Frozen Heat (2012) (7 page)

“Got it,” said Detective Malcolm.

“And ask railroad security to screen their cams for you. Jane Doe may not be an employee but a commuter who tried to escape her killer on the tracks.”

In the back of the bull pen, Raley and Feller burst in and then stopped short, seeing the briefing still in progress. She read their excitement and said, “Meeting adjourned.”

As Heat closed the door to the glorified closet up the hall where Raley tirelessly screened security video, Feller said, “You were right to have us check cams near the delivery drops.” He picked up the truck driver’s route sheet and showed Nikki where he had made ticks in order down the page leading up to a deli address with a Sharpie circle around it. “This footage comes three doors from the driver’s last stop, at a gyro place in Queens, before he left for Manhattan.”

“Northern Boulevard near Francis Lewis and Forty-fourth Ave.,” added Raley while he keyed some commands on his computer. “We lucked out. I pulled this from a jewelry store that’s had so many smash and grabs, they recently upgraded their video to HD. You won’t be unhappy.” He made sure she was ready and hit play.

The video showed blue velvet in the store’s empty window display, which had been cleared out at closing for overnight security. The time stamp read just before five-thirty that morning and registered only light traffic with just the occasional taillight rolling by in the darkness. The sidewalk remained empty until a figure appeared from the parking lot behind the P.C. Richard electronics store across the street. He had his head down, and a drape of hair fell across his face, obscuring it. But Heat’s attention focused on the blue-gray American Tourister he rolled behind him by the T-bar through the crosswalk toward the jewelry store. The man turned his back to the camera as he used both hands to tug the heavy luggage up the access incline from the gutter to the sidewalk. The case lost balance on its way up. It would have toppled over, but he flung an arm out to trap it before it could fall, and the shadows defined some major arm muscles pressing the sleeves of his T-shirt. With the suitcase steady now on its two wheels, he continued on, passing directly by the store window, where the bright light inside must have caught his attention because he turned to look in the window. Raley froze the frame and grabbed a crisp, high-def, full-face shot of their man. His deep-set eyes almost looked right into the lens. The frozen glance left Nikki momentarily speechless as she realized she could be looking into the face of her mother’s killer.

“You OK?” asked Feller.

She only said, “What do we gather from this shot?”

Raley looked at notes he had already made. “I make him about forty-five, give or take. I’ll go with five-eleven to six feet, and two hundred, maybe two-ten considering those guns. Some kind of tattoo peeking out the neck of the shirt. Nose broken years ago, and all around a pretty hard look to him.”

“I’m betting he’s done time,” Feller said. “I know a yard face when I see one.”

“Wonder if that’s where he’s been for ten years,” added Detective Raley.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Heat cautioned, saying it as much for herself to hear as the other two. “Write up your physical description to accompany the APB. Make a close-up of the tatt, and get it to the ink and scar database at RTCC. Even though it’s a partial, they’ve worked wonders finding matches with less. And, yes, let’s do make sure we get this still frame checked against prison records when we circulate it. Which should be immediately, or sooner.”

“Already created the JPEG,” said Raley. “Anything else?”

“Yes. You truly are King of All Security Media.”

An herbal scent greeted Heat when she opened the door to Rook’s apartment. The entry and kitchen were dark, and she caught the ambient dance of candlelight against the walls and the brushed metal appliances. The flickers came from the great room on the other side of the counter, along with dreamy New Age music. Nikki quietly slipped her keys onto the hook, hoping he wouldn’t be disappointed when she asked for a rain check on the romantic evening. After the wrenching day she’d just experienced, pizza, CNN, bath, and bed held all the allure she needed. Hell, she might even skip the food and TV.

“I’m in here,” came his voice, sounding a little throaty and disconnected, as if he’d gotten a head start on the Sancerre. Nikki stepped into the kitchen and peered across the counter to discover Rook in the dusky light, prone on a massage table. He had a towel across his ass, and a strikingly gorgeous woman in nurse’s scrubs kneaded one of his hamstrings, her long fingers just a little too close to that perfectly rounded cheek. Rook made introductions without lifting his head from the foam donut. “Nikki, this is Salena. Salena, Nikki.”

