Frozen Heat

ELEVEN

“It seems that Paris is also the City of Lights Out,” said Rook as they got into their taxi outside the hospital.

“Nice. Mr. Sensitivity strikes again.”

“What? I didn’t kill him. You did. You killed him.”

“Would you please stop saying that?”

“But you did. You killed Uncle Tyler.” He arched a brow at her. “I hope you’re happy now.”

Heat turned away and stared out her window at the grove of blooming horse chestnuts across the highway in Bois de Boulogne. The smooth acceleration of the Mercedes pulling onto the A-13 back to Paris created the illusion that it was not the car that was in motion but the flowering orchard of trees with their sunlit white blossoms seeming to roll past her like radiant spring clouds.

Of course she hadn’t killed Tyler Wynn.

Of course part of her thought she had. The nag of responsibility tugged at her. She envisioned some Notre Dame gargoyle coming to life, and could hear its devilish voice rasping, “He died because of your visit. It was too much for him. You should have ignored the old man when he begged for more.” The plainclothes detective who had arrived at Hopital Canard to interview her in the aftermath had dismissed that notion. Naturally, he asked her what had transpired before the cardiac arrest, and Heat, avoiding specifics about her mother, shared the detective-to-detective version: Tyler Wynn knew the victims of two murders she was investigating. He engaged voluntarily, which the uniform on post had corroborated. When Wynn started showing agitation, she had tried to break it off, but that made him even more upset, so she thought the better course was to give him the information he pleaded for and then end the interview, ASAP.

“Who knew?” the French inspector said with a shrug, and handed back her credentials. “I have already spoken to the doctor, who says it was not your visit but three bullets and something called aortic valve stenosis that killed Tyler Wynn.”

But Rook picked on her. Why? Because he knew Nikki well enough to short-circuit her guilt reflex with false scorn. One of the first things he had picked up on his ride-along the summer before was how cops deal with emotion by going against it with sarcasm. The first thing he had said to her after he came out of his recent coma was how pissed he was for not catching the bullet in his teeth, like the superhero he was, and spitting it back at the bad guy. Now, in the back seat of the E-320, Rook was lightening her up by accusing her with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

On the Avenue de New York they passed by the Alma Tunnel, and as Heat gazed at the perennial scattering of bouquets and melted candles offered in memory of the princess who met her fate there, she ruminated on secrets-especially the ones that died with those who were privy to them. Her reflection brought her to remind herself that in her world, every event had a cause, and coincidence was simply cause and effect, in hiding.

Until she exposed it.

The death of Tyler Wynn was, foremost, a tragedy for him and, for her, one too many deaths to witness in one week. Beyond that, its acutely untimely nature sealed a door that had only half opened to Nikki. Fulfilling the cruelest-and truest-definition of the word “tantalizing,” Heat had learned just enough to torment her about everything else that remained out of reach.

Rook said, “I guess my wack job conspiracy theories aren’t so wack, after all.”

“Listen, pal, before you spike the ball and do your end zone salsa dance, may I remind you of what they say about broken clocks?”

“You mean that they’re not only right? But beautifully right twice a day?”

“Oh, please.”

“Riiight. That’s such a refreshing word, isn’t it? Come on, Detective, admit it. I called it. Uncle Tyler was a spy.” The driver’s eyes suddenly appeared in his rearview. Rook leaned forward, playing with him just like he goofed with cabbies in New York. “Tell her to admit it.” The driver averted his gaze and quickly adjusted his mirror so all they could see was the widow’s peak of his jet-black hair.

Rook slid back and shifted in the seat to face her. “I don’t get the gloom, Nikki. Especially now. This is definitely a glass-half-full moment-unless, of course, you’re Tyler Wynn.” He observed a brief pause to acknowledge him but then got right back to it. “Look at all the answers you got this morning. I’d think you’d be ecstatic to learn that not only wasn’t your mom’s double life just your imagination, but it wasn’t because she was having an affair. And-how cool is this? — she was a spy in the family like Arnold in True Lies. No, even better: Cindy Heat was like Julia Child in World War Two when she spied for the OSS.”

“I agree, that is something.”

“Damn right. The way I see it, we did Dickens one better. Paris gave us a tale of two Cindys.”

This time it was Nikki who scooted up to the driver. “You want to put him out right here?”

