“To Paris, of course.” He upended his Manhattan. “My treat. I worked it all out in the cab on the way over here.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“Uh-huh. The stars have all lined up, Nikki Heat. First, you’re sidelined, anyway. Second, it might not be the worst time for you to make yourself scarce in this city, considering your buddy with the shotgun is still at large.”
“I am not running from him or anyone, ever.”
“And third,” he steamrolled on, “while Roach and the rest of the squad work the case here, we can go investigate the odd sock of your mom’s life, which is why she gave up her dream there during that summer in 1971.”
“Doesn’t feel right to me.”
“Neither did Boston, and look.” He saw her register that and continued, “Nikki, there are precious few leads, and those you have either dead end or get screwed up by the Iron Man. The only forward movement on this case has come from going backwards. Am I right?”
“Yes…”
“It’s back to what I keep telling you about pure effort. I may not be a cop, but in my own investigative career, I’ve learned you can’t always force things to happen. Results have their own mind. Sometimes when you have been really, really patient for a long time, the answer is more patience.”
Heat’s objections began to melt away. She picked up her fork and raked together some fennel and almonds with bites of apple and pear. “I suppose you’re going to say my forced leave is win-win.”
“That phrase is so 1980s,” he said. And then added a barb. “Like Sting.” He speared a tentacle and continued, “No, I see this more like making lemonade out of lemons. Or, more appropriately, sauce meuniere out of lemons and butter.”
The first flight they could get to Paris didn’t leave until four-thirty the next afternoon, which worked fine for Nikki. Damn, she needed sleep. The trauma of Don’s awful killing, the chase-correction: chases, if you counted the faux one with Rook-the myriad stresses over her dad, Irons, her forced leave, the unsolved case, and the emotional ups and downs with Rook, had all delivered body blows. Fold into that an all-nighter at the precinct the night before, and Heat checked out as soon as her head hit the pillow at Rook’s, and stayed there until she awoke to a roll of thunder and rain tapping at the glass across the bedroom.
Rook was already up and dressed, flogging his MacBook for a hotel and calling to arrange a meeting with Nicole Bernardin’s parents in Paris. “Want to know where we’re staying?”
“No,” she said, lacing her arms around his neck from behind. “I’m putting myself in your hands. Surprise me.”
“All right. But it’ll be hard to top the one you gave me the other night.” She swatted his shoulder then poured some coffee while she got on the phone to Roach for a case update.
“What happened with the assignment I gave Feller and Rhymer to canvass Nicole Bernardin’s neighbors about the carpet cleaning van?”
“Nothing at first,” said Ochoa. “Her immediate neighbors had zip.”
Then Raley added, “But since her house faced Inwood Hill Park, Rhymer got the idea that exercisers and dog owners might be habitual passers-by and decided to hang out awhile and see who turned up. A lot of zeroes, but they finally scored a woman who power walks Payson Avenue daily. This lady not only noticed the carpet cleaning van, she tried to hire them to do her place around the corner.”
Ochoa picked up the story. “She rang the bell to ask for a brochure and said the guy got all crabby with her and said to forget it, he was booked.”
Nikki said, “Did she get a description of him?”
“Negative,” said Raley. “The guy never opened the door.”
“That’s bizarre,” said Heat. “Did she remember any company name or get the phone number off the van?”
“Nope,” answered Ochoa. “She didn’t bother. Too pissed off.”
A thought occurred to Heat. “Did she say what color the van was?”
“Maroon,” Roach said in unison.
“A van that same color tried to run me and Rook down the other morning.”
Raley said, “You never mentioned that.”
“I never connected it until now. Put it on the Murder Board. There is still one there, I hope.”
“There is, we’ve got you covered.”
Detective Ochoa added, “Along those lines, please know we’re doing all we can to get something to shake loose on this case.”
Raley continued, “Don’t get too excited yet, but before shift this morning, Miguel and I met up with Malcolm and Reynolds. We thought, just to double-check, we’d walk the area around Bruckner where they found the taxi your shooter jacked.”
Detective Ochoa continued, “There was this pile of old tires and paint cans in the flood control drain up the block. We had some rain overnight, so I thought I’d give it a look in case the runoff carried anything there. I found a men’s glove.”
Heat started to pace. “What color?”
“Brown leather.”
“That’s what he had on,” she said, seeing the gloves grip the shotgun.
“It’s a long shot,” said Raley, “because it’s waterlogged and looks like a dog or something turned it into a chew toy. But it definitely has blood traces and gunpowder residue. Lab’s running it now for prints, inside and out, as well as DNA.”
“Good work, you two. Tell Malcolm and Reynolds, also.”
“No,” said Ochoa. “We’re pretty much hogging credit on this one.”
Rook could see the change in her when he came out of his office to join her. “We’re still going,” he said. She told him about the glove and his response was “We’re still going.”
“But I feel like I’m being irresponsible. Like I should stay close in case something breaks.”
“You’re on leave. And what are you going to do, sit outside the door to Forensics, yelling ‘Hurry up’ every half hour?” She chewed at the inside of her lip, unsold. “Nikki, we covered this last night. Remember Boston? We ended up ID-ing Nicole and connecting her to your mom, big-time.”
“All right,” she said. “We’re still going.”
“Excellent. Because the real reason is those tickets are nonrefundable.”
Their overnight flight got them into Paris-Charles de Gaulle at six the next morning. Both slept soundly on the plane, but as a contingency, Rook had reserved and paid for their room from the previous night so they could nap and adjust if they needed to without waiting for afternoon check-in. “Nice,” said Nikki on their ride up in the elevator.
“I know it’s not the George V, and the name Washington Opera doesn’t sound very French, but as boutique hotels go, this is a find.” Rook told her the elegant building was the former town house of Madame de Pompadour, and Nikki couldn’t help but think of her father’s job when he arrived in Europe in his twenties, finding properties just like this to invest in and flip. The thought both comforted and unsettled her. She reflected on her therapist’s message to reconnect to the past she had been avoiding and accepted that this would be a trip of mixed emotions that needed to be felt.
From their room, Rook opened the shutters to show her Paris’s oldest bakery across the street, promising warm croissants and pain au chocolat every morning. “The Louvre is a few blocks that way,” he said, pointing to his left. “The Opera is to our right, and out the back of the hotel, the gardens of Le Palais Royale. Curb your dog, please.”
“If we were here for sightseeing, that would all be splendid,” she said. “Or does this fall under your rather loose definition of Romantic Trip While On The Case?”
“Paris? How can you talk about romance while we’re in Paris? We have work to do. You’ve got the number of Nicole’s parents, and as soon as it’s nine A.M., we’re calling them.”
“That’s a half hour away.”
“Then I say we strip and knock off a quick one.”
