Deadly Heat (5 page)

When she turned from the map, Heat caught Ochoa eye-rolling to his partner. “Problem, gentlemen?”

Ochoa said, “I know, like, Rales is your King of All Surveillance Media, and all that. But we’re getting spread a little thin. We still have to get back in the field to brace more of the restaurant owners on Conklin’s roster.”

“You’ll have to juggle both,” said Heat. “Like we all do.” She didn’t need to take it further. Nikki could see the impact on all their faces. Every detective in that room knew their squad leader not only juggled these two cases; she did it while someone was actively out to kill her. She adjourned, continuing to ponder the why of that. Heat didn’t have the answer yet, but the attempt on her life that morning told her one thing. Something new was up with whatever conspiracy had led to her mom’s murder ten years ago. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be working this hard to kill her now.

On the drive with Rook to City Island to interview Roy
Conklin’s widow, Nikki found her eyes on the mirrors a lot more than usual. When you know a professional wants you in the crosshairs, a little extra vigilance may get you a chance to see the next day.

Heat was at risk, and nobody would have thought less of her if she bunkered up. Captain Irons was so worried about her safety, he’d even offered her administrative leave or vacation time, if she wanted it. Nikki had stomped out that idea on the spot. The cop in her would never hide in the face of personal danger. That was the gig. But she did feel a healthy nerve jangle. Who wouldn’t? So Heat did what Heat did best: She compartmentalized. Experience had taught her that the only way to move forward was to cage the beast—put her fear in a box. Because what was the alternative? To close herself inside her apartment? Run and hide?

Not this detective. This detective would bring the fight to them. And check her mirrors.

The phone rang as they crossed the Pelham Bay Bridge, where the Hutchinson River separated the urban Bronx from the expansive green woods surrounding Turtle Cove. Nikki fished her Jawbone earpiece from the side door pocket and got an earful from her friend Lauren Parry. “Do I need to remind you that I will kill you if you get yourself killed?”

Heat chuckled. “No, you make that pretty clear. Every time.”

“See?” Lauren kidded, but sisterly worry came through. “That’s why you’re still walking God’s earth. Because I will come after you.”

Admonishment completed, the medical examiner filled in Heat on Roy Conklin’s postmortem. “Hard to call it good news,” said Lauren, “but Mr. Conklin was deceased before he went into the oven.”

Nikki pictured the body. Envisioned the high-temp bake. “So he didn’t suffer?”

“Doubtful. Cause of death was a .22 delivered to the base of the skull.” Heat answered Rook’s inquiring face by miming a finger pistol while the ME added, “Condition of the body and the small caliber hid the GSW from me on-scene. I found the slug when I opened him up. Ballistics has it now.”

“What about my poisoning vic from Starbucks?”

“He’s next up.”

“Be sure to run a cross-check versus whatever killed Petar,” said Nikki, mindful of Salena Kaye’s earlier poisoning victim.

“Gee, ya think?” said Lauren. “Leave the autopsies to me. You concentrate on staying alive.”

Heat and Rook patiently waited out another round of Olivia Conklin’s sobs in the living room of the airy, seashore-themed two-bedroom that would never feel the same to her. The apartment, in a complex of neat gray clapboards with bright white trim, sat waterside next to City Island’s sailing school in the Bronx. In the distance beyond the balcony, Long Island shimmered under a spring sun. The view back at them from Great Neck might have been Jay Gatsby’s when he contemplated the green light shining across the water. But symbols of brightness, beauty, and optimism had no place in that room. It should have been raining.

For Olivia Conklin, still wearing the crumpled business suit after her night flight home from a software training seminar in Orlando, the only solace was that her husband had been shot. When that’s the good news, it’s all downhill.

Even though Heat despised this part of the job, it was the part she was best at. She connected, having once been in a similar chair filling Kleenex herself. So she navigated the interview gently, yet alert for signs of guilt, lies, and inconsistencies. Unfortunately spouses proved worthy suspects. With delicacy, she probed the marriage, money, vices, mental health, and hints of infidelity.

“Roy only had one mistress,” she said. “His job. He was so dedicated. I know some people hear civil servant and think laziness. Not my Roy. He never left his work at the office. He took public health personally. He called them
his
restaurants and never wanted a sickness on his watch.”

All this only confirmed the research Heat’s team had done so far. Roy Conklin’s finances were in line with his pay grade. Roach’s restaurant checks revealed a man consistently called tough but fair.
Neither his wife nor his colleagues knew him to have any enemies, recent erratic behavior, or new people in his life.

“It just makes no sense,” said Olivia Conklin. Then the new widow wailed out the single, heart-crushed word Nikki heard from all grievers after the sudden theft of a life. That word was the beacon that guided Detective Heat in her work: “Why?”

