with Meuller.”
“Are you sure Meuller was the target?” asked Raley. “If that SUV was tailing you, seems like maybe you’re the one who got lucky this morning.”
“As a trained sleuth that possibility did not escape my notice,” said Nikki, tugging at her bloodstained collar and triggering a laugh from the squad. Heat turned to the board and sketched a looping arc from Meuller’s name to Father Graf’s. “What I really want to do is see what the connection is, if any, between these two victims. Hopefully, our dancer will survive and be able to shed some light. Meanwhile, let’s treat these two incidents as related.”
“By interviewing random dominatrixes?” said Detective Rhymer.
His instincts were right; it was her orders that were wrong, and she knew it. But she followed the edict. “Dommes for now, Opie. Clear?”
“What about the money in the cookie tins?” asked Raley. “Want me to contact the archdiocese, see if they have any suspicions about the padre doing some skimming?”
Once again, Heat came nose first against one of the brick walls Montrose had put up. It was an obvious trail to follow; why had the captain obstructed it? “Leave that to me for now,” she said.
Hinesburg reported that she had no hits yet on the man in the surveillance photo Father Graf’s housekeeper reacted to. “Which only means he may not have a criminal background.”
Nikki said, “I’ll call Mrs. Borelli and press her. But keep working it and all the other stills.” Heat opened the folder of surveillance pictures and took one out. It was of a man and a young woman coming down the stairs into the lobby of Pleasure Bound. The woman was laughing with her face turned up at her companion, but his was obscured by a Jets cap. Nikki posted it on the board with a magnet. “Had a thought about this one. See on his arm there, the tattoo?” First Raley and then the others rose to gather closer. The tatt was of a snake coiled around his left upper arm. “Real Time Crime Center keeps a data bank of scars and tattoos. Why don’t you have RTCC run it, Sharon. See if you get any matches.”
“Detective?” said Ochoa. “I know that woman.”
Raley said, “Something you want to tell us, pard? You in the lifestyle and holding back?”
“No, seriously. I talked to her yesterday. Know that domme who’s over in Amsterdam? Whatsername… Boam? Andrea Boam?” He tapped the picture with his pen. “That’s the roommate I talked to.”
“Pay her another visit,” Nikki said. “Let’s see what this roommate knows about charming snakes.”
Heat had to wade through a dozen messages on her voice mail from people who had seen her on the TV news at that morning’s shooting scene and hoped she was OK. One was from Rook, who also insisted on treating her to a non-takeout dinner, “in a sit-down restaurant like a respectable woman.” Zach Hamner left word, as did Phyllis Yarborough. Nikki appreciated the sentiments but could see how easy it would be to keep up with all the bonding outreach from 1PP and never get her work done. She saved the messages to answer later. Lauren Parry down at OCME, however, got an immediate callback.
Lauren began, “I just want you to know that I am going to be seriously pissed if I come in here some morning and find you laid out on one of my tables.”
“I’d hate that, too,” said Nikki. “I’d want a week to diet first.”
“Yuh, right,” her friend laughed, “like you’d need to, woman of steel.” Nikki could hear keystrokes and pictured the ME in the cramped dictation office, at the desk that looked out onto the autopsy room. “OK, interesting discovery about that fingernail they vacuumed up in the torture room. It wasn’t a fingernail after all, but tested out as hardened polyester.”
“Plastic? That looked like a fingernail?”
“Exactly like a fingernail clipping. Even the same color. But know what it actually was?” Lauren, always happy to put on a show, said, “Wait for it… A piece of a button. Little crescent-shaped sliver broken off a button.”
“So no DNA help.”
“No, but if you find the button, we can always match it.”
The detective didn’t see a lot of hope there. “What else you got?”
“Something inconsistent came out of the ECU sweep at the rectory. I’m looking at the meds they collected from the victim’s bathroom chest. There is a vial of adefovir dipivoxil. That’s a reverse transcriptase inhibitor used to treat HIV, tumors, cancer, and hepatitis-B. The thing is, Nikki, the priest had none of those conditions. And none of it showed up in his tox screening.”
