Naked heat

Chapter Two

As the detectives holstered up, Rook breathed a sigh. "Man, I think you took ten years off my life there."

Raley came back with, "You're lucky you still have a life. Why didn't you answer us?"

Ochoa piled on. "We called out to see if anyone was here."

Rook simply held up his iPhone. "Remastered Beatles. Had to get my mind off the b-o-d-y." He made a wince face and pointed into the next room. "But I found that 'A Day in the Life' wasn't the most uplifting diversion. You guys crashed in on me at the end, just on that big piano bong. For real." He turned to Nikki and smiled meaningfully. "Let's hear it for timing, huh?"

Heat tried to ignore the undercurrent, which to her ear wasn't very much under anything. Or maybe she was more sensitive to it. As she scanned Roach for reactions and didn't see any, she wondered if things were more raw for her than she'd thought, or if it was just the shock of seeing him there, of all places. Nikki had crossed paths with old lovers before, who didn't? But usually it was in a Starbucks, or a chance glimpse across the aisle at the movies-not at a murder scene. One thing she was sure of. This was an unwelcome distraction from her job, something to be pushed aside. "Roach," she said, all business, "you two clear the rest of the premises."

"Oh, there's nobody here, I checked." Rook raised both his palms up. "But I didn't touch anything, I swear."

"Check anyway" was Nikki's answer to that, and Roach left to sweep the remaining rooms.

When they were alone, he said, "Nice to see you again, Nikki." And then that damn smile again. "Oh, and thanks for not shooting me."

"What are you doing here, Rook?" She tried to remove any hint of the playfulness that she used to hang on his last name. This guy needed a message.

"Like I said, waiting for you. I was the one who called in the body."

"Not what I'm trying to get at. So let me ask the same question another way. Why are you at this crime scene to begin with?"

"I know the victim."

"Who is she?" All the years on the job, Nikki still found it hard to go to the past tense when referring to a victim. At least not at the hour of discovery.

"Cassidy Towne."

Heat couldn't help herself. She half turned to look into the study, but from where she was standing, she couldn't see the victim, only the post-tornado effect of office supplies scattered around the room. "The gossip columnist?"

He nodded, affirming. "The buzz saw herself."

She immediately started calculating how the apparent murder of the New York Ledger's powerful icon, whose "Buzz Rush" column was the ritual first read for most New Yorkers, was going to ratchet up the stakes on this case. As Raley and Ochoa returned and deemed the apartment clear, she said, "Ochoa, better reach out to the MEs. Give them a courtesy heads-up that we have a high-profiler waiting for them. Raley, you call Captain Montrose so he knows we're working Cassidy Towne from the Ledger and he doesn't get blindsided. And see if he can put a hustle on CSU and also get some extra uniforms here, like, now." The detective could already project that the quiet, golden block she had enjoyed a few minutes ago would soon be transformed into a media street fair.

As soon as Roach left the kitchen again, Rook stood and took a step toward Nikki. "Seriously. I've missed you."

If his step closer was meant as body English, she had some nonverbal cues of her own. Detective Heat turned her back to him, got out her reporter's-cut notebook and a pen, and put her face to a new page. But she knew herself well enough to know the chill message she wanted to send was as much to herself as to him. "What time did you discover the body?"

"About six-thirty. Listen, Nikki…"

"How close to six-thirty? Do you have a more accurate idea of the time?"

"I got here exactly at six-thirty. Did you get any of my e-mails?"

"Got here, as in 'in the room to discover her,' or got here, as in 'outside'?"

"Outside."

"And how did you get in?"

"The door was open. Just as you found it."

"So you walked right in?"

"No. I knocked. Then called out. I saw the mess up the hall and went in to see if she was all right. I thought maybe a burglar had been here."

"Did you ever think someone else could have been in here?"

"It was quiet. So I went in."

"That was brave."

"I have my moments, you may recall."

Nikki looked as if she was focused on a notation but really she was replaying the night in the hallway of the Guilford last summer when Noah Paxton used Rook as a human shield, and how, even though he had a gun in his back, he still put a body slam on Paxton that gave Heat a clean shot. She looked up and said, "Where was she when you found her?"

