Heat Rises nh-3

by Richard Castle

  Right off the bat Roach drew her aside to a quiet corner. “WTF?” said Ochoa.

  “Yeah, why’d you have to go and get yourself suspended?” added Raley. “Your timing sucks.”

  “Not so much that we care about you,” said his partner, “but the Graf investigation’s upside-down in the ditch with four wheels clawing sky.”

  “Do I even need to ask why?” Nikki knew from her meeting the day before.

  “Because of the Iron Man,” said Ochoa. Heat had a mental bet that would be the handle they’d give Captain Irons. She also bet they weren’t the first. “He’s pulling all resources into the dead homeless guy, even though it’s gonna end up accidental OD.”

  “For all intents, this case is dead.” Raley side nodded to the Father Graf Murder Board, which had been carelessly erased and hung there, suspended on the easel with only the ghostly streaks of Nikki’s colored markers to hint at its prior purpose.

  “It almost seems convenient,” she said.

  Ochoa chuckled. “Know how we’re always pimping Rook over his wild-ass conspiracy theories?” Heat nodded even as she masked her pain at hearing his name. “Nothing compared to what Rales and I have been thinking.”

  “Any answers?” asked Heat.

  Raley said, “Only one. On your time off, let us know what you need.”

  “On your ‘time off,’ ” repeated Ochoa, complete with air quotes.

  The only satisfaction she could draw from this disheartening news about the shelving of the Graf case was that Sharon Hinesburg was ordered by Captain Irons to go undercover as a homeless woman and had to spend the night in the Riverside Park pedestrian tunnel. “Let it snow,” Nikki said.

  On a whim-yes, a whim, she told herself-Heat logged onto her computer so she could print out a PDF of the Huddleston homicide file, the 2004 case then-Detective Montrose had run. Disbelief.

  Her password didn’t work.

  Access denied.

  Nikki phoned the IT department help desk. After a brief hold, the technician came back on and apologized. He said that due to her renewed classification, she was currently unauthorized to use the NYPD server.

  After she set the phone back on its cradle, Heat realized how wrong she had been. She had mistakenly thought it wasn’t possible to feel more shaken and alone. Stepping out into West 82nd Street, Nikki turned to face the icy wind rushing crosstown off the Hudson. But she knew that no matter how long she stood there, it could never dish out enough cold to numb her. She turned her back against the bluster and plodded toward the subway to go home.

  “Lady-lady!” was the last thing Heat heard before the collision. She whirled in the direction of the shout a split second before the delivery guy and his bicycle smacked into her, knocking her down onto Columbus Avenue. They landed in a tangle-arms, legs, and a bike-surrounded by ruptured cardboard take-out cartons, broccoli in oyster sauce, smashed wontons, and a duck leg. “My order’s ruined,” he said.

  Still down, with handlebars against her cheek, Nikki turned up from the gutter and said, “You were going the wrong way in that lane.”

  His response was, “Hey, up yours, lady.” He jerked his bike off Nikki and raced away, leaving her and his lost order down in the crosswalk at the side of the avenue. For a split second as Heat watched the patch of filthy snow and sand under her face redden with her blood, she actually wondered if whoever killed Montrose had also sent the crazy delivery guy on the bike. Such was the rabbit hole of conspiracy thinking. When you actually stop and look around and wonder, who in the world can you trust?

  When Rook opened the door, his expression was a mix of shock and vigilance. First he reacted to her face with its tributaries of dried blood fanning like tentacles from the spot in her scalp where Nikki held a wadded handkerchief. Then, out of experience, he checked the hall to make sure she wasn’t on the run and being followed. “Nikki, jeez, what happened?”

  She strode past him through his foyer and into the kitchen. He locked the door and joined her. Nikki held up a hand. “Shut up and don’t say anything.”

  His mouth opened and then closed.

  “I’m a great cop. I was on track to blow past lieutenant and make captain. I was going to be running the precinct. And, as a cop, one thing I understand is motive. And when I look for your motive in leaking that article?… I get nothing. It makes no logical sense. Why would you give your notes on a story that’s your exclusive to somebody else? For sex? Please. I can tell, Tam’s way too needy to be good in bed.” He started to speak and she said, “Shut up. With no motive, I just don’t know why the hell you would have done that. So I’m making the choice to believe you.

