Everyone stood around him in a huddle to see it. The paper, about an inch square, was blank on one side and had a color image on the other. It looked as if a small section from a photocopy of an oil painting had been cut with scissors. All it showed was someone’s fingers and knuckles.
Detective Raley used his cell phone and captured a decent close-up image of the hand on the little square of paper before they turned it over to Forensics to fingerprint and lab it. Heat tasked Roach with seeing what they could find out about the painting it had been clipped from. “What you found out about the key saved this guy’s life. Find out about the painting, maybe we’ll capture our killer.”
At Roosevelt Hospital, Heat had to hunt for parking because of all the news vans that had gathered outside the entrance to the Emergency Room. Reporters who were staking out positions for their stand-up pieces for that evening’s newscasts saw Nikki and called out to her by name, hollering for comment. She kept her eyes front and badged herself and Rook past the officer at the door.
They found Glen Windsor sitting up with his legs dangling over the side of a bed in one of the trauma bays. He sipped apple juice through a straw, and the color had come back to his face. “How are you feeling, Mr. Windsor?” asked Heat.
He smiled and said, “Lucky to be alive.” She returned his smile and thought, Buddy, you have no idea. “Thank you again. I’ve been thinking. How the hell did you know to come help me?”
Heat wasn’t sure how much to tell him. On the one hand, he had been the target of a serial killer. But on the other, the press waited, and she wanted to control what got out there. “We smelled gas,” she said, truthfully enough.
Windsor said he felt up to it, so she asked him to take her back over his version of the assault. His account from the crime scene held, and when she moved on to inquire about any unusual contacts, activity, or new people in his life, the locksmith reflected then shook no.
Next she showed him a picture of the key she had found with the last victim. He recognized it immediately. “That’s a BiLock. Aussie. Very high-security product. They manufacture rim locks, cam locks, deadlocks, mortise locks, padlocks…” As he went on and on, Rook caught Nikki’s eye and turned slightly away to hide his smile. He had often entertained Heat imitating Bubba Blue, reciting to Forrest Gump all the ways to cook shrimp.
When Windsor finished his list, she said, “BiLock told us this is registered to your business.”
“That’s right, I sell them. Not many yet but it’s a good product.”
“What I mean, Mr. Windsor, is that this exact key is registered to your inventory. Did you notice it was missing, and if so, is the lock gone, as well?”
He studied the picture and said, “I didn’t know anything was missing.” He stood up, suddenly worried about his shop. “I’d like to get back and do an inventory.”
“We’ll do that and send a detective to help. But I have a few quick things to ask.”
He calmed, but she could sense his understandable distraction, so she hurried. What she needed to find out was if he had any connection to the other victims, however slight. She showed him head shots of the three prior victims. Roy Conklin meant nothing; same for Maxine Berkowitz, whom he only recognized as a reporter on TV. But when she flashed the picture of Douglas Sandmann, Windsor’s eyes popped and he tapped it with his forefinger. “Hey, I know him. Bedbug Doug.”
“From his TV ads?” asked Heat.
“Yeah. But I also did some work for him. About six months ago I upgraded all the locks and alarm keypads at his office over in Queens.”
Heat and Rook traded glances, each registering a sudden rush of excitement at the break. Nikki tried to remain casual, masking her hope that the victim she saved could shed light on how an active serial killer was choosing his targets. “Glen, did you spend any time personally with Mr. Sandmann?”
“Most definitely. Doug approved the bid and cut the check when I finished.”
“May I ask what you talked about?”
“Prices and my time frame. Pretty much what every prospect talks about.”
“Anything else? Take a moment to think.”
The locksmith took a sip of his juice and stared into the middle distance, then said, “No, sorry. I pretty much just walked him through the job. Nothing memorable. Nice guy, though. Let me pet his dog.”
Rook chimed in. “Did you and Bedbug Doug have any friends in common?”
“No, sir.”
“Did anyone arrange the job for you?” asked Heat, following Rook’s thread. “Maybe a referral from another customer?”
“I wish. Got that account the usual way. Just me making cold calls. Opening the Yellow Pages and smiling ’n’ dialing.”
With Nikki’s breakthrough hopes dimming, she asked him to keep thinking during the next few days. Heat gave him her business card so he could reach her if any detail, however insignificant, came to him.
Detective Feller called to alert her that he was in an undercover taxi he’d borrowed from his old NYPD unit and was standing by at the hospital’s side door. The first thing Heat had done when she saw the media setting up was to arrange a discreet exit for Glen Windsor. But before she and Rook could sneak him out of the ER, Nikki got an unwelcome surprise.
“Here’s our man!” called Captain Irons across the triage area. She turned as Wally breezed in along with Detective Hinesburg. As her precinct commander approached, Heat could see he not only had on a freshly pressed uniform shirt but wore a dusting of makeup on his porcine face. Like a moth to light, Irons had found the media and arrived ready for his close-up.
After a round of handshakes, back-claps, and a rousing “Glen, way to stay alive,” the Iron Man asked Windsor if he would mind stepping out along with him to meet the press. The locksmith cast an anxious look at Heat, but the captain said, “Don’t be nervous. You don’t have to say anything, just stand with me, I’ll do all the talking.”
Heat drew her boss aside. “Cap, I really think this is a bad idea. We don’t want to spike the ball in the killer’s face, do we? And I think the less that’s public, the better.”
“That’s what you always think,” said Sharon Hinesburg, inviting herself into the conversation. “Our skipper’s taking a lot of shit. I say give him a chance to have a moment of victory.”
“What victory, Captain?” said Heat, putting her back to Hinesburg. “He’s still out there.”
“Appreciate your input, Detective. But I am going to step up and let New Yorkers know the Twentieth Precinct is on top of this and saved a life. Excuse us.” He left for the main entrance and the news cameras, his arm on the shoulder of Glen Windsor. As they stepped out the sliding glass doors, Detective Hinesburg turned to look back at Heat and winked.
Rook asked Nikki if she was ready to go. But she paused, struck by the recollection that, in this very emergency room, John Lennon had been declared DOA. Heat moved on, busy making other plans.
She came home that night to find Rook sound asleep on her couch and No Reservations blasting on the Travel Channel. He startled awake when she muted Anthony Bourdain’s tetchy pub crawl through Ireland’s politically charged saloons. Rook sat up and massaged his eye sockets with the heels of his hands. The jet lag, he explained, had crept up and walloped him. And with that, he served a natural segue to his French adventure. Nikki didn’t seize it.
The awkwardness of dancing around the subject seemed less daunting-and less work-to her than confronting it. Besides, why dance when you can distract? She began a monologue about work. “Randall Feller texted from the locksmith’s shop,” she said, putting her backup piece, a Beretta 950 Jetfire, in its cubby on the living room desk. “They located the matching lock for the mystery key in his storeroom, so that’s that, as far as some potential vic being caged in a room somewhere.” She moved to the kitchen and called from behind the open fridge door, “Forensics came up zip, no usable prints. Nothing in the store, or on the doorknob on the roof, or on the little piece of paper. And get this. In addition to locks, Glen also installs security systems. You think he had even one security cam in his own place? God. He’s like the cobbler whose kids go shoeless. I’m having a beer, you want a beer?” She didn’t get an answer, so she closed the refrigerator. And found him standing on the other side of the door. Waiting.