Driving Heat (15 page)

Heat turned her replacement car onto the ramp for the West Side Highway, but not without craning to look over the concrete guard wall of the traffic circle to see the banks of the Greenway,
which showed no sign of the previous morning’s crime scene shutdown.

“Funny thing,” said Rook, who was also rubbernecking the Hudson’s edge. “Just a touch more breeze from the north, or a skosh more ebb tide, and that kayak would have made
landfall downriver in the Eighteenth or maybe the Tenth Precinct, and this would never have been your case.”

“Lucky me.” Nikki ruminated a bit before adding, “Otherwise, I never would have learned you were hiding all this from me.”

“Hey, now. I came clean. Don’t I get a good-citizen’s pass?” He gave her that damned charm face, which made her fix her eyes on southbound traffic so he wouldn’t be
able to see how vulnerable she felt right then. She concentrated instead on processing the updates she had gotten at the Murder Board right before leaving the precinct.

Randall Feller had arrived, fresh from the proving ground on Staten Island,
where the president of Forenetics and his operations
staff had briefed him on the likely scenario that led to Fred Lobbrecht’s death. The vehicle prep was a ritual he always insisted on performing himself. Lobbrecht would arrive on the day
before each test to ensure that the car was in the correct position to be engaged by the catapult and would set up the driver’s side of the car to receive the dummy, which he loaded in as the
final checklist item. “Everyone agreed it’s pretty much a solo task,” explained Feller. “Mainly plugging in a gang of harnessed cables that snake through the backseat from
the black boxes in the trunk and then connecting those color-coded leads into the matching colored sockets. Blue, to the dashboard; red, to the interior cameras; finally, yellow, to the dummy
itself. Obviously, he never got to yellow.”

“Man…What a way to go,” said Ochoa, feeling the dread that was clawing at everyone else’s gut, too.

“Randy, did they say why the launch mechanism fired?” asked Heat.

“They have no idea. And our CSU is on scene and not letting anyone from Forenetics touch anything, for the obvious reason that one of them could be responsible, either by accident,
or…whatever.” As the team digested that, he added, “Kind of ironic: a forensics consulting firm getting investigated by NYPD Forensics.”

Since everyone else on the squad had past experience with Stu Linkletter, it had fallen to the newest detective to liase with the Staten Island medical examiner. “Kind of a dick,”
Inez Aguinaldo began. “Am I allowed to say that?” After unanimous agreement, she relayed the salient parts of the ME’s report. “Skimming past the abrasions, contusions, and
fractures to the mandible, maxilla, and nose, as well as lacerations to the scalp and multiple skull fractures, the COD story is that the victim suffered fatal injuries to the brain, subgaleal,
subdural, and subarachnoid hemorrhages, injuries to cerebral blood vessels at the base of the brain, and dislocation of the C-one and C-two vertebrae, with injury to the underlying spinal
cord.”

“You hardly looked at your notes,” said Raley, impressed.

“I had medic training when I was an MP,” said Aguinaldo. “Dr. Linkletter wanted me to stress that this finding is still preliminary, since he hasn’t run blood and tox
yet. He also wants to check the victim’s records to see if he had signs of depression that would indicate possible suicide.”

“Did you tell him those records were stolen from his murdered shrink?” asked Rhymer.

Detective Aguinaldo nodded and said, “I also told him suicide didn’t seem likely, because of one of his other findings.” She now had the attention of the entire bull pen,
including Nikki, who felt pretty smart right then for having recruited Inez from a suburban police force in the Hamptons. “Mr. Lobbrecht had open compound fractures of his right distal tibia
and fibula: his ankle bones.”

“Indicating he was trying to brake,” said Rook. “Like mad.” A silence fell over the squad as they all imagined that moment of launch followed by the poor man’s
final seconds—all panic and futile action—rocketing closer to the wall of death…

“Nikki, Nikki!”
cried Rook.