  “I not only want to, I have to. Because whatever’s happening on this case, it’s kicked up to a new level and there’s nobody I can trust except for you.

  “Everything’s caving in. I’m locked out and the murder investigation I have been moving heaven and earth to conduct is now in the Dumpster because the bumbling pencil jockey they replaced Captain Montrose with is basically Inspector Clouseau. Say nothing.

  “Now… as I lay there minutes ago in the southbound lane of Columbus, mowed down by a wrong-way and rather unapologetic delivery bicyclist, shivering, bleeding, and taking stock of the new low my life had achieved, I thought, Nikki Heat, are you just going to lie there? And, tempting as it may be to while away my forced hiatus at Starbucks playing Angry Birds, waiting for 1PP to call and say sorry, that is not an option. I am too stubborn and too personally invested to let this case die. But-minor technicality-I am no longer an active member of the NYPD. No gun, no badge, no access to records, no squad. Oh, and people are trying to kill me. So what do I need? I need help. To press this investigation forward I need a partner. I need someone with experience, with balls, someone with top investigative skills who knows how to stay out of my way and isn’t afraid to put in some sick hours. Which is why I am here in your kitchen bleeding on your custom slate flooring. OK, you can talk now. What do you say?”

  Rook didn’t reply. Instead, he turned her gently to look over the kitchen counter into his great room. And she beheld the Murder Board Rook had reconstructed in his loft. Not everything was there-for instance, no photographs-but the main elements were in place: the timeline, the names of victims and suspects, leads to track down. It needed a big update, but the foundation was all right there.

  Heat turned back to Rook and said, “Well? Are you interested or not?”

  TWELVE

  W hile she sat atop the closed toilet lid in Rook’s master bathroom, he bent over her, carefully drawing aside strands of hair to examine the cut. Nikki stared at her blood-caked face in the mirror and said, “This looks a lot worse than it is.”

  “Oh, if I only had a nickel for every time I said that in my life.”

  “To whom, Rook? Unsuspecting girlfriends catching you with someone in a bar?”

  “You sully me with your tawdry assumptions.” Then he added, “Usually, it was the bedroom.” He turned to the mirror so Nikki could see his proud grin. “Once in an armoire. God, I miss high school.” He moved to the counter and picked up the dish of warm, soapy water he had prepared.

  “What do you think, Doctor? Stitch, or no stitch?”

  Rook dipped a cotton ball in the solution and gently dabbed her scalp. “Fortunately, this is in the abrasion rather than laceration category, so no stitch. Although, when was your last tetanus shot?”

  “Recently,” she said. “Right after that serial killer worked on me with his dental picks out there in your dining room.”

  “We do have the memories, don’t we, Nikki?”

  Twenty minutes later, showered and dressed in a fresh blouse and pair of jeans that had been hanging in his closet, Heat appeared at the kitchen counter. “Transformation, complete,” she said.

  He slid a double espresso over to her. “You weren’t kidding. When you get knocked down, you do get up again.”

  “Just watch.”

  “Can I tell you you’re off to a go
od start?” Nikki called out while she gave his Murder Board a once-over. Rook emerged from the back hall of his loft carrying a plastic milk crate of office supplies and an aluminum tube easel to hold the giant presentation pad that was sitting in the guest chair, waiting to be invited to join the party. “Most of what we need to focus on is right here.”

  “Good notes, the writer’s friend,” he said. “I’m sure it’s not as dense with possibility as a Nikki Heat Murder Board. It’s like the branch office version. I call it Murder Board South.”

  “It’s more than exists uptown right now.” She told him about Captain Irons and how his ineptness had accomplished more than all the obstacles Montrose had thrown at her, effectively bringing the investigation into the priest’s homicide to a whimpering halt. “So, basically, we are the Graf case right now.”

  “Let’s make it count,” said Rook.

