Crashing Heat

by Richard Castle

  Miguel consulted his notes. Whether he was at a crime scene, hadn’t gotten there yet, or had long since left, he, like every good cop, took copious notes. In truth, cops lived and died by the pen. If something wasn’t in a report, it might as well not have happened. Long gone were the days when a cop’s word was taken as gospel. Filing reports was the bane of each of their existences, but it was a necessary evil. Everything depended on it. A perp would walk free if there was an inconsistency or if the time line from one officer’s notes didn’t match those of another.

  He read straight from his pad. “‘Body found on sculpture.’”

  “On. Not in the water,” Heat mused.

  Ochoa confirmed. “Not in the water.”

  “So he didn’t drown.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Found on a sculpture at Lincoln Center Plaza—”

  “On a sculpture in a pool,” Ochoa interjected.

  Never a dull day in New York. She knocked back what was left of her cold coffee and stood. “Let’s roll.”

  Navigating traffic in the city was not an easy task. Today, however, it was particularly bad. It seemed as if every personally owned vehicle, every yellow cab, every Uber, every Lyft, every Hitch, and every impossibly bad driver was on the street going the exact same direction Heat was. Her destination was only twenty blocks from the 82nd Street precinct, but it might as well have been in Chelsea based on the slow crawl of cars on the street. She was a born-and-bred New Yorker. The place was in her blood. In her bones. It had seeped into her pores and she’d never be able to wash it out. Hell, she never wanted to. She was New York, and New York was her.

  But Christ, the traffic she could do without.

  The end of summer in New York took a special kind of patience, one that was in short supply for Nikki at the moment. She was on Columbus, just past 73rd, not even halfway to Lincoln Center, when the red check-engine light appeared in the lower left corner of the speedometer of her police-issue Interceptor. In quick succession, the temperature gauge crept into the danger zone. The city was in the middle of a heat wave; her car was paying the price.

  “Just great,” she muttered. This had happened before. She’d barely been able to get off West Side Highway, the car slipping into limp mode by the time she’d been able to pull off the road. The ride had turned rough and, true to the name, she’d scarcely been able to limp it to the nearest service station. A new car had come with her promotion, but it was currently in the shop being detailed. Inconvenient, but there you had it. They’d let her know two days ago that it was ready, but she hadn’t gotten around to picking it up. There were always more pressing issues. She pounded the heel of her hand against the steering wheel. She should have made the time, dammit. Peering outside, she could see the waves of heat reflecting off the smoldering pavement.

  All she could do was inch on, rolling her window down and stretching her arm into the heavy air outside, telling the drivers next to her to make room. New Yorkers weren’t known for their courtesy. Horns blared. People swore through their open windows. It took some aggressive stopping and starting—and some swearing of her own—before she finally forced her way into the adjacent lane. Miraculously, she managed to find a place to pull off the road and cut the engine. She stepped out into the scorching heat to consider her options. There were precious few. Ochoa was probably stuck in traffic somewhere ahead of her. He’d taken his own police-issued vehicle so they could each go their own way after they’d assessed the crime scene. She could call him back, but that would be a headache for him and cost them both time. Raley was already on-site and she wouldn’t pull him away. She looked up and down Columbus in case a police cruiser was in sight. It was a sea of cars, but none of them belonged to the NYPD.

  For a fleeting moment, she considered calling Rook. She went so far as to take out her phone, calling up his name and poising her finger over his mischievously smiling face. Why was she hesitating? Self-preservation? Since her mother’s death that Thanksgiving she’d come home from college—or rather, her supposed death—Nikki had done everything she could to protect her heart. Rook had found his way in, but now that he was going to be gone for a school term, she already felt herself shutting down.

  Instead of lowering her finger to his name, she moved to the curb. Hailing a cab made far more sense. She looked up the street. It was speckled with the traditional yellows, most with two-sided tepee-shaped taxi toppers attached to the roofs, some with wraps on their doors, most of them occupied.

