Naked Heat (21 page)

“Look at you here, all bright-eyed and . . .”—she studied him—“. . . bushy faced.”

“I skipped the shave this morning. A little time-saver after a long night. Researching.” He waited while she hung up her jacket, and then he added, “And you?”

“Feeling pretty good, actually, thanks.” She turned across the room. “Roach? You get Derek Snow’s phone records yet?”

“Put in for them,” answered Raley. “Should arrive anytime now.”

“Call them again. And keep me up on it.” She put her bag in her desk file drawer. “Rook, you’re hovering.”

“Huh? Oh, I’m just wondering . . .” His sentence hung there, suspended between them. What he wanted to ask was about her night. What she did. Where she went. What she did. When it ended. What she did. So many questions. But the one he asked was, “Is there something I can do to be useful this morning?”

Before Nikki could answer, the phone rang on her desk. “Homicide, Detective Heat.”

Before Nikki heard the voice, she heard the unmistakable sound of subway wheels squealing to a halt. “Are you there?” She recognized the voice of Mitchell Perkins. But Cassidy Towne’s editor didn’t sound quietly superior as he had in his office the day before. He was agitated and tight. “Damn cell phone. Hello?”

“I’m here, Mr. Perkins, is something wrong?”

“My wife. I’m on my way to work and my wife just called. She caught someone trying to break in.”

“What’s the address?” She snapped her fingers to get Roach’s attention. Raley picked up the extension, copied the address Perkins gave, uptown on Riverside Drive, and called Dispatch while Heat stayed on with the editor. “We’re sending a car now.”

She heard him panting, and the background acoustics changed, telling her he had come up from the subway to street level. “I’m almost there. Hurry, God, hurry . . .”

Hurrying in Manhattan isn’t so easy, even with police lights and a siren, but the traffic flow was downtown at that hour, so Detective Heat made good time up Broadway to West 96th Street. From her TAC frequency Nikki heard that three blue-and-whites were already at Perkins’s apartment, so she killed her siren and eased it back slightly after she crossed West End. She looked up the street and chin-nodded to Rook beside her. “What’s this?”

Ahead of them, mid-block, two people were kneeling on the sidewalk in front of a car at a garage entrance. A third, a parking attendant to judge by his uniform, saw her flashing light and waved his arms to flag her down. Nikki was on the air calling for paramedics before she even saw the body stretched out on the pavement.

“Perkins?” said Rook.

“Think so.” Heat parked to protect the scene from oncoming traffic and left her gumball flashing. When she got out, a blue-and-white was right behind her and she directed the officers to split up. One to direct traffic, the other to hold the witnesses on scene. The detective hurried over to the victim, who was facedown on the car park driveway in front of the TT that had struck him. It was indeed Mitchell Perkins.

She did a check for vitals. He had a pulse and was breathing; both weak, though. “Mr. Perkins, can you hear me?” Nikki leaned an ear down near his face, which was sideways on the concrete, but got nothing back. Not even a moan. As the ambulance siren approached behind her, she said, “It’s Detective Heat. The ambulance is here. We’re going to take good care of you.” And she added, just in case he was semiconscious, “And police are with your wife, so don’t worry.”

While the EMTs went to work, Heat pieced together what had happened from the trio of citizens on the scene. One of them was a housekeeper who happened by after the incident and wasn’t of much use for information. However, the driver of the Audi said he was pulling out of the garage for a trip to Boston when he struck Perkins. Nikki figured the editor was in such a rush from the subway, freaked about his wife, that he wasn’t paying attention. But she adhered to her training not to box the story until all the details were in, and never to lead the eyewitnesses with her own guesses. Let them talk.

That’s what she did, and the story she got was big. The parking attendant said Perkins wasn’t running up the sidewalk when he first saw him. He was in a struggle with somebody, a mugger, trying to get his briefcase. The attendant had gone into his kiosk to call 911, which was right when the TT came up from the underground ramp. The driver said he pulled out just as the mugger ripped away the briefcase. Perkins had been pulling so hard that when he lost his grip he flew back into the front of the car. The driver said he hit his brakes, but there was no way to stop the collision.