  They spent the next hour updating his old information with her new leads and persons of interest. He kept track of the board, partitioning sections for each major thread to investigate as well as restructuring the timeline to add recently discovered elements; she created index cards on the big four-by-sixes from Rook’s crate of supplies, expanding status details and listing unresolved questions, all corresponding to the categories he had drawn on the whiteboard. Whatever noise had rained chaos down on their relationship fell away in their focus on the task at hand. From the start, and without much ceremony, the two fell into an easy and efficient routine. At last, when the board was current and the cards were coded and filed, they stood back to admire their progress.

  Heat said, “We’re not a bad team.”

  “The best,” agreed Rook. “We finish each other’s references.”

  “Don’t get cocky, writer boy, now comes the hard part. There’s no way with our limited resources and manpower to investigate every lead and every person we’re looking at up there.”

  “No problem,” said Rook, “let’s just pick one and go arrest him. That narrows the field. Or, even better, use the Gadhafi method and arrest everyone.”

  “You’re bringing up a point we-meaning you-need to remember. I can’t arrest anyone. Remember? No badge, no gun?”

  He processed that and said, “We don’t need no stinking badges. And as for a gun, what’s a roving band of killers to you, as long as there’s an icicle handy?”

  Nikki held a pencil out to him, point first. “You’d be wise to remember that.”

  “Noted.”

  “Given we’re only a two-horse carousel, we need to draw priorities.” She set the presentation pad on the easel and tore off the cover, exposing a fresh page. “Here are the prime targets as I see them.” Heat uncapped a marker and printed her A-list, giving Rook a rationale for each choice: “Sergio Torres… If he wasn’t Graf’s murderer, he’s linked to the killer in some way-and his skills are too good for his rap sheet; Lawrence Hays… not only has the means and motive, he threatened Father Graf. And what were you so excited to tell me about Lancer Standard right before I tore your head off last night?”

  “I remembered hearing something nasty about Hays’s group, so yesterday I reached out to a source of mine at The Hague from a piece I did on Slobodan Milocevic’s, air-quotes, heart attack right before his verdict. Score. Check it out.” He pointed to his laptop screen and quoted, “ ‘An international human rights watchdog group filed suit to have Lancer Standard brought to the World Court on charges of abuses by its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan involving sex shaming, waterboarding, and…,’ wait for it: ‘torture through use of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or TENS.’ ” He looked up at her and said, “And where have we heard of that before, boys and girls?”

  “Nice one,” she said. “Definitely has my interest.” Heat continued with her A-list. “Horst Meuller… Our German male dancer threatened Graf, and he took a bullet for some reason. Even if it was intended for me, I want to know why he ran; Alejandro Martinez… That was his dirty druggy money stashed at the rectory, I want to know why; Justicia a Garda… militant with a violent revolutionary pedigree and, don’t forget, Father Graf was last seen with them. Emma

  … I don’t know who Emma is-never got a chance to find out-but Graf had a purged e-mail file with her name on it. Emma makes my list. Tattoo Man… A John Doe seen on security cam with one of the domme’s roommates. A loose end I can’t let go of. Captain Montrose.. . OK, two ways to look at him. First, his suspicious behavior before he died links to Graf. What was he up to and why? Second, his so-called suicide. I don’t buy it.” She capped the marker and stepped back from the easel.

  “That’s narrowing it down?” said Rook.

  “Hey, you don’t know the stuff I’ve left off. For instance, besides the physical evidence Forensics is running, I am very curious about two odd socks from the rectory: the prescription in Graf’s medicine cabinet, and what’s the significance of that missing St. Christopher medal?” She wrote “Rx” and “St. Christopher” on the board, then Nikki tapped her temple with the cap of the marker.

  “Well, this is plenty to get started on,” said Rook. “Nice job, you.”

  “You, too.” And then she couldn’t resist tossing a little barb. “By the way, Rook, I’m not going to be seeing any of this in the newspaper, am I?”

  “Hey…”

  “Come on, lighten up, I’m kidding.” He looked at her askance. “.. . Well,” she admitted, “half kidding.” Rook considered a moment and grabbed her coat off the bar stool. “You’re throwing me out?”

