That afternoon, through the buzz of phone conversations from detectives making rounds and lunch orders getting delivered because nobody wanted to take a break, came a holler from Rhymer at his desk. “Got one!” Opie sounded like he’d hooked a big fish. In a sense, he had.
Heat drove Rook and Detective Raley up to the Bronx as fast as she could get there. Having rolled through every yellow light and punching the accelerator when they were about to turn red, she double-parked in front of Price It Drugs and hustled inside.
The pharmacy sat three blocks from where Carter Damon had abandoned his jacked taxi the night Nikki shot him. In addition to blast e-mailing Damon’s photo to ERs and drugstores in all the boroughs, Detective Rhymer had gotten a map and worked the phones in concentric circles radiating out from the dumped cab. The first walk-in clinic he’d called came up zip. His next try was a small drugstore on Southern Boulevard near Prospect. The owner, who was elderly and not so big on e-mail, had missed the earlier alerts but pegged Damon by the detective’s description. He confirmed it when Rhymer faxed him his photo.
Diligent as she was eager, Detective Heat showed her copy of Carter Damon’s photo to the owner to double-check in person. “Yes, that is him,” said Hugo Plana, also reaffirming that the wounded Damon had staggered in just before closing at midnight, the night of the shooting. “He came in on his own, but I don’t know how,” said the old man. He took off his bifocals and handed the photo back to her. “He was a mess. Blood here and here.” Hugo pointed to the two bullet wounds Heat had given the ex-cop. “I asked him if he wanted me to call an ambulance and he shouted at me, ‘No!’, like that. Then he told me he wanted some gauze and some scissors and antiseptic to dress the wounds. He started to pass out, so I helped him to one of the chairs over there in the prescription waiting area.”
“How come you didn’t call the police?” asked Rook. “Guy came into my place like that, I’d sneak a call, no matter what he said.”
The old man smiled and nodded. “Yes, I understand. But, you see, we are a small, independent pharmacy. A family business. In this neighborhood, I see a lot of folks in bad shape. My goodness, it’s unbelievable. Sometimes a fight, sometimes a turf war-sometimes, I don’t want to know. When they come for help, I help. I’m not here to ask too many questions or to bust them. They trust me. They’re my neighbors.”
Heat asked, “So did you get the supplies he wanted?”
“I did. I put a bag together, and when I finished, he was out of it. His head kept dropping down and up. I offered to call an ambulance again but he refused. Then his cell phone rang and he asked me if there was a hotel nearby. I told him the Key Largo is on the corner, and he told me to help him to his feet. Then he gave me a bunch of cash, took the shopping bag, and left.”
“Do you know who called him?” asked Rhymer.
Hugo shook his head. “It just sounded like someone was coming to meet him and needed to know a place.”
The lobby of the Key Largo was dark and carried the stink of every scuzzy hotel Nikki had ever investigated-a mix of stale mustiness, harsh cleansers, and dead smoke. The floorboards creaked under the soiled carpet leading to the front desk. Nobody was there, and a plastic sign with missing moveable clock hands said, “Back in…”
Nikki called a hello and got no answer. Rook said, “Wow, they’ve re-created the elegance and charm of Key Largo right here in the Bronx. Makes me feel like I’m Bogey and you’re Bacall.” He tapped the service bell with his palm. It did not ding. Then, to Rhymer’s amusement, he examined his hand with a frown and wiped it on the thigh of his pants. Heat was about to call out again when her phone vibrated. It was Malcolm checking in from Staten Island.
“Have something juicy for you, Detective Heat.” Nikki turned away from the desk and started to pace. “The squad from SI is still going over Damon’s house, but Reynolds and I discovered he rented a public storage unit one town over in Castleton Corners. Guess what’s inside.”
“Just fucking tell her, man,” said Reynolds in the background. Heat agreed.
“A van,” he said, making her heart quicken.
“Maroon?” she asked.
