Naked heat

Chapter Five

Nikki searched Holly's face for a tell. The cop in her lived every waking hour on alert for one. Something to let her know more than what was being said. An indication that this was a lie. Or, if it wasn't, what the woman felt about the information she was giving. Detective Heat worked in a business where people constantly bullshitted her. Nine times out of ten, it was only a matter of how much. Looking for the tell and, especially, being able to read it, helped her figure out the degree of dishonesty.

Hers was a beautiful world.

The feedback on Holly Flanders came across the Interrogation Room table to Nikki from a face clouded by a storm of mixed emotions, but it felt like the truth. Or some version of it. When Holly broke eye contact to chip away at her nails some more, Heat turned beside her and gave Rook an arched brow. The writer should have no trouble reading her tell. It said, Well, Mr. Ride-along?

"I didn't know Cassidy Towne had any children." He took a soft tone, sensitive to the girl. Or maybe because he was feeling defensive.

"Neither did she," Holly spat back. "She got knocked up and basically disowned me."

"Let's slow this down here, Holly," said the detective. "Walk me through this because this is pretty new and pretty big to me."

"What's hard to understand? What are you, stupid? You're a cop, figure it out. I was her 'love child.' " She put a stink on the term as years of anger spilled out of her. "I was her bastard, her dirty little secret, and she couldn't wait to sweep me under the rug. She had me placed before my frickin' umbilical fell off practically. Well, now she doesn't need to pretend I don't exist. Or to refuse me any support because she's ashamed of me, like I'm some constant reminder of how she screwed up. Of course you didn't know. She didn't want anybody to know. How can you be the ball-busting queen of scandal when you've got a scandal of your own?"

The young woman wanted to cry, but instead she sat back in her chair, panting off her rant as if she had run a sprint. Or gotten startled awake again from the same nightmare.

"Holly, I know this is difficult, but I need to ask you some questions." To Heat, Holly Flanders was still a murder suspect, but she proceeded with a quiet empathy. If Cassidy Towne was indeed her mother, Nikki had a personal feeling for Holly's position as the daughter of a murder victim. Assuming, of course, she hadn't killed her.

"Like I have a choice?"

"Your last name is Flanders, not Towne. Is that the name of your father?"

"It was the last name of one of my foster families. Flanders is an OK name. At least it's not Madoff. What would people think about me then?"

Detective Heat brought Holly back to her agenda. "Do you know who your father is?" Holly just shook her head. Nikki continued. "Did your mother?"

"She got laid a lot, I guess." Holly gestured, acknowledging herself. "Family trait, right? If she knew, she didn't ever say."

"And you never had any inkling who?" Nikki was pressing the point because a paternity situation could point to a motive. Holly only shrugged, and the tell was a dodge.

Rook read it, too. "You know, I didn't know who my father was, either." Nikki reacted to this disclosure. Holly canted her head to him slightly, showing her first sign of interest. "God's truth. And I know firsthand how you form your life around that missing space. It colors everything. And I can't imagine, Holly, that any normal person, especially one as ballsy as you, wouldn't have at least done some checking to see."

Nikki felt the conversation enter a new phase. Holly Flanders spoke directly to Rook. "I did some math," she said. "You know."

"Counting backwards nine months?" he said with a small laugh.

"Exactly. And best I could figure, that was May of 1987. My m- She didn't have her own column yet, but she was down in Washington, DC, for the Ledger all that month digging up stuff on a politician who got busted for banging some ho' on a boat, not his wife."

"Gary Hart," said Rook.

"Whoever. Anyway, my best guess is, she got knocked up with me down there during that trip. And nine months later, ta-da!" She said it with an irony that was heartbreaking.

Heat wrote "DC, May, 1987?" on her pad. "Let's talk about now." She set her pen down to rest against the spirals at the top of her page. "How much contact did you have with your mother?"

"I told you, it was like I didn't exist."

"But you tried."

"Yeah, I tried. I tried since I was a kid. I tried when I dropped out of high school and got myself emancipated and realized I screwed up. Same thing. So, I was like, Fine. F-off and die."

"Then why did you get back in touch with her now?" Holly said nothing. "We have your threat letters on your computer. Why did you reach out again?"

Holly hesitated. Then said, "I'm pregnant. And I need money. My letters came back, so I went to her. Know what she said?" Her lip quaked, but she held strong. "She told me to get an abortion. Like she should have."