A true odd sock, Heat thought as she finished jotting down the list of diseases. “But it was his prescription?”
“Made out to Gerald Francis Graf, ten milligrams. The pill count says it was full.”
“Who’s the doctor?” Nikki wrote Raymond Colabro on her spiral Ampad.
“And a heads-up,” Lauren added. “The DNA test is still in process on that blood on Graf’s collar.”
“What about that little speck you showed me in that vial?”
“As I thought, a flake of leather from a laminate. But it’s not consistent with any equipment at Pleasure Bound, including the other studios, or any of the devices in their storage locker. I’ve ordered more forensic testing to ID its source. When we get a hit, I’ll call you.” Before she hung up, she added, “And remember, Detective Heat, you show up on my autopsy table? I’ll kill you.”
The first thing the old lady said when she saw Heat was “Good Lord, is that blood?” Heat had managed to do a commendable wet paper towel job on her coat in the precinct restroom but skipped the blouse. Her neck was wrapped by a scarf, and she had her coat fastened all the way up, but some of her collar must have been visible. Mrs. Borelli seemed less put off by the idea of blood and more focused on the laundry mission. “Give me a half hour, I can get that out for you.”
Career caregiver, thought Nikki, smiling at her. “Thank you, but I won’t be that long.” Heat adjusted the scarf to conceal the stain.
When they reached the kitchen, the housekeeper said, “You’re going to roast in that coat. If you’re leaving it on for me, don’t.” Nikki kept it on anyway and sat at the table where there was a cup of hot coffee waiting for her and homemade pizzelles resting on the saucer.
Ms. B. still seemed fragile, so the detective decided not to jam her right off about the picture. Instead she began by saying, “I dropped by to see if you can clear something up. Yesterday we collected prescriptions from Father Graf’s medicine cabinet, and among them was something called adefovir. What’s confusing is he had none in his system and had none of the diseases it would be prescribed for.”
“I don’t know what he had in that cabinet. I cleaned in there, but personal is personal, and it doesn’t get any more so than a medicine chest.”
Nikki nibbled a pizzelle. It was extraordinary. If heaven were made of vanilla, that is what it would taste like. For Nikki, this was lunch. She finished it off and said, “I wanted to ask if perhaps the adefovir was yours.”
“No. And trust me, last thing I need is another pill to swallow.”
“Fine then. As long as I’m here,” said Heat, suddenly feeling like her last name should be Columbo-why not? she was certainly wearing the coat-“I want to ask if you had any new thoughts about the pictures I showed you.” When the woman shook no, Nikki handed her the photos again and asked her to give them a second look. She cleaned her glasses on her sweater and surveyed them. This time she went through the stack with no reaction to the one she had hesitated over before.
“Sorry,” she said and handed the array back across the table. Nikki was trying to figure an approach that wouldn’t traumatize her even more, when Mrs. Borelli said, “Oh. I did have one other thing to mention to you. I thought of it this morning and was going to call you, but here you are.” She seemed overwhelmed by circumstances. “You asked if Father Gerry had any trouble with anyone.”
“Please, go ahead.” Nikki flipped to a clean page.
“We had a priest here a while back. There were accusations that he had been… improper with two of the altar boys on a weekend field trip. Now, I don’t know what happened, and neither did Father Graf, but as the pastor, soon as he heard about it, he did the right thing and reported it immediately to the archdiocese. They transferred Father Shea and started an investigation. But one of the boys’ parents, Mr. Hays, filed a lawsuit-which was fine, who wouldn’t? But he also harassed Father Graf.”
“Harassed how?”
“Phone calls at first, and then showing up here at the rectory, unannounced. He kept getting more and more irate.”
“Did he ever get violent or threaten Father Graf?”
