Nikki Heat: Deadly Heat Part 21

Rook said, "Just like he taunted you at Joe Flynn's boat."

"With the orange string leading to my picture? Yuh, I kinda got that."

"No, I mean the odd sock." Rook paced off his nervous energy. "Remember we all said Rainbow was mocking you for your quote in my article by putting odd socks on Joe Flynn? This guy wasn't just mocking you, Nikki, he was handing you a clue."

"Holy c.r.a.p, of course," said Raley. "Of all Rainbow's victims, what's the odd sock?"

Heat kicked herself for not seeing it herself, and sooner. "The odd sock-is the only one who didn't die."

"Dude set us up," said Ochoa. "He turned on just enough gas in that building to make it look like Rainbow attacked him. Probably left the back door open so he wouldn't suffocate. And to make it look like Rainbow got away."

Rhymer asked, "How do you account for the string and the clue on the rooftop. Pre-plant?"

"Count on it," said Heat, rising and adjusting her holster. "We probably can't get a warrant based on the fact that we saw him standing in a crowd, but let's bring Glen Windsor in. Maybe he'll let us take a picture with him."

Malcolm and Reynolds had the neighborhood around 77th and Amsterdam b.u.t.toned down by the time Detective Heat and the others arrived. Surveillance teams and extra manpower for pursuit covered all front and back access, including both ends of the alley. They had alerted School Police, who put nearby PS 87 on precautionary lockdown and cleared Tec.u.mseh Park on the corner of nannies and their charges, as well as a few day sleepers and one pair of trysters. Uniformed officers patrolled the rooftop of Windsor's building; others waited in the stairwell near his second-floor apartment and on the fire escape outside his bedroom window. For good measure, an NYPD sharpshooter had taken position atop the Equinox gym building across the avenue.

An ESU truck pulled up at 78th, behind Heat and her group, dispersing a black-suited SWAT unit. Nikki reflected that she had been seeing a lot of those brave folks lately.

A surveillance team with high-powered scopes, hidden across Amsterdam, reported no movement or activity in the locksmith shop. The plywood sheeting over one of the storefront windows Heat and Ochoa had busted out in their faux rescue of Windsor limited the field of view, but after thirty minutes, nothing had moved and n.o.body had gone in or out. The apartment building super, territorial and nosy, said he had seen Windsor leave his place first thing that morning and he had not come back. Just for drill, Heat asked Rhymer to dial the number of the shop. It rang out and dumped to voice mail.

"What's the play, Coach?" asked Malcolm.

Heat put on her bulletproof vest. "Roach, take Rhymer and Feller upstairs with you and hit the apartment on my green. The rest of you follow me. We're taking the store."

They took ready positions and when Heat radioed the green light, they moved on the double to the front door. Flanked by a pair of ESU tactical officers, Nikki took the lead. With about five critical seconds of window exposure, she raced to the gla.s.s door and pulled it open.

And her heart stopped.

A hand grenade dropped from the inside door handle and rolled on the linoleum at her feet.

Heat shouted, "Grenade!" and dove backward onto the sidewalk, where her two armored SWAT companions threw themselves over her body. In the eternity she waited for the blast, Heat replayed the heavy metal clonk on the floor and pictured the green thatched oval spinning before her in slow motion. While it spun, Nikki processed the deaths of Rainbow's prior detective victims, all of whom had been lured and ambushed. The iPad suddenly made sense.

Time started moving again without a detonation.

The emergency services unit quickly deployed handheld blast s.h.i.+elds, and Heat and the others retreated behind them.

Still no explosion.

The bomb squad arrived with men in heavy suits and an armored disposal truck. They sent in a robot to retrieve the grenade. After much examination it was deemed a souvenir prop, the kind you'd see in a joke shop or on a type-A manager's desk as a paperweight.

The Roach team had cleared Glen Windsor's apartment with no drama and no Glen Windsor. After the bomb squad had swept the locksmith shop with dogs and sensors, Heat and her crew went in, with the obvious knowledge that they'd not find Rainbow in there, either.

Heat did find something left for her on the gla.s.s display counter beside the cash register: the hard drive to her apartment's disabled lipstick cam. It was tied in a bow of string with all the colors of the rainbow.

Of all the pictures Heat had looked at that day, the one she would have loved to have taken was of Captain Irons when she told him that she had put out an APB on Rainbow. Wally's elation at the news of a break in the case made a hairpin turn when he learned that the prime suspect was Glen Windsor-the same Glen Windsor whom the precinct commander had photo-opped himself with at his Roosevelt Hospital news conference. The New York Ledger's full-page photo of the grinning Iron Man with his arm around the rescued victim's shoulder still sat faceup on his desk, accidentally-strategically placed for the stray office visitor to notice and inquire about.

The tabloid hit the captain's trash can with a shunk that was audible in the bull pen as Heat left the briefing.