"Is that when you bought the gun?" If Holly was playing for emotions, Nikki would call her with business. Let her know this wasn't a jury. Sympathy wouldn't beat facts.

"I wanted to kill her. I picked the lock to get into her apartment one night and went in there."

"With the gun," said the detective.

Holly nodded. "She was asleep. I stood over her bed with the thing pointed right at her. I almost did it, too." She shrugged it off. "After that, I just left." And then, for the first time, she smiled. "Glad I waited." As soon as the uniform led Holly off to Holding, Rook spun to Heat. "I've got it."

"You can't."

"I do. I've got the solve." He could barely contain himself. "Or at least a theory."

Heat gathered up her files and notes and left the room. Rook drafted off her all the way back to the bull pen. The faster she walked, the faster he talked. "I saw that notation you made when Holly brought up the Gary Hart trip. You're with me, too, on this, am I right?"

"Don't ask me to co-sign on your half-baked, undercooked theories, Rook. I don't do theories, remember? I do evidence."

"Ah, but what do theories lead to?"

"Trouble." She made a fast turn into the bull pen. He followed.

"No," he said. "Theories are little seeds that sprout up into big trees that- Damn, some writer, I'm dead-ending on my own metaphor. But my point is, theories are how you get to evidence. They're Point A on the treasure map."

"Hooray for theories," she said in a flat tone and sat at her desk. He rolled a chair up and sat beside her.

"Follow along. Where was Cassidy Towne when she got pregnant?"

"We haven't established-"

He interrupted. "Washington, DC. Doing what?"

"On assignment."

"Covering a politician caught in a scandal. And who put us on the trail of Holly Flanders in the first place?" He smacked both hands on his thighs. "A politician caught in a scandal. Our man is Chester Ludlow!"

"Rook, as adorable as I find that I-Solved-the-Riddle-of-the-Sphinx look on your face, I would hold on to that theory."

He tapped a finger on her notebook. "Then why did you make the note?"

"To check on it," she said. "If the father of Holly Flanders proves relevant, I want to be able to see who was in DC at that time, and who Cassidy Towne had relationships with."

"I'll bet Chester Ludlow was there in DC. He wasn't in office, but a political dynasty like his, he might have been in a patronage job there."

"He might have been, Rook, it's a big city. But even if he were Holly's father, what sense would it make for him to send us on her trail if it led back to him as a suspect?"

Rook paused. "OK, fine. It was just a theory. Glad we could, you know…"

"Dismiss it?"

"One less to worry about," he said.

"You're a big help, Rook. It hasn't been the same here without you." Her phone rang. It was Detective Ochoa. "What's up, Oach?"

"Raley and I are over at the brownstone next door to Cassidy Towne's, with the neighbor. Guy called the precinct to complain that her trash was in his private trash cans." In the background, Nikki could hear the reedy voice of an elderly man speaking in a complaining tone.

"Is that the citizen I'm hearing?"

"Affirm. He's sharing the joy with my partner."

"And how did he discover it was her trash?"

"He monitors," said Ochoa.

"One of those?"

"One of those." When Detective Ochoa finished his conversation with Heat, he joined Raley, who seized on his partner's return to break away from the old man. "Excuse me, sir."

"I'm not done," the citizen said.

"Won't be a moment." When he was out of earshot, he said to Ochoa, "Man, you hear those wackos on talk radio and you wonder where they live. So which is it, are we hauling trash or waiting?"

"She wants us to hang until Forensics comes over. Mr. Galway probably contaminated the trash bags, but they'll get a set of his prints for elimination and do their thing. Doubtful, but they may find something on or around the patio here."

"Worth a shot," agreed Raley.

"Did I hear you say you were going to fingerprint me?" Galway had inched over to them. His cheeks gleamed from a recent shave, and his pale blue eyes flashed decades of angry suspicion. "I've committed no crime."

"Nobody says you did, sir," said Raley.

"I don't think I like your tone, young man. Has this country gotten so accustomed to wiping its hinder with the Constitution that now the police are free to go door-to-door gathering fingerprints from citizens without cause? What are you building, some kind of data bank?"

Raley had had enough and gestured to Ochoa that it was his turn. The other detective thought a moment and beckoned Galway closer. When the old man moved in, Ochoa said in a low voice, "Mr. Galway, your action as an involved citizen has provided the NYPD critical information in a major murder investigation, and we are very grateful."

