Maloney had last been seen. One of the patrolmen whispered something in his walkie. Fifteen seconds later came the whine of a jet engine and the swirl of rotor blades, and the area got doused in the blazing searchlight of an NYPD chopper.

  Heat, Roach, and a dozen supporting officers from the Two-Eight spent a half hour walking grids, systematically scouring the brush under the floodlight from the Aviation Unit’s Bell 429. When they came up empty, Nikki shook the hands of the officers in thanks for the assist. The helicopter killed its Nightsun and returned to base. With a pair of cruisers assigned to patrol the park the rest of the night, there was nothing for Heat and Roach to do but bag it. As they retraced their steps out of the park, they noted that Maloney had had both local knowledge and a head start to help him evade and squirt out the east side of the park. “Or that Melo wannabe lied,” said Ochoa.

  “Saw you take your pratfall here, homes,” said Ochoa when they reached the stairs at 128th Street.

  “That? Yo, that was an evasive maneuver. Made me a moving target.”

  “More like a Rook maneuver, you ask me. Like that time he tripped on a rug when we raided that house in Bayview?”

  “And almost crashed through the hole in the floor, ass first? Good times.” Raley tilted his head to Heat. “No offense, smack-talking your fiancé.”

  “I am truly offended,” said Nikki. Then she couldn’t resist. “I hope if he stayed in the car, he had the smarts to crack a window open for air.” They all enjoyed a tension-release chuckle at Rook’s expense.

  But that got cut short when they saw him halfway up the block. All three drew their weapons and ran, shouting “NYPD, don’t move!”

  “Keep your hands where they are!” shouted Heat.

  Roach joined in, both guns on Maloney, overlapping each other, barking, “Keep them where we can see them!” and “Not an inch, not a muscle!”

  Nikki said, “Rook, step back.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, step back—now.”

  Rook, who had been holding Maloney facedown on the hood of Heat’s car, wavered a beat, then did as he was told. Raley and Ochoa moved in to handle the suspect. He didn’t resist.

  “You hurt?” asked Nikki.

  “No, I’m fine. Piece of cake. Before they cuff him, tell me, how’d I do with the position?” He indicated Maloney’s hands, which were still clasped behind his neck. He’d been splayed that way, cheek to metal, elbows out, legs apart, bent over the fender.

  She paused, then said, “Perfect. But how’d you…?” She studied him. “You?”

  “Please. Give me some credit. All these years of ride-alongs have some impact, Nik. A man learns a few things. Plus MeTV is rerunning The Streets of San Francisco. Surprisingly authentic.”

  “How ’bout I didn’t resist,” grunted Maloney. He sized Rook up, shoes to smile. “Piece of cake, my ass. You think I couldn’t have had you any time I wanted?” He winced as Ochoa squeezed the cuffs on him. “A little courtesy, Paco?” Then he fixed the detective with an intrusive grin.

  “Seriously, Rook,” said Heat. “How did you do it?”

  “The suspect returned to the scene unaware of my presence. When he attempted to retrieve his bag of onion rings and Louisiana Tenders, I made a citizen’s arrest, locking him into a surprise hold, which proved very effective. Thank you, nineteen-seventies Michael Douglas.”

  A gentle breeze lifted Rook’s hair and set it back down in a tousle that could only be described as carelessly sexy. Perfect, thought Nikki, I want to be—in fact, I am—so pissed at this guy that I want to kick his ass around every acre of St. Nicholas Park for taking such a risk, for acting so cavalierly, for hiding behind damned journalistic privilege, for seeing my shrink on the sly, but instead, I can’t stop staring at the fall of his stupid bangs, or noticing the streetlight across his brow accenting that self-proclaimed rugged handsomeness, or feeling a warmth inside that makes me want to throw myself at him and bury my face in his chest right here and now.

  He caught her staring and asked, “Is that a look of reprimand or adoration?”

  “Yes.”

  As Raley gave Maloney a once-over, he asked, “Did you pat him down?”

  Rook scoffed. “Please. Of course.”

  But then the detective came up from Maloney’s ankle holding a black Smith & Wesson J-Frame. “Oops,” said Rook. “Missed that.”

  “Five buddies in the cylinder.” Maloney winked at him. “Anytime I wanted.” Rook’s grin lost its cockiness. Raley dragged Maloney two paces back and planted him against the side of the vehicle.

  Suddenly feeling the slither of his nerves in hindsight, Rook said, “I’ve been hollering for you the past fifteen minutes. Good luck with that over the chopper. I tried calling your cell phone, Nikki, but then I heard it ringing. Where? In the car.” Heat patted her pocket for it, then saw her BlackBerry on the front seat, where she’d left it behind in the chase. “A bit of a lapse, eh, Cap? Understandable given the hot pursuit. But what about you two? Don’t you answer your calls?”

  “Didn’t notice,” said Raley, checking his phone and spotting two misses.

  Ochoa got off a walkie-talkie call and checked his own iPhone, which, like his partner’s, had been on silent for the stakeout. “We were sorta busy.”

  “Well, as you can see, so was I.”

  “Warrant cleared,” Ochoa said to Heat, brandishing the radio in his hand.

  “Timothy James Maloney, we have a warrant to search your apartment.”

  The ex-cop smirked and shrugged. “All you had to do was ask, Captain
.”

  Nonetheless, Maloney made them wait for the formality of the paper to arrive from the DA’s office. Forty minutes of Heat’s overtime budget eroding while their prime murder suspect, a man with a history of violence and insolence, stood docilely enjoying some private amusement as he sucked his teeth.

  Heat, Roach, and Rook ascended the steps to the front door with the writ and Maloney’s key. Nikki paused before she opened the door. All four shared a silent collective memory of Captain Irons grandstanding his way inside a dangerous suspect’s house not too far from where they now stood and losing his life to a booby trap. She turned to the street where her prisoner stood flanked by patrolmen. “Maloney. You first.”

  He entered without hesitation and with a stride about as cocky as a person can manage with his hands bound behind him. “I’d offer you chips and dip, but I’d need a little help opening the bag.”

  Nikki and her crew ignored his comment, cleared the two-bedroom and one bath, then slipped on evidence gloves while CSU followed them in with their tackle boxes of swabs, powders, and camera gear. Three unis placed Maloney in a kitchen chair in the center of the living room and stood by while he relaxed to some inner monologue. Heat caught a glimpse of the tableau. It looked to her as if the jester had taken the throne.

  “Records search shows you have numerous guns registered to you at this address,” she said.

  “Correct. Key word, registered. All legal. Just like my ankle carry. I’m in a dangerous line.”

  “Were,” snapped Ochoa, poking his head around an open closet door.

  Heat referred to the list on the warrant. “‘A pump-action twenty-gauge shotgun, a Glock .44 Mag, a Glock 26, a Sig Sauer 9mm, a Smith and Wesson .500 Mag…’”

  “Big Poppy,” he said with a proud nod.

  “Here’s what especially interests me: ‘One Ruger SR-22 long rifle, one Walther P22, and one ISSC M22 with laser sighting.’”

  “For puttin’ it where ya want it.”