Rook stopped by her desk. "Congratulations," he said. "You broke it. You ID'd Rainbow."

"Congratulations? Rook, I only ID'd him because he wanted me to. And let's not forget he's still out there somewhere and he still wants to kill me. Personally? I'd hold off on the champagne until we catch him."

Rook said, "On the plus side, you just saved me three hundred bucks on a bottle of Cristal."

"Maybe to bathe in. I was thinking more along the lines of a magnum of the 2005. That's going to set you back fifteen hundred."

"Where does a cop learn about luxuries like that?"

"Hey, I've been doing a ride-along, too, you know."

"Do I ever." He grinned his dopey grin then noticed on her desk the hard copy of Glen Windsor's picture from the iPad. "I've been thinking about this guy. Perfect job for access, huh? A locksmith-I'll bet that's how he really got into your place. That jimmied window was just to throw you off. Plus he installs security systems. Which is probably why none of the surveillance cams were operating anywhere he struck."

"Yeah, trust me, I've been thinking about that, too."

"It makes perfect sense, in hindsight."

"Hindsight." Nikki dropped her head and moaned. "The shoe every detective kicks herself with."

"Hey, I didn't see it, either. But then, I'm just a writer boy, not a trained homicide investigator."

"a.s.s." She poked the Coach bag hanging from his shoulder and made it swivel. "Where you headed?"

"Magazine stuff. OK, a lunch about another option offer. I'm trying not to put it in your face." He reacted to her sniffing the air. "What."

"Is that pineapple I smell? And chocolate-dipped strawberries? Tell me, Rook, does George Clooney's fruit basket taste more vibrant than the ones I get from Whole Foods?"

"In fact," he said, "it not only tastes more vibrant, there's something about a Clooney kiwi. One bite, and I feel like I can make a difference in this world. And look d.a.m.n fine doing it." He flicked his eyebrows at her and left.

Detective Feller swiveled his chair toward her and said, "Glen Windsor update. Traffic Department just located his locksmith truck parked a block from his shop. Forensics is going to scrub it."

"Good, thanks." Then, remembering Rainbow's history, she said, "Randall, run a check for other vehicles registered to him, out of state. Check Connecticut and Rhode Island first."

"This is your King of All Surveillance Media calling," said Detective Raley.

Heat smiled into her phone at the sound of his voice. "Is that why I don't see you at your desk? Are you in your realm?"

"Come hither," he said and hung up.

Detective Feller snagged her on her way to Raley's makes.h.i.+ft studio. "You were right. Got a DMV hit from Connecticut on a vehicle still registered there to Glen Windsor." He handed her the DMV fax. She read it and frowned. "What?" he asked.

"Not sure." Something about it nagged at her, but with so much on her mind, she couldn't bring it home. Heat handed the registration back to Feller and told him to get it out with Windsor's APB.

Nikki entered Raley's video screening booth, pointed to the cardboard hat propped on his monitor, and said, "If you want to hold on to that Burger King crown I got especially for you, this better be good."

"It'll be worth it. I finally got a chance to scan through the surveillance video from the Coney Crest. Man, you see a lot of freaks go through there." He s.h.i.+vered theatrically, and she laughed. "A couple of things of note. No hits on any of our usual suspects going in, other than Salena Kaye at check-in, and then up and down the stairs a number of times. It's basically, a lot of this." He clicked the mouse, and grainy video rolled-a split-screen: overhead of the manager's office on the right side; on the left, the exterior view of a metal staircase with pebbled steps that led from the second floor to ground level behind the lobby. Soon a pair of legs descended the stairs. When Kaye's face came into frame at the landing beside the ice machine, Raley paused the video on her. "Got about a bazillion of those shots, including the reverse trips. She comes, she goes-it's not award material."

"This the only cam, other than the manager's office?"

"Yes. And, as you see, the framing isn't wide enough to show the second floor or the door to two-ten. It's really set up so the manager can clock comings and goings between hits off his bong."

"Got it. Thanks, Sean."

"One more thing. You asked me to surf for Detective Hinesburg to verify that she actually showed up to interview the manager. She did." He clicked his mouse, and a second monitor awoke, loaded with a new split-screen video file ready to play. "If you don't mind," he said, "it's been a long session, and a gallon of coffee."

"Roll it, King, I'm good." Detective Raley double-clicked the icon to start the fresh video, and he hurried out. His task chair wasn't the most comfortable, but after the morning and night she'd experienced, Nikki melted back into it and lounged as Detective Hinesburg entered the motel lobby and spoke to the manager. The cam position was behind the registration counter with no audio, of course, so Heat had to satisfy herself watching across the back of the manager's head listening to Hinesburg's silent talking. What Heat really wanted to see was his face, for any tells when he lied about Salena Kaye's presence there.