Salena looked up briefly at her, only long enough to show perfect teeth through her smile. She whispered a hello then resumed her interest in the spot where the upper thigh met the hem of his towel. “Mmm,” said Rook.

Salena said, “This is very tight.”

“Mm-hm,” he answered.

“Excuse me,” said Nikki. She left them and found her way up the dark hallway of his loft to the bedroom and closed the door.

When he came to her afterward in his robe, he found Nikki cross-legged on the bed, working her laptop. “You didn’t have to hide in here.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to stand out there while you were having your ‘me time’ with your masseuse.”

“Actually, licensed physical therapist. The agency sent Salena over to replace Gitmo Joe. How cool is that?”

She closed the lid of her MacBook. “He still sick?”

“No, he quit. So it’s Nurse Salena for the rest of my rehab. It’s only a few more sessions, but I can live with that.” He did a few twists and bends. “I’m feeling better already.”

“He just quit?”

“I think he knew I never liked him. Sadist. Dude probably didn’t like it that I talked back and offered too much resistance.”

“That wasn’t a problem with Salena. Not from what I saw.”

“Are you jealous? Seriously? That was a therapeutic session from a licensed professional.”

She laughed. “Complete with tea tree oil and Enya. Jeez, Rook, I felt like I walked into a porn video.”

“There is no Enya in porn video.”

The door buzzer sounded. “I’ll get that,” she said. “I ordered us a pizza.”

He followed her out of the room. “Ooh, pizza delivery. Now we are talking porn video.”

They ate camp-style, right out of the box, while she filled him in on the surveillance HD Raley pulled from the jewelry store cam and the forensic news about the lab solvent and train residue on Jane Doe. When they were finished eating, he said he’d do the dishes and did so by dropping the pizza carton into the recycling. “Good call on the pie,” he said. “Although I can’t decide whose I like best. Original Ray’s, Famous Original Ray’s, or Swear to God, Folks, This Really, Really Is Ray’s.”

They adjourned from the counter to the dining table, where that afternoon he had spread the printouts he’d made of the PDF case file she sent him alongside his typed-up notes from their meeting with Carter Damon. “In case you’re wondering, Detective Heat, that was a very useful exercise for me to be able to sit down with that guy.”

“I’m glad somebody got something out of it. All I got was pissed.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

She scanned his notes and said, “But I can’t see anything new that you got. Damon was right, it’s all information already in the case file.”

“What I got is a sense of his laxness. Maybe he wasn’t when he started the case, but this is a detective who dropped the ball when it got hard and the investigation called for some old-fashioned doggedness. To me, Carter Damon is Sharon Hinesburg without the nail extensions and push-up bra. The headline for me is that we have to go back ourselves and dig deeper.”

“I disagree. Much as I don’t like Damon’s slacker mentality—”

“—more cop-out than cop—”

“—these are dead ends. Captain Montrose always drilled us to follow the hot lead. And that means we focus on the fresh trail off that suitcase.”

“We can do both.”

Nikki ignored him, plowing onward. “And when we ID our Jane Doe, we’ll be even closer.”

“Why are you resisting this?”

“Beer?” she said, and left him for the fridge. Nikki had just finished pouring them each a perfectly cloudy Widmer Hefeweizen when her cell phone rang. After she listened briefly, Heat said, “Got it. Meet you downstairs from Rook’s in five,” and hung up. “That was Roach. If you want to come, you’d better wear more than a robe.”

“Where are we going?”

“Queens. They found our guy with the suitcase.”

The tattoo busted him. As Heat had hoped, the Real Time Crime Center had a match in its computer that connected to a suspect. A week before, the owner of a convenience store in the Bayside neighborhood of Queens had called in a complaint on a shoplifter. The surveillance cam picked him up, and even though the petty crime didn’t have the weight to make the news or light up an All Points, the RTCC logged the tatt into its database, and the hit came within minutes of Detective Raley posting his JPEG on the server. Uniform patrols flashed the picture around Bayside, and a night watchman at a used car lot recognized him as a guy he had seen hanging around lately. The break came when the security guard spotted him again a few hours after the uni visit and tailed him to a nearby house while he put in a cell call to NYPD.

