Naked Heat

by Richard Castle

  Mud Coffee was a storefront on a block that had one foot in the old New York City of custom tailor shops, one-of-a-kind dress boutiques, and a Ukrainian soul food restaurant. The other foot was in the newer, more gentrified Manhattan of upscale skin spas, sake bars, and an Eileen Fisher. Raley and Ochoa were waiting at the outside bench with four coffees when they arrived.

  "Usually, it's too crowded to score any outdoor seating here," said Raley. "Might have something to do with people's aversion to smelling Le Gar-bahge." Talks between the city and the union had broken off the night before, and a fresh layer of trash had been added to every sidewalk in the borough.

  Rook side-glanced to the hedgerow of trash bags lining the curb six feet away. "Getting so I don't even smell it anymore."

  "Maybe from spending too much time with your gossip queen," said Ochoa. Instead of a comeback, he got a maybe nod from Rook.

  Detective Heat was unable to resist employing Lauren Parry's flair for the dramatic as she stepped out the information she had just gotten at OCME: the Derek Snow cause of death; the cast of the knife used on Cassidy Towne matching the one the Texan attacked her with; and then the kicker--Cassidy Towne's blade cast matching the one that gave Esteban Padilla his mortal wound.

  Even cops who thought they had seen and heard it all could be surprised once in a while. This was the second time this case had managed to bring the vets up short. When Heat finished her story, the air was full of whispered holy craps and f-bombs.

  "So," Nikki said when it seemed they had taken it in, "setting aside the fireworks, the significance of this forensic news is that we still have a professional killer but we've added a third vic."

  "Man, Coyote Man." Ochoa shook his head, still on it, still absorbing the scope of it all. "OK, so if that was Padilla's blood on her wallpaper, what was his deal? Was he with the killer, maybe one of the crew tearing the place up? Something went wrong with the posse?"

  Raley picked it right up. "Or was Padilla a Good Samaritan, passing by, heard her scream, and got into something over his head?"

  "Or," said Rook, "was he a part of this in a way we can't even see yet? He was a produce driver, right? Did he service Richmond Vergennes's restaurants, perhaps delivering fresh fruits and vegetables and some sweet lovin' on the side? Maybe this was some sort of romantic triangle revenge thing."

  Detective Heat turned to Roach. "I need you all over this, guys. That's why I'm pulling you two off this detail and sending you to get aggressive on Esteban Padilla."

  "Cool," said Ochoa.

  Raley nodded. "On it, Detective."

  "Obviously, push the usuals: friends, family, lovers, his job," she said, "but what we need is the connection. That's where daylight's going to come. Find out what the hell the connection was between Cassidy Towne and a produce truck driver."

  "And The Texan, and Derek Snow," added Raley.

  "And Soleil Gray. She's still in the thick of this somehow. Make sure you flash all four of the pictures I put in your files--you never know." Nikki kicked herself for waiting this long to let the Padilla investigation shift into this mode. Unfortunately, the reality of the job was such that as much as she tried to invest in each case to the eyeballs, at a certain point, it did become a matter of triage. It had to. Cassidy Towne was the high-profile victim, and meanwhile the Esteban Padillas of the world got nicknames like Coyote Man or, worse, slipped through the cracks anonymously. The saving grace, she thought, if there was one, was that Cassidy's murder might be a step to solving his. That kind of justice was better than none. At least that's how, if you were a detective with a conscience like Nikki Heat, you lived with it.

  "Lauren give you a TOD for the concierge?" said Ochoa.

  "Yes, one more wrinkle."

  Raley clutched his heart melodramatically. "I don't know how many shocks I can take, Detective."

  "Do your best. Derek Snow's murder was the same night as Cassidy Towne's. Lauren's best window is midnight to three A.M."

  "In other words . . . ," said Raley.

  "Right," Heat answered. "Roughly an hour or two before Cassidy's."

  "And just after his call to Soleil," said Rook.

  She stood and swirled the last of her coffee in the cup. "Tell you what I'm going to do. While you get to work on Mr. Padilla, I'm going to go have another chat with Soleil Gray and challenge her on her lack of candor."