Across the Atlantic, New York had awakened for its day by the time they got back to their hotel, and Nikki worked her phone while Rook hit the streets to forage for lunch. Detective Ochoa took her call solo. His partner Raley was tied up checking on one of the dozens of anonymous tips the squad had received since Hinesburg’s leak to the Ledger. “It sucks, I gotta tell you,” he said. “We have enough legitimate stuff to check out on our own, but since this hit the media, we’re choking on tip pollution. That article slowed the whole case down.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Miguel.”

“I know, but you’re in Paris with Rook and I want to do what I can to screw with your good time. Hey, maybe I can get Irons to bench me, then Lauren and I can go somewhere fun. There’s an Elvis convention in Atlantic City. I could rock my whole Elvez gig.”

“Well, before you put on your gold lame jumpsuit, I need you to check something out for me.” She swore him to silence, then gave him the short version of Tyler Wynn’s connection to her mother and Nicole. After Ochoa muttered his third “Fuuuck…,” she said, “Wynn’s shooting came the night before Nicole’s murder. I want you to get on Customs and the airlines for names of passengers arriving from the Paris airports to JFK or Newark last Wednesday. Don’t forget connections through London and Frankfurt, and wherever. Run the manifests through the database for any names that are on the watch list or show priors for assault or weapons busts. Do the same with Interpol.”

“You think it could be the same killer?”

“I don’t know what I think, but if there’s any chance it was a hit by one person, it’s worth clearing. I don’t love the different MO, but he may have used a knife on Nicole because he couldn’t travel with a gun.”

“Yeah, and a gun is so hard to find in New York,” said Detective Ochoa. “But I’ll get rolling on it.” He cleared his throat and said, “Now I guess it’s on me to tell you some not so good news.”

“Let’s have it.”

“It’s the glove.”

“No fingerprints?”

“Worse. No glove.”

“What?”

“Captain Irons just called in from the lab. He went there this morning to bang on doors for results, and somehow, it got lost.” The vacuum of silence on her end was so complete he said, “Detective Heat, you still there?”

All she said was “Somehow?”

Rook said, “Somehow?” with the same shading of disbelief when he got back to the room and she told him about it. “I don’t think somehow is the reason. I think it’s more like someone.”

“And he’s off.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I knew this would propel you into Area Fifty-one. Rook, for once, can you try doing what I do for a living and deal in hard facts instead of indulging in wild speculation?”

“Want to talk facts, Nikki? All right, fine. Exactly how often does key information go missing in an important homicide investigation?” She just stared at him. “OK, forget I even asked that. But come on, this is different. This has spook written all over it.”

“Or incompetence.”

“When I hear that word, I only think of one man. The man of Iron.”

“Guess I’ll have to wait until I get back to suss that out.” She unwrapped the paper around one of the ham and cheese baguettes he’d returned with. But Rook’s brain crackled too much to eat. He set aside his sandwich after a single bite and paced the room. When Nikki saw him tapping madly on the screen of his iPhone, she said, “I hope you’re playing Words with Friends with Alec Baldwin, because if you’re still in foil hat mode over this lost glove, let it rest.”

“I’m off the glove-for now. I’m searching my contacts.”

“What for?”

“You may like to play it fast and loose with the facts,” he said, teasing her with her own words to him, “but as an investigative journalist with not one, but two, Pulitzers on his mantel…”

“Two, you say.” She took another bite.

“… I like to verify facts independently.” He stopped scrolling. “Ah, here we go.”

“All right, Mr. Woodward-or is it Bernstein? — what are you planning to verify?”

“I want to confirm what Tyler Wynn told us about being CIA and running your mother through his Nanny Network. To me, everything he said made perfect sense. In fact, I felt a certain vindication in his story. I don’t know if you could tell that or not.”

“I had an inkling. So whom are you going to verify this with?”

“An old deep-cover source of mine from when I was researching my Chechnya piece for First Press. His name’s Anatoly Kije. This guy’s incredible. Straight out of Tinker, Tailor. An old school Russian spook for SVR-which is what the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service calls itself now instead of KGB. Everybody’s rebranding. KGB, KFC…”

“Rook.”

“Sorry. Anyhow, my boy Anatoly lives here in Paris, and if anyone would know about Tyler, your mother, and anything else going on in that network, he would. In fact, he may be able to shed light on those questions Tyler Wynn had the bad manners to die before he answered. May he rest in peace.”