Roach rolled up to the scene, and Heat assigned them to separate the witnesses and get more detailed statements and better descriptions of the mugger from them. As often happened in sudden violent crimes, the eyewitnesses had gotten distracted or shocked by the blur of action and missed basic descriptions of the perpetrators. “I already had one of the uniforms put out the APB for a Caucasian, medium build, in sunglasses and dark navy or black hoodie and jeans, but that’s pretty vanilla. See what else you can get, and try to get them down to the precinct for a look at photo arrays. I want to make sure we include the Texan and some of our other players in the deck. And while we’re at it, line up the sketch artist, too.” She looked around for Rook and saw him squatting in the gutter over the spilled contents of the editor’s briefcase.

“No, I didn’t touch anything,” he said as she approached, snapping on gloves. “I’m incorrigible, but trainable. How’s he going to be?”

Nikki turned to watch them load Perkins into the back of the ambulance. “Still unconscious, which is not optimal. But he’s breathing and they did get a better pulse, so we’ll see.” She crouched down beside him. “Anything useful here?”

“One very trashed, rather empty briefcase.” It was an old-fashioned hard case, a big clamshell gaping open, with business cards and stationery items like black binder clips and Post-its scattered about it. A handheld digital voice recorder lay scuffed a foot away, beside a granola bar. “Although, I do say I admire his taste in fountain pens,” he said, indicating a brick-orange-and-black Montblanc Hemingway limited edition nestled in the L where the curb met the gutter. “Those things go for over three grand now. Kind of shoots down the mugger theory.”

Nikki wanted to go along with that, but she pushed away the temptation of coming to any conclusions for now. That’s not how cases cleared. “Unless the mugger wasn’t a writer-slash–fountain pen collector.”

Just then Rook startled her by taking her by the wrist. “Come with me, quick.”

She almost hesitated, but she went along with him as he drew her across the street with a gentle grip on her forearm. But that didn’t stop her from asking, “Rook, what are you doing?”

“Quick, before it flies away.” He pointed to a single sheet of white paper fluttering down 96th toward the park on Riverside.

Nikki reached for it, but the wind took it and she had to make another sprint to get ahead of it. When it landed on the pavement at her feet, she pounced and slapped her open palm down to trap it. “Gotcha.”

“Nice. Would have done that myself, but you’ve got the gloves,” said Rook. “And the moves.”

With her free hand, Heat carefully pinched the corner of the sheet and turned the paper over to read it. Frustrated by her poker face, Rook grew impatient.

“Well?” he said. “What is it?”

Nikki didn’t answer. Instead, she turned the page so he could read it himself.

Wasted, Dead or Alive

The Real Story Behind the Death of Reed Wakefield

By

Cassidy Towne

Chapter Fourteen

M
itchell Perkins, senior editor, nonfiction, Epimetheus Books, opened his eyes in his room on the fourth floor of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt to discover Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook sitting in chairs at the end of his bed. The detective rose and stood beside him. “How are you feeling, Mr. Perkins? Do you want me to call the nurse or anything?”

He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “Thirsty.” She spooned an ice chip from the cup on his rolling tray table and watched him savor it. “Thank you . . . for helping my wife. Before my little nap she told me you had cops there in no time.”

“It all worked out, Mr. Perkins. Although you may not feel like that yourself, at this moment.” She gave him another plastic spoon of ice without being asked. “Did you see who did this to you?”

He shook his head and registered some pain. “Whoever it was came at me from behind. That’s usually a safe neighborhood.”

“We’re still sorting it all out, but I don’t believe this was a random mugging.” Nikki set the cup down on the table. “Putting this together with the attempted break-in at your apartment, this could be the same person.” Perkins nodded, as if he had been mulling that possibility, too. “We can’t be absolutely sure because your wife didn’t see the burglar. She said someone forced open a window and the alarm went off. Whoever it was ran off.”

