Killer Heat

THIRTY-FIVE

Iwas sitting at my desk at one o'clock that afternoon when Mercer came back from the hospital. Laura had instructions not to let anyone else in to see me after I returned from Judge Lamont's chambers, having adjourned Floyd Warren's sentencing till the next day

What's the matter, Alex? Does your head hurt?" Mercer closed the door behind him and walked to my desk, opening a bag with sandwiches and coffee for each of us.

I wasn't even aware that I was rubbing a small knot on my temple, where it had smacked against the cab's partition. "I can't remember whether there was a time before last week when my head didn't ache. How's Kerry?"

"She's going to give new meaning to the colors black and blue by the time her bruises are in full bloom tonight. Everything checked out fine, but she's hurting. I took her back to the hotel. I assume you postponed the case?"

"Yes. No problem, of course."

"Well, Kerry just wants to get on a plane and go back home."

"I don't blame her. Did you bring up the subject of talking to Warren?"

"I did. She's okay with it, Alex. Anything that might prevent some one else from becoming a victim. He's sixty-one years old, and Lamont is threatening to hit him with the full fifty. Half of that will be fine, if he gives us anything."

"It's not the time behind bars. It's the symbolism. It's a statement on behalf of what he took from Kerry's life and all the other women who were attacked."

"Call Gene Grassley now," Mercer said. "Let's give this a go." He was unwrapping the foil on our sandwiches when Laura buzzed me on the intercom.

"Ryan Blackmer's here, Alex. It's about this morning's accident. The Latin Prince from court last week who crashed into your cab."

"Let him in."

Ryan was one of my favorite colleagues, smart and creative and always willing to go the full nine yards with any cop who brought him an interesting case.

"Hey, Mercer. Alex. I didn't know you were at the vortex of a Dominican jihad. I always figured you for getting trampled to death at a sample sale of designer dresses. This rocks."

"And what's 'this'?"

"Tu amigo Antonio Lucido, carida. I'm supervising in ECAB today,"

Ryan said, referring to the intake section through which every arrest passed for processing-the early case assessment bureau. "Laura told me this guy and his buddies were stalking you in court last week. I went up to Lamont to get a statement from him before coming here."

"He was in the car, this Lucido kid?" Mercer asked. I had left a message on his cell shortly after I came upstairs, telling him about the involvement of the Latin Princes in the crash.

"Yeah. The guys brought him in for leaving the scene. He was in the passenger seat, according to one of the cops who made the grab."

"Is he talking?"

"You know Alex likes the strong, silent type. Not a word. Turns out the car is stolen, too. Taken out of long-term parking at Newark Airport just after midnight, so that adds a little heat to the charges."

"Will you keep this yourself?" I asked.

"Absolutely. And then there's the matter of the gun under the front seat. Fully loaded semiautomatic."

"Damn," Mercer said. "You got raps back on him yet?"

"Waiting on that now. You want to tell me what happened?"

"I didn't see anything. I really didn't," I said. "If that street was a bit wider so the Plymouth could have gotten around us, I would have thought we'd been rear-ended accidentally and they just ran off scared."

But I knew it was no coincidence that Posano's posse had been waiting for me outside my office with a loaded gun.

"We've got a lot of witnesses, Alex."

"Add Justin Feldman to the list. He thinks maybe they could have seen me inside the cab, through the open window."

There was a sharp rap on the door and before I could ask who was there, Mike opened it and came in. "You're like a frigging heat-seeking missile, Blondie. What is it with you?"

I frowned as I glanced at Mercer.

"I had to call him, Alex."

"You didn't take me away from anything important. Yes, the troopers found human hair in the back of Dylan's van. Yes, they found his fingerprints-as well as prints that don't match his. Yes, they've swabbed it for DNA. Be patient and we'll have comparisons in the next fortyeight. And-oh, yeah, you'll like this one 'cause it was your idea. They got results back from the swabs of the inside of the handcuffs they found on Saturday. Turns out they were used on both Amber Bristol and Elise Huff. Like you said, link the cases by the vics if you can't do it by the perp. Otherwise, I had nothing to do today but worry about you."

"I thought you were going with Dickie Draper, out to see what the story is on Ruffle Bar. The real one."

"Turns out Special Ops uses that place once a month for drills. Peterson asked their CO to send men to look it over. They keep a chopper on standby."

"What do they use the island for?" I asked. I knew that Special Ops was a high-powered training division of the NYPD, made up of members of the Harbor, Aviation, and Emergency Services units. "They stage disasters, Coop, so they can prepare for the response.

Terrorist attacks, plane crashes, boat accidents. The bodies-well, the mannequins-wind up on Ruffle Bar, and Special Ops has to swim in or fly in to triage the victims. If there's anything of interest on that sandbar-including a sample of the sand-they'll get it for us. What's new, Ryan?"