Heat slammed on her brakes, getting the finger from the driver of the gypsy cab she had just nearly rear-ended at a red light near Chelsea Piers. “Sorry about that.” She laughed it
off. “Last thing I need is to requisition yet another car.” Nikki drove on, a lot more carefully, but still distracted. The puzzle pieces—“the jigsaw,” Rook had called
it—were still not speaking to her. It all still felt like the early part of the investigation instead of the homestretch, but patience always served her well. Pushing evidence to suit a
theory only resulted in dead ends and time lost, not saved. This, like most murder cases, was one she had to loosen the reins on and ride to see where it led. Her challenge would be to get there in
one piece.

The man in cargo shorts and a beard that might be described in Brooklyn’s
outré circles as hipster-ironic pushed through
the glass doors of the Hudson College Practical Science and Engineering Annex on Thompson Street and brushed past Heat and Rook without a glance of recognition, snapping as he went by,
“Follow me, four paces, no closer.” He walked briskly, his long black hair brushing his shoulders as he led them past a twenty-four-hour underground garage, two Thai restaurants, a
classic-vinyl-and-video shop, and The Little Lebowski, a paraphernalia and souvenir shirt boutique dedicated to The Dude, distinguished by a life-sized cutout of Jeff Bridges abiding on the
sidewalk. He headed north at a brisk pace, rapidly traversing the block and a half to Washington Square Park, where he chose a spot on the convex curve of a serpentine stone bench that angled him
toward the fountain. He crossed his bare legs and adopted an impatient pose while he picked something out from between his big toe and the footbed of one sandal.

“Nikki Heat, meet Wilton Backhouse,” said Rook.

She held out her hand, but he didn’t shake it. Instead, he remained intent on Rook. “I told you last time I didn’t want you coming to my office.” Then he seemed to become
aware of Heat. He dropped the unidentified sandal matter he was twirling between his thumb and forefinger and shook her hand. Nikki resisted wiping the dampness off her palm afterward. It
wasn’t easy. She noted that Backhouse’s forehead glistened at the hairline and that he had half-moon sweat marks under the arms of his red Cornell Engineering tee. Maybe, for him, it
wasn’t too chilly for shorts. He appraised her briefly and announced his finding. “Yep. Cop.”

Since he wasn’t going to invite her to, Heat sat on the bench beside him. But not too close. It wasn’t hard to profile Wilton Backhouse in return: a lab geek with poor socialization.
“Glad to meet you, Dr. Backhouse. And, as for dropping into your turf like this, that’s on me, not Rook.” He listened to her,
studiously
—that would be the word,
Heat thought. But in spite of his rapt attention, he gave no interpersonal feedback, no clue as to what direction his response would take.

“You should drop the ‘Mr. Rook’ shit. It’s not like I can’t tell you’re sleeping with him. Just so you know, I don’t care either way. I just don’t
like artifice. It’s insulting.”

Rook chuckled. “Well, we’re getting to know each other pretty quickly, aren’t we?”

“Why?” he asked.

“I’m not sure you heard this, but apparently one of your colleagues—”

“Fred Lobbrecht?” he interrupted. “You think I didn’t know he was killed? Your news is four hours old.” He patted the block of his cell phone inside a cargo pocket.
“What century do you think we’re living in, Captain?”

Chants and bullhorns caused them to turn and look across the square. On the far side of the iconic Stanford White–designed marble arch, several dozen protesters had assembled, shouting,
“Free Mehmoud! Free Mehmoud!” and carrying picket signs bearing Arabic inscriptions. Theirs was part of the growing angry response in the wake of the NYPD’s Organized Crime
Unit’s busting a ring that had been taking advantage of diplomatic ties to smuggle counterfeit currency into the US through Syria. Mehmoud Algafari, the son of a Syrian UN mission employee,
had been arrested as part of the ring, and the controversy concerned whether, as the relative of a diplomat, he was protected by diplomatic immunity, or whether his arrest constituted a US kick in
the teeth to Assad’s regime, using Mehmoud as a scapegoat.

“NYU undergrads organizing a feel-good march up to the UN because that diplomat’s kid, or whatever, got busted,” explained Backhouse with a shake of his head. “Like
that’s going to fucking do anything.” Without seeming to have turned a page, he casually added, “Freddy Lobbrecht was murdered. Please tell me you know it wasn’t any
accident.”

