Driving Heat (3 page)

That much seemed just enough for the detectives. Rook still came off a little pinched to her, but Heat judged it better to get off the thin ice so she wouldn’t fall through, and switched
gears to logistics. “All right, this is complicated. Let’s huddle up and see where to take this,” she began.

But then Detective Raley chimed in ahead of everyone else. “First place we need to start is a time of death guesstimate,” he said, taking it on himself to address the group, but
speaking for the ears of Lauren Parry, too.

And did she ever hear him. The ME stood up from her crouch and regarded him with the same cool stare the others were giving him.

“Hoo-boy,” said Rook. “I’ve seen that look. I’ve gotten that look. It’s all yours, buddy.”

“What? Well we do, don’t we?” Rather than cowering, Raley was doubling down on taking point on the investigation himself. “We need a window so we know where to start,
based on when.” He scanned the squad, but they offered no encouragement and mostly looked away.

“Detective,” said Dr. Parry quietly, evenly. “Are you suggesting I take direction from you on this case?”

Her measured response set Raley back on his heels. “No, I’m just…Taking some initiative, that’s all.”

“Dynamic, homes,” said his partner, with some unmistakable stink on the remark.

Raley pushed back against Ochoa with a fake smile. “’Tude’s not helping.”

If there had been any doubt in Heat’s mind that the true jockeying for squad leader had begun, Roach’s trading elbows like that erased it. “Glad we’re all eager to jump
in,” she said. “So let’s.” She turned to Lauren Parry, very much wanting a TOD window, but loathe to ask after what had just occurred. “Doctor, do what you do, and
we’ll check in.” Parry gave her a you-got-it nod and crouched again beside the kayak to run her tests. Nikki continued, “Since what we have here is a scene of discovery more than
an actual crime scene, we need to gather information about where the murder could have taken place.”

“And when,” said Rook. He turned to the ME. “Can’t help it, Doc. I see pigtails, I gotta pull ’em.”

“Nikki?” said Parry.

“Lauren?”

“Prelim, twelve to fourteen hours based on temp and lividity. Rook?”

“Lauren?”

“Suck it.”

Unfazed, he turned to the other detectives. “It’s a small price to pay to get you boys critical information on a timely basis. Your unspoken thanks is all I need.”

Nikki ran the math and peered across the wide expanse of waterway at the New Jersey bluffs. The windows of the high-rise apartments over in West New York and Union City were just starting to
kick back glints of the sun’s first rays that in turn reflected off the water. There, where a cool-headed aviator had once miraculously set down an airliner, Nikki tried to envision the
situation just before sunset the night before and to trace the path of an adrift twelve-foot Perception Tribute.

“Getting a fix on his point of origin’s going to be a bear,” said Rhymer. “I did a lot of kayaking in Roanoke, growing up. A boat like this with a shallow draft, in windy
conditions, nobody steering…Criminy, who knows?”

Heat continued her survey anyway, following potential courses from upriver near Harlem and the Bronx. Rook moved close beside her and said, “Mahicantuck. That’s the name
Manhattan’s indigenous tribe gave the Hudson. Translated, it means ‘the river that flows two ways.’ Which is to say it’s an estuary. Which is to say he could have just as
easily come from the opposite direction, up from the Battery. To calculate the drift pattern, you’re going to have to check tide charts to find out the ebb and flood over two cycles.”
He saw the frustration this observation provoked and said, “Hey, facts are my business. You get in a relationship with a journalist, it’s not always going to be good news.”

With no other useful information likely to pop up at a secondary crime scene, Heat left Dr. Parry and her crew to finish the prelim on the body, assigned a foot patrol to keep an eye out for
fishermen in case any of them had spotted unusual activity the night before, and set out for the Twentieth to convene the squad and get a Murder Board started.

