“True…” He smiled to himself, then to her. “True.”
“And when the handcuffs come out-and they will-who is going to be the hero of this?” She watched his eyes rise to the trophies on his bookcase. “One more thing, sir? What you have so wisely done here is put me on notice not to drop the ball on either of these cases. You have my pledge, Captain. I won’t fail you. Just watch.”
She held her breath while his brow creases deepened in some version of thought. Then Irons stood and said the magic words. “Just let me know if you get swamped.”
“Will do.”
“Meantime, the media’s storming me with ladders and torches. Can you give me something to tell them?”
“Sure,” she said. “You might even want to write this down.” She waited for him to uncap a pen with his teeth and turn to a fresh page of his legal pad. “ ‘No comment.’ ” And then she left to get to work.
Heat recited a download of the HMS crime scene for the bull pen. When she finished, Detective Rhymer said, “Trying to grab at any connection here. We found that rat with our first vic. Did Bedbug Doug, by chance, also exterminate rats?”
“Bedbug Doug?” asked Ochoa, incredulous.
“No rats, just bedbugs,” said Raley, reenacting one of Bedbug Doug’s TV commercials.
Rook couldn’t resist. “What about ants?”
Raley came right with it. “Nope, just bedbugs.”
“Raccoons?”
“Just bedbugs.”
“Skunks? Cockroaches? Opossums?”
“Nope, nope, nope. Just bedbugs.”
Heat said, “Are you done? Be done.”
“Got something,” said Detective Malcolm as he and Reynolds rolled chairs over from their shared desk. “A link between our first two victims.” The room hushed, and all heads tilted toward them. “Know how in ratings sweeps, TV stations do those shocking exposés about restaurant kitchen gross-outs? I just tracked down an ex-assignment editor at Channel 3. When they bumped Maxine Berkowitz off the anchor desk at WHNY, guess what her first ‘Doorbuster’ segment was? And who her prime on-camera source was from the Health Department?”
Nobody said it. But Heat took a red marker and drew a line connecting restaurant inspector Roy Conklin and Maxine Berkowitz. She tossed the dry erase pen on the aluminum tray of the whiteboard and said, “Malcolm and Reynolds, you rock.”
Feller said, “I wonder if Maxine B. ever did a ‘Doorbuster’ report on bedbugs or Bedbug Doug. That would connect them.”
“We’re all connected one way or another,” said Rook. “You can trace anyone to anyone in six hops. It’s like playing Six Degrees of Marsha Mason.”
Detective Rhymer said, “You mean Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
Rook said, “Please. I grew up with a mom who’s a Broadway diva. In our house, it was always Marsha Mason.”
Roach interrupted with a report on the unusual key found under Doug Sandmann’s body. Raley posted photos of it as Ochoa recited from his notes. “It’s a high-security key. New technology from an Australian company. As you can see from the close-ups, it’s futuristic in design. Looks like a Star Wars X-Wing fighter and a barracuda made a baby.”
Raley picked up from his partner. “According to the manufacturer’s Web site, because of its dual shank and one-of-a-kind cutting, this key would fit only one in about seventeen thousand locks. Here’s the good part: Each set is registered. It’s the middle of the night in Australia, but hopefully, we can get a line on whose lock this fits, because it could be the next victim’s.”
“We’re also making rounds of local locksmiths who carry the brand,” said Detective Ochoa. “It’s high-end, so there aren’t that many.”
“So go to,” said Heat, and the squad dispersed. Her excitement at sensing some traction became muted by mistrust. This killer was a gamesman, a manipulator who had already murdered his third victim hours before he called to threaten it. Nikki only hoped they could move fast enough to save his fourth.
Heat’s e-mail chimed with a message from Bart Callan: “Ran Carey Maggs, per request. Your instinct right on. Clean returns on all data. PS: If you worked here, you’d be home now! Haha-BC.”
As she saved the e-mail, Detectives Raley and Ochoa speed-walked to her desk, both wearing eager faces. Raley said, “The lock manufacturer in Australia has a 24/7 help desk.”
Ochoa overlapped, “They tracked the serial number and said the lock and key set is registered through a locksmith on Amsterdam.”
“Did you call?”
“No answer,” said Roach.
“At a locksmith?” Nikki leaped to her feet. “Amsterdam and what?”
Heat and Rook pulled up behind the Roach Coach five blocks south, at 77th. As they came together on the sidewalk, Ochoa said to them, “Rales and I were just in this neighborhood running a check on that Rollerblade wheel.” He indicated the skate shop with a sign that read, “Central Park rentals by the hour or half day.”
Nikki’s attention went to Windsor’s Locks, the storefront next door. Something was definitely off. The window had an “Open” sign, but behind it the shop was dark.
“OK, now this is too weird,” said Rook, pointing. “Rats. Check it out. A pet store on one side with rats in the window and a roller skate store on the other?”
The pair of backup blue-and-whites Heat had called for pulled up behind her. Without taking her eyes from the store, she told the unis to cover the back. As the patrol officers deployed, she took the lead toward the glass door, flanked by Raley and Ochoa. They paused. Heat put one hand on the grip of her Sig Sauer. She reached for the door handle with the other.
“Wait,” said Ochoa. “You smell that?”
Heat sniffed. “Gas.”
SIX
“That smells stronger than just a tiny leak,” said Ochoa.
Detective Heat turned immediately to Raley. “Call it in.” Then she flashed back to the natural gas explosion she’d investigated in 2006, a suicide that completely leveled a three-story town house. “No sparks,” she told him. “Use your phone on the upwind corner. Also, tell those uniforms to come back and start clearing these buildings.” She waved a circle over her head to indicate the residences above the shops. “And tell everyone: no smokes, no light switches, no phones.”
Ochoa was already on the move, waving people off the sidewalk, when Rook turned to her from peeking in the locksmith’s window. “Nikki. Someone’s on the floor.”
She cupped her hands on the sides of her face to cut the glare and put her nose to the glass. In the back of the narrow store, a pair of man’s legs protruded from behind the counter, toes splayed out. Heat ran a quick calculation. The risk of setting off an explosion versus the chance that if that man was alive but suffocating on fumes, she might save him.
Decision time.
“Miguel!” Detective Ochoa turned to her from up the street, where he had corralled some pedestrians. “Man down. I’m going in.” Then she turned back and caught Rook reaching for the door handle. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He froze. “If that door has an electric chime or alarm contact, you could blow us to Newark.”
Rook withdrew his hand. “What say we avoid that?”
A rapid sidewalk check. Nikki jogged to the corner and grabbed a city trash can. The steel barrel was heavy, and Ochoa met her to lift the other side. “Careful not to scrape the concrete,” she said on their way up the sidewalk. “Don’t want any sparks.”
“On your three,” said Ochoa. Litter spilled onto the ground as the two detectives lifted the garbage can sideways with the metal bottom aimed at the glass. Nikki gave a count and they rammed the window. Instead of breaking, though, it spider veined. Heat made another three count, and they hit it again, much harder. This time they not only punched a hole, the entire window shattered, cascading jagged-edged chunks down from above, nearly guillotine-slicing them before crashing to bits on the sidewalk and the floor of the shop. Nikki kicked out the shards on the spiky ledge of the sill, swung one leg inside, then the other.