“Affirm. And the lettering on the side? ‘Righty-O Carpet Cleaners.’”
“You guys did great.” But Heat held the brake on her excitement and went practical. “Now, please tell me you’re both gloved up.”
“Yes, ma’am, we are the Blue Hands Group.”
“Excellent. Have you touched anything?”
“No, just shined a light in the rear window to make sure there was nobody in there, alive or dead. It’s clear.”
“Now here’s what I want you to do. Step out of there and stay out. Leave the door up where it is, don’t touch the handle again. Just stand guard and get the Evidence Collection Unit on this with a fine-toothed comb. And when I say ECU, I want Benigno DeJesus and only Benigno DeJesus. No screwups.”
“Got it.”
“And Mal? You and Reynolds rock.”
Heat had just finished filling in Rook and Rhymer when the front desk clerk, a large middle-aged white woman with bleached cornrows, emerged from the back, followed by a trail of cigarette smoke. “Booking a three? That’s a fifty-dollar damage deposit.” She plucked the be-back sign off the counter and pulled some keys from a cubby behind her. When she turned back, she was looking at Nikki’s shield.
The clerk’s name was DD, and they followed her down the second-floor hallway, stepping over numerous duct tape repairs to the carpet. “Think again, DD,” said Nikki. “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone else come up here to visit him?”
“I don’t see anything, anytime, anyhow. People come and go.”
Rook asked, “What about another person staying with him, you’d have to know that, wouldn’t you?”
“Technically. But come on.” She stopped mid-hall and gestured to the joint with both arms spread out as a woman in bright yellow hot pants and a halter passed them on the way to the elevator. The picture made it hard to argue. “Dude paid up two weeks in advance in cash. Alls I care about.”
They stopped at a door at the end of the hall with a “Do Not Disturb” dangling from the handle. Wondering about site contamination and forensics, Nikki asked, “Has housekeeping been in here?”
“Yuh, right,” DD scoffed and pointed at the sign. “No little chocklits on his pillow.” Then she rapped twice and said, “Yo, manager.” When she slid the key in, Nikki motioned her back. She and Rhymer rested their hands on their holsters and went in first.
“Holy fuck,” said DD, summing it up for all of them. She backed away and said, “I gotta call the owner,” and rushed out.
Blood covered everything. The bed, especially the pillow and head end of the top sheet, was a dry lake of deep rust. A pile of towels on the floor beside it was likewise saturated in red. The desk, which had been moved to the middle of the room, was covered by the ripped-down shower curtain. On one end of that vinyl sheeting, there was yet another pool of blood that had separated over time, with amber at the edges and deep maroon in the center of the stain. Cinnamon red, like drippings from a candle, clung to the sides of the shower curtain where blood had leaked and made small puddles in the rug, which also looked dried. Clumps of bloody gauze decorated the floor there beside their torn, discarded sterile packaging.
Rook said, “I haven’t seen this much blood in a hotel since The Shining.”
“Looks like I found my ER,” said Opie.
“And makeshift ICU,” said Heat. She left Detective Rhymer in charge of the scene, hoping that, in the middle of all that, Forensics could get some prints and find out who administered to Carter Damon.
When Nikki came back from the Bronx with Rook, Roach was waiting and pounced on her at the door of the bull pen. They led her to their side-by-side desks, where they had organized a briefing. “Bank, first,” said Detective Raley. “Turns out Carter Damon had a money trail of his own.” He opened a file on his monitor and clicked through pages of bank statements as he talked. “Look here. A three-hundred-thousand-dollar deposit went into his account the Monday after your mom got killed. And then, see here? Smaller sums-twenty-five grand-every six months thereafter.”
The shocking conclusion was too obvious not to draw-that a member of the fraternity, an NYPD detective, might have killed her mother by contract and then been retained to screw with the investigation’s progress. Obvious or not, Nikki fought the instinct to close her mind by racing to that conclusion just yet and asked, “How long did he
