Nikki Heat had a new customer in the interrogation room, Gerald Buckley. “Mr. Buckley, do you know why we asked you to come in to talk with us?”
Buckley’s hands were folded together in a tight lace on the table in front of him. “No idea at all,” he said with a look of hard study. Heat noticed he dyed his eyebrows black.
“Did you know there was a burglary at the Guilford last night?”
“No shit.” He licked his lips and ran a knuckle backhand across his drinker’s nose. “Probably the blackout, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I dunno. You know. Not politically correct to say it, so I’ll just say ‘certain types’ like to run wild the minute the fences come down.” He felt her eyes on him and couldn’t come up with a safe place to look, so he concentrated on picking at an old scab in the back of his hand.
“How come you called in off your shift at the Guilford last night?”
His eyes rose slowly and met hers. “I don’t understand the question.”
“It’s a simple question. You’re a doorman at the Guilford, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Last night you called in to the doorman on duty, Henry, and said you wouldn’t be in for your overnight shift. Why did you do that?”
“What do you mean why?”
“I mean just that. Why?”
“I already told you, there was a blackout. You know how this city turns into a friggin’ insane asylum when the lights go out. You think I was going out in that? No way. So I called in off my shift. Why are you making such big deal?”
“Because there was a major burglary, and whenever things happen out of the ordinary like routines getting broken, like employees who work on the inside not showing up, I get very interested. That, Gerald, is the big deal.” She stared at him and waited. “Prove your whereabouts last night and I’ll shake your hand and open that door for you.”
Gerald Buckley pinched his nostrils twice and snapped in air the way she had seen so many coke users do it. He closed his eyes a full five seconds, and when he opened them he said, “I want my lawyer.”
“Of course.” She had an obligation to acknowledge his request, but she wanted him to talk some more. “Do you have something you feel you need a lawyer for?” This guy was stupid and a cokehead. If he would just keep talking, she knew she could get him to box himself in. “Why did you beg off the shift? Were you on the truck with the burglary crew, or were you too scared that if it came down on your shift you couldn’t playact your innocence the next morning?”
“I’m not saying anything more.” Damn, so close. “I want my attorney.” At that, he crossed his arms and sat back.
But Nikki Heat had a Plan B. Ah, the power of Koosh.
Five minutes later she was in the observation booth with Ochoa. “Where did you and Raley put him?” she asked.
“You know the bench by the Community Affairs desk near the staircase?”
“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll do this in two minutes.”
Ochoa left the booth to take his position while Nikki returned to Gerald Buckley inside Interrogation.
“You get me my lawyer?”
“You’re free to go.” He looked at her suspiciously. “Really,” she said.
He got up and she held the door for him.
When Nikki emerged with Buckley into the outer office of the precinct, she didn’t look at the Community Affairs desk but could make out the forms of Ochoa and Raley blocking Gerald Buckley’s view of Doc the biker, who was sitting on the bench there. The idea was for Doc to see Buckley, not the other way around. At the head of the stairs, Nikki positioned the doorman so that his back was to Doc and then stopped. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Buckley,” she said, just loudly enough. Over Buckley’s shoulder came the parting of the Roach. She pretended not to notice the biker’s head crane to see if she was talking to
As soon as Heat saw alarm on the biker’s face, she took Buckley by the elbow and led him down the steps out of sight. As he continued on to the bottom of the stairs, Nikki stepped back up onto the landing and called off to him, “And thank you for your cooperation. I know it’s difficult, but you did the right thing.”
Buckley looked up at her like she was nuts and left in a hurry.
Things were quite a bit different with Brian “Doc” Daniels when he returned to the Interrogation Room. Nikki made sure she was already seated when Roach brought him in, and the Iron Ponytail was scoping her out, trying to read some sign off her face before he sat down. “What’s going on, what did that guy say to you?”
Heat didn’t answer. She gave a nod to Raley and Ochoa and they left the room. It was a very silent place when they went.
“Come on, what did he say?”
Nikki made a show of opening a file and scanning the top page. She looked up over the top of the file at Doc and said, “So just to be clear, you consider Gerald Buckley to be a friend of yours?” She shook her head and closed the file.
“Friend? Hah. He’s a liar, is what he is.”
“Is he?”
“Buckley’ll say anything to save his ass.”
“That’s kind of what happens when things start going bad, Doc. People start shoving friends and family off the lifeboat.” When she was good and ready, Nikki crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Question I guess is, Which one of you is going to be treading water with the sharks?”
The biker was running odds in his head. “Tell me what he said, and I’ll tell you if it’s bull.”
“Like I’m going to do that.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do? Confess?”
She shrugged. “Let’s call it cooperate.”
“Yuh, right.”
“Hey, your call, Doc. But the smart man would get out ahead of this. Prosecutors are going to want a head on a pole. Whose is it going to be, yours or Buckley’s?” She picked up the file. “Maybe Buckley’s the smart man today.” Then Nikki stood. “See you at the arraignment.”
The biker thought that one over but not for very long. He shook his mane of hair and said, “All right, here’s the God’s truth. We didn’t steal any paintings. When we broke into that apartment, they were already gone.”
“I believe the dude,” said Raley. He was slouched back in his chair with his feet up on a two-drawer filing cabinet in the middle of the bull pen.
Heat was standing at the whiteboard tossing a marker from hand to hand. “Me, too.” She uncapped it and circled the arrival of the truck and its departure on the burglary timeline. “No way they could move out all that art in a half hour. Let’s suppose Henry is off in his timing and it’s an hour. Still no way.” She tossed the marker into the aluminum sill on the bottom of the board. “And not be seen or heard doing it in a building full of people? Un- uh.”
From his seat, Rook raised his hand. “May I ask a question?”
Heat shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“I need the practice,” added Raley, chuckling. Nikki suppressed her own smile and nodded for Rook to continue.
“Do Penn and Teller have a burglary crew? Because somebody sure as hell took all those paintings.”
Across the bull pen Detective Ochoa hung up his phone and said, “