“If I were laying money down,” said Rook, “I’d bet the route he took was Ninety-sixth Street.”

“Lucky me,” added Perkins.

Heat arched a skeptical brow. “The perp was the lucky one. The other factor here is that you still have your wallet and watch.”

“He grabbed my briefcase.”

“Because that’s probably what he wanted.” Nikki held up the ice cup, and he shook a “
N
o, thanks” then winced. “Somebody has been on a tear to get their hands on that Cassidy Towne manuscript, Mr. Perkins.” Heat had been thus far unable to find a judge willing to test the First Amendment by issuing a warrant to search the publisher’s files, and she labored to keep the frustration out of her voice. “You know, the one you said you didn’t have?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t have it.”

She heard Rook scoff behind her and knew he was thinking exactly what she was thinking: that Perkins must be feeling better, because he was parsing his words again. Put him in a suit, put him in an open-backed hospital johnny, he’d still lay down a smoke screen. She had to figure a way through it. “Fine, you didn’t say you didn’t have it; you pretended you didn’t. Has it occurred to you this may not be a time to mince words?”

The editor didn’t answer. He rested his head back on the starched pillow.

“We know what was in your briefcase. We found the cover page. And we know the rest of the manuscript isn’t there now.” She let that register and decided to make her move. “Whoever did this is still out there. So far, we have useless descriptions to go on, so what we need is anything that can point to a motive.” She hated to beat on a guy with a concussion, a broken leg, and three cracked ribs, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t. Nikki turned the top card from her deck. It was the fear card. “Now, do you want to help, or do you want to take a chance this person will try something again—when you’re not there and your wife may not be so lucky.”

He didn’t have to think too long. “I’ll call my office and have them messenger you a copy of the manuscript right away.”

“We’ll send someone to get it, if that’s OK.”

“Whatever you want. You know, I was carrying it with me because I was this close to giving it to you on my way in. This close.” The editor’s brow clouded briefly. “Could have saved us all this, if only . . .” He let his admission trail off, then shifted uncomfortably, trying to sit up more so he could face her. “You have to believe me when I tell you this, because I would understand if you were skeptical, given our . . . transactional history. But it’s the God’s truth.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t have the final chapter. I don’t. The material I have from her is incomplete. It only covers the backstory of Reed Wakefield’s life and the months before his death. Cassidy was holding back the last chapter. She said it was the one that reveals the details of the people responsible for his death.”

Rook said, “Wait a minute, that was ruled an accidental overdose. I thought Reed Wakefield died alone.”

Perkins shook his head. “Not according to Cassidy Towne.”

Of course none of this squared with either the coroner’s official findings or the information Nikki had gathered from her recent checks on the Dragonfly House with all the interviewees, including both managers, Derek Snow, and the housekeeper who found the body. Everything pointed to a drug user who accidentally overmedicated and died quietly and alone in his sleep, and who had no visitors the night before, or morning of, his discovery. “Mr. Perkins, did Cassidy Towne say what she meant by ‘people responsible’?” asked Heat.

“No.”

“Because that could mean a lot of different things if it’s true. Like it’s whoever sold him the drugs or handed him a prescription bottle.”

“Or,” said Rook, “if he wasn’t alone and the party in his room got out of hand. But that would mean nobody called the cops, nobody called an ambulance, that they just walked away and left him. That’s worth covering up.”

Heat said, “And Derek Snow worked at that hotel. Was he part of the cover-up? Or an unlucky eyewitness?”

“Or at the party,” speculated Rook.

“Unfortunately, we may never know,” said the editor. “She never turned in that last chapter.”

“Was it because, possibly, she didn’t know all of it?” asked the detective.

“No,” said Rook. “Knowing Cassidy Towne, she knew what she had and was holding it for ransom.”

