Raging Heat

by Richard Castle

  “A graze.”

  “That is it, graze. But close to heart. Was lucky man.”

  For a while, anyway, she thought. “Did you talk at all?”

  “Da. His accent make hard, but yes,” he said in his own variant of English.

  “Did he say who shot him?”

  Both detectives studied him as he shifted in the seat. “No.” Then Ivan fixed his stare on his little drawing and he fussed with it, smoothing down the page with the side of one hand. The silence unnerved him and he filled it.

  “All he tell me was earlier that night somewhere in Hamptons.”

  “Did he tell you exactly where?”

  “Mm, no.”

  “In a bar, a house, in the street?”

  “I do not know this.”

  Feller joined in. “What town?” All he got was a shrug from the Russian before he went back to fiddling with his sketch, which he then slid to Heat as an offering.

  “Help me understand,” she said. “Did he not see who shot him, or did he not say?”

  “I did not ask him so many questions as you ask. This is best, I think.”

  It struck Nikki that she was getting about as far with him as she had with Alicia Delamater’s lawyer on the drive over. Same obfuscation, the difference being the fear she sensed from Ivan Gogol. Was it his own nature or was it the plight of the immigrant to be ever wary, careful beyond measure? Or was he hiding something? “I want you to know that you can share anything with us without worry.”

  In response, he stood. “I must go back to work. I have carburetors to deliver.”

  One last try. “Fabian Beauvais was murdered. Whoever did that is still out there.” Nikki watched that sink in as she gave him her business card. “If you remember anything more, call me anytime, day or night. I will help you.” She smiled but he broke eye contact and left the room.

  When Heat and Feller stepped out onto the sidewalk, Ivan was waiting by their cars. “When I finished stitching his wound, this Fabian left but came back in. He said there was a car and he waited for it to go. He was very scared. He said he wanted to tell me who did this in case something happened to him. And now you say something did?”

  Nikki knew better than to speak and fracture this man’s delicate moment of truth. He took a long moment to gather his courage before his leap.

  But he took it.

  “He said it was a powerful man. And he is. Because I have seen him on the TV. Mr. Keith Gilbert.”

  To be honest with herself, Heat had no idea yet how getting shot by Keith Gilbert had anything to do with Fabian Beauvais’s eventual—and more lethal—plummet from a high altitude into the planetarium. But she did have enough experience in homicide to know a few things. Two attempts on Beauvais (one of which was successful), plus the torture death of his fiancée, plus a wad of hidden cash, plus the ransacking of an upscale apartment in a home invasion smelled strongly of a cover-up and conspiracy. And something Heat also knew from experience: The thing about a conspiracy is that there’s always someone behind it. Someone with power. The sum of all that math told her it was time to bring in the prime suspect.

  Getting a warrant would take some doing; she knew that. The DA sign-off presented enough of a hurdle. A high-profile arrest like a commissioner on the Port Authority, especially one like Keith Gilbert, who was so prominent and well connected, would require approval at the highest level downtown. But Heat trusted the courageous impartiality of the district attorney and felt confident in asking. The problem was on a much lower rung.

  Her precinct commander’s face went florid when she asked his permission to call the prosecutor for the arrest order. The overworked springs of Big Wally’s executive chair groaned as the skipper tilted backward, jaw slack, eyes big as cue balls as he mentally played out the risks-versus-rewards of this action. To nudge him along, Heat led him from his office to the Murder Board to recap the main points, persuasively and, most importantly—ploddingly—laying out her case against Keith Gilbert as if to a first grader. He listened without interruption, bobble-heading in a way that made Nikki feel she had at last fracked through the thick insulation of fat encasing his brain.

  But she had underestimated the power of organizational survivor instinct.

  “Answer me this,” said the captain. “Your cause of death on the flying Haitian was smacking into the planetarium, right? And now you want an arrest warrant for Gilbert because some Russkie sawbones with a sewing kit and no license claims the commissioner blasted the guy? The gun didn’t kill him, gravity did.”