"Well, thank you, I- This trash of hers was just one offense. I've made numerous complaints."

Ochoa had siphoned some steam out of him and he stayed with the approach. "Yes, sir, and this time it looks like your vigilance paid off. The clue to Ms. Towne's killer may be right here on your patio."

"She never recycled, either. I called 311 till I was blue in the face." He tilted his head close enough so Ochoa could count the capillaries under his translucent skin. "Smut merchant like that is bound to be a scofflaw, too."

"Well, Mr. Galway, you can continue your service by helping our crime lab technicians eliminate your fingerprints from others on these bags so we have no obstacles to finding the killer. You do want to continue to help us, don't you?"

The old guy tugged at an earlobe. "And this won't go into some black ops data bank?"

"You have my personal word."

"Well, I can't see the harm, then," said Galway, who went up to the top of the stoop to share the news with his wife.

"Know what I'm calling you?" said Raley. "The nut whisperer." With her neat, block capitals, Detective Heat entered on the whiteboard the date and time of Holly Flanders's break-in at Cassidy's apartment. As she capped the dry-erase, she heard her cell phone vibrate on her desktop.

It was a text message from Don, her combat trainer. "Tomorrow a.m. Y/N?" She rested a thumb on the Y on her keyboard but hesitated. And then wondered what that pause was about. Her gaze lifted to Rook across the bull pen, sitting with his back to her, talking to someone on his phone. Nikki circled the key with the pad of her thumb and then pressed Y. Y not? she thought.

As soon as Roach came back to the bull pen, Heat gathered her squad around the board for a late-day progress report. Ochoa looked up from a file he was carrying in. "This just arrived from the One-Seven on the body jacking." The room fell quiet. Everyone gave him their attention, feeling the significance of a lead or even, hopefully, recovering the missing body. "They located the getaway SUV, abandoned. It was a stolen just like the dump truck. Says it was taken from a mall parking lot in East Meadow, Long Island, last night. CSU has it for prints and whatever else they can turn." He read a little more to himself, but then simply closed the file and handed it to Heat.

She looked it over and said, "You left something out. It says that it was your observation of the honor student bumper sticker that gave them the critical lead. Way to go, Oach."

"So I guess you weren't too distracted," said Hinesburg.

"What would I be distracted by?"

She shrugged. "There was a lot happening. The accident, the crew, the traffic, whatever… you had lots to think about." Apparently, gossip was getting around about the newly separated Ochoa and his request to ride with Lauren Parry. And it figured Hinesburg would be the one to flog it.

Heat did not like where this was going, someone getting convicted through gossip, and moved to cut it off. "I think we're good for now."

Ochoa wasn't through. "Hey, if you're saying I was distracted from my job by something, say so."

Hinesburg smiled. "Did I say that?"

Nikki interrupted more concretely. "Let's move on here. I want to talk about Cassidy Towne's trash," she said.

Raley was about to speak, but Rook interrupted. "You know, that would have been a much better name for her column. Too late now." He felt their cool stares. "Or maybe too soon." Rook backpedaled his rolling chair to his desk.

"Anyway," said Raley, putting some hair on it, "CSU is working the scene now. Doesn't look like they'll get much. As for the trash itself, it's weird. Only household waste. Coffee grounds, food scraps, cereal boxes, what have you."

"No office materials," continued his partner. "We were especially looking for anything like notes, papers, clippings-nada."

"Maybe she did everything on computer," said Detective Hinesburg.

Heat shook her head. "Rook said she didn't use one. And besides, everybody who uses a computer still prints something. Especially a writer, am I right?"

Since she was addressing him, Rook rolled over to rejoin the circle. "I always print safety copies as I go along just in case my laptop crashes. And also to proof. But like Detective Heat said, Cassidy Towne didn't use a computer. Part of her control thing. Too paranoid about having digital pages scanned, stolen, or forwarded. So she typed everything on that dinosaur IBM Selectric and had her assistant run the copy to the Ledger for filing."

"So we still have the mystery of the missing office papers. Her hard copies." She opened a marker and circled that posting on the board.

Raley said, "It sure looks to me like somebody wanted to get their hands on whatever she was working on."

"I think you're right, Rales, and I'll take it a step further. I'm not closing any doors"-Heat used the marker to gesture to the list of interviewees on the board-"but this is starting to feel less like payback for what she wrote and more like stopping what she was writing. Any help there, Rook? You're our inside man."