“Exactly right,” Perkins agreed. “She had it all buttoned up in a sensational chapter that she said would reveal everything. And when she delivered the partial manuscript, she said she wanted to reopen negotiations on her deal. You wouldn’t believe what she was asking for. The woman was trying to kill us.”

“Ironic,” said Rook. When Nikki gave him a chastening glance, he shrugged. “Come on, you were thinking it.”

Minutes later in the bull pen Nikki split Roach up. With Esteban Padilla also killed by whoever killed Cassidy Towne and Derek Snow, she put Ochoa on the task of checking Padilla’s limo company for a Reed Wakefield passenger manifest on or before the night he died. She assigned Raley to canvass for surveillance tape of Mitchell Perkins’s mugging. Rook ended a phone call and joined them in the middle of the room.

“Just got off with Perkins’s assistant at Epimetheus Books. They made a PDF of her manuscript and they’re going to e-mail it. Should get here before the hard copy arrives, so we can dive right in.”

Nikki’s attention drifted to the murder board and the list of names on it in her neat block printing. “If what Perkins says is true and the last chapter is still out there, that means someone is still going to be looking for it.” And then, turning to them so they could read her apprehension, she added, “And won’t stop at anything to get it.”

“The book guy was lucky. How’s he doing?” asked Raley.

“Hurting, but he’ll make it,” answered Heat. “I think a lot of his pain is realizing he could have avoided all this if he had just shared the manuscript when we asked for it.”

“Just one more irony,” Rook said. “Epimetheus? . . . The Greek god of hindsight.” They all stared at him. “True fact. Alex, I’ll take ‘Moons of Saturn’ for a thousand.”

It was time to get Soleil Gray in a more official setting. But Reed Wakefield’s ex-fiancée responded in kind by showing up in Interrogation 1 with her attorney, one of the most aggressive, successful—and, as a result, expensive—criminal lawyers in the city. Detective Heat knew Helen Miksit from days when she was glad to be in the same room with her. She had been a tough prosecutor who collected guilty verdicts like scalps and made cops want to send flowers. But six years ago, Miksit left the DA’s office and crossed the aisle for profit. Her wardrobe had changed, but her demeanor hadn’t. The Bulldog, as they called her, made her opening move before Heat and Rook even sat down across the table. “This is bullshit, and you know it.”

“Nice to see you again, too, Helen.” Nikki slid into her chair, unfazed.

“We’re past the pleasantries on this one, I’m afraid. My client has filled me in on your serial badgering and I have advised her to say nothing to you.” Beside her, Soleil Gray was occupying herself by nibbling at a loose piece of skin on her knuckle. She took her hand away from her mouth and shook her head slightly to indicate she was on the same page, but what Nikki read from the singer wasn’t a stonewall. She looked vulnerable rather than cocky. That part was left to the lady in the power suit. “To be clear, we are only at this interview because we have to be. Now, you can save us all a lot of trouble by recognizing the futility of this and calling it a day.”

Nikki gave the attorney a smile. “Thank you, Counselor. I have been diligent, I’ll admit. You remember what it’s like out here, don’t you? People get killed, cops gotta ask questions . . . Such a pain.”

“Twice you have gone to her place of employment and disrupted the normal course of her business on a witch hunt. You caused her to miss her performance on a late-night show, and now you’ve got her completely distracted while she’s gearing up to shoot a new music video tomorrow. Is this desperation, or are you performing for your next article?” Miksit side-nodded to Rook.

“Oh,” he said, “don’t worry, there’s no sequel. I’m just along because I love the swell folks you meet in police stations.”

Nikki jumped in before that escalated. “My repeat visit to Soleil was to get a straight answer from her after getting a series of lies from her the first time. Your client is connected to two homicide victims, and—”

“Means nothing. ‘Connections.’ ” Miksit spat the word. “Come on, Detective.”

