“The problem is, where to start?” she said.
Rook opened his Moleskine to a dog-eared page. “I did some research on the North Vietnamese family from that box of photos-the family whose son your mom tutored before the Paris Peace Talks. The dad was prominent, so he was on Wikipedia. Both parents died in the eighties, and the son has been in a monastery since.”
“Not that Wikipedia isn’t the investigative journalist’s best friend, Rook,” said Randall Feller, putting a bit of stank on it, “but my gut says we’re smarter to focus in person on her mom’s most recent activity before the murder.”
“Agreed.” Detective Malcolm swung one of his work boots up on a chair back. “I’d say fuck it to the old gigs and start with her U.S. spy work. The old European stuff is going to be hard to trace and you’re going to end up doing a lot of wheel-spinning, sifting through forty years.”
His partner Reynolds said, “True that. Old scores are harder to trace and not likely to carry motives unless they are some mighty epic grudges. I’d start with those last targets she was snooping.”
Heat, already feeling better for their input, said, “Yeah, but how do you do that if you don’t know who her clients were?”
Rook got the lightbulb look and jumped up. “I know how.”
And he did.
The elevator let them out into the forty-sixth-floor offices of Quantum Retrieval. The receptionist was ready for them and ushered Heat and Rook to the corner office so immediately that they were still clearing their ears from the elevator ride when she gestured them in to meet the CEO.
“Joe Flynn,” he said with a broad smile to go with his self-assured handshake. After Heat and Rook declined bottled waters, Flynn motioned them to the mission decor conversation area away from his desk.
Before Rook sat, he took in the view of Rockefeller Center below. The skating rink had long been defrosted and switched over to cafe tables that he watched being set for dinner. “Nice digs. Business must be good.”
“Smartest move I ever made was to quit staking out adulterers at seedy motels and make the jump to insurance recovery. That was my quantum leap.” He paused to let them make the connection to his company name. Flynn looked tan, fit, and rich, like a doctor from a primetime medical drama. Rook didn’t like the way the sexy insurance investigator was appraising Nikki, and he sat close to her on the couch. “First piece of stolen art I recovered took me one week and paid me as much as I’d made in three years of gumshoeing errant spouses… Plus the ones who weren’t having affairs,” he said pointedly to Heat. He flashed her some teeth Rook bet came courtesy of the Brite Smile off Fifth Avenue.
She said, “So you recall that my father hired you once for a case.”
“It was ten years ago, but Heat’s not that common a name. Plus you look just like your mother. And that’s a major compliment, in this humble man’s view.”
Rook, who hadn’t bargained for this when he came up with the brainstorm of contacting Joe Flynn for leads, tried to quell the ex-PI’s bald flirtation by jerking the leash into business. “Cynthia Heat’s murder is still under investigation.”
“Saw that in the Ledger,” he said. “And all over TV last night. I thought you had your killer.”
“We’re keeping things open for now,” said Heat. “We need to go deeper.”
“I like going deeper,” said Flynn, prompting Rook to slide even closer to her. It didn’t seem to faze the other man. “Can I do that for you, Nikki?”
“I hope so. Do you still have records of your surveillance and any other checks you made on the people she was spending time with back then?”
“Well, let’s just see.” Flynn picked up an iPad from the table beside him and started flicking the screen. He caught Rook watching and said, “You should get yourself one, man, they’re amazing. They gave me one of the betas after I recovered a stolen prototype. Some goof left it in a bar, if you can believe that.” He tapped the glass and said, “Here we go. Summer-fall 1999. Piano tutor, right?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Got it.” He looked up at her. “I’d normally ask for a warrant, but since this hits close to home, let’s not stand on ceremony this time. All right with you, Detective?”
“Quite.”
He tapped the screen again. “Copy’s being printed for you now. Leave me your e-mail and I’ll also attach the file for you.”
She handed him a card. “My phone number’s on there, too.”
“But the e-mail,” said Rook, “that’s all you need, right? For the attachment.”
“Right,” said Flynn. “So you think one of these people may have killed her?”
