“Thank you,” he said, making Nikki wonder if there had been some unintended flattery in her tone. “I reached out to make sure we had the opportunity to connect early in your process. Not just to let you know we’re here-that Legal is here-if you need an assist along the way, but also because we think it’s important to have a relationship with the up-and-comers of the department.”
Heat was getting the picture fairly quickly… How could she not? Zach, this-what did he say his title was?-Senior Administrative Aide to the Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters, was a career networker. One of those functionaries who ate and slept the job, basked in the reflected glory of his boss, and drew power from the proximity he forged with the upper ranks. Hence the royal we. She decided he probably kept a picture of Rahm Emanuel taped to his bathroom mirror so he could see it when he shaved.
“You should know I have briefed the deputy commissioner on your stellar test score. I also slipped in a copy of that magazine piece on you. He’s quite impressed.”
“That’s nice to know.” She tore off a bite-sized piece of bagel and, as she smeared some cream cheese on it, continued, “Although, you know, if we do only get fifteen minutes, I hope those were mine.”
“Interesting. I assumed that you had maintained a close relationship with the press.” If he only knew, thought Nikki. She flashed on the wake-up surprise she had given Rook that very morning. Hamner continued, “From the article, I got the impression you knew just how to handle that reporter.”
“It’s a skill I’ve learned to develop,” said Heat, suppressing a smirk. “But I’m not one for the limelight.”
“Oh, please, we’re grown-ups here,” he said. “Ambition isn’t a dirty word. Not at this table, I assure you.” Clearly, she thought. “Your decision to take the lieutenant’s test, was that not ambition?”
“In a way.”
“Yes. And we are thankful you did. We need more Nikki Heats. And fewer bad apples.” He sat back in his chair and jammed his hands deep in his pockets, studying her reaction as he added, “Tell me what’s going on with Captain Montrose.”
Nikki felt her small bite of bagel pushing against the inside of her sternum. Whatever agenda Heat had perceived for this meeting, pure networking wasn’t it. She didn’t yet know how much weight Zach Hamner carried, but caution led her to choose her words carefully. She sipped some cold coffee and said, “I’ve been hearing that Captain Montrose has been going through a rough patch over there.” Nikki hitched a thumb behind her right shoulder in the direction of 1PP. “But I’m at a loss to understand it. Maybe after so many years working together, my experience with him has been different.” Heat thought about leaving it at that, but there was a distasteful undercurrent of something hungry and cunning coming off the young lawyer. In spite of Nikki’s unsettling feelings about whatever was going on with the Cap, her loyalty was strong and something about seeing all the dorsal fins break the surface lately made her add a little push-back. “With all due respect?”
“Please.”
“If you invited me to breakfast hoping I would give you some dirt or to go on record and disparage my commander, you’re going to be disappointed. I deal in facts, not innuendo.”
Hamner cracked a grin. “You’re good. No, I mean that. Well handled.”
“Because it’s the truth.”
He nodded and leaned forward, casually pressing his forefinger into a cluster of sesame seeds on his plate before he nibbled them off. “But we all know, especially a veteran detective knows, there are many truths. It’s really just another value, isn’t it? Like discretion. Hard work. Loyalty.” His BlackBerry vibrated on the table. He looked at his screen, made a sour face, and pressed a button to silence it. “The thing about loyalty, Detective Heat, is that critical times come where a reasonable person has to be objective. Take a hard look at truths. To make sure old loyalties aren’t suddenly misplaced. Or blinding.” Then he smiled. “Or, who knows? To see if it may be time for some new ones.” He rose to go and gave her a business card. “The office number rings to my BlackBerry after hours. Let’s fly close.”
It was still early for her squad to be in for shift, so Detective Heat speed-dialed their mobiles on her walk from the deli to HQ. The oystery clouds rolling in from New Jersey began to issue ice pellets that stung her face and bounced off the interlocking brickwork of the walkway between the Municipal Building and police headquarters. Halfway there Nikki stopped for shelter under the Tony Rosenthal sculpture and listened to the frozen rain tinking like handfuls of rice off its red metal discs while she made her calls.