As Heat and Rook walked back to her car, past the tidy row of Sunfish trailered in the sailing school parking lot, Nikki’s gaze roamed out to the glistening open water. She imagined the smart pop of Dacron as wind filled her sail and she tacked out into Long Island Sound. Then she pictured Roy Conklin standing right there his last living day and wondered if he’d savored that view or if his heart had felt too heavy with fear or guilt at some horrible secret he kept from his wife—a secret that got him killed and left her asking why. Or, Nikki speculated, did poor Roy never see it coming, either? Then her phone rang and yanked Heat into her other case. Sailing would have to wait. Back to juggling.

The call came from the police in Hastings-on-Hudson, a quaint village about a half hour upriver from New York City. Hastings only employed two detectives in its small department, and Heat maintained regular contact with them, checking for sightings of one of the town’s residents she needed to talk to.

Vaja Nikoladze was just one of numerous people Heat had put feelers out to, all seen as persons of interest because her mother tutored piano in their households prior to her murder. Nikoladze, an internationally renowned biochemist who had defected from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, had been eliminated as a suspect in her mother’s case. But since Tyler Wynn frequently booked her mom’s piano jobs as CIA spy dates, Heat wanted to know if the Georgian expat had had any recent contact with the fugitive.

But just like the elusive Syrian UN attaché and the other prominent clients Heat had reached out to, Nikoladze had been unresponsive, leaving Nikki frustrated, waiting weeks for a chance at contact that could bring a break in that case.

She gave Nikoladze the benefit of the doubt. He had been friendly and cooperative when Heat and Rook first visited him three weeks before. But since that time Vaja had been away showing his prized Georgian shepherds at various out-of-state competitions. Now the Hastings detective was calling to alert Nikki that her person of interest had just been spotted back in town. Wrenched but resolute not to let it drop, Heat juggled the Conklin ball up in the air and headed north. As she pulled onto the Saw Mill Parkway, a flicker of anticipation filled her. She knew better than to get ahead of herself, but Nikki dared to hope she might finally be moving forward after almost a month of relentless disappointment.

Forty minutes later, steam cleaning rubber floor mats outside the kennel on his back pasture, Vaja Nikoladze looked up at the undercover police car pulling off the two-lane that ran between his neighborhood’s horse pastures and woodlots. Even from a distance, the small man looked surprised when he heard them crunch the pea gravel of his car park. As they made their way across the vast lawn, deep-throated barks echoed inside the long outbuilding before Nikki even spoke. “Afternoon.”

Nikoladze didn’t reply, but instead pulled a push broom from a bucket of soapy water and power steamed the foam out of the short bristles. The two of them waited, not even trying to engage over the noisy jet spray of the pressurized nozzle. When he had finished, he cut the steam, leaned the broom against the wall, and draped the thick black rubber mats over the decorative railing to drip dry in the sun. Unlike their cordial visit weeks prior, Vaja gave every sign now that he wanted nothing to do with Detective Heat or her ride-along journalist.

“I have a telephone, you know.” After more than twenty years in the US, his Georgian accent remained thick and still sounded Russian to Heat’s ears.

“We were kind of in the neighborhood,” said Rook, earning a glower in return.

“You have come to get more material on me for your next article, Jameson? Maybe not everyone in United States is eager to be so well
known, you think of that?” When Rook had accompanied Nikki last time, he and Vaja got along quite well. Nikoladze had offered refreshments, swapped stories, even given an obedience demonstration of his top show dog. Rook’s subsequent write-up of the biochemist in his
FirstPress
article had been minimal—a couple of lines at the most—mere connective tissue in the story of Nikki’s quest to find a killer. Clearly, Vaja took exception to the limelight.

Heat didn’t care. She pushed right back. “We’re here to follow up on my official police investigation, Mr. Nikoladze. And the reason I didn’t call first is that you have been uncommunicative. I have left you too many unreturned messages and e-mails. So ding dong, comrade.”

Rook circled off to sightsee the Palisades, visible above the tree line. Vaja set aside his chores and crossed his arms. “I have some pictures I want you to look at,” said Heat.

“Yes, so your unending messages have said. I told you last time, I don’t know this Tyler Wynn.”

As she swiped each image on her smart phone, Nikki said, “Indulge me. I want you to see Tyler Wynn, and also this woman, Salena Kaye, and this man here, Petar Matic.”

He barely looked at them. “I cannot help you.”

“Does that mean you don’t recognize them or you can’t help?”

“Both.” He stared at her with resolve mixed with petulance. “I must inform you that I have been told not to speak to you, or risk deportation.”

Rook circled back around from his sightseeing and made eye contact with Nikki. Then her brow lowered and she took a step closer to Vaja. “Exactly who told you this, Mr. Nikoladze?”

When she heard the name, Nikki fumed.

“Detective Heat, NYPD.” She flashed tin and added, “Special Agent Callan is expecting us.” The reception officer at the Department of Homeland Security’s New York field office cleared his throat in an exaggerated way that pulled Rook’s attention from the ceiling. He’d
been counting cameras since they stepped from Varick Street into the lobby of the huge government building.

“Oh, sorry. Jameson Rook, model citizen.” He handed over his driver’s license and whispered to Nikki, “More cameras than a Best Buy at Christmas. Five bucks says Jack Bauer already knows we’re here.”