"Absolutely. I know she had a big project going on the side. That's why she told me she was burning the midnight oil so much; why she was in the same clothes some mornings when I showed up."

"Did she tell you what it was?" asked Nikki.

"Couldn't get it out of her. I assumed it was a magazine piece and maybe she saw me as a rival. The control thing again. Cassidy told me once-and I even wrote it down to quote in the article-'If you have anything hot,' " Rook closed his eyes to summon the exact words, " 'you keep your mouth shut, your eyes open, and your secrets buried.' Basically, she was saying if it's that big you don't talk it up or someone might beat you to it. Or sue you to stop it."

"Or kill you?" said Nikki. She moved on to point out two days on the time line. "JJ, Cassidy's building super and resident oral historian, said he changed her locks twice. First time was when she felt like someone had been in her place. Based on our interrogation of her estranged daughter, she's the one who had been in there. It also accounts for her prints. She alibied with a john the night of the murder. We're checking, good luck. As for the other lock change, we interviewed Toby Mills, who admits to the kick-down and says it was in response to Towne initiating a stalker episode. Sharon?"

"Copies of the incident report are on your desks along with a picture of this man." Hinesburg held up a security cam still. "He's Morris Ira Granville, still at large. I copied CPK and the One-Nine."

Heat tossed her marker onto the aluminum tray that ran along the bottom of the whiteboard and crossed her arms. "I don't need to tell you Montrose is getting heavy pressure about the missing body. Roach, I got the Cap's OK to pull some manpower from Burglary to canvass those apartments and businesses around"-she paused to find the victim's name on the other board-"Esteban Padilla's crime scene. That way you can stay on this and the body jacking for now."

"I have a thought," said Rook. "That typewriter Cassidy Towne used. Those Selectrics had a ribbon cartridge that spooled through the type guide a letter at a time. If we had any of her old ribbons, we could look at them and at least see what she was working on."

"Roach?" said Nikki.

"On it," said Ochoa.

"Back to the apartment," from Raley.

A few minutes after the meeting broke up, Rook sidled up to Heat, holding his cell phone. "I just got a call from another one of my sources."

"Who is it?"

"A source." He slipped his iPhone into his pocket and crossed his arms.

"You're not going to tell me who, are you?"

"You up for a ride?"

"Is it worth one?"

"Do you have any better leads? Or maybe you'd like to hang around here so you can sit with Captain Montrose and watch the five o'clock news." Nikki considered that a moment. She dropped a stack of files onto her desk and snatched up her keys. Rook told her to pull up to the curb on 44th Street in front of Sardi's. "Beats hanging out at a round-the-clock car wash, don't it?"

"Rook, I swear, if this is your sneaky way of getting me out for a drink, it won't work," she said.

"And yet, here you are." When she popped the transmission into Drive, Rook said, "Wait. I'm kidding. That's not what I'm doing." When she put it back in Park, he added, "But if you change you mind, you know I'm always game."

Inside at the host podium, Nikki spotted Rook's mother, waving from her table across the room. She answered with a wave and then put her back to the woman so she couldn't see the anger on her face as she spun to Rook. "Your mother? This is your source? Your mother?"

"Hey, she called and said she had information on the murder. Would you turn that down?"

"Yes."

"You don't mean that." He studied her. "OK, you do. Which is why I didn't want to tell you. But what could I say to her? Tell her you didn't want to hear whatever information she had? And what if it's useful?"

"You could have done this by yourself."

"She wanted to talk to the police. That would be you. Come on, we're here, it's the end of the day, what have you got to lose?"

Nikki put on a smile and turned to walk to the table. On her way, still grinning, she quietly said to him, "You are so going to pay for this." And then she let her smile grow as they approached Margaret Rook.

She was seated in a corner banquette, regally situated between the caricatures of Jose Ferrer and Danny Thomas. It occurred to Nikki Heat that the setting for Margaret Rook was probably always regal. And if it wasn't, she made it so. Even at the poker game in Rook's loft when Nikki met her last summer, his mother's presence had been decidedly more Monte Carlo than Atlantic City.

After hugs and hellos, they sat. "Is this your usual table?" Nikki asked. "Nice and quiet."

"Well, it's before the pre-theater rush. Trust me, kiddo, it will get loud enough when the buses unload from New Jersey and White Plains. But yes, I like this table."

