Raging Heat

FOURTEEN

While Nikki Heat sat on the curb the next morning waiting for the bomb squad to give the all-clear to go inside the house, she watched the sun rise grimly through wood smolder and thickening clouds. Rook found a spot beside her and handed over a coffee from the bodega that had just opened outside the restricted zone. Although he had remained on scene all night, they had not spoken since the blast. She had immediately kicked into emergency leadership mode — fire-walling her personal feelings about the close call so she could manage the crisis and its aftermath. In this interval before the next phase, they sat in silence, sipping their drinks, awaiting the magic of caffeine.

At last, Rook said, “So I can assume when you said you’d handle Wally Irons for me, this isn’t what you meant.”

She paused. “Dark.” Then, turning to him, said, “You may be more cop than I knew.”

“Hey, you said I could only ride along again if I could be me. Here I am.”

Captain Irons had been the only fatality. The ESU team that entered with him heard the telltale metallic click when he rushed over to read the message written on the strip of duct tape on the wall, and took cover. Two made it out the door, the other dove into the empty fireplace. The SWAT officer said he yelled to the captain to stay put, not to move, but in his inexperience and panic, Irons tried to get out, too. Human-flight instinct sealed his fate. The instant he took his foot off the pressure plate that was rigged to an explosive device under the floor, he was cooked.

Heedless of their own safety, the pair of officers who’d bailed out the front door heroically reentered through the flames and hauled their wounded comrade out. Kevlar and his leap into the hearth saved his life. Surgeons spent an hour extracting nasty shards of glass and pieces of wood from his calves, but he’d probably be released from Bronx-Lebanon by lunchtime.

NYPD Counterterror had joined in the sweep of the small box of a house. Commander McMains made the trip there from the OEM hurricane HQ in Brooklyn along with the mayor and the chief. A bomb and a dead precinct captain became top priority, and the Counterterrorism boss needed to assess the degree and scope of the threat. There would be no conversation about the task force that morning. When the site had been declared safe, Cooper McMains came out of it and rested a hand on Heat’s shoulder. “You sure you want to go in there?”

When Nikki got inside, stepping on glass and plaster and nails, holding a handkerchief over her face in a useless attempt to filter the fumes, she understood what he meant. The duct tape that had been on the wall above the gaping hole in the floor had been recovered way across the room. A CSU tech had sealed the charred and disfigured specimen in a plastic evidence bag. She held it in her hands and concentrated on not letting them tremble as the other detectives and Rook watched. There were two words written in black Sharpie on the tape: BYE HEAT.

For Nikki, this was just chilling confirmation of what she already knew and had tried to avoid thinking about until later. But for the hubris of Wallace Irons, that could have been the last thing she saw before she died. Heat passed the specimen around, and nobody said a word. Until Rook broke the charged silence. “He left out the comma.”

The duct tape went off to Forensics for prints. Nobody disputed whose they would find. “Thing I want to know,” said Ochoa, “is if this Zarek Braun knew you were coming, or if he just thought maybe you might come.”

“A lot of bang for a maybe,” said Detective Feller. “I’m thinking setup.”

Of course Heat had already made the triangulation between getting the address and the detonation. When Hays gave her that paper, was he priming the fuse? Or did Zarek Braun know it was only a matter of time before she tracked him and set the booby trap for that inevitability?

Commander McMains came to her when she stepped outside. “Nobody will think less if you decide to stand down. It’s been a hell of a night for you, Heat.” She didn’t answer, just squared her gaze to his. “I didn’t think so,” he said. “Obviously, this is still your case, but let me assure you that we’re heightening the APB for this Zarek Braun and all available resources will be on this.”

“Thank you, Commander.” But she knew by how quickly he got called by the chief back to the motorcade headed for the OEM Situation Room that Braun would be looked for with half an eye. His key word was “available” resources. With a Category One hurricane bearing down on the city in less than twenty-four hours, Heat knew this would be her battle to wage.

That didn’t mean she would be alone. With all recent differences forgotten, Raley and Ochoa came to her first, offering split shift, ’round-the-clock Roach protection. Soon after, Rhymer and Feller did the same. The solidarity meant everything to her, she told them. “But I want us to focus on taking this to him, not hunkering down for protection.”