"Right where she is now."

"You didn't move her in any way?"

"No."

"Did you touch her?"

"No."

"How did you know she was dead?"

"I…" He hesitated and continued. "I knew."

"How did you know she was dead?"

"I… I clapped."

Nikki couldn't help herself. The laugh shot out of her with a mind all its own. She was angry at herself for it, but the thing about a laugh like that was you couldn't take it back. You could only work to suppress the next one. "You… you clapped?"

"Uh huh. Loud, you know… to see. Hey, don't laugh, maybe she was asleep, or drunk, I didn't know." He waited while Heat composed herself. And then a chuckle of his own fought its way out. "It wasn't like applause. Just…"

"A clap." She watched the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, and she started to thaw in a way she didn't like, so she threw the switch. "How did you know the victim?" she said to her notepad.

"I've been working with her the past few weeks."

"You're becoming a gossip columnist now?"

"Oh, hell, no. I sold First Press on the idea of doing my next piece for them on Cassidy Towne. Not so much the titillating gossip thing but profiling a powerful woman in a historically male-dominated business, our love-hate relationship with secrets, you get the idea. Anyway, I've been shadowing Cassidy for the past few weeks."

"Shadowing. You mean like…" She let it fall off. This took Nikki down an all-too-uncomfortable road.

"Like the ride-along you and I had, yes. Exactly. Without the sex." He paused to read her reaction, and Nikki did her best not to let it show. "The editors got such a good response to my piece on you, they wanted to follow up with another like it, maybe turn it into an occasional series on kick-ass women." He studied her again, got nothing, then added, "It was a nice article, Nik, wasn't it?"

She tapped the tip of the ballpoint twice on the pad. "Were you here to do that today? Shadow her?"

"Yeah, she got an early start every day, or maybe just continued from the night before, I could never tell. Some mornings I'd show up and she'd be at her desk in the same clothes as the day before, like she'd been working there all night. She'd want to stretch her legs so we'd walk up to H amp;H for some bagels and then next door to Zabar's for the salmon and cream cheese, and then come back here."

"So you did spend a fair amount of time with Cassidy Towne over the last few weeks."

"Yep."

"Then, if I need to ask you for cooperation, you may have some information about who she saw, what she did, and so forth."

"You don't need to ask, and yes, I know tons."

"Can you think of anyone who would want to kill her?

Rook scoffed. "Let's dig around this mess and find a New York phone book. We can start with the letter A."

"Don't be smart."

"Shark's gotta swim." He grinned, then continued. "Come on, she was a mud-slinging gossip columnist, of course she had lots of enemies. It was in the job description."

Nikki could hear footfalls and voices entering the front and put away her notes. "I'll have you give a statement later, but I don't have any more questions for you now."

"Good."

"Except one. You didn't kill her, did you?" Rook laughed, then saw her expression and stopped. "Well?"

He folded his arms across his chest. "I want a lawyer." She turned and left the room and he called after her, "Kidding. Mark me down as a 'no.' " Rook didn't leave. He told Heat he wanted to stick around in case he could be helpful with anything. She had the push-pull thing going: wanting him away from her in the worst way because he was such an emotional disruption; but then seeing the benefit of his potential insights as they went over the wreckage of Cassidy Towne's apartment. The writer had been to plenty of crime scenes with her during his ride-along last summer, so she knew he was scene-friendly, at least trained enough not to pick up a piece of evidence in his bare hands and say, "What's this?" He was also a first-person witness to the most profound element of his magazine story, the death of his subject. Mixed feelings or not, she wasn't going to begrudge Jameson Rook that professional courtesy.

When they went into Cassidy Towne's office, he returned her unspoken favor in kind, keeping out of her way by standing over near the French doors that led out to the courtyard garden. For Detective Heat it always began by slowing down and studying the body. The dead didn't talk, but if you paid attention, sometimes they did tell you things.