The male strip club didn’t open until eleven, so her plan was to split up Roach, assigning Ochoa to concentrate on getting Father Graf’s computer from Forensics to check his e-mails and Raley to run a check on the priest’s phone records. However, when she reached him, Ochoa reported that he and Raley had already hit the club the night before. “You were still behind closed doors with Montrose and we didn’t want to disturb you since it looked like you were having such a good time in there.” The detective paused to let his dry humor land then continued, “So we dropped by One Hot Mess at happy hour to see if we could get some momentum in the case.”
“That’s a load. You two just wanted an excuse to walk on the wild side.” She could have just said what she felt and expressed her genuine appreciation for their initiative, but that would have been a breach of UCRAP-the Unspoken Compliments and Relationship Avoidance Protocols observed among cops. So Heat said the opposite. As if she meant it.
“I did it for Raley,” he said, responding in kind. “My partner, he’s a curious pony who will not be broken.” They’d had some success. After showing Father Graf’s photo around, one of the strippers recognized him. The Nekked Cowpoke (whose name and spelling, he pointed out, had for the price of a lap dance been legally parsed to avoid trademark infringement) said the priest in the photo had been in the club a week before and had gotten into a shouting match with one of the other dancers. It was so heated the bouncer kicked the padre out.
“Did your cowpoke hear what they were arguing about?” asked Heat.
“No, that must have come before they threw down. But he did hear one thing before the bouncer intervened. The dancer grabbed the priest by the neck and said he’d kill him.”
“Bring him in for a chat. Now.”
“We have to find him first,” Ochoa replied. “He quit three days ago and cleared out of his apartment. Raley is doing a trace now.”
Her next call was to Sharon Hinesburg. She had been with Heat when Mrs. Borelli hesitated over one of the surveillance stills, so she got the call to work on finding an ID of the man. When Nikki reached Detective Rhymer, she told him to pass word to Gallagher that the two of them were back on the bondage beat. She wanted them to generate a list of freelance dominatrixes that they missed the day before. “I don’t want any to slip through the cracks just because they didn’t have relationships with the clubs in The Alley,” she explained.
“This is a surprise,” Rhymer said. “I thought we were going to work more lines than just the BDSM angle.”
“New orders for now” was all she said, but as she flipped up the back of her collar and stepped out into the cascade of ice pellets, she wondered what resources she was squandering by following Montrose’s edict. Her phone rang as she cleared the double-wide guard shack outside the lobby. Raley had scored a recent gas-and-electric hookup for the male dancer. His new apartment was in Brooklyn Heights, just over the bridge from where she stood. Nikki told Rales she’d be done in fifteen minutes and to pick her up in the Roach Coach on their way over.
At Personnel, Heat signed her request for examination results, check ing the boxes for both e-mail and hard copy. Digital Age or not, there was something about having the document in hand that reassured her. Black-and-white still made it real. The clerk stepped away and returned a short time later to slide a sealed envelope across the counter to her. Nikki signed the receipt and stepped away with the aura of b
eing too cool to rip into it right there in the office. That delay of gratification vaporized precisely two seconds after she got in the hall and tore it open.
“Excuse me, Detective Heat?” In the lobby Nikki turned to the woman she had passed who was getting on the elevator as she stepped off. She had never met Phyllis Yarborough, but Nikki certainly knew who she was. She had glimpsed the Deputy Commissioner of Technological Development at department ceremonies and, just over a year before, on 60 Minutes. That was when Yarborough had celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Real Time Crime Center by giving a rare on-camera tour of the data nerve center she had helped as an outside contractor to design and now oversaw as a civilian appointee to the Police Commission.
The deputy commissioner was in her early fifties, a coin flip between handsome and attractive. To Nikki’s view, attractive won the day. It was the smile. A real person smile-the kind you see more on entrepreneurial CEOs than government officials. Heat also noted that while many ranking women armored themselves in power suits or St. Johns upholstery, Phyllis Yarborough’s business style was accessible and feminine. Even though she was wealthier than wealthy her suit only looked expensive. A tailored Jones New York cardigan and pencil skirt Nikki could have afforded, and seeing it on her, thought seriously about getting.