  But then he grabbed his, too. “No, we’re both going out.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “To fix the half that isn’t kidding.”

  Riding up in the elevator at the Midtown offices of the Ledger, Heat insisted the trip was not necessary. “Take a joke and let it go. I told you I trusted you.”

  “Sorry. I can tell you still haven’t made peace with believing me. I want both. Trust and belief. And peace.”

  Nikki shook her head. “Pulitzer, huh? For writing?”

  The elevator let them out at the sixth-floor home of the Metro Section, a fluorescent-bright, open-plan sea of cubicles filled with men and women keyboarding at computers or talking into phone headsets, or both. Except for the fact that the space was about half a city block in size, the din of activity reminded Nikki of the bull pen at the Two-oh.

  Tam Svejda gophered up at the far end of the room and waved both arms over her head as soon as she saw them. When they arrived at her corner cubicle, she yanked off her headset, sang out a “Hi-ee,” and threw a big hug on Rook. Nikki both enjoyed and did not enjoy watching the Bouncing Czech kick her right heel up behind her during the embrace like starlets do when they greet the hosts on late night talk shows. Heat was relieved to get a simple handshake, however distracting it was to have Tam beam at Rook during it.

  “I got so excited when you said the both of you were coming up. What’s this about? Please tell me you have some more inside stuff.”

  “Actually, we’re here about the other inside stuff,” said Rook. “Nikki… Detective Heat says you told her you got it from me.”

  “That’s right,” Tam said.

  Nikki arched a brow at him then turned away to survey the busy newsroom as Rook squirmed. “Well, that’s a bit hard to imagine,” he said. “Since we never spoke about any of this. In fact, when you asked me the other day on the phone, didn’t I specifically say I couldn’t give you any help?”

  “That’s true…,” said the reporter. That brought Heat’s attention back to the cubicle.

  Rook said, “Then how could you say it was me?”

  “I,” muttered Heat under her breath to the writer.

  “Simple.” Tam sat and swiveled to her computer. After a few keystrokes her printer started spitting out pages. She handed the first one to Rook. “See? This is the e-mail you sent me.”

  Heat moved close to him and they read it at the same time. It was an e-mail addressed from Rook to Tam. The subject line
read, “The Two-oh, Inside.” What followed was a single spaced, full page of notes detailing facts about the troubled Graf case as well as the controversial problems surrounding Captain Montrose. The next three pages finished printing and she handed them over to Rook, too. He just skimmed, but the last paragraphs were all about the conflict surrounding Montrose’s funeral. Rook lowered the pages and felt Nikki’s stare. He said, “This looks a lot worse than it is.”

  “Wanna bet?” said Heat.

  Magoo was waiting for them in the vestibule of the loft when they got back to Tribeca. If Rook’s computer guru wasn’t college age, he was close to it, pear-shaped, about five-two, and had one of those sparse, curly beards, with only a promise of a mustache, that made Nikki wonder, why bother? His pale, earnest face was dominated by black-framed glasses with lenses as thick as they come, eliminating any doubt how Don Revert got the nickname Mister Magoo. The question, which would remain unasked, was why he kept it.

  “You didn’t waste any time getting here,” Rook said as his consultant snapped open a hard-shell rolling equipment case and began to set up shop on the desktop in the office.

  “You shine the Bat Signal in the sky, I must answer.” Magoo pulled out cables and diagnostic equipment-small black boxes with meters-and set them beside Rook’s laptop. During his setup, he looked up from time to time at Heat, treating her to glimpses of eyes made giant by his thick glasses.

  “That’s a nice case,” she said, not knowing what else to offer.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s the Pelican Protector. Of course, I got it with the foam lid liner and padded dividers. As you can see, I can pretty much use the Velcro tabs to custom configure it for any load.” Nikki was pretty certain that had just constituted foreplay.

  Rook explained to his personal nerd the e-mail Tam Svejda received and then showed him the hard copy. “The thing is, I never sent it.” He said this as much for Magoo’s information as for reiteration to Heat.