He looked at the calendar under the glass on his desktop. “Ten days ago.”
Detective Heat nodded, reflecting. Ten days. A week before her husband was murdered.
EIGHT
When Detective Heat nosed the Crown Vic out of underground parking at the Starr Pointe tower, she heard the low, steady thrum that could only mean helicopters, and rolled her window down. Three of them hovered to her left about a quarter mile west, on the far side of the Time Warner building. The lower one, she knew, would be the police chopper, the two deferential ones at higher altitude would belong to TV stations. “Breaking nyoooz!” she said to her empty car.
She dialed in the tactical band on her radio and before long put together that a steam pipe had blown and geysered, further evidence that the ancient Gotham infrastructure was no match for nature’s oven. Almost a week of the big heat, and Manhattan was starting to bubble and blister like a cheese pizza.
Columbus Circle would be impossible, so she took the longer but faster route back to the precinct, entering Central Park across from the Plaza and taking its East Drive north. The city kept the park closed to motor vehicles until three, so without traffic, her ride had a Sunday-in-the-country feel, lovely as long as she blasted the air conditioner. Sawhorses blocked the drive at 71st, but the auxiliary cop recognized her car as an unmarked and slid the barrier with a wave. Nikki pulled to a stop beside her. “Who’d you piss off to get this duty?”
“Must be karma from a past life,” said the uniform with a laugh.
Nikki looked at the unopened bottle of cold water sweating in her cup holder and passed it to the woman. “Stay cool, Officer,” she said and drove on.
The heat tamped everything down. Aside from a handful of certifiable runners and insane cyclists, the park had been left to the birds and squirrels. Nikki slowed as she passed the back of the Metropolitan Museum, and looking at the sloped glass wall of the mezzanine, she smiled, as she always did, at her classic movie memory of Harry in there with Sally, teaching her how to tell a waiter there was too much pepper on the paprikash. A young couple ambled across the lawn hand in hand, and without deciding to, Nikki stopped the car and watched the two of them, simply together, with all the time in the world. When a ripple of melancholy stirred in her, she pushed it down with a slow press of the gas pedal. Time to get back to work.
Rook sprang up from her desk chair when Nikki came into the bull pen. It was clear he was waiting for her to get back and wanted to know where she’d gone, meaning, without saying it, Why didn’t you bring me? When she told him it was to follow up with Noah Paxton, Rook didn’t get any more relaxed or much less obvious.
“You know, I get it that you aren’t the biggest fan of my ride-along thing, but I’d like to think I’m a pretty useful set of eyes and ears for you on these interviews.”
“Can I mention that I am in the middle of an active murder investigation? I needed to see a witness alone because I wanted him to be open to me without any extra eyes and ears, useful though they may be.”
“So you’re saying they are useful?”
“I’m saying this isn’t a time for you to personalize or be needy.” She looked at him, just wanting to be with her and, she had to admit, being more cute than needy. Nikki found herself smiling. “And yes—sometimes—they are useful.”
“All right.”
“Just not every time, OK?”
“We’re in a good place, let’s not overexamine,” he said.
“Got some news about Pochenko,” said Ochoa as he and Raley came through the door.
“Tell me he’s on Rikers Island and can’t get a lawyer, that would be good news,” she said. “What have you got?”
“Well, you called it,” said Ochoa. “A guy fitting his description shoplifted half the first aid aisle at a Duane Reade in the East Village today.”
“Got surveillance vid, too.” Raley popped a DVD in his computer.
“Positive ID on Pochenko?” she asked.
“You tell me.”
The drugstore video was ghosty and jerky, but there he was, the big Russian, filling a plastic bag with ointments and aloe, then ducking through the first aid section to help himself to wrapping tape and finger splints.
“Dude’s in bad shape. Remind me never to get in a fight with you,” said Raley.
“Or to have you press my shirts,” added Ochoa.
They went back and forth like that. Until somebody came up with a magic pill, gallows humor was still the best coping mechanism for a cop. Otherwise the job ate you alive. Normally, Nikki would have been right there taking shots with them, but she was too raw to laugh it off just yet. Maybe if she could see Pochenko shackled in the back of a van on his way to Ossining for the rest of his life, then she wouldn’t still be smelling him or feeling his skillet hands on her throat in her own home. Maybe then she could laugh.
“Whoa, check out the finger, I think I’m gonna yack,” said Ochoa. Raley added, “He can kiss off that piano scholarship to Juilliard.”
Rook’s smart mouth was uncharacteristically silent. Nikki checked him out and caught him watching her with something like what she’d seen in his eyes at the poker table the night before, but magnified. She broke off, feeling the need to get clear of whatever this was, just like she had after he gave her the framed print. “All right, so that’s definitely our man,” she said and moved away to contemplate the whiteboard.
“And do I need to point out he’s still in the city?” said Rook.
She chose to ignore him. The fact was obvious and the worry useless. Instead she turned to Raley. “Nothing at all on your Guilford tape?”
“I went over that puppy until I was cross-eyed. No way they came back through that lobby after they left. I also screened video of the service entrance. Nothing.”
“All right, we gave it a shot.”
“Screening that lobby video was totally the worst,” said Raley. “Like watching C-SPAN only not as exciting.”
“Tell you what, then, I’ll get you out in the world. Why don’t you and Ochoa drop in on Dr. Van Peldt’s office and see if Kimberly Starr’s alibi clears? And since it’s a safe bet she’s tipped off her one true love that we’ll be checking—”
“I know,” said Ochoa, “verify with his receptionist, nurses, and/or hotel staff, etcet-yadda, etcet-yadda.”
“Gosh, Detective,” said Heat, “it’s almost like you know what you’re doing.”
Detective Heat stood at the whiteboard and under the heading “Guilford Surveillance Video” wrote two red letters: N.G. It must have been the angle she was writing at that brought on the pinching stiffness from the previous night’s brawl. She let her shoulders drop and rolled her head in a slow circle, feeling the delicious edge of discomfort that told her she was still alive. When she was done, she circled “Matthew’s Mistress” on the board, capped her marker, and yanked the magazine out of Rook’s hands. “Want to take a ride?” she asked.
They took the West Side Highway downtown, and even the river showed symptoms of heat strain. To their right, the Hudson looked as if it was too hot to move and its surface lay there in surrender, all flat and dozy. The zone west of Columbus Circle was still a mess and would surely lead the five o’clock news. The erupting steam jet had been shut off, but there was a lunar-sized crater that would close West 59th for days. On the scanner, they listened to one of the NYPD quality of life squads report they had busted a man for public urination who admitted he tried to get arrested so he could spend the night in air-conditioning. “So the weather caused two eruptions that required police action,” said Rook, which made Heat laugh and feel almost glad he was along.
When she’d set up the meeting with Matthew Starr’s former mistress, Morgan Donnelly asked if they could meet her at work, since that’s where she spent most of her time. That fit the profile Noah Paxton had sketched of her when Nikki asked him about her in their conversation earlier that day. As was his way, once he opened up, Nikki’s pen could hardly keep pace. In addition to revealing choice office nicknames, he’d called their romance the