  "Yes," said Rook, "she has given us quite a song and dance."

  The others didn't even bother to groan. They just got up and left him sitting on the bench, alone. A Jack Russell tied to a bike rack, waiting for its owner, looked over at him. Rook said, "Cats, huh? Can't live with 'em, can't seem to catch 'em."

  Just minutes later, Heat and Rook approached Soleil Gray's apartment in a slightly more Village-y block of the East Village. To get there, they walked, passing head shops, tattoo parlors, and a vinyl music walk-down. It was that time of evening when there was just enough light left to see the pink jet contrails overhead in the teal of the gloaming. Dozens of small birds chirped as they found roosts for the night in the canopies of trees set in the sidewalk. In the morning the trees would make excellent platforms for garbage swoops. Threading through a crowd waiting on the sidewalk outside La Palapa, Rook spied some mighty inviting margaritas at the window tables and, for one, brief, impulsive flash, wished he could just lace his arm through Nikki's and steer her inside for some serious downtime.

  He knew better. More to the point, he knew her better.

  A housekeeper answered on the squawk box in the vestibule. "Miss Soleil no here. You come back." Her voice was old, and she sounded sweet and small. Rook imagined that she might even actually be inside the little aluminum panel.

  Back down on the sidewalk, Nikki flipped through her notes, found a number, and called Allie, the assistant at Rad Dog Records. After a short conversation, she closed her phone and said as she started walking, "Soleil is at a TV studio rehearsing a set for a guest appearance tonight. Let's surprise her and see what shakes loose."

  As they strode by, Rook looked longingly at a deuce that had just opened up in La Palapa. Downtime would have to wait. He hurried to catch up with Nikki, who was already at the corner getting out her car keys.

  His brake lights turned the weeds red as Raley backed the Roach Coach into the driveway that went nowhere but a small vacant lot between a taqueria and a three-story row house that was listed as Esteban Padilla's address. "Careful, man, don't hit that shopping cart," from Ochoa.

  Raley gophered his neck for a better view in the mirror. "I see it."

  When the bumper tapped the cart, his partner laughed. "See, this is why we can't have a nice car."

  All the parking spaces on East 115th Street were taken, and there was a beer delivery truck double-parked across the loading zone. The truck couldn't unload in the space because it was occupied by a small beater with a fender made of Bond-O and a windshield full of tickets. So Raley improvised, parking nose out, bridging the sidewalk, front tires on the street, the back ones where the dirt and sparse clumps of grass met concrete.

  East Harlem, El Barrio, had the highest crime rate in the borough, but that rate also had experienced a huge drop in recent years, roughly 65 to 68 percent, depending on whose figures you liked. Raley and Ochoa felt obvious, looking every inch like cops, even in plainclothes. They also felt safe. Crime rate notwithstanding, this was a community of families. They were experienced enough to know that low income didn't spell danger. Ask people with experience in both places, and you'd be surprised how many felt a lost wallet had a better chance on Marin Boulevard than on Wall Street.

  The pleasant warmth of the fall day was siphoning off and the evening was cooling fast. A clank of bottles made them turn. In front of Padilla's place a man his age, about thirty-five, was stacking full black plastic garbage bags on the mound that ran along the street. He clocked the two detectives as they approached, but stayed with his work, keeping an eye on them peripherally as he went.

  "Buenos
noches," said Ochoa. When the man bent to pick up his next garbage bag without acknowledging him, the detective continued in Spanish, asking him if he lived there.

  The man flung the trash bag in a V he had created between his two other bags, and waited to make sure they would stay put. When he was satisfied, he turned to face them. He asked the two cops if there was some sort of trouble.

  Ochoa continued in Spanish and told him no, that he was investigating the murder of Esteban Padilla. The man told him Esteban was his cousin and he had no idea who killed him or why. He said it loudly, gesturing with a large double wave of his palms to them. Raley and Ochoa had seen this many times before. Padilla's cousin was signaling that he was not a snitch, to them and, more importantly, to anyone who was watching.