“Hard to know. Let me ask one more question. You were hired to check for infidelity. Did you observe anything else? Arguments? Anybody threatening my mother? Did she do anything or go anywhere out of the ordinary that you didn’t log because it wasn’t strictly part of your assignment?”
He tugged his ear as he thought. “Not that I recall. Been a number of years, but I’ll keep thinking. If I come up with anything, I’ll sure phone you.”
“Great.”
“Anything else?” he asked. “And I mean anything.”
“Yes,” said Rook stepping between them. “Do you validate?”
Rook’s hide was still chapped over Joe Flynn’s come-ons to Nikki when they got back to the precinct. “That guy obviously clocked too much time chasing lotharios and degenerates. You hang out at enough hot sheet motels, sooner or later the bedbugs are going to bite.” Heat ignored his grousing and made a list of the handful of names in Flynn’s file of her mother’s tutoring jobs during his surveillance and apportioned background checks on them around the squad. She didn’t post the list on the Murder Boards; this wasn’t for everybody.
Meanwhile, other results started coming in. Eugene Summers alibied out. Customs confirmed from passport records that he had indeed been in Europe in November of 1999. And the night of Nicole Bernardin’s death, TV’s most famous butler had been in LA on a location shoot at the Playboy Mansion. Also, Malcolm and Reynolds had buttoned down Hank Spooner’s whereabouts in the kill zone. At the time he had confessed to stabbing Nicole in Larchmont, New York, his credit card placed him in Providence, Rhode Island, running an arcade tab at Dave amp; Buster’s until midnight. The detectives e-mailed Spooner’s mug shot to the manager, who confirmed he’d been there until closing, pestering waitresses.
Armed with Flynn’s short list and some background checks on them to read overnight so she could start interviews the next day, Heat and Rook killed the lights in the bull pen and set out for his loft for some takeout and study.
At that time of night, the half hour before Broadway curtain, it was impossible to get a southbound cab, so they surrendered and took the subway. When their train made its stop at 66th, both of them twisted in their seats to see how repairs were going on the tiles damaged by the quake. Work had stopped for the day but, as they pulled away, behind the caution tape and sawhorses, the mosaic of acrobats and divas was well on its way to restoration. That’s when Nikki turned back and noticed the man watching her. The tell had been his eyes, which darted away when she saw him.
She didn’t say anything to Rook. Instead, two stops later, when the man in the rear of the car remained in her periphery, Heat nonchalantly got out her cell phone and typed a note and held her screen on her lap for Rook to see: “Don’t look. Back of car. Gray suit, white shirt, black beard. Watching us.” Rook, not the best at following instructions, surprised her by not looking. Instead he pressed his thigh against hers in acknowledgment and hummed a low, “Mm-hm.”
The man stayed in position through numerous stops. At Christopher Street, Nikki used the bustle of passengers getting off and on to sneak a peek. When she did, she noticed a bulge in his suit coat at the hip. Heat typed, “Carrying.” That made Rook make a quick scope. As soon as he did, the man stood.
Heat watched him by not watching, using her periphery but letting her hand fall ca
sually across her lap, ready to draw.
At Houston, the man stepped off without a glance.
“What’s your take?” said Rook.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe undercover transit cop watching me because I had a bulge, too.”
“Then why did he get off?”
“Guess we’ll never know,” said Nikki, rising herself as the train slowed at Canal Street. “Ours, right?”
They came up the stairs to the sidewalk and instinctively kept their heads on swivels. The intersection, where West Broadway and Sixth Avenue converged, was busy, as usual, but the sidewalk was clear. Then Rook said, “Heat. Blue Impala.”
Nikki followed his gaze across Sixth and spotted the man from the subway in the passenger seat of the blue Chevy as it pulled up. “This way,” she said, and they both made a sharp turn in the opposite direction, not running, but striding quickly to get some cover behind the line of mail trucks parked beside the post office. As they passed the third truck in the line, another man stepped out from in front of it, blocking the sidewalk. Nikki reached for her hip.
