get the payments?”
“Till last month. Then, big change.” He brought up the next page. “Another deposit for three hundred thou, two weeks ago.”
Nikki looked at the date. “That’s the day we found Nicole Bernardin in the suitcase.”
“And the same day we met ex-Homicide Detective Carter Damon for lunch,” added Rook. “Was that a payment for doing Nicole, or for trying to kill you?”
“Or both?” wondered Ochoa. “Phone records tell a story, too.” He gave Heat a copy of the printouts he had researched. Rook read over her shoulder.
“I highlighted three major calls of interest. Bottom of page one, note that Damon made two international calls to a disposable mobile number in Paris. One the night Nicole was killed-to refresh your memory, that would have been two nights before we found the suitcase-and the second call to Paris, same burner cell, right after meeting you and Rook for lunch.”
Nikki took a moment to quiet her mind and said, “All right, just trying this on. Let’s suppose, for argument’s sake, the first call to Paris was about killing Nicole Bernardin. Either to get the order or confirm that he’d killed her. What’s the second call about, do you think?”
Rook said, “Maybe Damon was calling in the hit man who killed Tyler Wynn. He could have been your sniper last night.”
“Yeah, but we checked incoming passengers from Paris through U.S. Customs, remember?” said Ochoa. “No knowns on the watch list.”
“So?” said Rook. “Maybe whoever it was came in through another port of entry, like Boston or Philadelphia. Or isn’t on a watch list.”
“Let’s keep thinking on this,” Nikki said.
“Did Damon make any calls to the Bernardins in Paris?” asked Rook. “Any chance he was the elusive Mr. Seacrest?”
Detective Ochoa shrugged. “No record. But that call came from a burner, remember?”
Heat turned to the next page of Ochoa’s printout. “What’s this call here?”
“It’s not the call, it’s the timing. Check it out. Carter Damon made this one immediately after he hung up on his Paris call following your lunch with him.”
Raley said, “If it’s like Feller said, and Damon was a blunt instrument, looks to me like maybe somebody told him what to do, and he did it.”
“Miguel, I assume you ran the number,” said Nikki.
“You assume correctly. No wants or warrants on the party he called. The number is listed on Second Ave to a Salena Kaye.”
Heat and Rook whipped their heads to each other. He said, “Salena!? That’s my naughty nurse!”
The gumball on the roof of the Roach Coach reflected in Heat’s rearview mirror as they ran a convoy, Code Two, across Central Park and uptown to Salena Kaye’s address on Second near 96th Street. Nikki chirped her siren crossing Fifth Avenue as she came out of the transverse. As she steered onto Eighty-fourth, Heat checked her mirror to make sure Raley had kept up, and Rook said, “Well, now I know why Carter Damon lied to me about getting shot. He was just BSing me into swapping rehab stories so I’d give him Gitmo Joe’s name. He must have tracked him through my agency and had him replaced by his girl Salena.”
“I’m right there with you.” Nikki blasted her horn and jerked her wheel to pass a delivery truck that had dead-stopped her lane. Turning uptown, she continued, “Damon placed her with you to keep tabs on the case. Think of it, Rook, she saw Murder Board South, our case notes, and everything before she left.” Nikki couldn’t resist, and added, “Smiling those big white teeth the whole time.”
Rook caught her needle and countered, “She gave one helluva massage, too.”
She pulled to the curb at Ninety-sixth and threw it in park. “Time to pay a house call on a naughty nurse.” But when Rook got out, she said, “Oh no, you stay here.”
“Why? Is this payback for what I said about the massage? I was thinking of you the whole time, I swear.”
She joined up with Raley and Ochoa at the front steps to the apartment building. “Not going to debate this. Stay in the car, I mean it.”
“What is he, like, six?” said Ochoa on the way in.
“You flatter him,” said Raley.
Up at the apartment door on the fifth story, Raley knelt beside the lock, holding the key from the super at the ready. Heat and Ochoa flanked him with guns drawn. “Salena Kaye, NYPD, open up,” she called. No answer. Heat gave Rales the nod and he keyed the lock. Nikki turned the knob and pushed, but the door hit something solid, a piece of furniture, and stopped.
“Mine,” said Ochoa. He backed up and gave the door a flying kick with his foot. It opened only a few inches. “Together, pard,” he said, then he and Raley hit the door with both their shoulders, and they were in.
“Bedroom, clear,” said Ochoa.
“Kitchen, clear,” called Heat.
Raley came out from the bathroom and holstered. “Not in the bathroom, either.”
Detective Ochoa said, “She busted out of here in a hurry. The drawers are open and there’s a half-packed duffel on the bed.”
Nikki saw the open window. On her way out the door she shouted, “Fire escape. One of you go high. I’ll take the street.”
Heat blasted out the lobby stairs and raced through the vestibule onto the sidewalk. Rook was standing beside the Crown Vic, pointing. “A car service picked her up.”
“Get in,” she said.
“I saw them take a left on Ninety-seventh.”
“Buckle up,” she said and lit the gumball.
As they rounded the corner, he got out his cell phone. “I also got the medallion number of the car.” He got Dispatch for the car service. “I’m declaring a police emergency, I need to know the drop route for your car number K-B-four-one-three-one-nine.” At Lexington he pointed frantically to make a left, and she did. He asked for the plate number and wrote it down. “Appreciate the assist,” he said and hung up. “JFK, via Midtown Tunnel.”
“You did that a little too easily,” she said, reaching for her radio mic.
“Hey. Investigative journalists have their tricks, too.”
Detective Heat called in to alert the duty officers at the tunnel entrance to detain a black Lincoln Town Car and gave the plate number Rook had gotten. Nikki still kept her speed up and, just after they crossed 42nd Street, Rook said, “There! Right lane, passing the Pret A Manger.”
One bleep of the siren, and the sedan pulled over and stopped. She called for backup and opened her door. “Stay,” she told Rook.
The windows were not tinted and the backseat appeared empty. She approached in the blind spot with her Sig up and threw open the rear door.
No one in the backseat.
Nikki opened the front passenger door and that was empty, too. The driver still had his hands up as she holstered her weapon. “Where’s your passenger?”
“The lady told me to let her out right after the pickup. I dropped her way back at Sixty-sixth, up near the Armory.” Heat looked uptown, feeling hopeless. “I told her she paid for an airport run and she said to keep going there.”
“Do me a favor, sir, pop your trunk,” she said, knowing it was futile.
She allowed Rook to accompany her back up to Salena Kaye’s apartment this time. Raley and Ochoa were gloved up, going over the living room when she came in. She handed Rook an extra pair from her case.
Raley said, “Just heard from Detective Rhymer up at the fleabag. We shot him a text pic of Salena Kaye from the photo over there.” He indicated the picture frame on the bookshelf beside the TV. “He said to tell you DD-you’d know who that is-positively ID’d Salena as the woman who was visiting Carter Damon’s room during his stay.”
What should have been joy at making that key connection to Carter Damon slid into the pit as Nikki’s heart sank at losing her suspect. It must have shown on her. “Pretty slick move, ditching you like that,” said Ochoa.
“Tell me,” said Heat. “I really thought we had her.”