  Once again, her precinct commander fabulously displayed his lack of street experience. Nikki knew how cases get solved. You pick up a piece of the puzzle here, an odd sock there, a coincidence that doesn’t make sense.…You stick with it, and soon, as you get more pieces, you get a whole picture, and the truth is revealed. It never dropped cleanly into your lap the way Wally fantasized.

  She made another run. “Captain, come on, he shot the man. And I believe the gunshot was a first attempt. When that failed, Gilbert found some other way. Or had somebody do it.” Irons kept shaking his head. “I want a warrant for his arrest and search warrant for that gun.”

  “No sale,” he said when she had finished. “Not with my neck on that cold marble.” Behind his back, the squad pelted the skipper with a barrage of disparaging looks. Heat put her own scorn aside and focused on rescuing the warrant.

  “Maybe I can go back over some of these points, if I didn’t make it all clear, sir.”

  “Oh, I get your points, just fine. But from where I sit? This is one jumbo button to push. And no way I’m pushing it without the one thing you’re missing.” He made a sweeping gesture to the Murder Board, which had a dismissive feel. “I see no hard link connecting this Beauvais character to Commissioner Gilbert. What I do see is a lot of circumstantials and conjecture.”

  “Captain Irons, this is solid. I have arrested and gotten righteous convictions on less.”

  “Not this time.” He knuckle rapped the board, smearing some of her notations. “Show me a link from the dead guy to Gilbert. Then we’ll green light your warrant.”

  The first thing Heat did when Irons closed his office door was to tell her detectives to stow their harsh remarks and keep their eyes on the ball. “Have your pity party later over brews at Plug Uglies. Right now we need to find a work-around for this roadblock.”

  “We need a Wally Work-around,” said Feller.

  Heat quelled the laughs with, “I said later, Randall.” Thinking and thinking, she tapped her pen on her lips then said, “OK. We dig deeper into what we’ve got. Detective Rhymer. Run Alicia Delamater through your contacts at Customs to see if she used her passport yesterday or today. Her lawyer says she left the country, and I want to talk to her.”

  “On it.”

  And then an afterthought came to her. “And, say, Opie. Just in case she hasn’t gone yet, run a list of cruises operated by Gilbert Maritime leaving New York or Jersey and put out a Watch and Advise for her.” If Keith Gilbert was making moves to disrupt Heat’s investigation, he might provide the transport for one of her witnesses.

  “Detective Feller. Pay a visit to Port Authority motor pool. Use your personal charm to get them to show you the requisitions for names of employees who checked out that Impala. I want those two dudes sweating in our box, and soon.” She noticed Rhymer still hanging around. Polite to a fault, he waited until she’d finished and raised a finger to be called on.

  “Something just jumped in my head.” His Virginia hills accent made it sound like a question. “It’s the phone link. Beauvais had Gilbert’s home number, that’s what started all this.”

  Showing some impatience, Ochoa said, “Yeah, but Irons hit us with a catch-22 by not letting us get a warrant for Gilbert’s phone records. Plus we never found a phone of Beauvais’s, so that’s pretty much a dry hole.”

 
; “Understood,” said Rhymer. “But that phone in Jeanne Capois’s purse. She had a text from Beauvais, right?”

  Nikki got right there with him. “Brilliant. If we can trace that text to Beauvais’s phone, we’ll have his number and can run that without a warrant. Now that’s a work-around.”

  Ochoa turned to his partner. “Why the hell didn’t you think of that?”

  Raley shrugged. “Just giving these other men their chance to shine.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Detective Heat stood Captain Irons back in front of the Murder Board and pointed to her latest posting. “We have come up with your link, sir. A phone call was made from Fabian Beauvais to Keith Gilbert’s home number on this date.”

  Wally interrupted. “Hang on; who the hell authorized a warrant for you to search Keith Gilbert’s phone records?”

  “We didn’t search Gilbert’s records. We searched the deceased’s—after tracking Fabian Beauvais to his pay-as-you-go cell phone.”

  “He had a burner?” Irons made it sound like a criminal accessory.