"It's her favorite view," said Rook. He twisted in his chair, and Heat followed his gaze to his mother's own caricature on the facing wall. The Grand Damn of Broadway, as he called her, smiled back from the 1970s.

Mrs. Rook draped her cool fingers on Nikki's wrist and said, "I have a feeling your caricature might have been up there, too, if you had stuck with theater after college." It jarred Nikki that Rook's mother knew this, since she'd never mentioned it to her, but then it came to her. The article. That damned article. "I would like another Jameson," said the actress.

"I'm afraid you're stuck with me," said Rook, probably not for the first time in his life. Nikki asked the waiter for a Diet Coke and Rook ordered an espresso.

"Right, you're on duty, Detective Heat."

"Yes, Jameso- Jamie said you could tell me something about Cassidy Towne."

"Yes, do you want to hear it now, or wait for cocktails?"

"Now," said Heat and Rook in unison.

"Very well, then, but if I get interrupted, don't blame me. Jamie, you do remember Elizabeth Essex?"

"No."

"Look at him. It always irritates Jamie when I tell him stories about people he doesn't know."

"Actually, it only bugs me when you tell them two or three times and I still don't know who they are. This will just be the first time, so go, Mother, go."

Nikki prodded her more gently by giving her what she wanted, an official ear. "You have relevant information to the Cassidy Towne case? Did you know her?"

"Only in passing, which was how I liked it. We all trade in favors, but she reduced the high art to low commerce. When she was new at the paper, Cassidy would invite me to drinks and ask me to trade her house seats for planting items about me in her column. Oh, I made sure I paid for the drinks. It was different with male actors. She would promise a lot of men ink in exchange for sex. From what I heard, she wasn't always good for her end of the bargain, either."

"So is your information about her… recent?" Nikki asked with hope attached.

"Yes. Now, Elizabeth Essex-write that name down, you'll need it-Elizabeth is a marvelous patroness of the arts. She and I are on the committee to bring an outdoor program of Shakespeare soliloquies to the fountain at Lincoln Center next summer. This afternoon we met with Esmeralda Montes from the Central Park Conservancy for lunch at Bar Boulud before it gets too cool for the patio seating."

"Where's that coffee?" said Rook. "I could use the caffeine."

"Relax, hon, I'm getting there, it's important to set the stage, you know? So we're on our third glass of a very nice Domaine Mardon Quincy, talking all about the murder and the stolen body, as everyone must be, and Elizabeth, who does not hold her liquor well, reveals, in a moment of wine-soaked melancholy, a rather shocking piece of news I feel duty-bound to share."

Nikki asked, "And what would that be?"

"That she tried to kill Cassidy Towne." As the waiter delivered the drinks, Margaret relished the looks on their faces and lifted her fresh rocks glass in a toast. "And, curtain." Elizabeth Essex couldn't stop staring at Nikki Heat's badge. "You'd like to talk to me? About what?"

"I'd rather not discuss it out here in the hallway, Mrs. Essex, and I think neither would you."

The woman said, "All right, then," and opened the door wide, and when the detective and Rook were standing on the imported Venetian terrazzo in her foyer, Nikki began.

"I have some questions to ask you about Cassidy Towne."

Suspects and interviewees in murder cases have a panorama of reactions to the police. They become defensive, or belligerent, or emotional, or stone-faced, or hysterical. Elizabeth Essex fainted. Nikki was eyeballing her for a tell and the woman became a marionette with severed strings.

She came to as Heat was in the middle of her call for an ambulance, and the woman pleaded with her to hang up, that she would be fine. She hadn't hit her head, and her color was coming back, so Nikki obliged. She and Rook steadied her on the way to the living room, and they settled into an L-shaped sofa set angled to take advantage of the penthouse view of the East River and Queens.

Elizabeth Essex, late fifties, wore the Upper East Side uniform, a sweater set and pearls, complete with the tortoiseshell headband. She was attractive without trying, exuded wealth without trappings. She insisted she was all right and pressed Detective Heat to continue. Her husband would be home soon and they had evening plans.

"Well, then," said Detective Heat, "one of us should start talking."

"I've been waiting for this," said the woman with quiet resignation. Nikki was back to observing responses more familiar to her experience. Elizabeth Essex was vibing a mix of guilt and relief.

"You are aware, I assume, that Cassidy Towne was found murdered this morning?" said Heat.

