He thought about that and said, “That’s all that sticks.”
“By any chance, did you happen to see who my mother argued with?”
“Lady, you kidding? Anybody says two hundred long is no biggie to somebody, I’m gonna see who it is.” He curled the fingers of one hand to his palm and looked at Nikki through the tunnel he’d made. “I peeped the peep hole in that door.” He paused. “Looked like a cop.”
Heat had expected that. Just for drill, she asked, “Can you describe him?”
“Him? Wasn’t a him, it was a her.”
“And she looked like a cop?” Nikki drew a line through Callan’s name. “Can you describe her?”
He thought again. “Sorry… It’s just been too long.” He laughed. “And too many spliffs.”
His attorney quickly added, “That is a figure of speech, not an admission of guilt.”
That evening, Rook’s only response to Nikki’s conversation with Algernon Barrett, including his plans for jerk chicken pop-up stores, was to say he was starved and insist they dine like human beings. “We can still be dedicated, nay, obsessed investigators and enjoy at least one meal that isn’t delivered in a greasy bag with a menu number instead of a food name.”
“I don’t know,” said Heat, “I really enjoy my forty-sixes, hold the elevens.”
“They all start tasting like number two to me.”
“Appetizing.”
“I’ll make it up to you.” And he did. Just stepping into Bar Boulud, Daniel Boulud’s French bistro, across from Lincoln Center, Nikki’s guilt about taking some downtime melted away. “Besides,” as Rook pointed out, “we can still talk shop, if we keep our voices down.” They scored a back table at the far end of the charcuterie, and as she sipped her Sidecar and he his Prohibition Manhattan, Rook observed, “Here’s how immersed I am. I look at all the saucissons and fromages behind that bar, and all I can see are Tyler Wynn’s buying habits and how far we have yet to go.”
“Nice to get away from the office,” she said, rubbing her toe against his leg under the table.
“Actually, it is.” He set down his glass and lowered his brow. “I miss the ‘us’ part of doing this.”
“We’re working together.”
“Yes and no. It feels more to me like parallel play instead of teamwork. You’re doing your thing, I’m off doing mine. I miss you. I miss our connection. I want it to be like old times. And by that, I mean a month ago.”
“Likewise. But welcome to police work. This is what you do when it all piles on-and why I flared at you earlier today. I’m sorry. However, the beach and the Janet Evanovich are still out there.”
“And the sex.”
“Count on that.” Both their cell phones were in front of them. She swept them aside with her forearm and patted the tabletop. “Right here. Wanna?”
“Detective, please,” he said in mock reproach. “You’re a marked woman. Behave.”
They ordered the grilled day boat scallops and a Colorado lamb cavatelli. While they shared plates, she recapped her visit to Quantum Recovery. After her rundown, he said, “You know what I can’t shake about this Joe Flynn murder?”
“Uh-oh. I know that tone. Do I hear the revving of the conspiracy engine?”
“You hear an inquisitive journalist with an open mind shining light on inescapable considerations. Like how Flynn’s murder just created an intersection of the two cases you’re working. Like how is it that Rainbow happened to find the link between you and Flynn?”
“Rook, did you seriously just call him Rainbow?”
“Hey, even a serial killer needs a brand. Anyway, my point is that the real connection may not be from Flynn to you, but from you to whatever this Tyler Wynn conspiracy is all about.” She smiled dismissively while she chewed a bite of scallop. “Don’t scoff, I’ve thought this through. Tell me it wouldn’t suit Tyler Wynn’s purposes to see you dead.”
“I’m going to ask the waiter if he can go in the kitchen to get some foil to make you a hat. Rook, it’s too convoluted. Kill four people just to get to me? Get real.”
“Curse you, logic,” he said. “Well, at least we discussed it.”
“Don’t feel too bad. I do agree with one thing. You ask a very smart question: How could Rainbow know Joe Flynn was connected to me?”
“Rainbow,” he said. “Catchy.”
After their dishes were cleared, she asked Rook if Yardley Bell had ever worked for Bart Callan. When he said he didn’t know, she told him about her interview with Algernon Barrett and the argument he said he witnessed with the woman who looked like a cop.
“First of all, is the Jamaican jerk your most reliable witness? And secondly, what would that mean, anyway? Is it your turn under the foil hat?”
They both got a chuckle out of that, but she said, “You never know what something means. You just gather what facts you can and hope they land, eventually.”
“Fair enough. Want me to ask her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Just don’t.”
He paused and said, “You could ask Agent Callan.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not? I know you and Bart are on speaking terms. Didn’t you two have cocktails while I was in France?” She eyed him, and he said, “Relax, I didn’t go all jealous. People have business meetings all the time over cocktails. Even at hideaway bars at the Carlyle.”
Nikki felt annoyed and a bit exposed but smiled and said, “But you didn’t go all jealous.”
The cell phone in front of him vibrated. The caller ID read, “Yardley Bell.” “Perfect,” said Heat. “Go ahead, take it.”
He picked up the phone but then handed it to her. “These must have gotten mixed up. This is your phone.”
When Nikki took it from him, the vibration pulsed all the way to her wrist. She pressed to accept and said, “This is Heat.”
“We found him.”
Nikki’s head swooned. She looked to her martini glass, which was still over half-full, and knew it wasn’t the cocktail. “Found whom?” The question sounded dumb to her as the words came out of her mouth-and, damn, sounding dumb to Yardley Bell, of all people-but Nikki sought grounding; she wanted to hear something concrete while she sat there with her vision tunneling and the world slowing down. She wanted to be sure.
Agent Bell said, “We’ve located Tyler Wynn. How soon can you and your people meet?”
TEN
An adrenaline surge swept through Heat, but she kept her head. Training trumped emotion, and she flipped the switch from exhilaration to logistics. Before she even got up from the table, she speed-dialed the radio dispatcher at the Twentieth and ordered up a blue-and-white to Code Two it to Boulud and meet her at the curb. This would not be the time to look for a cab.
As they rushed to the door, Nikki stayed on her cell to give Dispatch the list of detectives she wanted mustered to the staging area that Homeland Security had already established on the East Side. Heat didn’t have to do much thinking. She asked for everyone but Sharon Hinesburg.
At the same time, Rook put in a direct call from his phone to Detective Rhymer, whom he knew was still in the bull pen working their RFID detail. By the time he and Nikki hung up, the cruiser’s emergency lights strobed the block and its siren chirped as it cut a U-turn around the median on Broadway to pick them up.
Fewer than two minutes had passed since Bell’s call. To Heat, it felt like forever.
DHS had taken over East 57th and Sutton Place, an area that gave them a quiet residential cul-de-sac that terminated at a pocket park bordering the East River. Plenty of room for the Mobile Command Center and absolute control of the zone. Heat and Rook jumped out of the cruiser at the cordon and single-filed between the line of plain-wrap Crown Victorias, Malibus, fire trucks, and ambulances to the white RV, where they found Agents Callan and Bell standing outside its open door. Twenty feet from hello, Yardley Bell spotted them and called, “Sorry to inconvenience your date night with a little law enforcement.”
Nikki wanted to smack her. So what if it was only dry cop humor? It might have only been that. It also might have been cheap snarkiness from Rook’s ex. For the second time that night, Heat firewalled her feelings and held professional focus. “Agents,” she said, “bring me up to speed on the target.”