Heat rose.
“I want to repeat what I told the Orals Board a few days ago. Police work-police work on the NYPD-is more than a job to me, it’s my life’s work. To whatever degree I am a professional, it is because I take it so personally. Which is why I wholeheartedly accept reinstatement and thank you for that.” There was brief clapping, which she interrupted by holding her hands out. When they were quiet again, she said, “It is the same reason that I respectfully decline the promotion to lieutenant.”
Astonishment hardly described the reactions before her. Sober, life-worn, career cops with poker faces were visibly stunned. Not the least of which was Phyllis Yarborough, who shook her head no to Nikki and then searched the others for some sort of understanding.
“So that I don’t seem ungrateful-because I truly am thankful-I can help you understand why I made this decision by going back to what I said a moment ago. This is my life’s work. I joined the NYPD to help victims of crime. And over time, I have grown to love it even more because of the proud association and friendship I have working with the finest cops in the world. But the process of gaining this promotion, as well as some insights I’ve gained over recent weeks, has made me realize that stepping up the ladder is a step away from the street. A step away from why I am a New York cop. Administrators do important work, but my heart is not in CompStat data, or scheduling, and all that. It’s in doing what I’m born to do. Solve crimes. Out there. I thank you for your confidence and for hearing me out.”
Nikki surveyed the table one by one and saw in most of their faces cops who knew all too well what she meant. They might not say it, but they admired the courage of her choice. And, to be honest, she also saw one or two who could not mask their bitter annoyance. “So,” she asked, “am I really a cop again?”
Deputy Commissioner Atkins said, “I think I can speak for the group when I say, this isn’t how we expected this to transpire, but yes, Detective Heat, yes, you are.” He gestured to Zach Hamner, and the political cockroach who had so callously stripped her of her job and protection got up and strode to her end of the table to present Heat with her own shield and weapon, grinning as if they were gifts from him.
Nikki reached into her coat, pulled out her empty holster, and held it up for them to see. “I was hoping.” That drew some chuckles. After she clipped her badge and her Sig Sauer to the old familiar places on her waist and adjusted them, Detective Heat said, “And now that I am officially a sworn officer, I would like to make an arrest.”
TWENTY
At first they acted like Heat was joking. Maybe this was a follow-up to the quip about her empty holster. But one by one they absorbed the seriousness of her expression, and Nikki found herself with the rapt attention of the conference room of police brass she stood before.
“The murder of Father Graf was a case with numerous complications. I won’t go into them all, you can read them in my report, but the essential obstacle we faced was an uncommon amount of resistance from within the Department.” Zach Hamner leaned forward, trying to whisper something to his boss, but Atkins shooed him away. The Hammer sat back with a deep frown directed at Nikki, which she returned until he melted off and stared at the papers in his lap.
“I developed leads that eventually brought me to a solid theory that the priest’s killing was tied to a narcotics bribery ring in the Forty-first.
“There’s great credence for this idea. You all know the names of the five who not only tried to kill me in Central Park as I dug deeper, but are also implicated in the Graf killing, the Montrose murder…,” she paused to let the M-word sink in, then continued, “… as well as the sniper attack of Horst Meuller.” Heat counted each on her fingers, “Sergio Torres, Tucker Steljess, Karl ‘Dutch’ Van Meter, Harvey Ballance, and Dave Ingram. At one time, all served in the Four-one. The key to my theory about Narco bribes to that group was the stash of DEA money in the pastor’s attic.
“I was wrong.” She paused. “The DEA cash turned out to be for a human rights group the priest was involved in-unrelated to the case. So then what was the connection to these bad cops? If it wasn’t drugs, what was it? Well, it was another kind of conspiracy, and one that, sadly, reaches to the highest floors of this building.”
The heat came on and the hissing of the vent filled her pause.
“Let’s go back to Captain Montrose,” she said. “In 2004, he worked a famous homicide, the son of the movie star, Gene Huddleston. When the case cleared as a sour drug deal, Montrose never bought it and recently started to dig in again on his own.” Nikki turned to Hamner. “You know all about that, right, Zach? Did your pals in IA tell you he was sniffing around Huddleston when they checked him out?”
“Montrose lit up IA’s radar by acting out of pattern. Their probe was legitimate due diligence.” Hamner said it as if it was so SOP that it bored him.
“Clearly that’s not the only radar my skipper got on.” Heat turned back to the group. “I couldn’t access the official Huddleston case files, but I did have an entertainment insider,” she said, referring to Petar. “My source is highly credible and shared a number of secret rumors about this young man. The most strikingly relevant was that two years before his murder, Gene Huddleston, Jr., was in Bermuda on Spring Break and that he was one of the boys that raped your daughter, Phyllis.”
Yarborough gasped and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Detective Heat,” said Atkins, “this is feeling way out of line.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no easy way to go about this.”
“But it’s gossip,” said the Personnel chief. He handed Phyllis a tissue.
“Which I have independently verified,” Heat replied.
Deputy Commissioner Atkins said, “Go on.”
“Jeremy Drew, who confessed to the assault and murder of Amy Yarborough, was extradited in 2002 and began a life sentence in Sing Sing, where I visited him yesterday. In our meeting Drew confirmed for me what I had heard from my source. That the Huddleston family had paid several million to his parents, who were on disability. All in exchange for his silence about the participation along with him by Gene Huddleston, Jr., in the gang rape on the beach that night.”
“Why would he tell you?” asked the deputy commissioner of legal matters.
“His parents have passed away and he has had a religious conversion. This was his first opportunity to clear his conscience. By the way, I checked with Customs, and Huddleston’s passport shows he was in Bermuda then and left the island on the first flight out the morning after the discovery of Amy’s body in Dockyard.
“You know something, Phyllis? Even when I found out Jeremy Drew wasn’t alone that night with your daughter, there was a part of me that didn’t want to believe you were behind all this. But then I couldn’t get past the cruise Montrose booked. A guy in mourning taking a singles cruise? And in the middle of a career crisis while he’s also conducting a secret investigation? I called back the travel agent. The cruise was to Bermuda.”
As a roomful of the best police minds in New York were doing the motive math, Phyllis Yarborough jarred them by speaking. “Nikki…” She shook her head mildly in disappointment. Her voice was hoarse and papery. “I can’t believe this of you, overreaching like this. And so hurtful. Are you trying to make me twice a victim with some tabloid conspiracy theory about me?”
“I am sorry for the loss of your daughter, you know that. But this is not a theory anymore. The leather fragment from under Graf’s fingernail matches Harvey Ballance’s cuff case, and the button fragment from the crime scene is from one of his shirts. Harvey is in the hospital and he is talking. About you. And all the money you offered five cops in 2004 to take care of Huddleston.”
“Detective, come on,” said Yarborough, trying to reclaim her composure and distance, positioning herself as judge rather than the accused, “let’s stop all this, please? You know criminals talk all sorts of bull to cut deals. This is hearsay and conjecture. Whatever happened to the Nikki Heat who deals in proof?”
“Proof,” said Heat. She crossed to the door and rapped lightly. Lovell and DeLongpre entered. While the Internal Affairs detectives rounded the table toward the flat-screen on the side wall, Nikki swallowed thickly, revisiting her grim memory of the paramedics cutting Rook’s shirt off. Spotting the holy medal she had never seen before. And after, listening to his final, pleading voice mail urging her to call him back and saying that he had the video on him. Nikki saved that call, his last words before he was shot. Then she examined the St. Christopher,
