Driving Heat (7 page)

Inez Aguinaldo had just interviewed Sampson Stallings, the romantic life partner of Lon King, who had come directly from JFK to meet with her in the station’s conference room. “The
man’s in pieces. He and the victim were a couple for almost a decade and were talking about a wedding.”

“How was the relationship?” asked Ochoa.

“Like I said, they were talking about a wedding.”

“All fine,” said Feller, “but look at reality. Weddings bring out the bad shit. People work in one last fling and get caught, or get cold feet and choose a deadly way out, or
all the fear and tension around the big step makes one of them crack, and—
pow!
” He caught the stare he was getting from Nikki and added, “Clearly, your engagement is the
exception.”

“In fact, Mr. Stallings did admit they had been quarreling lately over his partner’s gambling debts,” said Detective Aguinaldo. “But he told me Dr. King had recently
joined GA and was taking steps to get a handle on his habit. As for the rest of their relationship, they had no infidelities, King had no enemies or known threats against him, no changes in routine
or behavior, no drugs, no drinking, nothing that would point to this.”

Heat asked, “You check his alibi? He said he was in Vermont, but Burlington’s only a one-hour flight or a six-hour drive.”

“Affirm. During the TOD window, Mr. Stallings was in a portrait sitting with a United States senator.”

“I’d go for more cred,” heckled Rook.

Detective Feller bent his report through the prism of frustration after spending the day dogging the Harbor Unit and USCG with no accounts of unusual activity concerning a lone kayaker. “I
did get some tide info. Yay. Coast Guard ran a computer model factoring in ebb and flood, wind, and drag on a rudderless vessel of that size. Their best guess is that the kayak came downriver,
north to south.”

“That would fit,” said Inez. “Stallings said Dr. King stored his kayak at a boathouse up in Inwood and would have put in there.”

“Which Detective Aguinaldo was kind enough to phone to me since the kayak was my assignment,” added Rhymer. “I got the call at the REI in Yonkers, where he bought it and took
paddling classes. No regular float buddies, according to the manager. In fact, he recalled how King made a big point that he wanted to take up the sport for the solitude.”

Nikki reflected on her sessions and his tranquil demeanor. After a day of listening to people talk, she imagined the quiet probably kept the psychologist sane.

“I hit the Inwood Canoe Club on my way back to Manhattan,” Rhymer continued. “It’s on the Hudson between Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the GWB. The vice commodore got me in
touch with a member who saw King put in late yesterday afternoon, about four-thirty.”

As one, the entire squad noted the wall clock, no doubt hatching the same thought. About twenty-four hours before, a man had put on his life jacket, thinking he was going for a carefree paddle
on an April evening.

Detective Rhymer, who had paused in deference to the collective impulse, resumed, consulting his notes. “The member, an HR exec named Abira, said she had a friendly exchange with King,
giving him shit about the hazards of floating solo. Ironically, his last words were, ‘If I die, you can have the last laugh.’ She had an appointment and left as he was paddling upriver.
According to her and the vice commodore, one of his favorite courses was to make a loop: Harlem River to the University Heights Bridge, and back.

“Detective Feller,” said Heat. “While there’s still daylight, get on your contacts at Harbor Unit for a scour of that stretch.” While he moved off to his desk, she
called after him, “Fishermen, boaters, bird-watchers, pot smokers hanging at the water, ask Harbor to check them all out.” Without turning, he waved in the air to acknowledge.

“How do we feel about Fat Tommy?” asked Ochoa. “After your meet, do you like him for this?”

Heat recapped her meeting at Fortuna’s Wheel with Nicolosi. When she finished, Raley observed that she didn’t seem convinced that he was involved. “Sean,” Heat said,
“everyone has to be on the table until we close this. But his motive isn’t strong.”

“He said it himself,” added Rook. “Bad business to kill people who owe you.”

Detective Rhymer flipped his notebook closed. “Makes us mighty lean on suspects.”

Ochoa crossed to the Murder Board and tapped the break-in at Lon King’s office. “This is our hottest lead right now. And those A-through-M patient files that got ripped off? Our
killer could be one of them. Maybe there was a patient with something in his file he didn’t want known. Something he admitted to the shrink and regretted later.”

Raley joined his partner’s speculation. “Or, maybe something the shrink blackmailed him with to get money to settle his debt.”

“Viable,” said Feller, returning from his call.

Nikki shook her head. “I know I said everything has to be on the table, but that doesn’t seem in character to me.”

Feller scoffed. “People surprise you.” Rook and Heat traded some drive-by eye contact and looked away. “So can we get a list of the A-through-Ms? Start getting warrants so we
can do some interviews?”

“There is no list,” said Ochoa. “The files were stolen and so was all the documentation from the office. Hard drives, date books, everything. It’s a dead end.”

“Did Lon King keep a patient list at his home?” asked Miguel. “We should find that out.”

“I already asked.” Detective Aguinaldo riffled through pages of her notes. “According to his partner, they shared an office-slash-studio in their second bedroom. King mainly
used it as a retreat, where he read psychology journals and worked on a nature book he was writing. The only way Stallings saw him consult his case notes was with the paper files he brought
home.”