“All right. Assuming this KGB guy-”

“SVR guy.”

“-knows anything, why would he share it with you?”

“Because during the course of our meetings here in Paree, let’s just say Anatoly and I spent a lot of time together closing bars. We were like this.” He crossed two fingers then tapped the call icon on his phone. “To this day, I can’t get a hangover without thinking of him.” He held up a palm to quiet her, as if she were the one doing all the talking.

“Hello, is this Imports International?” He gave Nikki a knowing wink. “Yes, hello. I would like to speak to your branch manager, please, Mr. Anatoly Kije. Yes, I’ll hold.” He whispered to Nikki, “Transferring to his assistant.” Then he said into the phone. “Hello? Let me see, is this Mishka?… No? Oh, you must be new. It’s been a while. My name is Jameson Rook and I’m an old friend of Anatoly Kije’s. I happen to be in town and I was wondering if he-Rook. Jameson Rook, that’s right. I’ll hold-”

Rook got kept waiting on hold long enough for Nikki to finish her baguette. Long enough for him to weary of pacing and sit in the corner chair. Then he stood suddenly. “Hello? Yes?” And then a frown crossed his brow. “He did? Really. Are you sure? I’m so sorry. Yes, good-bye.” He hung up and flopped back in the chair.

Nikki said, “Don’t tell me he got shot, too.”

“Worse. He said he never heard of any Jameson Rook.”

With answers that solved at least one part of the mystery of her mother’s life and no new leads to follow in Paris, Heat and Rook reserved seats for a flight home the next morning. The chaos and incompetence visited upon her elite squad had much to do with Nikki’s drive to get back to New York. Captain Irons embodied the worst aspects of civil service. He always had been a paper pusher with a badge, but now, with his own command and Detective Heat out of the mix, the Ironman’s blundering ways ran unchecked. Sure, sometimes evidence like gloves got lost. And media leaks wreaked havoc on cases. And occasionally, the worst detective in a squad slept his or her way to a level of responsibility that surpassed competence. But these things rarely converged all at once in a perfect storm of serial bungles. Even if her leave remained in force, Nikki reasoned that proximity would at least give her a fighting chance to stem the damage before the case of her life got trashed.

True to form, Rook suggested that they try to unplug from work for their final night in Paris. Nikki asked, “You mean, like try not to be too mindful of the fact that we watched a key witness die before our eyes this morning?”

“There ya go,” he said. “And if it helps, I’m not above digging up the old ‘Tyler would have wanted it that way’ chestnut. And judging from those photos in that keepsake box, he wasn’t one to let a good time go to waste.”

Heat agreed to the mental night off. In fact, she welcomed it-but only if Rook let her treat him to dinner for their REWOTC (Romantic Evening While Off The Case). “Even for me, these acronyms are starting to blur,” he said. “But you’re on.”

She took him to Le Papillon Bleu, a hidden treasure on a side street in Le Marais where locals dined by candlelight on fresh mussels and clams from Port du Belon while they listened to accented American jazz performed live. A stunning young French reincarnation of Billie Holiday sang “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” with a voice that almost made them forget Louis Armstrong’s version. Well, almost.

They ordered aperitifs, and after Rook surveyed the menu and pronounced the place quite a find, Nikki gave him the unasked-for assurance that it was her first time there. “You mean this hasn’t been boyfriend tested, boyfriend approved?”

“On the contrary,” she said. “Of course, I had heard all about Le Papillon Bleu, but ten years ago, as a student, I didn’t have enough money to eat in a place like this.”

He took her hand in his across the crisp white linen. “So this qualifies as a special occasion.”

“Count on it.”

They walked off their meal wandering hand in hand past the quaint shops of Le Marais. With the jazz singer’s “Our Love Is Here to Stay” and “Body and Soul” still floating in their heads, they ended up at the Place des Vosges, an immaculately maintained square surrounded on four sides by historic brick-faced homes with elegant blue slate roofs. “This place looks like the rich uncle of Gramercy Park,” she said as they followed the path into the garden.

“Yeah. But without the sneak attacks by rug-wielding cops.” As soon as he said that, they heard a shoe crunch on gravel behind them and she turned abruptly. A lone man hobbled along the sidewalk outside the park on a bad leg and continued on, whistling to himself. Rook said to her, “You need to relax. Nobody’s going to bother us. Not on our big ROTC.”