Heat glanced at Rook then back to the engineer. “We…see that as a possibility.”

“A possibility? My respect for you is this close to Hindenburging.” He tilted his head up to Rook, who was still standing. “Have you paid attention to anything we have
discussed? Do you have any idea what they will do to keep this evidence under wraps?”

“Now you’re getting to why I needed to see you,” said Heat. She had decided to play into what she read as Backhouse’s compulsion to know better, to know more than anyone
else, by subordinating herself. “Rook has been tight-lipped. He keeps his secrets. I need to ask you to enlighten me. Help me understa—” Nikki stopped because she had lost his
attention, and not just a little. Her studious listener had broken eye contact and was staring over her shoulder in the same direction as Rook, whose attention had apparently been drawn there
first. Heat turned to see what the hell they were so intent on. She heard it before she saw it.

It could have been a swarm of bees. But as it drew closer, Heat was reminded of the purring hum made by a Weedwacker, though no gardeners were trimming the edges of the lawns that day. And the
buzzing came from somewhere above.

“Eleven o’clock,” said Rook. Backhouse stood first, then Nikki joined him, both scanning the far side of the park. A small dot resolved out of the bright western sky, gently
hovering between the Judson Memorial Church steeple and the brick apartment tower on McDougal.

“How cool is that?” Backhouse, more engaged than before, stared in awe. “Never seen one of those in an urban area before.”

“Is that a drone?” asked Heat.

“Hmm, respect is rebuilding, Captain Heat,” said the engineer.

Rook made a visor of his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “I’ve seen drones in the Middle East and in the Caucasus, but they were military grade. Bigger, you know?”

“Yeah, like flying torpedoes,” agreed Backhouse, whose inner nerd was somehow even nerdier than his outer persona. “This one is hobby grade. You should definitely check them
out on YouTube, they’re like flying Roombas.”

With some pride, Rook said, “I fly a hobby helicopter.”

“Do you, grampa?” Backhouse snorted a laugh. Rook’s expression lost all its joy.

“It’s moving toward us,” said Nikki.

Gradually, smoothly, the drone decreased altitude and floated gracefully, passing over the hexagonal-brick-paved plaza surrounding the fountain until, about ten yards away from them, it slowed,
maintained its position, then drifted forward. Rook sang the five-note signature motive from
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
, eliciting an appreciative guffaw from Backhouse. The
drone’s four small rotors sizzled in the air, maintaining a steady, measured course as the quadcopter progressed toward them. “It likes you,” said Rook. Indeed, Wilton
Backhouse’s enthusiasm for the drone was not only contagious but magnetic. The craft settled at eye level and moved within feet of him, then hovered there.

That was when Heat’s fascination turned to alarm. Beside a camera lens she saw what looked like the muzzle of a small-caliber weapon fastened to the bottom of the drone, and it was aimed
right at the whistle-blower’s forehead.

“G
un!” she called. Rook instinctively whipped his head from side to side, scanning the park for a shooter. Backhouse,
still mesmerized, held his gaze on the drone. Heat broke his geeky trance with a hard shove and a leg sweep to the back of his knees. He howled in alarm as he went down. His yell was punctuated by
the sharp crack of a .22 round fired from the quadcopter and the unmistakable sound of a bullet ricocheting off the wrought iron fence behind them.

They landed in a tangle. Surprised and disoriented, Backhouse began to curse and push Heat off him; meanwhile, she was trying to reach her gun, but his flailing arms were in her way. Rook, still
on his feet, tried to make sense of the scene. Heat hollered, “The drone! It’s armed. It’s shooting.” Nikki gave Backhouse a push and rolled clear of him, coming up with her
Sig Sauer braced, but the drone had pulled back and twenty yards to one side. Her shot would have been in line with the crowd of protesters. A miss, or even a hit that ended up as a
through-and-through, could easily strike a bystander. She holstered her piece, clawed a handful of Wilton Backhouse’s tee, and pulled him with her. “Run.”