  She raised her arm to hail the next vacant one, but it passed her by, and once again she cursed under her breath. Then her phone rang. She guessed it would be one half of Roach, the squad nickname for Raley and Ochoa, wondering where she was, but it was Rook’s name that popped up on the screen. Nikki couldn’t help smiling. They had their conflicts, like any couple, but despite them, they were always in sync. They had a mind-meld thing going on, as Rook liked to call it. She pressed the green button and held the phone to her ear. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Only if I’m the devil,” he quipped.

  She could hear the amusement in his voice, and like a Pavlovian response, heat spread through her body.

  “There’s no question about that,” she said.

  “Ah, then you were thinking about me.” He spoke as if he’d solved some great puzzle. “Be forewarned. This devil is dastardly, and takes no prisoners.”

  “Don’t I know it.” She could engage in innuendo and banter with him all day long, but she had a dead body to get to. “Look, I’m stranded and trying to get to what is probably, given the heat, a ripe corpse by now. Is there something specific I can help you with?”

  His voice turned serious. “Stranded?”

  “Overheated car.”

  “Where?”

  She glanced up the street again, registering what might be a vacant cab. She raised her hand as she said, “Seventy-fourth, on my way to Lincoln Center.” The cab passed her by.

  “So it’s not the devil you need, but a knight in shining armor.”

  She dropped her hand back to her side, keeping a lookout for another taxi. “Uh, no. The devil is much more fun. And a cab will do me just fine. It’s only, what, fourteen blocks or so. I might just walk.”

  “In this sweltering heat? Nonsense, wife. I happen to be en route to the Met.”

  “Why?” she asked against her better judgment. You never knew what crazy antic Rook was up to. Whatever it was, getting into it just now wasn’t on the agenda.

  “I’ve been in the loft all morning working on my syllabus. Needed a change of scenery. And air-conditioning—”

  She’d spotted another cab so was only half listening, but then her thoughts skidded to a stop. Him working on his syllabus made the “visiting professor” thing so much more real. A trickle of sweat ran down her back. Why couldn’t she get a cab, dammit?

  “It’s going to be okay, Heat,” he said in response to her sudden silence.

  “But why do you have to go?” she asked. She rarely let her emotions get the better of her, but she was hot, for Christ’s sake, and she was hurt. Her husband was leaving.

  “Cambria’s just upstate, it’s not across the country. Heat, we’ll see each other all the time. I’ll be back to visit. You know my mother has her opening in a few weeks. I have to be back for that.”

  Thank God for Margaret Rook, thespian. A horn honked from somewhere behind her. A cab. Finally! She turned—and stopped short. It wasn’t a free taxi. Instead, a silver Lincoln Town Car pulled up alongside where she stood. The rear driver’s side window rolled down. “Your knight in shining armor has arrived,” Rook announced, his grinning face framed in the window. Just seeing him diffused the agitation bubbling inside her. He had that effect on her.

  He was like Houdini, magically showing up at just the right moment. “I don’t need a knight, Rook. I never needed a knight. How’d you get here so fast?”

  “I told you, I was on my way to the Met. I redirected my dri
ver, cut over from Central Park West, and came back the other way on Columbus.” He placed his hand against his heart. “Knight. In. Shining. Armor.”

  As she climbed in beside him, the cool air washed over her, instantly improving her mood. “You do have pretty good timing,” she said with a smile.

  “Don’t I know it.” He lifted his arm, his hand closed into a fist as if he held a lance. To the driver, he said, “To Lincoln Center, my good man.”

  The driver didn’t blink an eye. He was used to Rook’s antics and eccentricities. He effortlessly merged back into traffic. Heat couldn’t help grimacing. Apparently all the cantankerous New Yorkers with heavy hands on their horns had suddenly morphed into considerate drivers.

  “Now, where were we?” Rook asked.

  “You were telling me how you planned on coming back for your mother’s Broadway opening.”

  “Yes, of course. And you’ll come to Cambria.” He put his fists on his hips—as well as he could while seated in a town car—and turned his head slightly. If he’d had a red-and-blue spandex suit, he’d have looked just like Superman. “And you might as well face it, you won’t be able to stay away from this.”