“ROTC?”

“Hey, I give. At this point, I’m just throwing out capital letters in any order.”

They had the park to themselves, and she led him to a bench under the trees, where they sat in the shadows together, nestling against each other. The city traffic floated like distant white noise, merely blocks away but buffered by the uniform row of stately buildings surrounding the square and the gentle splash of fountains. As they so often did, without a word or a signal, they leaned into each other at the same time and kissed. The wine and the warm April evening scented by night blooms and his taste released Nikki from the weight of her cares and she pressed herself against him. He encircled her with his arms and their kiss grew in its intensity until they both parted lips, breathing hard as if suddenly remembering that, to live, they also needed air.

“Maybe we should take this back to the hotel,” he whispered.

“Mm-hm. But I don’t want to move. I want to freeze this moment.” They kissed again, and while they did, he unfastened the top button of her blouse. She reached for his lap and held him. He moaned, and she said, “You know, I don’t think my New York credential would help me beat an indecent exposure.”

“Or a lewd act in public,” he said, slipping his hand in her bra.

“OK, I know we can make this much more interesting back in our bed. Let’s do it.”

They crossed through the park in silence, arms slung around each other’s waist. As they walked, he felt her shoulders and biceps tauten slightly. He said, “As long as you insist on thinking about the case, why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind? Maybe we could find some kinky way to incorporate it into foreplay. With handcuffs, of course.”

“You could tell?”

“Please. I’d like to think I’m more to you than diverting wit and arm candy. But it’s OK if you’re preoccupied, I know this is big.”

“Sorry. Something from today keeps bugging me. Something I know I’ve overlooked, and I’m reaching for it but I can’t grasp what it is. That’s not like me.” Her reply was only partially true. Nikki did have a feeling of missing a step and it did pester her. But she only offered him that as a cover to avoid the deeper, more personal issue she had been mulling all day.

Rook yanked her hip to bump his, to shake her up. “Give yourself a break. You’ve had a lot coming at you.” The nod she gave in the dark read to him as noncommittal, so, as they strolled on, he continued, “I mean, beyond the obvious mill you’ve been through this past week, some of the things you learned about your mother…? Those are going to take you a while to digest.”

“Yeah, I know.” She felt her throat constrict and swallowed hard, which didn’t seem to do much good. How could Rook know her so well, be so attuned as to see through her armor? To get it-that it wasn’t really the murder case per se she was stuck on at that moment. But he didn’t know the depth of it. Rook couldn’t know that right then, she wasn’t walking through a storybook park across from Victor Hugo’s home, holding him while he hummed “Stardust” off-key. In her mind, she was back in that hospital room feeling relief that her mother had been working as a spy to serve her country, only to have the rug pulled from under her by the words she couldn’t shake.

She could still see Tyler Wynn regarding her from his pillow. The old CIA man saying her mother was one hell of a spy. And how “the sense of mission it gave her fulfilled her like nothing else could. Not even her music.”

Nikki completed the rest of the thought herself: Not even me.

Tires screeched. Light blinded her and shook her from her reverie. She and Rook were getting ambushed-boxed in at the street corner-sandwiched between two dark Peugeot 508s with blacked-out windows and their high beams frying them.

Rook moved quickly and instinctively, sliding to step in front of her. But footsteps approached from behind them, too. Heat pivoted to see the man from before, the whistler, rushing toward them, his bad leg miraculously healed. Four others-two muscle men from each car-converged from both sides, grabbing for them. By reflex, she reached for her hip. But her gun was back in New York.

In a flash, two of them enveloped Rook and dragged him to one of the vehicles while a third man appeared from the passenger seat and pulled a cloth sack over his head. Heat dodged the first of the other pair when he reached for her, but the one coming up from behind, the whistler, bagged her head, also. Disoriented and surprised, she felt the powerful arms of the other two goons wrap her up in a bear hug and lift her feet off the sidewalk. Nikki kicked air, squirmed, and hollered, but the big men had her overmatched.

They bundled Heat into the backseat of the other car and wedged her between their wide shoulders when they got in. Her shouts mixed with the scream of rubber on pavement as the Peugeot accelerated. The car had started roaring up the block, when she felt a sharp stab in her upper arm.