Eager to get the investigation rolling, Heat blew right past her newly
assigned precinct commander’s office and, on her first
day in charge, sat at her old desk in the homicide bull pen while the other detectives, plus Rook, found their way in with coffees and what passed for breakfast scrounged from the station house
break room. While they gathered, Nikki opened her department email for a habitual spot check. She thought there must have been a server error. Her monitor filled, buffered, then filled again with a
cascade of messages, more than she ever received in a week, let alone in one morning. A few were slugged “Congratulations” and “Well done” from commanders at other
precincts. One marked “Urgent” came from the precinct’s union rep, who said he needed to have a meeting with the new PC immediately on her arrival. A second email came from
Personnel downtown, directing her not to meet with the Police Benevolent Association rep yet. Another, with the intriguing subject “Time Sensitive,” included a petition from five of the
precinct’s administrative aides asking what the policy would be on e-cigarettes in the building. Heat closed her email and strode to the blank whiteboard to do some real police work. By the
time she had block-printed Lon King’s name atop the shiny blank surface, Raley, Ochoa, Feller, and Rhymer had rolled chairs in a semicircle around her. The squad’s newest addition,
Detective Inez Aguinaldo, whom Nikki had recruited a month before from the Southampton PD as a replacement, ended a phone call at her desk and unfolded a chair off to one side.

It never took much to bring this roomful of pros to order, but as Nikki turned to face them, something in their silent attention felt more like scrutiny—as if she were naked. But it was
quite the opposite. Captain Heat stood before them today in a uniform of all-regulation white shirt, dark-blue trousers, and gleaming metal instead of the jeans and untucked oxford she had worn to
work the last time the bull pen had convened. She made a mental note to check regs for loopholes and see how strict they were about the starch and brass. The things you never think about before you
take a job…

“Lon King,” she began. “Psychologist with a private practice but also under contract with the NYPD to provide counseling within the department.” Without making a
conscious color choice she used her blue dry erase to write “NYPD SHRINK” on the board. “What else do we know?”

“Kayaker,” said Detective Rhymer.

Feller shook his head. “Why, just ’cause he died in one? Last month we found some dude buried in wet cement near that restaurant they’re building near Lincoln Center. That sure
didn’t make him a construction worker. Or a restauraunteur.”

“Actually, it’s restaur-
a-teur
,” said Rook as he entered, ending a call and slipping his cell phone into his blazer pocket. “Common mistake. Like
laundrymat
. Or
libary
.” He rolled a chair over from his borrowed, unofficial desk. One caster squeaked the whole way.

“Nonetheless.” Heat paused, studying a tightness in Rook’s face as he took a seat, then she turned and wrote “kayaker?” on the board. “Since the victim was
discovered in a kayak, we can at least post that and make it part of our investigation to see if it was a one-time activity or a hobby.”

Sean Raley called out, “Family,” and Nikki made that a heading, too, then felt everyone’s gaze again. This time, it wasn’t about the uniform.

“If you’re wondering if I know, I don’t. Anybody here been to counseling? You don’t learn too much about the shrink; they kinda make it all about you.” Feeling
herself moving into an uncomfortable neighborhood, she turned the page with another heading: “COD.” “Cause of Death is prelim, but obvious.”

“No-brainer,” said Feller, who immediately held up surrender hands. “I fucking swear, I wasn’t goofing on him. Come on.”

Nikki gave him a pass and continued, “Single GSW to the forehead. Small caliber, no exit wound. Ballistics will get a slug to analyze by this afternoon.”

Ochoa scrawled that in his notebook. “Small bore kind of rules out sniper.”

“So does this.” Nikki held up a printout one of the administrative aides had come in with and placed on her podium. “Follow-up from ME Parry says there were trace metals and
gunpowder residue surrounding the entrance wound.” The significance of that hung in the room while the investigators pondered.

“Takes away a passing boat, too,” observed Raley. “Unless it was mighty close.”

Rhymer raised his hand. “Like another kayaker?”

“Or somebody on his dock. Or a boat that launched him,” said his partner.

“Or suicide.” Detective Feller tucked his boots under his chair and leaned toward Heat. “It’s tough, but it’s got to be in the mix. Shrinks off themselves, too.
I’m just sayin’.”

Nikki, who had always drilled it into her squad to approach every case with beginner’s eyes—not to be complacent, not to work by rote—nodded in agreement.
“Everything’s on the table.” She added “suicide” as a subheading along with the other options and, like the others on the list, put a question mark beside it.
“When we left the Greenway, I saw Dr. Parry bagging the victim’s hands. Detective Ochoa, as soon as we break here, I’d like you to put in a call to Lauren and let us know
immediately if she found any residue on them.”

“Done.”

“Mind one from left field?” asked Rook.