  He knew it was probably futile, but Detective Ochoa told him there was a killer loose who had murdered his cousin, asking if they could just talk about it, inside, in private. The cousin said there was no point; he didn't know anything and neither did anyone else in the family.

  Under the harshness of the orange streetlight that hummed above them, Ochoa tried to read the man's face. What he saw there wasn't a dodge, it was theater masking fear. And not necessarily fear of the killer. This was about the eyes and ears that could be taking all this in at that moment on a street in Spanish Harlem. The Stop Snitching code was a more powerful law than any Raley and Ochoa could bring. As the man turned and walked in through the front door of Padilla's house, Ochoa knew it was even stronger than wanting justice for the death of a relative.

  Later On with Kirby MacAlister, a talk show in a wrestling match with Craig Ferguson and the Jimmies, Kimmel and Fallon, for the late-night after-crowd, was broadcast live out of a leased studio on West End Avenue. Its first five years on the air, the syndicated show had taped out of a former strip club in Times Square, a spit take from Letterman's shop in the Ed Sullivan Theater. But when one of the daytime dramas moved west to LA, Later On jumped at the chance to show off its success by grabbing the soap's stage and modern production offices.

  In the lobby window, looking out on West End, Nikki finished her cell phone call and stepped over to join Rook by the security counter. "What's our status?" she asked.

  Rook said, "They're sending a production assistant down to take us upstairs to the studio. What was the call?"

  "Forensics. They were able to pull a couple of decent fingerprints off the cartridge of that typewriter ribbon I found in the subway."

  "Score another one for us. Although, with all the people who must have handled it, how will they know whose is whose?"

  "I have a feeling these were the Texan's," she said. "Seeing how they were the only ones with blood on them."

  "Hey. You're the detective . . ."

  Heat could tell by Soleil Gray's reaction when she and Rook entered the back of the studio that Allie had not called to tip her off they were coming. The performer was running the same routine with the male dancers they had seen her working at the rehearsal hall, only this time she was singing live to the track. The song was a hard-driving rocker called "Navy Brat," Nikki guessed, judging by the repeat of the phrase in the chorus. It would also explain why the boys were in white sailor suits. Soleil's wardrobe was a one-piece sequined white bathing suit with admiral's epaulettes. Hardly regulation, but it had the advantage of showing off her stunning gym-rat figure.

  She spun two cartwheels across the stage into the waiting arms of three sailors, but made a sloppy landing. Soleil waved her arms to stop the track, and when it chopped to a halt, she blamed the sailors. Nikki knew it had happened because she was distracted by her.

  The stage manager called a crew break. As the camera operators and stagehands left for the exits, Heat and Rook approached Soleil on stage. "I don't have time for this. I'm on live TV at midnight, and in case you didn't notice, this sucks ass."

  "I don't know," said Rook. "You've got me counting the days to Fleet Week."

  The singer pulled a robe on. "Do we have to do this right now? Here?"

  "No, not at all," said Nikki. "If you'd like, we can do this in about a half hour at my precinct."

  "In a more official setting," said Rook with a wink to Nikki.

  "Might cut into your rehearsal a bit, Soleil. And you're right. You can use it." Heat had decided on the drive over that this was going to be about intimidation and shaking the tree.

  "You don't have to be a bitch."

  "Then make it so I don't have to be. This is a homicide investigation and I had to come back to you because you lied to me. Starting with saying you were with Allie when in fact you left her early in the night."

  Soleil's eyes darted around. She took a step as if to go, but stayed. "OK, here's the deal. It's a reflex thing. Whenever I have something to handle like a detail thing, I always refer it to the record company."

  "That's weak," said Nikki.

  "That's the truth. Besides, I told you, I was also with Zane. Did you talk to Zane?"

  "Yes, and he said you were with him at the Brooklyn Diner for all of about ten minutes."

  Soleil shook her head. "That bastard. So much for having my back."

  "Let's forget about where you were, or weren't, that night."

  "Fine by me," said the singer.

  "Why did you lie to me about not having contact recently with Cassidy Towne?"