Heat tasked Roach and Rhymer to canvass the neighborhood with pictures of Zarek Braun, Fabian Beauvais, and just to be thorough, Lawrence Hays, which she had downloaded from an antiwar Web site and texted to them. “Talk to residents, talk to shop owners. Get a sense of when Zarek Braun was last here, if anybody was with him, did he have girlfriends or boyfriends, what he was driving, the works.”

She put Detective Feller on checking him through the RTCC. “See if there are any hits on disturbance calls or neighbor complaints on this street. A guy like Braun might be the type to get in a beef with someone over nothing, or just creep somebody out. Don’t overlook the smallest thing, even a hassle with a meter maid over an opposite-side parking ticket.” Eager to be useful, Rook went off with them, barnacling onto Raley and Ochoa.

Lauren Parry stepped out of the house and told her friend she should go home and take a nap because her enhanced team of MEs would be a long time painstakingly collecting the remains of Captain Irons.

Heat said, “Thanks, Mother,” and said she’d hang there nonetheless. Nikki felt a quarter-inch from meltdown and worried what would happen if she stopped working.

The bomb squad sergeant gave her the prelim on the device. As expected, a pressure-sensitive plate had been cut into the floor with a bath rug placed over it as camouflage. The explosive material was C-4, military grade, with the primer set to trigger when the pressure came off the plate. She tried not to imagine herself on that rug, reading that message, but it was hard. Would she have run for cover like the captain, or would she have held it together? Thankfully, she didn’t need to know.

Zach Hamner phoned and Heat was surprised that the caller ID was his office at One PP, not his cell. “You working on a Sunday?” she asked.

“It’s storm watch, Heat, there is no weekend here.” As if he took a day off, anyway. Heat imagined that Zach Hamner probably went to the beach in his suit and tie. He nearly — but not quite — sounded compassionate as he checked on her after the ordeal.

“I’m fine. But I’m not the one OCME is working on in there.”

He asked her how Irons managed to get in that position, and when she told him, he muttered, “Fuck.…” And then he sniffed and added, “A boob to the end.”

“Excuse me, you asshole.” The trauma of the ordeal started to boil over, and The Hammer was the lucky caller. “Wally Irons was a lot of things, but you know what he is now? A cop who died in the line of duty.”

Zach started to retract, but she plowed him down. “So listen to me, you fucking little fuck. If you say anything to malign a brother cop who gave up the ultimate sacrifice, I will come down there personally and feed you your goddamned BlackBerry. Right after I stuff your balls down your throat.” Then she saw Lawrence Hays hanging around her car and hung up.

“I’m saving you some trouble, Detective.”

“How did you get into my crime scene?”

Hays ignored that, like accessing a restricted area was nothing to a man like him. He just stood there with his arms folded, his butt resting on the trunk of the Taurus, waiting for her. “When I heard the news, I figured, if I were Nikki Heat, I’d come looking for the guy who gave me this address. Here I am.” He took off his aviators so she could see his eyes.

What assuaged her wasn’t what she saw there. This guy was so schooled in psyops, he could adopt any attitude and appear credible. The fact was, though, it made no sense for him to set her up. Unless Hays was working with Zarek Braun. Her gaze drifted down to the scar tissue peeking through the V in the neck of his polo shirt. “I think we’re good,” she said. “For now.”

“Smart.” He slipped the sunglasses back on and said, “Now. You want an assist?”

“As in?”

“Come on, you know what I do.”

“Mr. Hays, if you’re offering your professional services, I decline. This is a police matter, and NYPD is capable of handling it. Besides, I think one mercenary operating in this city is enough.”

He took a moment to survey the thin scrim of smoke still curling off the house and said, “You’d better hope so.”

Her squad reassembled two hours later following the neighborhood canvass. “You called it,” said Feller. “Real Time Crime DB had a ping. Two weeks ago, a guy living in one of the row houses up the block called in a beef about a foreigner making lewd sounds and gestures to his teenage daughter. The Four-eight sent a uni, but the citizen said there must have been some mistake.”

Ochoa said, “We did a door knock at the home of the complainant. The family was jumpy, seeing how they just got let back in after the all clear. But they ID’d Braun from the photo.”