“His receptionist mentioned thumb drives,” Heat said to her.

“I’ll follow up.”

Rhymer raised a polite hand and waited for Nikki’s chin to tilt his way. “Here’s one solution. Make our own list. Have Personnel generate a roster of all the department
referrals that have been made to Lon King by NYPD.”

“That’s a great idea,” said Roach in a near-chorus.

“It’s a fucking needle in a haystack,” said Feller. “Come on, man, how many referrals have there been? How long do you go back? It’s a nonstarter, if you ask
me.”

Rhymer, self-advocating for a change, said, “You got something better?”

“Wheel spinning, Rhymes.”

Detective Rhymer flared. “Hey, dickhead, just because you didn’t think of it doesn’t make it a bad idea.” Feller was too shocked to fire back. The rest were too shocked
to do anything but stare in disbelief at the soft-spoken, sweet-natured, almost courtly Virginian. Squad politics had just gotten ugly—Opie had called Randy a dickhead.

Heat wondered if she had brought this on by not making that clean squad leader appointment and stifling the flames of rivalry right away. Or had this been boiling underneath the whole time and
the change simply made it blow up? She studied Rook. While everyone was beating the bushes for a clue, what the heck was he sitting on?

Then she banished that thought—for now. It wasn’t going to lead her anywhere good.

“Captain?…Captain?” Raley and Ochoa, both in her office. Both calling
her name. Nikki startled out of her blank stare at
the streetlight on 82nd and turned to them.

“Got something,” said Raley. “I asked Personnel to gather that list of patient referrals made to Lon King.”

“The idea being,” continued Ochoa, “that a cop psych referral would be the shortest distance between no client list and a pool of likelies for us to work from.”

“What did you get?”

Ochoa gestured with a thumb and Heat followed the partners to Roach Central, where their paired desks were shoved in one corner of the bull pen. Miguel gestured to his task chair, and Heat
rolled it up for a view of his monitor. A color NYPD identification photo stared out from the top quarter of the screen. On sight, she profiled the man as a handful. Every cop got told not to smile
for their ID pics; this one had followed procedure but managed to dab a hint of a smirk on his face. Or maybe it wasn’t the mouth so much as the wise-guy squeeze of his eyelids.

“Detective Third-Grade Timothy James Maloney,” said Raley.

“Actually, homes, it’s
ex
-grade-three.” Ochoa double-tapped the space bar, opening the next page, which was watermarked in red as confidential. It was a single-spaced
report on the events leading to the suspension of Maloney for numerous complaints of excessive force, followed by a mandatory referral to a department psychologist after the detective cleared the
desk of his Burglary Division squad leader with the sweep of an arm.

“A little tightly wound, wouldn’t you say?” said Heat.

Raley said, “You don’t know the half of it. Go to the next screen.”

On page three of Maloney’s digital Personnel file was a list of suspected multiple tire deflations and auto-paint scratchings of his Burglary lieutenant’s personal vehicle, a pickup
truck. None of the vandalism could be unequivocally attributed to Maloney. Heat tapped to the next page, which displayed the transcript of an anonymous text message to Lon King from an untraceable
burner cell phone:

Heat swiveled to Roach. “Personnel knows this was from Maloney?”

“Knows. Proving is something else,” said Raley.

“Why him?”

Ochoa gestured to the bottom of the screen. “For one thing, date of the text. Same day Lon King wrote Maloney up, recommending he be permanently removed from duty.”

“Lon King got him fired,” said Raley, with the distinct sound of advocacy.

“We have an address?” asked Heat. When Raley held up his notepad in reply, she stood. “Let’s make a house call for the doctor.”

When Rook saw them saddling up to go, he had the good sense, for once,
not to call shotgun, and he let the homicide squad co-leaders
compete for Heat’s passenger seat. Ochoa won a curbside round of Rochambeau with a surprise repeat of paper to Raley’s rock, so Sean rode in back with Rook on the brief ride uptown.
“Careful he doesn’t yack on you back there, Sean,” called Ochoa over the headrest.

“Not to worry,” said Rook. “Yes, I am prone to motion sickness, but I know better than to spoil the new car smell in the captain’s sweet ride.”

A blue-and-white from the Twenty-Eighth was waiting for them at West 128th, just outside the south entrance to St. Nicholas Park, a block from Maloney’s Harlem brownstone. Heat pulled up,
driver’s window to driver’s window, thanked them for their precinct’s cooperation, and coordinated with the pair of uniforms to cover the back of the building and its fire escape
while her crew doorstepped him from the front. The officers held up cell phones to confirm receipt of her text of Maloney’s ID photo, then split off to their position.

As the four of them got out and mounted the stoop, Rook asked Nikki, “By the way, what got this guy in hot water in the first place?”

“A volatile disposition and citizen complaints about back-alley beatdowns.”

Rook stopped and took a few steps backward onto the sidewalk. “May the excessive force be with you.”

The three others also exercised prudence, but in a different way. Heat, Raley, and Ochoa rested their hands on their holsters as they took positions beside the door. After several knocks and
calls through it to Maloney without a response, they returned to the car to wait for the search warrant they had requested.