Raging Heat (20 page)

She looked up at the sky, which was brilliant blue with only a few vaporous clouds the morning sun hadn’t burned off yet. No hint of the cyclonic pinwheel feeding off humid water a thousand miles southeast. The storm made her think of the Emily Dickinson poem Rook joked about in happier days—at the chicken slaughterhouse. The one that called hope the thing with feathers that sings such a sweet tune. And in her mind, she recited her favorite stanza:

And sweetest in the Gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm.

Then her iPhone buzzed with a text from Rook. It said he thought they should take a breath and get some space. He’d be in touch. He didn’t say when.

Not one feather on that.

When Raley and Ochoa checked in later that morning they were southbound on the Taconic in the Roach Coach. “What did you learn at the farm?” she asked.

“Not much from Walter Sliney, that’s for sure.”

The speakerphone picked up Ochoa, whom she could envision behind the wheel. “Total doucher.”

“Understandable, though,” said Raley. “He was icing us to protect his brother.”

“Who murders old ladies.” Another addition from Ochoa.

“So no leads on Earl Sliney or Mayshon Franklin?”

“Correct. But state police lifted prints that confirm Thug-One and Thug-Two definitely crashed there, so at least there’s a trail to follow, and they are on it, big-time.” Raley added, “Good rapport with the BCI lead, so if they get a handle, we’ll know it soon as they do.”

Since they hadn’t brought it up, Heat initiated. “What about the crop duster?”

“I’m not a pilot,” said Ochoa, “but that plane looked viable.”

Raley, obviously in accord, filled in the detail. “I kind of expected some bucket of bolts biplane rusting under a haystack. The plane is in top condition. It’s a Piper Pawnee Ag aircraft converted to a tandem two-seater, which would allow room for the pilot and Beauvais’s body, if the scheme was to fly him out over the Atlantic and dump him in the ocean.”

“Is that your theory?” Sensitive to recent tension, she asked without judgment, only as a point of information.

“It’s one. I’ll admit, it’s a little bit like the wood chipper in
Fargo
, but that fits the IQ profile up here.”

Ochoa chimed in, “The plane not only has the room, it’s got the range, about four hundred miles.”

Picking up the rhythm of partner-talk, Raley added, “And it would be an easy in and out from that farm. No tower, no flight plan to file, no logs. Just load and go.”

Heat still had her doubts, but post-shrink, she consciously led with her usual open style. “Let’s factor that in then. And fellas. Nice work. Thanks for the initiative.”

She got left hanging in another one of those awful midair voids waiting out their reply. “Boss?” said Ochoa at last. “Rhymer and Feller called. They told us about you getting up in Fat Wally’s grill for us.”

Detective Raley sounded loose. Like his old self. “Just want you to know we’re good.”

And then, overlapping him, Roach said, “Way good.”

Nikki hung up. May the healing begin.

The subject line on Lauren Parry’s e-mail screamed, “Toldja!” Nikki clicked it open and read the synopsis of the lab results from testing residue under the fingernails of Jeanne Capois and the DNA of Roderick Floyd. High-confidence match. Heat wrote her friend back and busted her chops. “No coroner should ever use a smiley face emoticon.”

Her own smile faded after she walked over to post this news on the Murder Board and saw that it was already sort of up there. The medical examiner’s e-mail had provided confirmation but no momentum. Worse, it only reminded Heat that a puzzle piece she’d long been holding still didn’t fit anywhere. Nikki’s board was replete with floaters, orphans, odd socks, coincidences, contradictions, and names of the deceased—all proving that this was indeed about more than one man falling from the sky. Sounding to herself more like Rook than Rook, Heat believed that when this scattered array of disparate pieces finally did come together, it would expose a conspiracy of some kind. What kind? She wasn’t sure. Nikki found the notation for
RODERICK FLOYD—FINGERNAIL DNA,
took a marker, made a check mark beside it, and called that progress. For now.

Coming back from grabbing a Greek yogurt from the break room, Nikki heard her iPhone purring on her desk and lunged for it, fearing she’d miss a callback from Rook. But the 631 area code told her it was the Hamptons.

“Detective Heat, it’s Detective Aguinaldo; sorry I missed your call a bit ago, but I think you’ll forgive me when I share my reason.”