“Even better,” continued Raley in full-Roach overlap, “the foreign dude freaked them out so much — which is why they lied to the uniform — that they kept tabs on him.”

“May I?” asked Rook. “I so seldom get mistaken for a detective.” He opened a page of his notes. “Last time they saw your Cool Customer was Thursday. He came by with a big duffel bag and some power tools. Ran a circular saw for about an hour, did some hammering, and left with the tools but not the duffel.” He closed his notebook. “Sounds to me like a booby trap installation.”

“Thursday. You do know that’s before we saw Hays,” observed Feller. Heat told them about the CIA contractor’s visit and her feeling Lawrence Hays was an unlikely, and to move on. Nobody disagreed.

Detective Rhymer’s cell rang, and while he stepped away to take the call, Raley asked if Heat knew what would be happening next at the precinct. “I hate to get practical, but has anybody told you who’s coming in to replace…you know?”

“I don’t think anyone’s thinking that far ahead, Sean. My best guess is One PP’s focused on storm watch and little else. I’d be surprised to hear anything before Sandy’s done.”

“Hey?” said Opie, sounding a lot like the TV Opie. “Guess who that was.”

“No,” said Heat, reading the triumph on his face. “Really?”

Rhymer slipped his cell phone back in his pocket. “Alicia Delamater will be happy to meet me to pitch concepts for the secret Sean Combs reboot party.”

At two that afternoon not a single drop of rain was falling on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Sandy still churned off the Georgia and Carolina coasts, tracking northeast with enough menace to cause the mayor to order evacuations of the most flood-prone zones in the city. A mix of urgency and fatalism filled the streets with some New Yorkers hurrying to stock up, get sheltered, or leave before the subways and trains shut down at seven; the rest took it in stride and carried on as normal, either ignoring reality or just content to ride out nature’s spectacle when it arrived the next day.

The latter group was not about to let an annoying tropical cyclone keep them from Sunday brunch at Daughters of Beulah. Sidewalk service at the trendy Columbus Avenue bistro had been closed due to the arrival of forty-mile-per-hour winds, but every inside table was filled, and the mimosas and Bloody Marys flowed in denial-reinforcing volume.

While he stood near the curb outside, a strong gust parted Detective Rhymer’s sport coat and he scrambled to yank his badge off his belt, since few marketing directors carried a police shield. He had just pocketed it when a cab pulled up and a woman, dressed to impress, got out.

After handshakes and introductions, he pulled one of the ornately scrolled brass handles to open the door for her and they entered in a swirl of air that shook the potted palms in the reception area. “Our party is complete now,” he said to the hostess. When Nikki turned to face them from behind the podium Alicia Delamater’s eyes actually double blinked like a vaudeville comedienne’s.

“I’ve got the perfect table for you,” said Heat. “At the police station. It’s much quieter. We’ll actually be able to talk.”

Alicia Delamater didn’t share Detective Heat’s desire for a nice chat. She sat with her hands folded on the interrogation table doing what most people did in that room — trying at first not to look in the mirror, but then surrendering to glimpses, which became glances, which became lingering self-appraisals. To Nikki, that was the magic of the magic mirror: the spirit-crushing view of the guest reflected back in one of life’s low moments.

But it still didn’t open her up. This woman’s relationship with Keith Gilbert was Heat’s best chance yet to get inside to find out what was going on with him, with Fabian Beauvais, with Conscience Point, and more. It presented a tricky dynamic. Alicia was not a suspect or even charged with a crime. But she was involved somehow, or she wouldn’t have gone underground. For now, Nikki just wanted knowledge. Any scrap to run with and gain some new traction. She had invited Rook into the interview because that day in her house at Beckett’s Neck, Delamater seemed attracted to him. That allure had, unfortunately, not translated into any advantage. And so the three of them sat. One of them making mirror checks but not speaking.

And then Rook spoke — going back to one of the first interrogations he and Nikki had ever done together — to play the perfect card. “So what now, Detective? Time for the Zoo Lockup?”

Both women’s heads whipped to him: Alicia’s in nervous disquiet; Nikki’s in stunned admiration. He didn’t wink, didn’t have to. Nikki took the baton handoff without missing a step. “Well, I didn’t want to resort to that, but maybe it’s been long enough.”