Nikki, glad to see him finally engaging in the process, said, “Well, left field is sort of your area.”

“That, and Area Fifty-one,” added Feller, who was about as much a fan of Rook’s passion for spitballing conspiracy theories as he was of having his pronunciation tweaked.

Undaunted, or perhaps merely oblivious to his fellow cop’s disdain, Rook said, “What if he wasn’t killed in the boat? The shooter murders King somewhere else, puts him in the
kayak, and either gives it a push or a tow just to confuse us and keep us from knowing where the crime scene was.” By the time he had finished, other brains were chewing that very real
possibility—even Randall Feller’s.

Detective Aguinaldo raised a tentative hand and spoke for the first time in the meeting. “Not sure whether this is too half-baked for group discussion…”

“No such thing,” Rook said, chuckling. “Didn’t you hear my theory? Let ’er rip.”

“It’s not so much a theory.”

The new detective’s transition had been a slow one. Heat, who had liaised with Aguinaldo in the Hamptons on a case around the time of Hurricane Sandy, knew her potential and constantly
prodded her not to feel intimidated by the squad of veterans in a big-city department. “Inez, if you’re holding, don’t be shy, let’s hear it.”

“OK. Since I was on duty here this morning instead of down by the river, I called Forensics to touch base with whoever was assigned to this case.”

“Benigno DeJesus,” said Heat. “I pushed for him to catch this one, because he’s simply the best there is.”

Aguinaldo nodded. “So I’ve heard. And we had a nice chat while you were en route here.”

“You already talked to him?”

“Seemed like routine meeting prep to me.”

That was one of many reasons Nikki liked Inez. She was always thinking, always anticipating.

“He said that, in addition to the wallet contents you guys bagged,” Aguinaldo continued, “when they removed the body from the kayak, they were able to access a cargo pocket on
his pants thigh with some loose cash in it. Mostly singles and a five. Also…one custom clay poker chip. Detective DeJesus texted me this photo of it.” She stepped up to the front and showed
Heat the shot on her iPhone. “You can see it has a molded rim of a repeated hourglass design. And it’s purple.”

“That means it’s worth five hundred bucks,” said Feller. “I worked vice. Purple is the traditional color casinos use for five yards.”

“They haven’t run it for prints yet, but the RTCC traced this unique design and pattern to a place called Fortuna’s Wheel, per the Organized Crime Unit database.”

“Got to love those monster computers downtown,” said Heat.

“I know Fortuna’s Wheel,” said Rook.

Feller chimed in, “Me too. There’s a big not-so-secret secret gambling den in the basement. Very mob.”

“Run by my old friend and yours…” Rook slapped his knee and said to Nikki, “Fat Tommy.”

“He’s not my friend.” Then, as Heat wrote Fat Tommy’s name on the Murder Board, she added, “But I am going to renew my acquaintance with Mr. Tomasso Nicolosi this
morning.” Then she turned to the group. “Time to make some assignments. Detective Aguinaldo: nice work following up on the chip. Since you did so well with the RTCC, contact them again.
Lon King was an NYPD contractor, so have them run any threats against him. Then hit Personnel. Find out about family, next of kin, whomever. Pay his loved ones a visit and interview them about the
usuals.”

Aguinaldo nodded as she made notes, saying, “Last seen, state of mind, friends and enemies, financial worries, affairs, drugs, drinking, unusual behavior.”

“Also ask about his kayaking. How often he did it, where he stored it, places he put in and liked to go.”

“And did he belong to a club or float with a regular buddy?” suggested Rhymer.

“Good thought, Opie,” said Nikki, using the clean-cut detective’s squad nickname. “And since you know a little bit about the sport, call DeJesus in Forensics and find out
all there is to know about the boat. Not just fingerprints, hairs, and damage or wear to the hull, but maybe there’s a serial number that tells you where it was bought or perhaps a sticker
from REI or Eastern Mountain Sports. If not, door-knock the local kayak retailers and outfitters. See if anyone knew King and if he hung out with anyone in that world. Visit the float and nature
clubs, not just for members who knew him but for any habitual spots for a sunset excursion on a spring evening.”

“I didn’t see any paddle at the crime scene,” said Detective Rhymer. “Not sure what to do with that, but it’s worth noting. Also no cell phone on him.”