  “It’s not at all uncommon for low-income people to use short-term cell phones, Captain. Nor is it a crime.”

  “Fine. But he called the home number. Once. You call that a link?”

  “Which is why,” said Heat, “the series of other calls that ensued over the next few days—including calls originating from Keith Gilbert’s personal cell phone to Fabian Beauvais are so…persuasive. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Wally Irons was a survivor. True, he played checkers instead of chess with his career strategies, but even a blundering donkey found its feed bucket eventually.

  “You’re dead sure he’s your man?”

  “I am, sir. And beyond that, I am already losing potential witnesses, both to homicide and to flight.” She faced him squarely, hoping to deliver the argument that hit him where he lived. “So to delay action risks calling our leadership into question, if there’s an inquiry.”

  All he needed to hear. “Let’s do this.”

  The same plainclothes team from PAPD that had shut out Heat and Roach earlier that morning bypassed the strategically vulnerable revolving doors and came out the wider sliding-glass exit that baggage valets used at the Widmark. The security detail made instant note of Detective Heat, who stood by their commissioner’s Suburban. Gilbert followed them through and was slower to register her presence, but when he did, his face flashed with anger. Then a realization by the candidate-to-be that media was photographing and videoing all this caused him to relax his presentation. He actually smiled at Nikki as he drew near, but with his weathered facial crags and goatee, it struck her to be a pirate’s grin.

  “You are fucking relentless,” he said, appearing casual for the photo op, but white strings of saliva on his tongue belied all that. “What the hell are you up to?”

  “Doing you a favor.” He furrowed his brow at that and she continued. “I will give you an opportunity to come with me quietly or…” She nodded to both ends of the circular driveway where Detectives Raley, Ochoa, Feller, and Rhymer stood beside their unmarked cars, which were blocking the exits. With each stood a half dozen uniformed patrol officers. “…Things could get very awkward.”

  “I don’t understand this. Haven’t you asked me all your questions already?”

  “I’m not here to ask you questions, Commissioner Gilbert. I’m here with a warrant to arrest you for the murder of Fabian Beauvais.”

  Keith Gilbert had gauzed the fingerprint ink off his hands with alcohol swabs and sat in a private holding cell awaiting his attorney before he would be questioned formally. Even though Heat had deftly leveraged his arrest to avoid an ugly scene in front of the press line at the Widmark, news spread quickly, and now a nightmare swarm of media vans and spectators jammed West Eighty-second Street outside the precinct.

  So many requests for interviews, both on and off the record, flooded in that Heat stopped taking press calls and began ignoring texts and e-mails, only scrolling through them every ten minutes or so in case one was from Rook. She had left him a brief voice mail, just to let him know of the arrest, making sure not to end by urging him to call. Nikki did not want to appear needy, although she ached for him to make contact. Especially after their uneasy moments that morning about the task force job.

  When she saw Wally Irons stride out of the men’s’ room smoothing the button line of the clean white uniform shirt he’d brought on a hanger in that morning, Heat was not surprised. For all his blind spots, the captain constantly had his finger to the wind and now he had cannily reckoned that the most advantageous direction for his future was well away from a murder suspect. Also, the man could not resist the brightness of TV lights. It was like he was part moth. Legend had it that years before, he had knocked over a child in his hurry to a press podium. Heat appeared at his office door while he tied his tie in a mirror and asked him if he was sure he wanted to deal with the media so soon. As he always did, he wrapped his answer in the flag of duty. To the mirror, he said, “Somebody has to stand up and let the people of the city know their NYPD is acting without fear or favor.”

  “I wouldn’t use that catchphrase, sir.”

  “I got it from you.”

  “I got it from the New York Times.”

  “Even better,” he said. Heat only hoped the briefing she gave him had taken hold half as well as the slogan. She had her doubts.

