“Boat’s clear,” said Detective Feller, climbing from belowdecks to the cockpit. “Detective Heat?” The slight waver in Randall’s voice made her and all the others turn his way.
Nikki put on her crime scene gloves and climbed aboard.
Wordlessly, Randall Feller stood aside from the hatch to allow her to pass. To preserve fingerprints and DNA, Heat avoided touching the polished brass rail as she descended the teak steps leading below to the main cabin, an opulently appointed space which functioned as the galley and den. Nikki heard footfalls behind her and made room for the other detectives and Rook to come below.
The cabin had sufficient height for them all to stand, and there-right before them, at eye level-an eight-by-ten head shot of Joe Flynn, captured from the Quantum Recovery Web site, dangled from the ceiling. It hung from a row of equal, six-inch lengths of colored string: red, yellow, purple, and green. Colors of the rainbow.
Finally, after a few silent moments of watching the latest victim’s photo wave slightly with the rocking of the boat, Heat said, “Do you all see the pattern?”
“Hard to miss,” said Ochoa. “Each color of string corresponds to the string found with one of the victims.”
“And there’s a new string,” said Feller, speaking for the first time with a voice that sounded thick in his throat. They all followed him behind the photo. Taped to its back, a new color-orange-was strung like a clothesline to the forward cabin, where its end disappeared around the bulkhead door.
Together, Roach moved to the forward compartment to see if it linked to some clue to the killer’s next target. They were only gone a moment.
Both detectives returned looking ashen.
NINE
“I’m ordering protection for you, Heat. Trust me, this asswipe isn’t going to get near you.” The springs of the executive chair creaked under Captain Irons as he rocked back and crossed his arms in front of his belly. She tried to ignore the fact that his hands could barely meet and he had to be satisfied lacing his fingers.
“I certainly appreciate the support, Cap, but-”
“No buts. I can’t have the NYPD’s cover girl killed on my watch.” So nice to know, she thought, that his concern for her safety was really just the flag Wally wrapped around his worry that her murder could be a career hindrance. Nikki would push back on the round-the-clock detail he had proposed, and win. But even she had to admit how deeply unsettling it had felt to follow the orange string into the forward cabin of that boat and see it link from the latest victim to her own picture. The captain’s cover girl ref wasn’t lost on her, either. The serial killer’s photo of choice was a printout of her cover shot from Rook’s FirstPress.com article.
“With all due respect, sir, risks like this come with the job. I’m armed, trained, and this guy’s worst nightmare. Plus with two big cases in my lap, there’s no way I can be hamstrung in my investigations by tripping over a detail of unis or grade-threes who can’t keep up.” Or worse, Sharon Hinesburg, she thought but had the restraint not to mention.
“Not making me feel any better here, Heat. You’ve not only got two cases going, but two death threats. I’d say wake up and smell the coffee, but there might be cyanide in it.”
“Hilarious, sir.”
“You know damn well what I mean.”
Since Heat couldn’t convince her precinct commander with logic or bravado, she played her ace: fear. “Your call, Captain. Which is why it’ll be too bad when the media gets word that you did something to slow me down and impede progress on these cases.”
“Who would say something like that?”
She shrugged. “Things get out. You know that.”
He paused and signaled his surrender by telling her to watch her ass and to call in backup even if she heard an alley cat screech. Heat left his office feeling relieved. Good thing she didn’t tell Irons about the return call she’d just gotten from her NCAVC friend in Quantico. The FBI analyst told Nikki she had gotten two hits when she added the terms “law enforcement outreach” and “electronic voice alteration” to her database search for multiple unsolved homicides. In each case a suspect claiming to be a serial killer had made anonymous contacts with detectives, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 2002 and Providence, Rhode Island, in 2007.
Both detectives were dead.
Heat called Helen Miksit to tell her she’d be a half hour late for the appointment she’d made with Algernon Barrett that day. Predictably, the Bulldog bristled, accusing Nikki of playing a mind game to throw her client off balance. “Counselor, if I wanted to play a mind game, I wouldn’t have made this courtesy call. I would have left you sitting there wondering where the hell I was.”
She needed the extra time to contact the homicide squads in Bridgeport and Providence. Heat could have delegated these checks to her own crew, but that might have raised alarms, and next thing, she’d have been shackled to a protection detail. The detectives in both out-of-state departments recalled the cases clearly and didn’t need to research old notes; cop killings never go cold.
The cases in both cities remained unsolved. Referring to the Murder Boards across the bull pen, Detective Heat shared bullet points from her own serial killer, including victims and MOs. None matched hers: no colored strings; no props; no apparent connections between victims. The only similarity was the killer’s outreach to the case’s lead investigator by phone with the altered voice. When she asked how each detective died, she got one additional similarity. Each one had been shot unexpectedly after being lured into an ambush set up by the killer.
The glorified closet Rook and Detective Raley had commandeered to follow the consumer trail of Tyler Wynn had outgrown itself with the addition of Malcolm and Reynolds to the detail, so the operation moved to more spacious digs in a far corner of the bull pen. The three detectives chattered simultaneously on calls to retail distributors around the country, accumulating tracking data from the RFID chips in the packaging of Wynn’s favorite brands. They relayed their findings to Rook, who, between his own calls, pushed colored pins into a tristate map to mark the delivery zones for everything from outerwear to whiskey to sunglasses to artisanal sausages.
“The thing is,” said Rook to Nikki as she came over to him, “that we don’t know which-if any of these-are products going to Wynn. But the idea is that if enough of these items intersect with his consumer habits, we’ll be able to narrow the list when we see a discrete pattern.”
“Right, so if only five people are buying, say… Barbour coats, Whistlepig rye, and D’Artagnan rabbit-and-ginger sausage, you’ve, at least, tightened the likely prospects and we can go knocking on doors.” She looked at the colored pins on his map and added, “Not seeing much of an overlap yet.”
“It’s slow going.”
“But it feels promising. Keep at it. I’m heading over to interview Joe Flynn’s assistant and then on to Algernon Barrett.”
“Really.”
She didn’t like the judgment. “Rook, you know how hard I’ve been working to brace him.”
“I do. It’s just… first the Tyler Wynn-Salena crew wants you dead. Now the serial killer? Is it really wise for you to be gallivanting around with two killers hunting you?”
If life wasn’t shitty enough, Nikki felt him planting the fear seed, and if that took root, she knew she might as well be dead. So she pushed back. “Rook, I refuse to live my life in paranoia. And the only sure way for me to stop them is to get out there and stop them.”
“Oh, splendid logic,” he said with some bite. “Maybe with any luck they’ll both come after you at the same time and you’ll be able to duck so they’ll kill each other.”
Heat interrupted his sarcastic laugh, snatching him by the shirt and drawing him out of earshot of the others. “I will say this once. This is what I do. I multitask. I spin plates. I live in danger. I have to. Why? I’m throwing John Lennon back in your face, Rook. Murders happen while I am making other plans. But I see my plans through. And yes, that includes following up on persons of interest like Algernon Barrett.”