Ryan and Mike shook hands, and Mike listened to details of the morning's arrest.

"You really don't need to be here," I said. "Who's tailing Kiernan Dylan?"

"It's tough to tail a guy when you don't know where he is."

"Didn't he go home after he got out of court last night?" Mike put both hands in his pants pockets and looked down at the floor.

"Peterson's got somebody sitting on his apartment, his father's place, the house at Breezy Point. No sign of him anywhere."

"How about the bar?"

"Some jerk," Mike said, making the sign of the cross on his chest, "was stupid enough to want to shut that place down. Nobody home."

"Let me get back downstairs," Ryan said. "I just wanted to know if you saw anything, heard anything. Sounds like you didn't. I'll draw this up with the cops who witnessed it. No injuries to you, right? Just your victim?"

"Exactly. You think you can keep him in?"

"Shouldn't be difficult. Throw in a reckless assault, too. Got myself a real case in the middle of the off-season. I can't imagine Antonio got to this level in the Latin Princes without a few visits to the can. If we don't have enough to hold him on this, I'm sure he's got a rap sheet that will help. I'll let you know as soon as it comes back."

"Any idea who the driver was?" Mercer asked.

"Not yet. And Senor Lucido isn't saying nada. The car's being towed. They'll actually dust it for prints. Helps to have a victim with juice, Ms. Cooper."

"Who's the girl?"

Ryan looked at the arrest papers folded in his rear pocket. "She's been playing games with us. No ID on her, so we're waiting on her prints, too. The first thing she told the cops was that her name is Clarita Munoz. Then about five minutes later she changed it to Clarita Cruz. Then she clammed up completely. Had a pocket-size canister of Mace in her jeans. Love to know where she was going with that."

"Thanks, Ryan. When you find out, let me know," I said, as he walked out of the room. "See you later."

"Why does that name sound familiar to me?" Mercer asked. Mike was at my desk, helping himself to half of my turkey sandwich. "Probably because you've been watching too much Telemundo, my pal."

Mercer called out to Laura, who came to the door. "Help me with this. You got Alex's book there?"

Laura turned to her desk and picked up my red appointment diary.

"Sure."

"What's the name of the girl who was scheduled to come in at eleven today? Alex and I were standing right next to you while you were on the phone with Ed, in Witness Aid, making the date when we came down from court last Thursday."

Laura found the entry. "Clarita Munoz."

I was rubbing my forehead again but nothing registered. Mike was chewing while he puzzled this out. "You were supposed to meet with this girl today? And she's sitting in a car, waiting for you to show up at the building, with a can of Mace, a loaded gun, and two Latin Princes? Que pasa, Coop?"

"They couldn't possibly have known I was coming to work in a cab. That I'd be squaring the block from Baxter Street," I said. "That's not my usual route."

Mercer was pacing the room. "Like everyone says, it's a stupid place to stage an accident. So suppose that crash was just a spur-of-themoment idea. The guys were there to accompany Clarita, who had an actual appointment to walk right in this door. Set her up for whatever she was going to do and be her getaway car-if she was getting anywhere. The cab pulled up, they see your platinum head in the window, and the driver makes a command decision, on the spot, to lock fenders. Just to shake you up, like they were doing last week."

"Okay, so they certainly weren't trying to kill me," I said, wanting to believe that. "Not inside One Hogan Place."

"But if Clarita is Posano's shortie, maybe she's trying to make her bones with him. Imagine she gets up here-right to the main floor of Battaglia's center of power-and sprays you with Mace. How much more in your face does it get?" Mercer said. "Imagine her status when word gets up to state prison. Meantime, she hasn't caused you any serious injury. She'd hardly get more than a slap on the wrist."

"I like your thinking, Detective," Mike said.

"And you need to call Rodman's Neck," he went on, wagging a finger at Mike. "See what happened to those cartridges they were going to analyze from Friday morning's shooting."

"The range?" Mike put down the sandwich and brushed the crumbs off his hands. "What's this babe got to do with that?"

"You and Alex didn't think anyone knew you were going to be at the range on Friday morning. Didn't think that shooting had anything to do with her, right?" Mercer said. "Well, when Laura was on the phone with Ed she was talking him through Alex's schedule."

Laura's hand flew up to cover her mouth.

"I heard her tell Ed that she was checking Alex's availability, that if the jury came back as fast as expected, she'd be at the police range the next morning."

Laura removed her hand and nodded. "Maybe she heard me. Or Ed said it out loud. I know I could understand the girl perfectly well when I asked Ed to get me her name. She didn't wait for him to repeat my question. She said she was Clarita Munoz. I'd guess she could hear me just as well as I could hear her.