tone Nikki could sense the next wave of anger building pressure. “Is that what you think?”
When she hesitated, the interrogator in him kicked in. Nikki had always been impressed by how intimidating her mentor could be working a suspect against the ropes. Except now it was all on her. “You’re already knee-deep, Detective, so you’d better bring it-unless you want to go on the record in a formal conduct review.”
Heat ran down the short list in her mind. She looked at the fresh Band-Aid on his finger and pictured the blood on the priest’s collar. Then she thought of the TENS scars on Graf and how similar electrical burns had also appeared in the 2004 case Montrose had investigated. And now the latest revelation, that the bruise on the small of the priest’s back came from handcuffs… Yes, these raised lots of questions, and Nikki didn’t like the way the scale was tipping as she weighed them. However, none of these proved anything. And she certainly couldn’t voice them. Not without mortally wounding an already frail relationship. So she said, “Nothing worth discussing.”
He slapped the palm of his hand on the desk and she jumped. “Liar!” In her periphery, Nikki saw heads in the bull pen turn their way. “It’s all over you. Come on, Detective, lay ’em on the table. Or are you saving it for your new friends at 1PP?”
“Captain… no, I…” She trailed off, on the defensive now.
“Oh, or maybe you’re holding it for the next article.” He read her reaction and said, “You haven’t seen it yet?” He reached to his briefcase and pulled out the morning edition of the Ledger. “Metro section, page three.” He tossed the newspaper on the desk right in front of her. It was folded open to the story, a short item headlined, UPHEAVAL AT UPPER WEST SIDE PRECINCT. Reported by Tam Svejda. “You still claim you didn’t talk to that reporter?”
“I didn’t.”
“Somebody did. And gave her details, including Gallagher bailing in frustration. I wonder who.”
Rook’s phone call from the bouncing Czech played itself back, but Nikki dismissed it as a possibility. There was no way she could imagine him doing that. “I have no idea.”
“Bullshit.”
“Captain, whatever else is going on here, I hope you know…”
But he stopped her, holding out the palm of his hand in the gulf between them. “We’re done,” he said. There was a gravity, a global finality in the weight of his words. Montrose stood. She sat looking up at him. How had this meeting slipped out of her grasp? Nikki had only wanted one thing when she walked in there, and it had dissolved in the toxic haze. “And if you have anything to discuss about this case, you bring it to me, not reporters, and especially not the sharks downtown. Tempting as it is to go polishing that gold bar, remember, you work for me.”
“You don’t need to tell me who I work for.” Heat rose to face him, feeling herself reclaiming lost meaning from a mislaid motto. “There’s a killer out there, and for the sake of his victim, I want to catch him.”
“Damn it, Heat, not every victim is your mother.”
Her old friend might as well have slapped her face. He knew her vulnerability, and that stung her all the more. But she didn’t back off. Nikki absorbed it and spoke her guiding truth. “No, but every victim is somebody else’s mother. Or their father, or daughter. A son, or a wife.”
“I’m telling you. This time, let go of this.”
She said, “If you know anything about me, you know I am not going to lie down.”
“I could fire you.”
“You’ll have to.” And then, as turnabout, she dealt him his own vulnerability card. “How will you explain that downtown? Because you must know I’m not the only one asking these questions.”
His jaw muscles flexed. He tilted his head to her, leveling a challenge. “Are you saying I can’t stop you?”
“You can’t.” Heat returned his stare, unblinking. “Make your call, Captain.”
He pondered a moment. Then, unhappy but resigned, he said, “Go ahead then.” And as she turned to go, he said, “Detective Heat. Watch your back. You may be poking into something you wish you had never gotten into.”
On her walk across the bull pen, Hinesburg said, “Detective Heat, you got a sec?”
“Actually, Sharon, not the best time.”
“I think you should make time.” There was something in the way Hinesburg presented herself that felt different. The bluff of arrogance was muted. Replaced by an uncharacteristic urgency.