“Hey, no problem, Inez.” Heat set her Fage cup down and cleared space for notes. “I didn’t want to be a pest. Just making my rounds; you know how it goes.”

“Well it goes a bit slower here in Southampton Village, but yes. When you called I was back at Conscience Point. I wanted to knock on some doors after we were up there yesterday, but I couldn’t clear any officers, so I went up there myself this morning.”

“No explanation necessary. I appreciate you making the effort.”

“A number of folks weren’t home. Being that we are so low and coastal, people are heeding the warnings and caravanning to the mainland. The Cross Sound Ferry just announced they’re going to cancel Monday service because of Sandy, and you can imagine the backup of vehicles waiting to get on a boat at Orient Point.” Heat calculated the number of cars she had already seen leaving the day before and could only guess that the exodus now must be looking like the fall of Saigon.

“But I got an interesting piece of news for you. Know how the road forks left to Scallop Pond Road? Of course you don’t, but it’s right near the marina, take my word for it. One of the residents there said that the night we’re talking about, he heard what he thought were kids setting off M-80s, you know, firecrackers.”

“How many?”

“Two. And pretty close together. Bang. And then bang. I asked him to time it out for me.”

Nikki jotted down two bangs. “Is this the right time frame?”

“Perfectly in the hammock.”

“Your witness. Is this person reliable?”

“Solid. Bright guy. Does PR for one of the vineyards on the North Fork.”

“And he didn’t call it in because he thought it was firecrackers?”

“Exactly. You get a lot of that up there, kids being kids. He did step out to investigate, and said he heard two cars speed off, so he thought, why bother, they’re gone anyway.”

Heat tapped her pen on her lips. “He said two cars?”

“I circled back on him to confirm. Definitely two.”

“He say he heard anything else. Voices? Shouting. A cry?”

“I asked. He said that would have made him call it in.”

“Inez, this is very helpful.”

“Not done yet,” said the Southampton detective. “I’ll keep on this, even if I have to put on my waders.”

“Tell me you do not have waders,” said Nikki. She could hear Inez Aguinaldo laughing when she hung up.

Heat spent the next ten minutes in a near-meditative state, sitting in a chair, staring at the Murder Board. The exercise, which she employed whenever she felt “this close” and yet “that far” from a solution helped her clear away the noise of a case and let the graphic elements before her eyes speak to her. Well, she hoped they would. They didn’t always. In fact, sometimes they downright mocked her.

“Detective Rhymer,” she said when she’d had enough and stood to stretch.

“What’s up?” Opie asked, crossing over from his desk to join her.

She tapped a blank spot amid the riot of pictures and notations. “There’s too much white on my whiteboard.” There was a name above the open space. “You were checking on the whereabouts of Alicia Delamater, right?”

“With no joy. Same as last update. No customs dings, not using her credit cards, her cell phone, nothing.” Nikki beckoned him to her desk and he followed, waiting while she went through her notes. She found what she was looking for, copied it onto a pad, and handed the page to him.

“What’s this?”

“Alicia Delamater’s home number in Southampton. Call it and leave a message.”

“All right…” he said tentatively and turned the paper around and around between his forefinger and thumb. “What makes you think she’s going to call me back?”

“Because you are not Detective Rhymer, NYPD. You are the new senior manager of the marketing firm that just won the account to reboot Sean Combs’s White Party at The Surf Lodge in Montauk—And you want to interview Alicia about a job to be the event planner.”

He grinned. “Always thought I would make a good creative type.”

“I have nothing but faith,” she said. “Make us proud.”

No sooner had Rhymer gone off to make, or more likely, practice, his phone call, Detective Feller strode up to her desk with a little extra kick. “I just got a hit on your friend from Chelsea with the assault rifle. I forwarded you the bulletin.”

He waited while Heat scanned the Interpol rundown of the man she had nicknamed the Cool Customer. One piece of information at the end stopped her cold. She reread it to make sure she had it right and stood, grabbing her keys and her phone. “Come with me. You and I are taking a ride to see an old friend.”

On their way out, Heat palmed the form of her gun on her hip just to reassure herself it was there.