“What’s the Zoo Lockup?” If she saw her reflection now, Nikki thought, she’d melt.

Rook started to rise from his chair. “Want me to call down and tell the sarge we’ve got another live one for the cage?”

“What are you talking about?” Alicia’s mouth had gone dry. “What about cages?”

“Actually, it’s one cage,” said Rook. “With an assortment of colorful types waiting for processing.”

“Colorful…?”

“They don’t call it the Zoo for nothing,” said Rook ominously.

The picture that painted freaked the woman out. Of course she had no way of knowing there was no such thing as a Zoo Lockup, and that it was a total bluff created years ago by Heat, fabricated to loosen the tongues of novices to the criminal system. “You can’t do that. Can you do that? What if I want my lawyer?”

Nikki said, “Sure. You can wait for him there.”

“In the Zoo Lockup,” said Rook.

“But it’s Sunday. It could take him hours.…Maybe he evacuated.”

“Alternatively, we could just talk,” said Heat.

Alicia didn’t need to think too long. “Fine.”

Rook sat. Heat picked up her pen.

“Let’s start with why you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you. About what?”

“You said Fabian Beauvais hurt himself with the hedge clippers.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“He’d been shot.”

“Then he’s the one who lied.” Delamater’s answers came a little to defensively for Nikki’s taste. Was she lying again, or was she just scared of the Zoo? She came at her from another angle.

“Have you ever seen Keith Gilbert with a gun?”

“No.”

“What about the night of the intruder? The Southampton police said you were there when they arrived and that Gilbert had a handgun.”

“Oh, wait, yeah. That. But Keith isn’t a gun guy. I thought that’s what you meant. He was just trying to protect me.”

Rook said more than asked, “From a drunken crime novelist?”

“We didn’t know it was him.”

“What’s a mystery writer gonna do?” said Rook. “Tease you with a scary cliff-hanger?”

Heat put a hand on the table between them. “Rook, I’ve got this.” Actually, she was glad for the sidetrack. It gave her what she wanted, which was a chance to hairpin turn back to the Haitian in hopes of shifting her off-balance. “During his time working on your property, did you and Fabian Beauvais have a good relationship?”

“Sure. We got along fine.” Then she reconsidered. “‘…Relationship?’ You mean like sleeping together?” Heat’s turn not to reply. The woman kept going. “No, never. Not like that. But we were friendly. Ish.”

“Did he ever open up to you about having any papers?”

“You mean, like, immigration papers?”

“Alicia, I’m not here to bust you for sleeping with the help or hiring an illegal. I want to know if Mr. Beauvais talked about possessing any documents.”

“No, why would he tell me that?” Again, that defensive oversell.

“So he never talked about documents he had or gave you a package or file to keep?” Delamater shook no. “I can’t hear that.”

“No.”

“Did you ever see him with one? Maybe a file, a small bag, or a thick manila envelope?”

“Again, sorry.” But then the eyes trailed off. Not to the mirror but to the ceiling. Heat smelled something and persisted.

“Maybe it slipped your mind. That happens. Think about it.”

“I don’t need to. No.”

Nikki smiled and said, “OK, good, good.” Which made Alicia relax. Which was just what Heat wanted before she jerked her chain.

“What blew up your romance with Keith Gilbert?” The woman’s features widened and blotches surfaced on her neck. “Come on, Alicia, I know about the restraining order. What happened?”

“That is…that is very personal.”

“And it’s why I am asking you. He wanted you out of his life for some reason. Did he catch you in bed with Fabian?”

“He did not!”

“Then what turned?”

“Do you have to ask this?”

“Did his wife find out you were crossing Beckett’s Neck for more than a cup of sugar?”

“No. I mean, she never knew.”

“Did you push him? Play me, or trade me?”

“I didn’t push anything. It was him. He just fucked me over.” Heat’s pressure had touched a nerve. “It was so exciting, having our little affair when I worked with him. Dangerous and new.…Hot. But it got too tough to manage a relationship in the workplace, you know? It got to be a distraction. Too large to handle.” Nikki didn’t turn but sensed Rook’s slow swivel to her.

“Go on,” said Heat.