  As ridiculous as he looked, and as annoying as he could be, he was right. She wouldn’t be able to stay away. Before she could confess as much, however, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. “And I certainly will not be able to stay away from you.” He suddenly looked stricken, like a man who’d realized he was at death’s door. “Oh my God, Heat, what was I thinking taking this gig? I can’t possibly be away from you for an entire term. Why, why, why did I do this to myself? How could I do this to you? The suffering. The torture. The empty bed.”

  He was speaking rhetorically, of course, but she had an explicit answer for him. “Because the dean called and practically begged you. But there was more, wasn’t there?” She tapped her cheek with her index finger, thinking, and then pointed to the ceiling. “Oh yes, and ‘It’s an honor,’ you said. Mmm, and ‘It’s my alma mater,’ you said.”

  Heat paused. “There’s one more reason. Now what was it? Oh yes.” She snapped her fingers. “I remember now. ‘I’ll be mentoring malleable minds on my former award-winning college newspaper,’ you said.”

  He nodded slowly. “All true. I was so right! It is an opportunity too great to turn down. Think about that young woman we met at the awards ceremony. Imagine the impact I can have on her career. On her life! My God, there will be so many. Those malleable minds really are a powerful motivator.”

  “More powerful than regular sex, apparently,” Heat said dryly.

  His eyes clouded, but just for the briefest moment. “Ah, there’s always the phone. And,” he said with a devilish grin, “there’s Skype. Now that could be fun.”

  The idea of it was intriguing, and it was something they hadn’t tried. “I’d rather be in the same room with you,” she said, “but I’m willing to try it if you are.”

  “Then try we shall.”

  With his driver’s skill on the streets of Manhattan, they made it to 65th and Columbus in no time at all. She climbed out of the car, pushing the door closed, but it resisted. “Whoa.” Rook thrust it open and climbed out right behind her.

  She didn’t bother hiding the snark in her voice. “I thought you had a syllabus to write.”

  He waved his driver off, then put his hand on her lower back, a familiar and intimate gesture. It sent a shiver up her spine. “The Met can wait.”

  Inside she was glad he was there, both for his company and for his unique insight on things. As a journalist, he saw life—and death—through a different lens, and that perspective made them a great team. She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  If he picked up on her outward indifference, he didn’t comment. “Where are we going?”

  “To the pool.”

  “Ah, Paul Milstein.”

  It astounded Nikki how much information Rook held in his brain. It was spongier than a child’s. No matter the topic, he could spout off some bit of trivia as an aside. It was no surprise then that some background on their destination was in his wheelhouse of knowledge. A lesson in New York City history was coming. “Right. The Paul Milstein Pool and Terrace.”

  “Did you know that Milstein was a philanthropic powerhouse? Because of him, Lincoln Center was transformed.”

  “Right,” Nikki said as they walked side by side. She knew him by his name emblazoned on the 65th Street plaza and bridge.

  “He was a good guy. Really cared about the people who live here. It truly was his city.” They rounded the corner and walked onto an expanse of green. “Ah, the Illumination Lawn. It is a sight to behold.”

  Heat agreed, 100 percent. “It’s a fitting name. It’s like a blanket of emeralds.”

  Maintaining a rooftop lawn in the city wasn’t easy, but somehow it had been accomplished on the roof of the posh Lincoln restaurant and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. And, Nikki thought, it was nothing short of pristine. It was a brilliant expanse of vibrant green in the middle of New York.

  She and Rook stopped at the top of the steps sloping down to the plaza level. Below them, Heat saw Ochoa and Raley. They stood side by side, hands on hips, staring across the pool in the North Plaza. Beside her, Rook balked and pointed. “Oh!”

  Heat raised her eyebrows, nodding. There, sprawled across the bronze sculpture in the middle of the reflecting pond, was the body.

  “Henry Moore,” Rook said as they started down the steps.