In getting a feel for Cassidy Towne, Nikki read the power Rook was talking about. Her suit, a tasteful, navy pinstripe over a French-blue blouse with starched white collar, would work for a talent agency meeting or premiere party. And it was expertly tailored to her, accenting a body that had seen regular gym time. Heat hoped that when she reached fiftysomething that she'd keep it that together. Nikki saw some tasteful David Yurman on Towne's ears and neck, potentially ruling out robbery. There was no wedding ring, so unless that had been stolen, Heat could also rule out marriage. Potentially. Towne's face was slack in death, but angular and attractive, what most would call handsome-not always the highest compliment to a woman, but according to George Orwell, she had had about ten years since forty to earn that face. Not making a judgment, but letting instinct talk to her, Nikki regarded her impression of Cassidy Towne, and the picture that emerged was of someone suited for battle. A hard body whose hardness seemed to run deeper than just muscle tone. A snapshot formed of a woman who was, at that moment, something she probably never was in life. A victim.

Soon CSU was there, dusting the usual touch points for prints, taking photos of the body and the roomscatter. Detective Heat and her team worked in tandem, but more big-picture than close-up. Wearing their blue latex gloves, they walked here and then there and then back again in appraisal of the office, the way golfers read a green before a long putt.

"All right, fellas, I've got my first odd sock." The detective's approach to a crime scene, even one in this much disarray, was to simplify her field of view. She pared everything down to getting inside the logic of the life that was lived in that space and using that empathy to spot inconsistencies, the small thing that didn't fit the pattern. The odd sock.

Raley and Ochoa came across the room to join her. Rook adjusted his position at the perimeter to follow quietly from a distance. "Whatcha got?" asked Ochoa.

"Work space. Busy work space, right? Big newspaper columnist. Pens everywhere, pencils, custom notepads and stationery. Box of Kleenex. Look at this beside her here." She stepped carefully around the body, still cast backward in the office chair. "A typewriter, for God's sake. Magazines and newspapers with clippings snipped out of them, right? All that stuff makes lots of what?"

"Work," said Raley.

"Trash," said Rook, and Heat's two detectives turned slightly his way and then back to Heat, unwilling to acknowledge him as part of this exchange. Like his season pass had expired.

"Correct," she continued, more focused on where she was going than on Rook now. "What's with the wastebasket?"

Raley shrugged. "It's right there. Tipped, but there it is."

"It's empty," said Ochoa.

"Right. And with all the tossing this room took, you'd think, OK, maybe it spilled out." She crouched near it and they went with her. "No clips, snips, Kleenex, or crumpled paper anywhere around it."

"Maybe she emptied it," said Ochoa.

"Maybe she did. But look over there." She side-nodded to the armoire that the columnist had used as a supply closet. It had been rifled, too. And among the contents scattered on the floor was, "A box of waste-can liners. Simplehuman, sized for this can."

"No liner in this can," said Raley. "And no liner on the floor. An odd sock."

"An odd sock, indeed," said Heat. "On the way in, I saw a wooden bin for trash cans in the little patio."

"On it," said Raley. He and Ochoa headed toward the front hall. Lauren Parry from the medical examiner's was making her way in the door as they went out. In the tight space between the tipped furniture, she and Ochoa ended up doing an impromptu dance step getting around each other. In her quick glance over, Nikki caught Ochoa lingering to check Lauren out as he left. She made a mental note to warn her girlfriend later about rebounding men.

Detective Ochoa was still fresh from a marital separation. He had hidden the breakup from the squad for about a month, but those kinds of secrets don't keep in such a tight working family. The laundry sitch alone gave him away when he started showing up in dress shirts with telltale "Boxed for Your Convenience" creases on their torsos. Over an after-work beer the week before, Nikki and Ochoa were the stragglers at the table, so she took the opportunity to ask him how it was going. A gloom settled over him and he said, "You know. It's a process." She was happy to leave it at that, but he finished his Dos Equis and half smiled. "You know, it's kind of like those car ads. What happened to the relationship, I mean. I saw one on TV in my new apartment the other night and it said, 'Zero interest for two years.' And I went, yep, that was us, all right." Then a sheepishness came over him about opening up like that. He left some money under his empty glass and called it a night. He didn't bring it up again, and neither did she.