“So then he gets the idea I could quit Gilbert Maritime and have a place in the Hamptons near him. Close, but under the radar, if the wife should ever decide to show up. So he bought my house, helped me get my business going, and it was all fun and games — until that bastard cut me off. Asshole scumbag.” Alicia Delamater had started slowly but became hostage to a juggernaut of growing rage. “Know what he called me? A political liability. See? It wasn’t his wife. His goddamned career was his wife. And I couldn’t compete. How do you fucking compete with that? Tell me. Huh?”

The outburst ended in tears, racking sobs with Alicia cupping her face in both hands. Maybe it was the all-nighter in the Bronx that lowered her own guard, but the testimony hit close to home for Nikki, too, who still felt Rook’s unspoken scrutiny. She hoped to hell he would have the grace to keep it unsaid.

They could have held Alicia Delamater on a ticky-tacky charge, something like lying to a police officer. But her attorney would have had her sprung, and what was the point? Heat did the next best thing, which was to tell her she was still considering whether to charge her with hindering an investigation and to remain at the Midtown extended-stay hotel where she had been hiding all this time.

“What’s your take?” asked Rook when she’d left.

“Smoke screens and dodges, that’s my gut. The fact that she’s no longer in bed with Gilbert doesn’t mean she’s not part of this somehow. I want to find out more.”

“Do you really think she’ll open up later?”

Nikki wagged no. “She’ll only have time to come up with better lies. And show up with her attorney. No, I want to find out without relying on Alicia Delamater’s help. I want some search warrants.”

“On what grounds?” Rook’s undercurrent of skepticism annoyed her. But she checked herself. With fatigue and emotions swirling, this was not the time to pick a fight or get offended. So she answered plainly.

“Access to material evidence, lying, her admission that she hid from us.”

He sucked his teeth. “After the DA pulled your arrest, they’re not going to go for search warrants on that foundation.”

“No, but I think I know who will. Your old poker buddy.”

“Judge Simpson? Don’t you owe him money from the last game?”

“Perfect. Then he’ll take my call.”

After Heat completed her conversation with Horace Simpson, who agreed to her request for a search warrant of Alicia Delamater’s Manhattan rental, she made one more call. This one went to Detective Sergeant Inez Aguinaldo in Southampton, who began by offering her condolences to Nikki and the precinct after the death of the captain.

Nikki thanked her and said, “I know I’ve been leaning on you a lot, but I’d like to press my luck.”

“Name it.”

“And I’m sure you’re busy with your own ramp-up to Sandy.”

“Tell me what you need, Detective Heat. I’ll make the storm wait.”

So Nikki voiced her request for Aguinaldo to search Delamater’s house at Beckett’s Neck.

When she told the Southampton investigator what to look for, she asked, “Won’t I need a warrant?”

“Oh, right,” said Heat. “That’s my second favor.”

The other detective laughed and told her she knew just who to call. “That’s the virtue of a tight community.”

Nikki finished the conversation feeling fortunate to have crossed paths with Inez Aguinaldo, who, at each step, obliterated the cliché of the small-town cop. She placed the phone back in its cradle and rotated her chair so she could reassess the Murder Board on the other side of the squad room. The latest addition was a purple line drawn with an arrow from Zarek Braun to a new name in handwriting she could hardly recognize as her own: CAPT. WALLY IRONS.

Tilting her head, she peered into the darkness of his office. In the coppery glow of the sodium streetlamps spilling in the window, Nikki made out a familiar shape: the reflection, in dry cleaner plastic, of his media-ready, dress uniform shirt. The light began to slowly diffuse as in the form of a headless ghost-man; however, it was no apparition. Just a blur from bone-deep fatigue. The aura faded away and, the next thing Heat knew, a hand was gently rocking her shoulder while a voice from a distant tunnel asked her to wake up.

Her eyes popped open and she arched up in her task chair. Roach stood over her. “Sorry to startle you,” said Ochoa. “My BCI man just called. They’ve cornered Earl Sliney and Mayshon Franklin.”

The cobwebs dissolved and she got to her feet. As she grabbed her coat, Raley asked, “What about him?” Across the bull pen, Rook had his head down on a desk.

She called out, “Rook,” and his head gophered up. “We’re rolling.” Through his walrus yawn he called shotgun.