  Ten minutes later, Nikki stood way off to the side as the Iron Man chinned the bundle of microphones set up at the front door of the station house. “Good afternoon. I am Captain Wallace Irons, commander of the Twentieth Precinct.” He paused while photo shutters whirred and clicked. “For the record, that’s W-A-L-L-A-C-E and then I-R-O-N-S. I have a brief statement to make, which is that following an investigation into the death of a Fabian Beauvais—”

  “Can you spell that for us?” asked a woman from Eyewitness News.

  Momentarily thrown, the captain said, “I’ll provide all that detail after my statement. Now. Following our investigation into the death of Mr. Beauvais, we have made an arrest of our prime suspect, Keith Gilbert.” Although the reporters already knew this, a murmur of energy ran through the crowd accompanied by an even larger flurry of shutter clicks. “I will not be discussing evidence we have against the suspect, but, as you all know quite well who Commissioner Gilbert is, I am here to personally assure you that your NYPD acts without regard.” Realizing his gaffe, he amended, “This is to say, without regard to stature.”

  A stringer for the Ledger asked, “How will this affect the Port Authority’s ability to get ready for Hurricane Sandy? Wasn’t he pretty much it?”

  “Mm, I would ask Port Authority about that one.”

  “When and where did you arrest him?” called out a reporter for 1010WINS.

  “Commissioner Gilbert was taken into custody without incident today after a speaking engagement…” As the Iron Man detailed the arrest, Heat allowed herself to relax a bit, pleased that, as agreed, he would limit his comments to the nuts and bolts of the arrest and procedural aspects, rather than revealing evidence and holdbacks.

  A hand rested gently on her shoulder and she turned to see Rook. There was something unsettling in his expression. Then he leaned to her ear and whispered, “Nikki, don’t hate me, all right?”

  “Hate you? Come on.…” The weight he seemed to be carrying concerned her, but she smiled and discreetly leaned her body against his. “Why would I hate you?”

  “Because I have something to tell you.” She turned to face him, and Rook whispered again in her ear. “You’ve arrested the wrong man.”

  Nikki studied Rook’s face anew, waiting for the gotcha smile or the way he playfully narrowed his eyes when he was pulling her leg. She got neither. All he said was, “Seriously.”

  And he looked it.

  “Well, you can’t be. Or, if you are, you’re mistaken.”
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br />   “I’m telling you, Gilbert’s not the killer.”

  Heat noticed a tabloid freelancer edging toward them, trying to surf their conversation and said to Rook, “Not here.” She took his hand and led him inside, past the Hall of Heroes memorial in the vestibule, and into the precinct lobby, which was all theirs but for the duty sergeant behind the bulletproof reception glass and the ever-present odor of a disinfecting cleaning agent. The row of orange molded plastic chairs was empty, and they took seats beneath the big STOP sign, commandeered from the traffic division, that demarcated the boundary between visitors and cops.

  “I know you’ve had all day to dream up some alternate scenario,” she began, still holding his hand as they sat there, thighs touching, “but you’ve missed a whole lot in your absence.” Heat didn’t need notes. Sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse, she carried a nearly eidetic mental picture of the Murder Board, and quickly recapped the day, pretty much as she had earlier for Wally Irons on her warrant quest. Nikki ran it all down for him, in order: The discovery that their two infamous goons were searching for Beauvais in a Port Authority Impala; finding the body of Jeanne Capois behind the trash cans, the home-invasion housekeeper victim tortured and horribly abused; her purse, probably stashed in a hurry on the run, yielding the warning text from Fabian Beauvais about “KG.” She let go of his hand and placed hers on his knee. “I swear, Rook, after I saw that, I kept thinking, if you were with me, you’d have Gilbert in Sing Sing by now.” Surprised that he hadn’t interrupted, but merely nodded as if waiting her out, she continued, filling him in on bracing the commissioner in the empty banquet hall at the Widmark Hotel, and, finally, “what really brought this home—are you ready?—the smoking gun of multiple phone calls between Beauvais and Gilbert, who claimed he never knew the man.”

  Heat didn’t get the reaction she’d expected. Rook was elsewhere. Deep in some rumination, his eyes roamed the vending machine across the lobby, and not like he was deciding on which Snapple.