Nikki wondered how Raley endured the tedium. Satisfied her defective detective had actually done as she had been told, Nikki let that video roll, in case the manager ever turned to the camera, and clicked the video on the other monitor to see more of Salena Kaye's comings and goings throughout her week there. She found the icon that increased the scan rate to maximum, and soon people were zapping up and down those stairs as if they were in a Charlie Chaplin movie. She decided goofiness like this was how Raley dealt with the monotony.

Then something caught Heat's eye that made her bolt upright in her seat. She scrambled for the mouse to stop the video and watched it again, riveted to every frame.

When Raley came back from the restroom a minute later, she had clicked all the video files closed. All the screens sat dark. "Find what you needed?" he asked.

"And then some." She stopped at the door and said, "Rales, save all that video, understand? No deleting, it goes nowhere else."

"Uh... sure. Everything OK?"

"And remember. This was just between us. We never screened this, clear?"

"Sure thing, but-" He never finished his question. She had already moved on.

Heat's brain raced. She bolted outside just to move her body. She didn't go anywhere, just paced a manic rectangle on 82nd Street outside the precinct, dodging the sidewalk smokers while she sought fresh air and clear thoughts. What she had just seen on that security video might have only been circ.u.mstantial, but for the jury in Nikki's head, it was enough. But she would need more.

Now Heat had another deadly secret to keep. And, with time running out, she needed to come up with a plan.

Sharon Hinesburg broke her concentration. "Nikki?" She sounded tense. Heat made a slow blink to clear her mind and turned to her in the open lobby doorway. "Phone call. Woman says she's Salena Kaye."

SEVENTEEN.

Heat started at a speed-walk through the lobby, past the duty sergeant, but something about the jolt of the buzz lock made the armored door feel like a starting gate. She punched the push bar, flung it open, and broke into a jog. Hinesburg chattered at her heels all the way, trying to keep up with Nikki's pace on the way to the squad room.

"I'm not absolutely sure it's her."

"What did she say to you, exactly?"

"I didn't talk to her," said Sharon. The switchboard transferred it. But remember that tipster who called me the other day-"

"I do."

"After I messed up with him, I didn't want to blow this."

"Good."

"So I went and got you."

"Are you running a trace?"

"Switchboard is on it already." She read something in Heat's glance and insisted, "They are. Why are you looking at me that way?"

The bull pen was empty; all the other detectives were out on a.s.signment. Hinesburg pointed to Nikki's desk. "It's the blinking line."

Heat reached for the phone, then hesitated. She took a few seconds to calm her pulse and fasten herself to the moment. Be present, Nikki, she thought. No time to get sloppy. Ready, she turned to Hinesburg. "Is this call set to record?"

"It should be."

" 'Should be'? Really?"

"It's set." Hinesburg bent over the small tan junction box coupled between Heat's phone and a hard drive. She flipped the toggle switch to On and a green mini-lamp lit. "Now it is."

"Maybe you should go grab Raley."

"I'm telling you it's set. The call will record, just pick up."

Nikki flipped to a clean sheet in her notebook and pressed the line. "Detective Heat."

"It's me," said the woman. And then, after a short pause, "Salena." The voice sounded like hers, only grittier and more subdued. Nikki tried to compare it to the one she had heard a month before when Salena Kaye insinuated herself into her life masquerading as Rook's physical therapist. Back when the two of them laughingly nicknamed her his Naughty Nurse and Heat had written her off as an airhead with a ma.s.sage table. So much for profiling.

Nikki said, "You're going to have to prove it."

"I expected that. Do you want me to tell you about the twin freckles on your boyfriend's a.s.s or how the s.h.i.+t Vaja Nikoladze cooked up is going to kill a couple thousand people?"

Heat ignored the personal bait. Instead her eye flicked to verify the green record lamp. She said, "Let's talk about what Vaja cooked up."

"You first," said Salena, who then chuckled derisively.

But lurking behind her contempt, Nikki heard something off in Salena Kaye's voice, something tight, like her bl.u.s.ter was fake. She sounded drunk. Or... afraid? Over years of interrogation Nikki had learned that s.h.i.+fts in demeanor were huge tells. Of what, she'd listen carefully for. "You called me. What do you want?"

After some throat clearing from the other end, a sigh. "Protection," she said. "I want to turn myself in, but I want protection."

"Like you gave Petar?"

"Can you give it to me?" Her voice rasped, sounding throaty and dry. Definitely scared. What was going on here?

Whatever it was, Heat didn't let up. "What's the problem, Salena? Running low on people to kill?" There was a long pause and Kaye muttered something. "Speak up, I can't hear you."

"They turned on me." Another pause. The fear mixed with something else. Remoteness, defeat. "They are going to find me and kill me just like Tyler Wynn."

"Excuse me, but I believe that was you."

"They have others. They can do it."