  Heat had already begun cataloguing the scene before her, but she stopped and stared at Rook. “Our vic? Do you know him?”

  Rook laughed. “No, Henry Moore was the sculptor. Abstracts of the human figure. The female form. Mother and child. Reclining figures.” He pointed at the sculpture in the water. “Notice the hollow spaces. They’re like rolling hills. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “If you don’t count the dead body,” Head said.

  “Right. Old Mr. Milstein probably wouldn’t be too happy about that.”

  “No, I don’t suppose he would,” she said. They got to the bottom of the steps and strode across the walkway.

  At the side of the pool, Raley had his notepad out, already flipping to the next page. Ochoa stroked his chin, staring at the sculpture.

  “Any ideas on how he got up there?” Heat asked, coming up next to him.

  “Best guess, someone—probably more than one someone—waded through the water, managed to climb the sculpture, and carefully placed him up there.”

  They simultaneously turned away from the water, each laying eyes on Rook. Ochoa lifted his chin in a macho greeting. Raley’s head movement was friendlier. “Hey, Rook,” he said.

  Rook rubbed his hands together, like a kid anticipating an ice cream sundae. “It’s almost as if he’s part of the sculpture, isn’t it? Fascinating. And no small feat to have hauled a dead body up there.”

  “You got that right,” Ochoa said. “We’ve been trying to figure it out. That’s some real Houdini shit.”

  Rook stepped closer to the pool, reaching his hand out as if there might be some invisible barrier between where he stood and the water. “I’m afraid I have to disagree with you there, Miguel. Houdini was an escape artist. A sensational one at that.” He drew his hand back. “Did you know he started as Harry Handcuff Houdini, escaping from police handcuffs? Fun fact. But this, my friends, this is a case where escape did not happen. There is magic, don’t get me wrong, but that magic lies in how our John Doe got himself sprawled out on the top of that statue.”

  Heat stifled a smirk. For Jameson Rook, talking magic was like commentating the Super Bowl for a sportscaster. She could sense his giddiness.

  Rook stood near enough that she felt his warm breath on her neck. They both peered at the body on Henry Moore’s reclining figure. “Any idea on the age of the vic?”

  Raley cupped his hand over his eyes. “Hard to say from this vantage point,” he said, but then he and Ochoa spoke in uniso
n. “Probably a college kid.”

  The two men had been partners for going on ten years, and like an old married couple, they could finish each other’s sentences and seemed to be able to read each other’s minds. Heat and Rook were like that, too. They knew each other so well; understanding the inner workings of the other’s mind was second nature. Would they still have that after four months apart?

  “Not sure how Parry’s going to do the prelim on the body,” Ochoa said, looking across the pond. “She can wade out there, but she won’t be able to scale that sculpture.”

  Lauren Parry was the medical examiner—and she was Nikki’s best friend. She’d be on the scene any minute, and they’d both want answers. Heat peered into the water, then looked back at the reclining figure. “We need to get her up there.” But how? They couldn’t walk on water. She considered her surroundings, an idea forming. “Juilliard,” she said.

  The three men looked at her. “What about it?” Rook asked.

  “They give performances. Sometimes they give them outside.”

  Rook’s eyes widened with understanding. “Which means they use—”

  “Platforms,” they said in unison. She had the momentary hope that their impending separation wouldn’t diminish what they had. It was said that absence made the heart grow fonder; in their case, she predicted that it would make them grow stronger, too.

  “Och, find someone at Juilliard. Let’s get a platform set up so we can get out there to the body.”

  “You got it, Cap.” Ochoa left, heading straight for the performing arts school on one side of the plaza.

  Heat surveyed the area. A crowd was gathering on the lawn, the steps, and the plaza level. Was the killer there watching? “Get Feller to canvas the crowd,” she said to Raley. “Someone may have seen something.”

  Raley scribbled something across the page of his notepad, then pointed his pen toward the buildings surrounding the plaza. “The windows. Maybe someone saw something.”

  Heat nodded her approval. “Put Rhymer on that. Have him take Hinesburg.”