"Sorry not to be here sooner, Nikki," Lauren Parry said as she set her plastic examination cases on the floor. "I've been working a double fatal on the FDR since four a…" The ME's voice trailed off when she spotted Rook leaning a shoulder against the connecting door leading to the kitchen. He pulled one of his hands out of his pocket and gave her a wave. She nodded and smiled at him, then turned to Heat and finished her sentence. "… four A.M." With her back to Rook, she was able to sneak a what-the-hell? face to Nikki.

Nikki lowered her voice and muttered to her friend, "Tell you later." Then, at full volume, she moved on. "Rook found the victim."

"I see…"

While her BFF from the ME's office set up to perform her exam, Heat filled her in on the discovery details the writer had provided in their kitchen interview. "Also, when you get a moment, I noticed a blood smear over there." ME Parry followed Heat's gesture to the same doorway she had just entered. Beside the jamb, the floral Victorian wallpaper showed a dark discoloration. "Looks like she might have tried to get out before she collapsed in the chair."

"Could be. I'll swab it. Maybe Forensics can cut a patch so we can lab it; that would be better."

Ochoa returned to report that both trash barrels in the patio hutch were empty. "During a garbage strike?" said Nikki. "Find the super. See if he disposed of it. Or if she had private pickup, which I doubt. But check anyway, and if she had it, find the truck before they barge it to Rhode Island or wherever it goes these days."

"Oh, and get ready for your close-up," said Ochoa at the door. "The news vans and shooters are lining up in front. Raley's working with the uniforms to move them back. Word is out on the scanners. Ding-dong the witch is dead."

Lauren Parry rose up from Cassidy Towne's body and made a note on her chart. "Body temp indicates a prelim TOD window of midnight to 3 A.M. I can do better after I run the lividity and the rest of the course."

"Thanks," said Nikki. "And cause?"

"Well, as always, it's preliminary, but, I think, obvious." She gently moved the office chair so that the body leaned forward, revealing the wound. "Your gossip columnist was stabbed in the back."

"No symbolism there," said Rook. When Cassidy Towne's assistant, Cecily, reported for work at eight she broke down in sobs. Forensics gave Nikki Heat the OK, and she righted two of the chairs in the living room and sat with her, resting a palm on the young woman's back as Cecily leaned forward with her face in her hands. CSU had closed off the kitchen, so Rook gave her the bottle of water he had in his messenger bag.

"Hope you don't mind room temperature," he said, and then shot an oops look at Heat. But if Cecily made the connection to her boss's state in the next room, she didn't let on.

"Cecily," Nikki said, when she finished a sip of water, "I know this must be very traumatic for you."

"You have no idea." The assistant's lips began to tremble, but she kept it together. "Do you realize this means I have to find a new job?"

Nikki's gaze slowly rose to Rook, who stood facing her. She knew him well enough to know he wanted his water back. "How long had you been with Ms. Towne?"

"Four years. Since I graduated Mizzou."

"University of Missouri has an intern program with the Ledger," Rook injected. "Cecily transitioned from it to Cassidy's column."

"That must have been quite an opportunity," said Nikki.

"I guess. Am I going to have to, like, clean all this up?"

"I think our crime scene unit is going to be busy here for most of the day. My guess is the paper will probably let you take some time off while we do our thing." That seemed to mollify her for the moment, so Nikki pressed on. "I need to ask you to think about something, Cecily. It may be difficult at this moment, but it's important."

"K…"

"Can you think of anyone who wanted to kill Cassidy Towne?"

"You're kidding, right?" Cecily looked up at Rook. "She's kidding, right?"

"No, Detective Heat doesn't kid. Trust me."

Nikki leaned closer in her chair to draw Cecily's attention back. "Look, I know she was a lightning rod and all that. But over the past days or few weeks, were there any unusual incidents or threats she got?"

"Oh, every day, like literally. She didn't even see them. When I sort her mail at the Ledger, I just leave them there in a big sack. Some of them are pretty random."

"If we gave you a ride there, could we see them?"

"Uh, sure. You'd probably have to get the managing editor to sign off, but fine with me."

"Thanks, I'll do that."

"She got calls," said Rook, "her Ledger extension forwarded to here."