“Your name’s come up a few times lately around here, Detective. Are your ears burning?” After she extended a hand to shake Nikki’s, Yarborough said, “Do you have some time to come up to my office for a cup?”
Nikki tried not to look at her watch. The other woman read her and said, “Of course, you’re probably on a tight schedule.”
“Actually, that’s quite true. You know how it is, I’m sure.”
“I do. But I hate to miss this chance. Do you have three minutes for a quick chat?” She side nodded, indicating the two chairs across the lobby.
Nikki considered, then said to the deputy commissioner, “Of course.”
When they sat, Phyllis Yarborough looked at her own watch. “Keeping myself honest,” she said. “So. Nikki Heat. Do you know the reason your name has been popping up? It’s in your hands, right there.” When Nikki looked down at the envelope resting on her lap, the administrator continued, “Let me put this in context for you. In this year’s Promotion Examination for Lieutenant over eleven hundred detectives took the test. You know how many passed? Fifteen percent. Eighty-five percent of the applicants flunked out. Of the fifteen percent that passed, you know what the highest score was? Eighty-eight.” She paused. “Except for you, Detective Heat.” Nikki had just seen her score and felt a small butterfly to hear it repeated. “You scored a ninety-eight. That is what I call flat-out exceptional.”
What else was there to say? “Thank you.”
“You’re going to find out it’s a mixed blessing, doing so well. It puts you on the radar as a rising star. Which you are. The downside is that everyone with an agenda is going to try to get their hooks in you.” Just as Nikki reflected on her breakfast, Yarborough spoke her thoughts. “Expect a call from Zachary Hamner. Oh, I see from your face he already has. The Hammer’s not a force for bad, but watch your back. You will be quoted.” She laughed and added, “The damn thing is, he quotes accurately, so be double warned.”
Nikki nodded and thought, The Hammer, huh? Perfect.
“I have my agenda, too, I just don’t pretend otherwise. Know why transparency’s a beautiful thing? Transparency means no shame. So I’ll be shameless. There’s a future up the ranks for a smart detective who has her heart in the right place. Prepare yourself, I might even court you to work with me.”
This woman, as powerful and as busy as she was, had the quality of making Nikki feel like she was the only one on her mind that day. Heat wasn’t naive; of course the deputy commissioner was pushing an agenda, same as The Hammer had, but rather than feeling wary, Nikki felt engaged, energized. These were the same qualities of leadership that had made Yarborough a dot-com fortune years before in private industry. Heat said, “I’m certainly open to seeing where this all goes. Meantime, I’m flattered.”
“This isn’t just because you scored a ninety-eight. I’ve had my eye on you since your magazine article. We are two women with a lot in common.” She read Nikki’s expression and said, “I know, I know, you’re a cop, and I’m a civilian-and an administrator, at that-but where I really connected with you in that article was when I read we are both victims of family murders.” Heat noticed she used the present tense, a sign of one who knows the pain that never heals.
Looking at Phyllis Yarborough, Nikki found herself peering into a mirror image that bore the imprint of a distant agony. The kindred spirits out there never fail to recognize the sear of fate in each other and in it an invisible brand marking the nexus of their upended lives. For Nikki, it had been her mother, stabbed to death a decade before. Yarborough’s loss was her only daughter back in 2002; roofied, raped, beaten, and dumped on a beach in Bermuda, where she had been on college Spring Break. Everyone knew the story. It was inescapable in the mainstream news and then milked beyond its shelf life by the tabloids long after the coed’s killer confessed and went to prison for life.
Nikki broke the brief silence with an affirming smile. “Yet we go on.”
The deputy commissioner’s face brightened. “Yes, we do.” And then she looked deeply into Nikki, as if taking her measure. “It drives you, doesn’t it? Thinking about the killer?”
Heat said, “I wonder about him, if that’s what you mean. Who? Why?”
“Do you want revenge?”