She nodded. "It's been on the news all day. And they say now her body was stolen. How does that happen?"

"I have information that you attempted to kill Cassidy Towne."

Elizabeth Essex was full of surprises. She didn't hesitate; she simply said, "Yes, yes I did."

Heat looked over to Rook, who knew enough to stay out of Nikki's way on this one. He was busy tracking a jet that was banking around Citi Field on short approach to La Guardia. "When was this, Mrs. Essex?"

"June. I don't know the exact date, but it was about a week before the big heat wave. Do you remember that?"

Nikki held her gaze but sensed Rook shifting his weight on the cushions beside her. "And why is it that you wanted to kill her?"

Again, the woman's answer came without pause. "She was screwing my husband, Detective." But the demure politeness had also quickly fallen away, and Elizabeth Essex spoke from a primal place. "Cassidy and I were on the board of the Knickerbocker Garden Club. I used to have to drag my husband to our events, but suddenly, that spring, he seemed more enthused than I to attend. Everybody knew Cassidy spent her life with her legs in the air, but how would I ever suspect it would be with my husband?" She paused and swallowed dryly and, as if anticipating Heat's question, said, "I'm fine, let me get this out."

"Go on," said Nikki.

"My attorney found an investigator to follow them, and sure enough, they met for several trysts. Nicer hotels, usually. And once… once, on our guided visit to the botanical garden, they disappeared from the tour and rutted like animals behind the herbaceous and mixed borders.

"Neither of them knew that I knew, and I didn't blame my husband. It was her. It was the slut. So when our summer banquet came, I did it."

"What did you do, Mrs. Essex?"

"I poisoned the bitch." She now had every bit of her color back, seeming exhilarated with her story. "I did some research. There's a new drug kids are into. Methadrone." Heat knew it very well. It went under the name M-Cat and Meow-Meow. "You know why it's so popular? Access. It's found in plant food." She grinned. "Plant food!"

"That stuff can be fatal," said Rook.

"Not to Cassidy Towne. I got in the kitchen at the banquet and put it in her dinner. It seemed poetic. To die of plant food poisoning at our garden club event. Either I got the proportions wrong, or she just had an incredible constitution, but it didn't kill her. She just thought she had picked up some gut-wrenching stomach bug. You know something, I'm actually glad I didn't kill her. It was more fun to watch the bitch suffer." And then she laughed.

After she settled, Heat said, "Mrs. Essex, can you verify your whereabouts between midnight and four this morning?"

"Yes, I can. I was on a red-eye from Los Angeles." And to bring home the point, she added, "With my husband."

"Then I assume," said Nikki, "that you and your husband have a good relationship?"

"My husband and I have a great relationship. I got divorced and married again."

Minutes later, Heat broke the silence of the elevator ride down and said to Rook, "I'm eager to meet more of your sources. Circus cousins, colorful uncles, perhaps?"

"Don't you worry, I'm just warming up."

"You got nuthin'," she said, and stepped into the lobby. At five-thirty the next morning, Nikki Heat's combat trainer tried to put a choke hold on her and ended up on his back on the mat. She danced a circle around him as he got up. If Don felt it, he didn't let on. He deked a move left but she read it and side-slipped his attack from the right. He barely grazed her as he went by. But the ex-Navy SEAL didn't go flat on the ground this time, instead taking his fall in a shoulder roll, whirling back around on her and taking her by surprise with a back-scissors to her knee on the blind side. They both hit the mat, and he grappled and pinned her until she tapped out.

They sparred again and again. He tried the blindside attack once more, but Nikki Heat didn't have to be shown twice. She raised her leg in an air kick as he swung around at the back of her knee, and with no leg there to stop him, his momentum carried him off balance. She topped him when he went down, and it was Don's turn to tap out.

Heat wanted to finish the session with a series of disarms. She had made it a regular part of her regime since the night the Russian held her own gun on her in her living room. That disarm worked like a page from the manual, but Nikki believed in rehearsal, the goal to avoid a closing night. Don drilled her on handguns and rifles, then finished off with knives, in their own way trickier than guns, which, once you slipped inside the muzzle line, offered cover with proximity, just the opposite of what happened with a shank. Fifteen minutes and twice that many drills later, they bowed and left each other to hit the showers. Don called to her as she was about to enter her locker room. They walked to meet each other again mid-mat and he asked if she felt like company that night. For reasons she couldn't figure, or at least didn't sanction, she thought about Rook and almost declined. Instead she blew it off and said, "Sure, why not?" Jameson Rook came out of the locker room at the Equinox in Tribeca and saw that he had two messages from Nikki Heat. The morning was brisk. Autumn was coming in earnest, and when he stepped out onto Murray Street and put his cell phone to his ear to return her call, he saw steam rising off his damp hair in the glass of the front door.