"Oh, right, right." Cecily looked around at the mess. "If you can find it, her answering machine has some nasty shit on it. She screened." Nikki made a note to locate it and have the messages gone through for leads.

"I know something else that's missing," said Rook. "No filing cabinets. She had big filing cabinets in the corner near the door."

The idea of a filing cabinet hadn't occurred to Nikki. Not yet, anyway. Score one for Rook.

"There should be two in there," affirmed the assistant. She leaned forward in her chair to venture a look into the study but decided against it.

Heat made a note about the AWOL filing cabinets. "Other things that might be helpful would be her appointments. I assume you have access to her Outlook calendar." Cecily and Rook shared a look of amusement. "Am I missing something?"

Rook said, "Cassidy Towne was a Luddite. Everything was on paper. Didn't use a computer. Didn't trust them. She said she liked their convenience, but it was too easy for someone to steal your material. E-mail forwards, hackers, what not."

"But I do have her planner." The assistant opened her backpack and handed Nikki the spiral-bound datebook. "I have old ones, too. Cassidy had me hang on to them for documenting business meals and for tax prep."

Nikki looked up from a recent page. "There are two sets of handwriting in here."

"Right," said the assistant. "Mine's the one you can read."

"No kidding," said Nikki as she turned pages. "I can't make out her handwriting at all."

"Nobody could," she said. "Just part of the joy of working for Cassidy Towne."

"She was tough?"

"She was impossible. Four years of J-school to be the next Ann Curry, and where do I end up? Nanny to that thankless bitch."

Nikki was going to ask later, but with that opening, it seemed the perfect time. "Cecily, this is a routine question I ask everyone. Can you tell me where you were overnight, say between eleven P.M. and three A.M.?"

"In my apartment with my BlackBerry turned off so my boyfriend and I could get some sleep and without getting called by Her Highness." On the short drive back to the precinct Nikki left voice mail for Don, her combat trainer, to rain check her busted morning jujitsu workout with him. The ex-Navy SEAL was probably in the showers by that time, no doubt having found another sparring partner. Don was a no strings, no worries guy. Same for their sex, when they had it. They both had no trouble finding other sparring partners there, either, and the no-strings relationship made for a mutually workable life design. If workable was your deal.

She had taken a hiatus from sleeping with Don during the time she was with Rook. Not a decision she made, it just worked out that way. Don never seemed bothered, nor did he ask about it when they resumed their occasional night sessions when summer ended and Jameson Rook was out of her life.

Now there he was again, Jameson Rook in her rearview mirror. Her ex-lover, riding shotgun with Raley, the two of them sitting wordlessly at the stoplight in the car behind her, looking out opposite windows of the unmarked like an old married couple with nothing more to say. Rook had asked to pool with Nikki back to the Twentieth, but when Ochoa said he wanted to accompany Cassidy Towne's body down to the OCME, Heat told Raley to play chauffeur for the writer. Nobody seemed thrilled with the arrangements but Nikki.

Her thoughts drifted to Ochoa. And Lauren. He fooled no one with his duty sense to stay close to the high-profile victim, calling it due diligence to see the delivery through from crime scene to morgue. Maybe she should butt out and leave Lauren to find her own way. When Ochoa had approached to suggest his plan, Nikki saw the masked smile on her friend's face as Lauren eavesdropped. As Nikki turned onto 82nd and double-parked in front of the precinct, she thought, hey, they were adults and she wasn't the den mother. Let them have whatever happiness there was to be found in this work. If a man is willing to ride with a corpse just to be with you, that's more effort than you get from most. The coroner's van took a nasty pothole on Second Avenue, and in the back, ME Parry and Detective Ochoa took some air and came down hard on the seats flanking Cassidy Towne's body bag. "Sorry," came the driver's voice from up front. "Blame last winter's blizzards. And the deficit."

"You OK?" Ochoa asked the ME.

"Fine, I'm used to it, believe me," she said. "Are you sure this doesn't weird you out?"

"This? Nah, fine. No sweat."

"You were telling me about your soccer league."

"I'm not boring you?"

"Please," Lauren said. And after the slightest hitch, she continued, "I'd like to come see you play sometime."