  "Probably 'cause it was no big deal, didn't register."

  "Soleil, you knocked her out of her chair in the middle of a restaurant. You called her a pig and threatened to stab her in the back."

  She sighed and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, as if her answer could be found among the suspended rigs holding the stage lighting. "Well," she finally said, "think about how she died. Why do you think I didn't want to tell you what I said to her?"

  Heat had to admit there was logic to that, but she responded, "I am trying to find a killer. Every time you lie to me, you're making yourself look more guilty and making me waste valuable time."

  "Fine, whatever."

  Heat brought out some pictures. "Have you ever seen this man?"

  Soleil examined the DMV photo of Esteban Padilla. "Nope."

  "What about this man?" She handed her the police sketch of the Texan. "Ever see him?"

  "Nuh-uh. Looks like the Bad Santa guy." She gave Nikki a smug smile.

  "And what about him? Do you know him?" Nikki handed her a head shot of Derek Snow at his autopsy and watched the arrogance melt off her face.

  "Oh, my God . . ." She let the picture flutter to the floor.

  Heat said, "His name was Derek. The same Derek you popped a cap on in the Dragonfly House last December. Is that the Derek you got a call from when you were with Zane Taft? I'm asking because you left the Brooklyn Diner and this man, Derek Snow, was murdered shortly after that."

  "I can't . . . I . . ." Soleil's face went ashen.

  "We're talking two people connected to you who were killed that night, Soleil. You think good and hard and tell me what's going on. Was Cassidy Towne writing something about you? And I want the truth, no more lying."

  "I have nothing more to say to you."

  The crew was coming back onto the set. Soleil Gray pushed through them as she ran out. Rook said, "Aren't you going to try to hold her?"

  "For what? I can charge her with lying to a police officer? Go back in time and hit her with illegal discharge of a firearm? That's not getting me anywhere. The record company lawyers would have her out in time to sing on tonight's show. I'd rather save that card for when it would do me some good. Right now, what I want to do is keep pressure on her and let her freak."

  "All right. But if she blows that cartwheel tonight, it's on you."

  They waited around in their back row seats for rehearsal to resume. In Nikki's experience, sometimes difficult people had changes of heart after she jammed them, and she wanted to give Soleil a breather to reflect and, perhaps, return in a more cooperative mode. But after they'd spent fifteen minutes in the freezing studio, the stage manag
er called a one-hour meal break and Soleil didn't come forward, so they left.

  As they turned the corner into the hallway leading to the elevators, someone called out behind them, "Oh, my God. Is that Nikki Heat?"

  She whispered, "I don't need this right now."

  Rook said, "Maybe we can outrun this one."

  "Nikki?" said the man.

  Hearing his voice again, she stopped walking, and Rook watched a look cross over her, the annoyance transforming into dawning surprise. Then Nikki turned and her face lit up into a radiant smile. "Oh, my God!"

  Rook twisted to look behind him at the lanky, sandy-haired guy in the V-neck and jeans approaching with his arms spread wide. Nikki ran to him, colliding with him, and they hugged. She squealed with glee and he laughed. And then they rocked each other back and forth, still hugging. Not sure what to do with himself, Rook shoved his hands in his pockets and looked on as the two pulled apart to hold each other at arm's length, beaming.

  "Look at you," said Nikki. "With no beard."

  "You look the same," he said. "No, better." Rook noticed his "r" had a guttural sound, not a burr like he was Scottish, but definitely an accent.

  Then Nikki gave him a kiss. Brief, but--as Rook made note--full on the lips. Finally, still holding him by one arm, she turned to Rook and said, "This is Petar. My old boyfriend from college."

  "No kidding." Rook put a hand out and they shook. "I'm Jameson."

  "James?" he said.

  "Jameson. And you're . . . Peter?" Rook was a man who could be proud of a cheap shot.

  "No, Petar. Rhymes with 'guitar.' People make that mistake all the time."

  "I can't get over this." Nikki gave Petar a shake with the arm she had around his waist. "I didn't even know you were in New York."

  "Yes, I work here as one of the segment producers."