"There you are," she said. "For a minute I was starting to think you'd changed your mind about our ride-along arrangement."

"Not a bit. I'm just one of the few who actually observes the sign about no cell phones in the locker room at my gym. What's going on? Heat, if you found the body and didn't take me, I'm going to be so pissed."

"I'm a step closer."

"Get out."

"Yep. Fat Tommy called. He gave up the crew that jacked the coroner van yesterday. Be in front of your place in twenty minutes and I'll pick you up. If you behave, you can come to the party." "Two of them are inside," said Nikki Heat into her walkie-talkie. "All we need is for Bachelor Number Three to show up and we can make our move."

"Standing by," said Detective Hinesburg in reply.

Heat, Rook, Raley, and Ochoa were Trojan horsed inside the cargo bay of a uniform supply truck parked on East 19th, across from a cell phone store. Fat Tommy had told Nikki the store was a front for the trio's real business, which was fast-jacking parked delivery trucks while the driver was dollying in his first load. They turned over the merchandise to fences and ditched the vehicles, which were of no interest to them.

"So I guess my Fat Tommy thing paid off," Rook said.

"Neediness is so unflattering, Rook," she said. Behind him, he could hear Roach sniffing in laughter.

"But it is what got us here, right?" Rook was trying, without success, to make that sound not needy.

"Why did he give this up to you, Detective Heat?" asked Raley, all too happy to twist Rook's jock like this. Ochoa was enjoying it, too.

"I don't want to say it," answered Heat.

"Say it," from Ochoa in a low growl.

She paused. "Fat Tommy said it was because I had the balls to get up in his face yesterday morning. He also said not to make it a habit."

"Was that a threat?" asked Raley.

She smiled and shrugged. "More like the start of a relationship."

"On your side rear," came the walkie report from Hinesburg, who was in the vestibule of a coin-op laundry two doors down the block. As soon as she finished the call, a motorcycle thundered by.

"Check him out, Ochoa," said Nikki. She moved aside, and through the ob port he saw a big man in a leather vest hanging from the ape bars.

"Could be my AR-15. He was covered up, but that's definitely the build." He sat back on one of the canvas laundry bags to let Heat have a look as the biker parked on the sidewalk in front of the store and went in.

"All right," said Detective Heat into the mic. "Let's hit them before they decide to take a ride. We'll go on mine in sixty seconds." She looked at her watch and said, "Woof," to sync with the others. "Ochoa, you go last," she said. "I don't want them making you in the middle of the street."

"Got it," he said.

"And Rook?"

"I know, I know, please remain comfortably seated until the captain turns off the seat belt sign." He shifted to let them by and sat on Ochoa's canvas bag. "Ooh, still nice and warm."

"In three, two, go," said Nikki, who was first out the back door, followed by Raley. Ochoa hung in the open doorway, as directed. Rook could see Detective Hinesburg approaching the store on the opposite side of the street.

There was a brief lull, and Ochoa turned to Rook and said, "I wonder if I should-"

And then came the gunfire. First a heavy round, the AR-15, and then a volley of small arms. Rook moved to the observation port, and Ochoa pulled him back. "Stay down. You trying to get killed?" He shoved Rook down into the middle of the laundry sacks and then bailed out the back with his gun drawn, moving around the protected side of the truck.

There was another volley of fire, repeated rounds from the assault rifle, and Rook looked through the passenger-side window of the van in time to see Ochoa dive for cover in a discount smoke shop. More covering shots and next, the motorcycle fired up.

The biker revved and popped a wheelie off the curb and onto 19th. Heat and Hinesburg jammed it out of the store, bracing for shots, but were blocked by a passing taxi. The biker looked over his shoulder at them, and when he turned back, he was smirking. That was the expression Rook would always remember, right before he swung the laundry bag into the dude and knocked him clean off that hog and right onto the pavement. A half hour later, the biker was in the jail ward of Bellevue Hospital, nursing a concussion. He was a true badass, not just the AR man but probably the leader, and wouldn't break so easily. His two accomplices faced Nikki Heat in her Twentieth Precinct Interrogation Room. From the looks on them, she figured they were going to take some work. She sat across from both of them, taking her time looking over their arrest jackets. Both had done prison stretches for everything from petty theft to violent robberies and drug sales.