Ochoa beamed. "For real? Nah, you're just being polite to me because I'm a live person in your day."

"True…" And they both laughed. His eyes fell away from hers for a second or two, and when he looked up she was smiling at him.

He gathered his courage and said, "Listen, Lauren, I'm playing goalie this Saturday, and if you're-"

The tires squealed, glass shattered, and metal crunched. The van crashed so hard to a sudden stop that its rear tires lifted and slammed down, tossing Ochoa and Lauren. The back of her head smacked the side wall of the cargo bay as the van came to rest.

"What the hell…?" she said.

"You all right?" Ochoa unbuckled his belt to cross to her, but before he could get out of it, the rear doors flew open and three men in ski masks and gloves were filling it, holding guns on them. Two were Glocks, the third guy had a nasty-looking assault rifle.

"Hands!" shouted the one with the AR-15. Ochoa hesitated, and the shooter put a round in the rear tire underneath him. Lauren screamed, and even with all his range experience, the muzzle blast made Ochoa jump. "Hands, now!" Ochoa raised his high. Lauren's were already up. The other two masks belted their Glocks and went to work unlatching the hardware securing the gurney holding Cassidy Towne's body to the floor of the van. They made quick work of it, and as the rifleman adjusted his position to keep his aim on Ochoa, his crew rolled the gurney out of the cargo bay and wheeled it somewhere to the side of the vehicle where Ochoa had no view.

Behind them southbound traffic on Second was bunching up. The lane immediately behind the shooter was at a stop; the other lanes were crawling around the blockage. Ochoa tried to memorize all the details for later, if there was going to be a later. Not much to go on. He saw one passing driver on his cell phone and was hoping it was a call to Emergency when the crew returned to slam the cargo doors.

"Come out, and you're dead," called the AR-15 through the metal.

"Stay in here," said Lauren, but the detective had his weapon in his hand.

"Don't move," he told her and kicked the door open. He jumped out on the opposite side of where they had taken the gurney and did a cover roll behind the rear wheel. Underneath the van he could see broken glass, fluid streaming from the engine, and the wheels of the dump truck they had T-boned.

Tires burned rubber, and Ochoa booked it around the van in shooting position, but the big SUV-black, no plates-sped off. Its driver cut a sharp, evasive turn to put the dump truck between himself and Ochoa. In the seconds it took the detective to run up to the truck and brace, the SUV had turned off onto 38th Street for the FDR, the East River, or who knew where?

Behind Ochoa a driver called out, "Hey, buddy, can you move this?"

The detective turned. Sitting out there in the traffic lane was Cassidy Towne's gurney. It was empty. Detective Heat returned to the bull pen from dropping off Cassidy Towne's phone message cassettes and datebook for analysis by Forensics. Raley strode to her as soon as she walked in. "Got an update on Coyote Man."

"Do you have to do that?" Heat objected to giving victims nicknames. She understood the economy of it, the shorthand it created for a busy squad to quickly communicate, sort of like naming a Word file something that everyone could easily reference. But there was also a dark humor component to it she didn't like. Heat also understood that-the coping mechanism on a grim job was to depersonalize it by making light of the dark. But Nikki was a product of her own experience. Recalling her mother's murder, she didn't want to think the homicide crew on that case had had slang for her mom, and the best way to respect that was not to do it herself… And to discourage it in her squad, which she had always done, albeit with spotty success.

"Sorry, sorry," said Raley. "Re-set. I have some information on our deceased male Hispanic from this morning. The gentleman who you speculated may have been attacked by the coyote?"

"Better."

"Thank you. Traffic found an illegally parked produce truck a block from the body. Registered to…" Raley consulted his notes, "Esteban Padilla of East One Hundred and Fifteenth."

"Spanish Harlem. You sure it's his truck?"

Raley nodded. "Positive match to the vic in a family photo taped to his dashboard." Just the sort of detail that always made Nikki's stomach take an elevator plunge. "I'll do a follow-up."

"Good, keep me up on it." She gave him a nod and started to her desk.

"So you really think that was a coyote, huh?"