“I wouldn’t,” the man said. He held his hands open to show they were empty, but they could also see he wasn’t alone. Two other men flanking them on the sidewalk held hands on holsters inside their coats. Footsteps from behind told them they were surrounded. The setup was perfect for an ambush-a dark, windowless street-and Heat kicked herself for taking the bait. She kept her hand on her gun, too, but didn’t draw.
“You’ve been running a check on me, Detective. I want to know why.” He let his hands fall to the sides of his tailored suit and sauntered closer. With his shaved head and goatee he resembled Ben Kingsley. But not the Gandhi Ben Kingsley. Menacing, like the Sexy Beast Ben Kingsley. That’s when Heat recognized Fariq Kuzbari, security attache to the Syrian Mission to the UN, standing before her.
“I have some questions to ask you, Mr. Kuzbari. Why don’t you come to my precinct during business hours tomorrow instead of a street at night? I imagine you must have the address.”
He chuckled. “That creates numerous complications. I have diplomatic immunity, you see, therefore this arrangement saves you a great deal of frustration.”
“Immunity, huh? How would your ambassador like to explain why the head of his secret police and his armed detail accosted a New York cop on an American street?”
“Feisty.”
Rook said, “You don’t want to know.”
Kuzbari spoke something in Arabic to his entourage, and they dropped their hands off their guns. “Better?”
Heat assessed the situation and took her hand off her Sig. His brow lowered. “Now, what kind of questions?”
She thought of pressing for the station-house interview but he had a point. A stall or, worse, a no-show, wouldn’t help her. “They’re about a homicide case I’m investigating.”
“How would such a matter be of any concern to me?”
“A woman was murdered in 1999. She was a piano tutor to your children. And she was my mother.”
If Kuzbari made any visual connection from Cynthia to Nikki, he didn’t let on. “My deep condolences. However, again, I must ask how this involves me.”
“She had been in your home twice a week the summer before she was killed. She traveled with you for five days to a resort in the Berkshires, Mr. Kuzbari.”
“These are all true facts, as I recollect them. Yet, if you are trying to assign some motive to me by implying I had some sort of relationship with your mother, you would be wasting your time as well as mine.” Nikki wasn’t suggesting anything like that, since Joe Flynn had pretty much ruled out an affair, but her experience as an interviewer told her not to say anything, to see where Kuzbari would go. “As for that week in the Berkshires-Lenox, as I recall-it was hardly a romantic getaway. I was there in my capacity of providing security to the ambassador at a symposium, and I stayed with him. Your mother roomed in a separate bungalow with my wife and children and another family attending the conference.”
“May I ask who they were?”
“Why, so you can harass them for no reason, as well? Detective Heat, I sympathize with your interest in settling this score, but I am confident I will be of no service. So, unless you have anything else, let us adjourn to continue our lives.”
Before she could reply, he turned and disappeared between the parked mail trucks. They heard a car door slam, then the rest of his group vanished, leaving Heat and Rook alone on the sidewalk.
Rook said, “At least no bags over our heads this time.”
The next morning Heat and Rook walked down Fulton toward the South Street Seaport to visit another one of her mother’s tutoring clients. This time, barring surprise ambushes, they had an appointment. As Rook paused to read the plaque on the Titanic Memorial, Nikki said, “I’ve been thinking about our encounter with Fariq Kuzbari. If it made me feel like I’m swimming into deeper waters on this case, imagine how Carter Damon felt.”
They moved on and Rook said, “You’re not excusing that loser, are you?”
“Never. I just understand why, being the mediocre lead he was, he probably felt overwhelmed and checked out.”
“And what about Kuzbari? After a pushback like he gave us, do you just cross him off your list?”
“No. And I make that call, not he. But I have a gut feeling that says Kuzbari’s not worth the focus, so I am going to concentrate on the other names on Flynn’s list, for now. I can always brace him again later, if I need to.”
“Did you just say you had a gut feeling? Detective Heat, are you starting to pick up someone’s bad habits? Are you thinking like a writer?”
