faith, boys. Remember, Irons is only interim.”
Snow began falling in fat clumps, making Nikki’s traffic experience getting downtown to Park Row a nightmare. If she had only taken the subway, it would have been a snap just to duck into Grand Central from the Hays meeting and grab a 4 or 5 express to Centre Street. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, and done. But with the rest of the shooting team that hunted her down in the park still at large, Raley and Ochoa persisted and she gave in, allowing The Discourager to drive her to One Police Plaza in his RMU.
Harvey wasn’t much of a talker, which was fine with her; she was trying to clear her head for her big moment and could do without. The only conversation they had was when he offered to light up the bar on top of the cruiser when it looked as if she’d be late and she said no. He made up for it with assertive wheel work and liberal use of his horn. When Nikki got out in front of the Municipal Building on Centre, she was tense and fighting car sickness.
Heat reached the lobby of 1PP with ten minutes she never thought she’d have to spare. She needed that time to collect herself. After the promotion and swearing in, she might be called upon to speak to the committee and she didn’t want to go in frazzled. Especially if, as Phyllis told her, they might be bumping her to captain and giving her a command, she didn’t want to blather and make them rethink their choice. She wished Rook could be there, and the fact that she thought of him sharing that moment with her brought her a degree of calm. They could celebrate later. Brushing the snow off her coat, she looked for a quiet place to sit and think.
The seats where she had enjoyed her conversation with Commissioner Yarborough were open, but on her way over she stopped. Tam Svejda stood in her path. Her back was to Heat as she folded her notebook and shook hands with the public information officer. Nikki made a sharp turn to get to the elevators before she was spotted, but it was too late.
“Detective Heat? Nikki Heat, wait up.” Nikki stopped and turned. The PIO gave her a cursory glance as he passed by and took the elevator car Heat had been waiting for. “How did you like the article?” asked Tam as she strolled over.
“Tam, I’m sorry but I have a very important meeting I can’t be late for.” Nikki pressed the button and added, “Not to be rude.” Then she pounded the button twice more.
“Listen, this wouldn’t be for attribution.” The reporter opened her palms. “Look, Ma, no pen. Completely off the record. Any thoughts?”
“My one remark is I wish you would think a little about the damage you do with an article like that, especially to the reputation of a good man.”
Childlike, as if she wasn’t listening, Tam Svejda said, “Uh-huh.. .. But it was accurate, right? I mean I did ask you for help, but you said no.”
“It’s not something I do,” said Nikki. The elevator opened and she stepped aboard.
“But this worked out just as well, right?”
“What did?”
“Jamie, of course. You couldn’t talk, so you used Jamie.”
Heat stepped off before the doors closed. “What are you talking about? Your source for that article was Ja- Rook?” Heat wondered if she was being played. She had figured Hinesburg or maybe Gallagher, or both, had leaked the story. In her disbelief she said as much to herself as to the reporter, “You got it from Rook?”
“Yeah, Jamie e-mailed me his notes, even. Oh my God, I thought you knew.” Nikki was speechless and just stared. “Nikki Heat, no wonder you’re such a great detective. You just got me to reveal my source.” Tam slapped her own forehead with the heel of her hand. “Some journalist, huh?”
Rook. She needed to talk with Rook. But not then. She couldn’t. As soon as Nikki rounded the corner into the hall outside the tenth-floor conference room, a uniform said, “Detective Heat?”
On her walk up, she answered, “Here.”
“Go right in,” said the officer, “if you’re all set.”
Nikki couldn’t have felt less so. The trauma of the week was enough to put her gut on the spin cycle. Now, adding to her anxiety, came this staggering news that Rook had been the source of a leak to Tam Svejda. And who was this reporter bimbo to Rook? With all these jagged fragments of distraction swirling in her head, making her very much want to turn and run, Heat put up her firewall. She focused on the promotion waiting on the other side of the door and, with it, her chance to take over the Twentieth and, finally, wrest control of the Graf case and run with it. She nodded to the cop and said, “Set.”
There was no promotion committee waiting for her. There was only one person in the room and it was Zach Hamner, seated at the far side of the conference table, facing her as she entered. The other fifteen chairs in the room were empty, but she could see from the scattered evidence of coffee rings on napkins and the unaligned swivel chairs that there had been a big meeting there recently.
The next major tell that something was amiss was his flat expression. Plus, he didn’t invite her to sit. Instead, he laced his fingers together on the tabletop and said, “Nikki Heat, you are hereby relieved of duty, until further notice.”
Blindsided, Nikki felt herself coming undone. Her eyes fluttered, and she began to have the sensation of tumbling, of losing her balance after being hit by the force of the shock. As she tried to gain her equilibrium, the side door opened and Lovell and DeLongpre, the Men in Black from IA, came in and waited. The Hammer said, “Please turn over your shield and gun to these men.”
ELEVEN
W hen Nikki rested a hand on the back of the executive chair in front of her for steadiness, it rocked on its swivel hinge and the result was only to increase her sense of disorientation. She had entered with confident strides to assume her promotion and all that came with it, but in the mere crossing of a threshold she found herself cast adrift. Veering into a sickening emotional slide, Heat went spinning like one of the cars she had passed on the way there: tractionless, grappling for control, hurtling for the inevitable crash.
Detective DeLongpre wanted her shield. Nikki willed herself to reclaim her center and straighten herself up. Then she complied. His IA partner, Lovell, stood on her other flank with his hand out. Heat didn’t even look at him. She withdrew her Sig from its holster and handed it over, grip first, but with her eyes locked on Zach Hamner’s. “What’s this about, Zach?”
“It’s about you being suspended from duty while you are under official reprimand. Clear enough?”
Implications crashed over Nikki all at once and she felt her knees weaken. “A reprimand…? What for?”
“For starters, going to the media. You have a problem, you talk to us. You don’t go outside the family.”
“I didn’t talk to the media.”
“Bullshit. Yesterday you get all up in my ass about Montrose’s funeral, and when you don’t get your way, you threaten to go public. And then, this.” He held up a copy of the Ledger that was marked up with comments in red ink. “This is the commissioner’s copy.”
“I was upset. I lost it.” Nikki lowered her voice to convey the rationality he didn’t witness the previous day. “But it was an empty threat. I never should have said it.”
“The time to think was back then. You dragged this department down, you disgraced yourself, and you blew a once-in-a-career opportunity. You think you’re going to get promoted now? You’ll be lucky if you come out of this with a job chalking tires. How the hell are you going to be trusted to lead if you can’t be trusted?” He let that sink in and said, “Look, these are the bigs. Ambition is not a dirty word. But never, ever, at the expense of this department, Heat. Because one thing that is not tolerated here is disloyalty. You betrayed us.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Someone sure did. Do you have any idea the problems you have caused us?”
Nikki thought carefully. Pointing to Rook wouldn’t be much help and would only make the leak appear more orchestrated. Even Tam Svejda assumed Heat was utilizing Rook as a back channel. The Hammer would go there before she finished her sentence. So she repeated the truth. “It wasn’t I.”
“You stick to that, Heat. See how much it comforts you while you sit at home.” Zach stood to go.
“But I’m on a case.”
“Not anymore.” And then The Hammer left the room with the two men from Internal Affairs.
Nikki was in such a daze, so lost in her own mind, that she meandered through the snowfall right past The