"Looked it to me," she said. "They do get into the city every now and again. But I have to go with the ME on this one. If it was a coyote, it came after the fact. I can't think of any coyote that would steal a man's wallet."

"Wile E. Coyote would have." Rook. Smart-assing from the old desk he used to sit at. "Of course, he would have gotten some ACME dynamite first and blown his nose and hair off. And then stood there blinking." He demonstrated. "I watched a lot of cartoons as a youngster. Part of my unsupervised upbringing."

Raley looped back to his desk and Heat stepped over to Rook. "I thought you were going to write a statement and go."

"I wrote it," he said. "Then I tried to make an espresso out of this machine I gave you guys and it's NG."

"We, um, haven't made a lot of espresso drinks since you left."

"Clearly." Rook stood and dragged the machine from the back of the desk toward him. "God, these things are always heavier than they look. See? It's not plugged in, the water reservoir is down… Let me set it up for you."

"We're good."

"OK, fine, but if you decide to use it, don't just put water in. It's a pump, Nikki. And like any pump it has to be primed."

"Fine."

"Do you want some help with that? There's a right way and a wrong way."

"I know how to-" She ended that thread of conversation right there. "Listen, let's forget all about…"

"Steamy deliciousness?"

"… coffee, and look at your statement. Deal?"

"Done." He handed her a single sheet of paper and sat on the edge of the desk, waiting.

She looked up from the page. "This is it?"

"I tried to be concise."

"This is one paragraph."

"You're a busy woman, Nikki Heat."

"All right, look." She paused to collect her thoughts before she continued. "I was left with the distinct impression that your weeks-weeks-in the company of our murdered gossip columnist would mean you had more knowledge than this." She dangled the page at its corner between her thumb and forefinger so that it sold flimsy. The air-conditioning kicked on and it even waved in the breeze, a nice touch.

"I do have more knowledge."

"But?"

"I'm bound by my journalistic ethics not to compromise my sources."

"Rook, your source is dead."

"And that would release me," he said.

"Then pony up."

"But there are others I talked to who might not want to be compromised. Or things I saw, or confidences I was given access to that I wouldn't want to write down and have taken out of context at someone's expense."

"Maybe some time to think about this is what you need."

"Hey, you could put me in the Zoo Lockup." He chuckled. "That was one of the great take-aways from my ride-along, seeing you break down the newbies in Interrogation with that hollow threat. Beautiful. And effective."

She assessed him a beat and said, "You're right. I'm a busy woman." She took a half step and he blocked her.

"Wait, I have a solution to this little dilemma." He paused long enough to let her complete a rather unsubtle watch check. "What would you say if I told you we could work this case together?"

"You don't want to hear what I'd say, Rook."

"Hear me out. I want to see through this critical new angle of my Cassidy Towne piece. And if we were a team, I could share my leads and insights about the victim with you. I want access, you want sources, it's win-win. No, it's better than win-win. It's me-you. Just like old times."

In spite of herself, Nikki felt a tug on a level she didn't control. But then she thought, maybe she couldn't control the feeling, but she could control herself. "Do you have any idea how transparent you are? All you want to do is dangle your sources and insight so you can spend time with me again. Nice try," she said and moved off to her desk.

Rook followed her. "I was kind of hoping you'd like this idea, for two reasons. First, beyond-yes-the pleasure of your company, it would give us a chance to clear the air about whatever happened between us."

"That's only one reason. What's the other?"

"Captain Montrose already approved it."

"No…"

"He's a great guy. Smart, too. And the pair of Knicks tickets didn't hurt." Rook extended his hand to shake. "Looks like it's you and me, partner."

While Nikki stared at his hand, her phone rang and she turned away to answer. "Hey, Ochoa." Then her face lost color and her exclamation of "What?!" made heads turned in the bull pen. "Are you all right?" She listened, nodding, and said, "All right. Get back here as soon as you can after you make your statement."

When she hung up, she had an audience of the bull pen around her desk. "That was Ochoa. Somebody stole Cassidy Towne's body."

A stunned silence followed, which was broken by Rook. "Looks like we're teaming up just at the right time."

Heat's look didn't match his enthusiasm.