“Lord, take my gun and shoot me now. No, forget gut. You want to hear my rationale? Fine. Even if Kuzbari were implicated, it’s not likely he would have done the killing personally. He has a crew of suited goons to do that, so I’m certain he’d alibi out. Also, he’d be tough to investigate because of his diplomatic protection. Not impossible, but it would draw time and energy. Meanwhile, I have three others to interview, and we both know the clock is ticking before Captain Irons works his magic again. No, Rook, this is triage. So let’s not call this my gut. Let’s say I am… accessing instincts born of experience.”
“Spoken just like a writer.”
A custodian in rubber boots hosing cobblestones on the mall shut off the nozzle to let them pass as they arrived at the main entrance to Brewery Boz. The landmark brick mercantile building not only had been restored to serve as the British company’s U.S. flagship brewery, it catered to tourists with a Dickens-themed pub. The owner and chief brewmaster, Carey Maggs, met them in the lobby, and the legendary English reserve went right out the window when he saw Nikki. “Bloody hell,” he said in his Mayfair accent. “You look just like your mum.”
Maggs had good reason to do a double-take at the sight of her. In London back in 1976, when Carey was eight years old, Nikki’s mother had been employed by his beer magnate father as his piano tutor. After he’d emigrated to America in 1999, Carey Maggs had passed the torch by hiring his childhood piano teacher to tutor his own son. “That’s the circle. The circle of life,” said Rook.
“Don’t need to tell me about history repeating. Here I am making suds just like my father did back in the UK,” Maggs said as he led them on a tour of his brewery. The humid air in the massive facility was tinged with enough yeast and malt to taste them; equal parts inviting and off-putting at that early hour. As they passed giant vats and containers with their sprouts of coiled tubing and pipes, Carey Maggs described the process in brief, and how they performed all processes on-site, from malting, to mashing, to lautering, fermenting, conditioning, and filtering.
Rook said, “I don’t know why, but I thought these would all be copper.”
“Stainless steel. Doesn’t impart taste to the brew and it’s easy to clean and sterilize, which is critical. Those vats over there are copper-plated on the outside, but that’s just for aesthetics because they face the showcase window of the pub.”
“Not so much. We part company on the business model. Dad named his signature beer after the town drunk in a Dickens novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”
“Durdles,” said Heat, recalling her own dad’s longing for it.
“Right. Well, my dear father seemed to forget that Charles Dickens was all about exposing social injustice and corporate greed. So now that I run the company, I’ve not only expanded our Dickens brand to pubs and beer gardens, I donate half our profits to Mercator Watch. That’s a foundation that monitors international child labor abuse. I call them GreedPeace. You heard of it?”
“No,” said Rook, loving the nickname, “but now that you gave me a title, I have an article to pitch Rolling Stone.”
“The way I see it, how many million is enough when half the world is starving or doesn’t have water to drink? Of course, that’s all too radical and socialistic for the old man, but he’s just a big Scrooge. Now, how’s that for irony?” Carey laughed and finger combed the unruly curtain of brown hair that had fallen over one side of his forehead. “Sorry about prattling on. You didn’t make the trip here this morning to listen to this.”
The three of them took seats on red leather bar stools in the empty pub, and Nikki said, “Actually, I do have some serious business to discuss. I’m investigating my mother’s murder, and since you knew her so long, maybe you can help provide some information.”
“Of course. Now I feel even worse for blathering on. Whatever I can do.” Then his eyes widened. “I’m not a suspect, am I? Because that would pretty much suck, especially considering how I felt about her. I mean, Cynthia was wonderful.”
She didn’t tell him whether he was a suspect or not because she hadn’t decided. Instead, Nikki moved forward with her questions. She’d prepped carefully, knowing an interview like this would be tricky because she faced the challenge of not revealing that her mother had been a spy. So Heat decided to proceed as she would with any other interrogation of an eyewitness or person of interest and see what shook out: nervous behavior, inconsistencies, lies, or even new clues. “Think back, if you can, to the month leading up to her killing,” she began. “November of ‘99. Did you see any changes in my mom’s behavior?”
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