“I did.” Nikki had given it lots of thought over the years, and said, “Now it’s not so much revenge as justice. Or maybe closure. What about you?”
“Academic. My accounts are settled. But let me tell you what I’ve learned. Hopefully, it helps you.” She leaned closer to Nikki and said, “There is justice. But there is no such thing as closure.” Then she made an exaggerated show of looking at her watch. “Well now. I’m ten seconds away from not being a woman of my word.” She rose, and as Nikki stood, they shook hands again. “Kick some butt out there today, Nikki Heat.”
“I will. And a pleasure meeting you, Deputy Commissioner.”
“Phyllis. And let’s make sure this is just our first meeting.”
Heat left One Police Plaza with the second business card she had been given in a half hour. It felt like the one she would actually keep handy.
A firefighter came out of the Engine 205 station house on Middaugh Street in Brooklyn Heights and trotted, hunched against the frozen rain, to his pickup truck at the curb. Detective Raley said, “Whoa, whoa, hold up, here. Guy looks like he’s pulling out.”
Detective Ochoa gave the Roach Coach some brakes and turned the rearview mirror so he could see Nikki in the backseat. “See what I put up with on a daily basis? ‘Turn here, stop there, look out for the homeless guy…’ It’s like I’ve got the Felix Unger dude from Two and a Half Men as my talking GPS.”
“Go before somebody takes it,” said Raley as the pickup left.
After Ochoa parked, the three detectives sat in the Crown Vic with the blades on intermittent so they could observe the apartment house where the male stripper had just moved. It was a 1920s eight-story brick building surrounded by scaffolding for its renovation. No workmen were in sight, which Raley said could have been due to the extreme wintry weather.
“Figures a male stripper would move in across from a firehouse,” said Ochoa. “In case he needs a pole to practice on.”
“What’s his name again?” asked Heat.
Raley consulted his sheet. “Horst Meuller. He’s from Hamburg, Germany. My witness at the strip club says when Meuller started, he danced in a World War I getup as The Red Barin’. Now he does a Eurotrash strip in silver lame as Hans Alloffur.” He half-turned to Nikki. “All these guys have theme acts, you see.”
“Tell her the name of that one stripper last night.” Ochoa chuckled. “You’re gonna love this.”
“Marty Python,�
�� said Raley.
Nikki shook her head. “I won’t even ask.”
The super let them in so they didn’t have to warn Meuller by buzzing his intercom. They took position outside his door and Ochoa knocked.
“Who is there?” came the accented voice from inside.
Raley held his shield to the spy hole. “NYPD to speak with Horst Meuller.”
“Of course. Just a moment, please.”
Nikki could smell the stall and was already down a half flight of stairs by the time she heard Meuller’s deadbolt snap into place on his door, followed by Roach-kicks to the wood. She sailed through the vestibule and out onto the sidewalk, looking for the fire escape. “That way!” called Ochoa out the open third-floor window.
Heat’s gaze followed Ochoa’s gesture to the far end of the building, where the male dancer was sliding down and around the corner pole of the scaffolding, toward the sidewalk. Heat called for him to freeze, but he somersaulted off the last rung, landing on both feet. Meuller slipped and almost fell on the icy walkway but quickly got his balance and started to run, his long, blond Fabio hair fluttering behind him.
As Detective Heat took off after him, Raley blasted out the front door calling coordinates for backup on his walkie-talkie as he joined the foot chase.
Footing was treacherous with about an eighth-inch of ice granules down and more falling. When Meuller bolted across the intersection at Henry Street, an auto parts delivery truck slammed its brakes to avoid hitting him and skidded helplessly sideways, crashing into a parked car. Heat didn’t cross Henry to pursue him. His side of the street was open sidewalk. Hers was largely restaurant and retail with numerous awnings overhanging the way, which meant she had a shot at running on concrete instead of ice.
By the next intersection, she was parallel with him. Heat made a fast street check over her left shoulder. The road was clear except for up the block, where she clocked the Roach Coach coming around the corner with its gumball lit. Slowing to keep from falling, she jogged across the intersection, calling, “NYPD, Meuller, stop!”
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