Heat, Rook, Raley, and Ochoa rode in tense silence under the flashing gumball, shoulders swaying and knees bumping against the doors of the Roach Coach while Detective Raley threaded the needle through evening cross-town traffic to the Midtown Tunnel and onto the Long Island Expressway. The only gap in Raley’s concentration came on the straightaway passing the steel Unisphere at Flushing Meadows, when he side-glanced Ochoa in the shotgun seat and rabbit wrinkled his nose. His partner suppressed a smile about Rook, whose fragrant herbal massage oil had also hitched a ride in back. Heat picked up on it, but all she said was, “ETA?” Her succinct way of urging focus and speed.

Their Crown Vic rolled up to the tactical staging area at Marie Curie Park in Bayside six minutes later, and Raley angled it nose-out with the other police cars. Emergency Services Squad 9, including a unit of SWATs, stood by in black helmets and body armor. The ESS field commander greeted her as she climbed out. “You made good time, Detective Heat.”

“Thanks for waiting.”

“Listen. Going to let this be your show,” he said.

The underlying message of respect embedded in that gesture nearly choked her up, but she let it go with a crisp, “Thanks, appreciate that, Commander.”

“Got it all buttoned up for you,” he said. “Suspect is inside a single-family two-story on Oceania, next street over. Con-Ed records list the owner as a J. S. Palmer, although the bill hasn’t been paid for six months and the juice is off at the resident’s request.” He used the red filter on his flashlight, so he wouldn’t night blind her, and spread a map full of neatly drawn deployment markings on the roof of the car. “It’s the corner house here. I’ve got a tight perimeter covering all possible exits, including canines here and here. Blue-and-whites have Northern Boulevard choked off, and we blockaded Forty-seventh Avenue after you came through, so we own the streets. I also have a team inside the neighboring house, and we’ve moved that family out the side door.”

“Sounds like you’ve covered everything.”

“Not done yet.” He keyed his walkie-talkie mic. “ESU Nine to Chopper Four-one-four.”

“Go, ESU Nine,” replied a calm voice with a high-pitched purr behind it.

“Ready in five.”

“Confirm five minutes, on your signal. We’ll bring the daylight.”

Raley popped the trunk. Heat moved around to join him, Ochoa and Rook at the rear bumper. While the three detectives vested up, she said, “Rook, you wait here.”

“Come on, I promise I won’t get shot. I can wear one of those vests.”

Ochoa indicated the bold white lettering across his chest and back. “Check it out, bro. It says ‘POLICE.’”

Rook peered into the trunk. “Do you have one in there that says ‘WRITER,’ preferably in a large tall? You’re gonna like the way I look. I guarantee it.”

“Give it up,” said Nikki.

“Then why did you even bring me?”

Nikki almost let slip the truth and said, For the moral support. But she replied, “Because if I left you behind, I’d never hear the end of the whining.”

“That’s why?” said Ochoa, as the three detectives fell in with the SWAT unit. “I thought it was ‘cause Rook’s like the human Air Wick. Won’t need that cardboard pine tree in the Roach Coach with him around.”

ESU swarmed the house with a tactical precision that belied the laid-back demeanor of the commander and his team. Heat and Roach double-timed with the SWAT unit on foot, using the armored Bearcat vehicle for cover as it roared up the driveway. When the black truck came to a stop, the Bell helicopter thundered up the street and the pilot hit his Nightsun, beaming a dose of hot light to blind anyone looking out windows as the team deployed. They approached in efficient, textbook sequence, taking cover behind the porch rail, trash cans, and shrubs as they moved in. When Heat and the crew carrying the battering ram gained the front door, she knuckled it and called over the din of the chopper, “NYPD, open up.” After a pause too short to measure, Heat gave the go sign for the ram.