Detective Heat knew she would end up separating these two. But she'd first have to find a weakness in one of them; he'd be the one she cut from the herd. To do that, she had a strategy, and that required that they be together for now while she made her choice. She closed their rap sheets and began calmly. "OK, let's have it. Who hired you for that gig yesterday?"

Both men stared with dead eyes that saw nothing and betrayed nothing. Prison eyes.

"Boyd, let's start with you." The big one, the one with the salt-and-pepper beard, let his eyes fall on her, but said nothing. He acted bored and looked away. She addressed the other one, a ginger redhead with a spiderweb tat on his neck. "Shawn, what about you?"

"You got nothing," he said. "I don't even know why I'm here."

"Don't insult me, OK?" she said. "Less than twenty-four hours ago you and your biker friend jacked a city vehicle, stole a corpse, brandished firearms at a police officer and a medical examiner, put a city driver in the hospital, and yet here you sit, busted and destined for long stretches in Ossining. Is that because I don't know what I'm doing, or is it, maybe, because you don't?"

Inside the Observation Room, Rook turned to Ochoa. "Harsh."

"These guys need more than harsh, you ask me," said the cop.

Nikki folded her hands on the table and leaned forward toward the two men. She had made her choice, decided which of the two was the bitch. You can always break the bitch. She half turned to the glass behind her chair and nodded. The door opened and Ochoa came into the room. She studied their faces as the detective stood behind her. Boyd, the iron beard, acted like he didn't even see him, finding that no-place place to stare at again. Shawn flicked his eyes over and darted them away.

"You good, Detective?" she asked.

"Let me see the necks, left side of both."

Heat asked the pair to turn their heads to the right, and Ochoa leaned across the table, looking at one then the other. "Yeah," he said when he was done. "I'm good." And then he left the room.

"What was that?" said Shawn, who had the spiderweb.

All Nikki said was "Be right back," and she left. But she kept it short, returning in less than a minute with two uniforms. "That one there," she said, indicating Shawn. "Take him to Interrogation 2 and hold him until the DA guy gets here."

"Hey, what are you doing?" said Shawn as they led him out. "You don't have anything on me. Nothing."

The officers held him at the door and Nikki smiled. "Interrogation 2," she said, and they left. Nikki let the quiet do its talking. At last she said, "Your pal always this jumpy?"

He remained stoic, disconnected.

"It doesn't take much to see he's not as together as you, Boyd. But see, here's what you need to be thinking about. Your friend with the neck tat? He's boned. And he knows it. And know what's too bad for you? We want this. We want the name of whoever hired you. And we are in a dealing mood. And you know and I know that Shawn is going to take it. Because the deal will be sweet. And he's… well, he's Shawn, isn't he?"

Boyd sat there, a statue breathing.

"And where does that leave you, Boyd?" She flipped open his file. "Pedigree like yours, you're looking at some long time in Ossining. But you know that can be done. Time passes. And besides, your pal Shawn will be able to visit you. Because he'll be out."

Nikki waited. She had to be stoic herself because she was starting to think she'd cut the wrong one from the herd. She worried he was too smart to see Ochoa's tattoo ID as anything but what it was, a ruse. She worried that Boyd might just be a sociopath, and she was, therefore, the boned one in this transaction. Nikki thought about scrapping her strategy and offering him a deal. But it would mean she'd blinked. Her heart fluttered, feeling like a bird against her neck. She was so close, she hated to let it slip away. So she went the other way. Heat got tough and decided to push her game to the brink.

Without another word, she rose and closed the file. Then squared the pages by tapping it on the tabletop. She turned and took measured steps to the door, hoping to hear something on each footfall. She put her hand on the knob, paused as long as she could get away with, and pulled the door open.

Damn, nothing.

Feeling the awful sensation of her strength leeching out of her, she let the door close behind her.

In the Observation Room, she breathed a sigh and met the disappointed gazes of Rook, Raley, and Ochoa. And then she heard, "Hey!" All four of them turned to the window. Inside, Boyd was standing at a crouch at the table, restrained by his manacles.

"Hey!" he shouted again. "What kind of deal?"