It had been almost three years since Heat rode the express elevator to the top floors of the black glass, high-rise near Grand Central. From Vanderbilt Avenue, it looked like any other Midtown office building with sidewalk retail and a mix of law firms and corporate offices filling the tower up to the topmost two stories. Those floors belonged to a company not listed on the lobby directory. That clandestine touch was characteristic of Lancer Standard, which called itself a consulting firm. But that was only another layer of camouflage. Because Lancer Standard’s prime-consulting service was mercenary operations.

For years it had thrived—often controversially—as a CIA contractor in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. With secret (read: publicly denied) training facilities in the remote Nevada desert and who knew where else, Lancer Standard, Inc. provided freelance commandos, assassins, saboteurs, and personal security for state leaders and business tycoons in the world’s hot spots.

After refusing to check their service weapons, an exercise Heat had gone through (and prevailed at) on her first visit, she and Randall Feller were ushered from reception by three gentlemen of lethal handsomeness through the secure, thumbprint-activated, reinforced air lock and up a flight of internal stairs to the penthouse office of the CEO, Lawrence Hays.

Unlike last visit, Hays gave Heat a smile with the handshake upon entry to his corner office. Unlike last visit, Hays was not a prime suspect in the murder of a parish priest. Things like that have a tendency to put a strain on a meeting. He dismissed their minders and pushed a button that closed the door as they sat in the conversation area of his sprawling office.

“Funny,” he said. “Human nature. You sat in the exact spot last time.”

“Some memory.”

“Rely on it.” He cocked his head to her and threw his blue-jeaned leg over an arm of the easy chair exactly as he had before. Heat had a sense of recall, as well. It told her Hays still played the aging Steve McQueen down to the close sandy haircut and more than a few hours spent in the gym. “What’s the occasion, Detective? I can assume you’re not here to try to browbeat me into a false confession this time.”

“No, actually, I’m interested in testing the memory you’re so proud of.”

Hays held up one of the bottled waters resting on the coffee table, which had been fashioned out of the elevator wing from the tail of a Black Hawk helicopter. It was hard not to notice the spray of bullet holes dimpling it. After both detectives declined, he twisted the cap and took a sip, ready to listen. But his demeanor tweaked when she said, “I need to find a man who has done some work for you.”

“We don’t share information about personnel. Not even to confirm their employment.”

“This man is a killer.”

“You know, I see that on a lot of r
é
sum
é
s. Might even be a plus.” He flashed a quick smile, showing off the cocky knowingness insiders like to play up to outsiders. “Hate to shut you down, Detective, but you have to get me behind a closed-door joint congressional subcommittee, and even then, I’m not one to go all Dr. Phil and open up the goods.”

“He’s operating in the city.”

“We don’t do that.”

Feller hopped in. “Oh, just like you guys don’t cross the border from Texas to disrupt the drug cartels?”

Hays appraised the street detective as if deciding if he could measure up to a job. “I go to Juárez for the cuisine. Try
El Tragadero
in Calle Constitución. Best rib eye you’ll ever eat.”

Heat said, “But Mr. Hays, you do have a domestic entity. What about Firewall Security?”

“Rope-line bouncers and celebrity-threat assessment. Nothing more.” He capped his Fiji and stood. “We all happy now?”

Nikki said, “So you’ve never heard of Zarek Braun?” The tonal shift was striking. For the first-time ever, Heat saw him falter. Maybe it wasn’t fear she saw on his face, but something close to it. The cockiness sure got dialed down.

“You’re after Braun?”

“So you do know him.”

“He’s here?”

Heat held out the CCTV capture of Zarek Braun emptying the assault rifle at her, and he sat back down to study it. “G36. The Z-man still likes his toys.”

“He was playing with me when that got taken.”

“And you’re still here. I’m impressed.” Hays meant it. Heat decided to ride the unguarded moment.

“Our Interpol report said he was Polish military, an employment gap, then Lancer Standard, and now nothing. Fill in some holes for me here.”

He fluttered the photo across the Black Hawk wing to her. “Zarek Braun came on my radar after he mustered out of the Polish army. He was some fucking soldier. Led a platoon of Poland’s First Special Commando Regiment in Operation Swift Relief in Pakistan in 2005. Moved on with them to Bosnia, then Iraq, then kicked some ass in Chad in 2007.