“All right. What is it?”
In answer Detective Hinesburg handed Nikki photocopies of Father Graf’s phone records. There weren’t many calls over the month, so Heat was able to scan the pages quickly. She stopped abruptly, however, when she hit the last page, covering the prior week… the one before Father Graf was killed. There were numerous calls to and from two phone numbers Heat recognized-because she had called them so often herself. They were the office and cell phone numbers of Captain Montrose.
Heat looked up from the page to his office. He was standing at the glass wall looking at her. Just as they made eye contact, Montrose snapped his blinds shut.
In fewer than five minutes Nikki had assembled her squad at the Mur der Board. Detective Heat moved quickly before the captain had a change of heart about breaking the restraints he had placed on her investigation. She also wanted to energize her people by illustrating that this was a new day.
The revelation about Montrose showing up on the victim’s phone records was huge, but Heat decided not to bring it up at an open meeting. She had collected the file from Hinesburg and told her that she would take it from there. It would mean another confrontation, but the captain had already turned off his lights and left, so it would have to come upon his return. As painful as the meeting with her embattled commander had just been, her next session could make that one look like high tea.
They all took notes while she reported that the bruise on Father Graf’s lower back had likely been caused by handcuffs. “Isn’t that consistent with the whole bondage-torture deal?” asked Rhymer.
“Could be,” said Heat. “It could also be the best evidence that he was brought there against his will.” Ochoa raised a forefinger. “Question, Miguel?”
“He was a big drinker. Plastered the morning he disappeared, according to his activist group. Have we checked records to see if he got cuffed for a Drunk and Disorderly over the last few days?”
“Good thought,” Nikki said. “Sharon, when you get with RTCC on that snake tattoo, ask them to run this week’s ten-fifty complaints and see if Graf shows up.”
She assigned Ochoa to look up Dr. Colabro about the mysterious prescription. “Then I want you and Rales to make another visit to Justicia a Garda. I hear they have paramilitary connections. Find out who their leaders are and invite them in for a chat. Use the waiting room instead of Interrogation. I don’t want them treated like suspects, but I want them on our turf, in a formal setting.”
She put Detective Hinesburg on the found money from the rectory attic. “Reach out to Forensics and hustle along a complete workup on that cash. Everything. And Sharon? Like yesterday.” Hinesburg arched a brow, taking that like the shot it was. Nikki couldn’t give a rat’s ass. She continued, “I want to pay a visit to the archdiocese later today to ask them if they had any accounting concerns from Our Lady of the Innocents. So whatever you can get before I go-get.
“Rhymer. You’re off dommes. Dig into Horst Meuller. He’s able to speak this morning, so I’m going to make a hospital call. Meanwhile, you learn all you can. Obviously any more on his connection to Graf, but also work history, financial, any connection to Pleasure Bound.. . Also run him through Interpol and Hamburg police.”
Rhymer dotted a sentence on his pad and said, “Nice to see we’re moving out of the horse latitudes.”
“You and me both,” she said. “Tell your pal Gallagher. If he wants to come back, I can let bygones be bygones.”
From where she stood looking out a tenth-floor window of New York Downtown Hospital, Nikki could pick out the spot across the East River where the shooting had taken place the day before. A low range of buildings south of the Brooklyn Bridge blocked her street-level view of the exact location on Henry, but on their far side she was able to pinpoint the high-rise where it all went down. Ragged, bruisey clouds streaming trails of snow and frozen rain gobbled the top of the apartment building as she watched, darkening the neighborhood until it disappeared in a curtain of foul weather.
“Excuse me?” Nikki turned. A male nurse with a youthful face and surfer dude curls was smiling at her. “Are you waiting for Dr. Armani?”
“Yes, I’m Detective Heat.”
He took a step closer and his smile widened. Nikki thought he had the most brilliant teeth she had seen since