Nikki was used to the woman’s confrontational style, but she had seen it while sitting behind her in a courtroom as an ally, not across the table on the receiving end. Heat had to wrestle to keep this her meeting, and she did so by continuing on her road in spite of the push-back. “And one of those victims, Cassidy Towne, we have just learned, was writing a book about the death of Miss Gray’s fiancé.”

“Oh, please, this is why you brought us in here?”

Soleil cleared her throat and swallowed hard. Helen Miksit made great theater placing a comforting hand on her forearm. “Is it really necessary to do this? This subject is still an open wound for her.”

Nikki spoke quietly. “Soleil, there’s little doubt Cassidy Towne was murdered to stop the publication of her book about the circumstances surrounding Reed Wakefield’s death.” She paused to choose her words carefully, unsure whether the singer was a conspirator or a victim herself. “If you are involved or know about this in any way, this is the time to speak up. The time to hide is over.”

Helen Miksit said, “As I told you at the outset, you can have your meeting. It doesn’t mean she’s going to participate other than to be here.”

Nikki leaned toward Soleil. “Is that how you feel? There’s nothing you want to say about this?” The singer pondered, looked like she was about to speak, but in the end, she looked at her attorney, shook her head, and went back to chewing at the tiny flap of skin on her knuckle.

“There you have it, Detective Heat. I assume we’re finished now?”

Heat gave one last look to Soleil, hoping to bridge the chasm, but she wouldn’t give Nikki her eyes. “We’re done. For now.”

“For now? Oh, no. This ends here. If you want to get yourself in boldface on ‘Page Six,’ you’re going to do it harassing someone else.” Miksit stood. “A word of caution? You may find that when the PR machine reverses direction, it isn’t always so friendly.”

Heat led them out, and as she watched them walk away through the lobby, she felt even more certain that Soleil was into this. She just wasn’t sure how.

Nikki returned to the bull pen, where Rook was already at his computer reading the first pages of the PDF of Cassidy’s book, which had arrived during the interrogation. She found Detective Hinesburg sitting in Heat’s own chair, using Heat’s desk, and jotting on Heat’s notepad with one of the pens from her pencil cup. “Make yourself comfortable, Sharon.” Nikki was still feeling tight from her meeting with Soleil and The Bulldog, and venting a little steam at Hinesburg gave her some relief. She could feel guilty about it later.

“Hey, funny,” said the detective, oblivious. Another irritating quality, but at least it would save Nikki an apology. “I was just leaving you a note. I checked on the PI Elizabeth Essex used to snoop on her errant ex-hubby. Local Staten Island guy her lawyer uses. Not our Texan.”

Heat wasn’t surprised by the news, but at least that loose thread ended there. “What about Rance Wolf’s other clients, where are we with that?”

“Spoke to the CEO of Hard Line Security in Vegas. He’s cooperating and putting together a list for me. Both corporate and individual clients. I also asked him about Tex’s freelances. He said they maintain notes on any freelance jobs their people take on since their company policy is that agents have to disclose to avoid conflict of interest. He’ll share that, too. I’ll let you know the minute I get it all.”

Detail and initiative like that were why Hinesburg was such a great cop. And why Nikki put up with the petty annoyances. “Good work. And, Sharon, sorry if I sounded a little irritable.”

Detective Hinesburg said, “When?” and moved off to her desk.

Ochoa checked in from Rolling Service Limousine. In the background of his cell phone call, Nikki could hear a pneumatic wrench and could envision a town car getting a new tire. “Got something weird over here. You ready for weird?”

“A manifest from Reed Wakefield with a suicide note on it?” said Nikki.

“No Reed Wakefield manifest. In fact no manifests at all from the night Wakefield died. I already had Raley check the records we pulled, they’re not in with ours, either. We did our survey before the Reed Wakefield deal surfaced, so we assumed it was just Padilla’s day off. But come on, this is all the manifests for this whole company from that night. It’s like every one of their drivers took the night off and didn’t have one booking. You see what I’m getting at?” Nikki processed the significance of the missing records. The gravity. The reach. The tire gun whirred again. “You still there?”