“OK, let it out; have your fun.”
He stroked his chin theatrically, relishing the opportunity to feed the great detective some of her own words. “I prefer to deal in hard facts rather than indulge myself with a mere crumb of a hunch.”
“Do you want to wear this coffee?”
“It was Sharon Hinesburg.”
Heat was still weighing how to deal with that information when Captain Irons called her into his glass office for an update. Even knowing he had a short attention span and simplifying her briefing to the broad strokes didn’t stop him from wandering off-topic, and early on. “Since I called you from Boston yesterday to tell you about what Rook and I learned about our Jane Doe and her connection to my mother, we’ve been focusing on anything we can learn about Nicole Bernardin.”
“Did you get any seafood up there?”
“Excuse me, Captain?”
Irons leaned back in his leather chair and his weight caused the springs to groan. “Man, I loves me my Boston chowdah. Legal Seafood’s a must on every trip.”
“Yes, they’re quite well known,” she said, but only to keep him engaged while she continued with the business of a double homicide investigation. “So, now that we have the Bernardin ID, we are tasked with following a series of new avenues. We have limited forensics leads from her town house, but we can track other aspects of her life through her banking, business and personal. These haven’t borne fruit just yet, but-”
“Was Rook doing any writing on your getaway?”
“Sir?”
“Any new magazine pieces in the mix?” Irons sat up in his chair to the twang of sprung metal protesting. “It’s just he mentioned the other day he might be doing something to follow up the other article, and I was wondering if he’d been on that, or not.” Maybe Irons didn’t have a short attention span. Maybe his attention was just stuck on other things. “You see my mention in the fish wrapper this morning?”
“Yes I did. In fact, sir-”
“You ought to show it to Rook. Let him see other reporters are nibbling at this, too.”
It wasn’t lost on her that Irons’s take-away from the piece was his own mention. “Rook is not only aware of the article, but he knows it was sourced by a leak, sir. Inside our squad.”
“Someone here slipped that to the Ledger?” Irons tilted his head and peeked over her shoulder through the big window that looked out onto the bull pen. “Know who?”
For anyone else, Heat would have claimed ignorance. “Detective Hinesburg,” she said.
“Sharon? You sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Huh. Well, they had to get it from somewhere.” He took a pull from his coffee mug, seeming unfazed by the leak, and then confirming it after he swallowed with a loud gulp. “Probably a good thing it’s out there.”
“I disagree, Captain.” Heat didn’t like the look of self-amusement she saw after she said that, she but pressed on. “This case is at a stage where we don’t want it played out in public and have to deal with the circus that comes with that. Not before we have a chance to run down all our investigative threads.”
“Yeah? And how’s that going, Detective?” His smile made the wisecrack worse, in her view. It wasn’t just dismissive, it illustrated a closed mind-set.
“As I was just telling you-so far, it’s slow going. But to be realistic…” she said, then paused to give it emphasis, recognizing that her commander’s background was administration. His police experience came from quiet offices on floors numbered by double digits instead of street-level investigation. So she offered a version of the speech she’d given herself minutes before. “… to do this properly, we need to be patient, work it tenaciously, and understand that it’s still very early in this case.”
“Ha. This case has been ten years of stall.” He flicked his copy of the Ledger so it slid across his empty desk toward her. “The paper has it right. This thing ain’t cold, it’s frozen.” He stood, signaling the meeting was over. “Let’s air it out and see what a little publicity brings.” Sure, thought Nikki. Like his fifteen minutes of fame.
Sharon Hinesburg’s phone rang as Heat passed her. She heard the detective say that she’d be right in and saw her hurry into the captain’s glass cube, closing the door. Nikki sat to read a file at her desk, but couldn’t resist swiveling her chair so she could look over the top of it into Irons’s office. Roach came over to her.
“Just to let you know,” said Ochoa, “I came up zip on stalker complaints by Nicole Bernardin. Same with orders of protection. Nothing. Her hairdresser has Monday off, but he’s happy to meet, so I’m heading to his place in the West Village now to see what dish he has that might be useful.”
“Good, keep me up,” she said. But then the partners lingered, so she waited.
Raley cleared his throat. “I know you don’t go for gossip.”
“You’re right.”
“But this, you need to know,” said Ochoa. “Tell her, pard.”
“They’re sleeping together,” Raley said in his lowest whisper. He didn’t turn, but he let his eyes flick toward Irons and Hinesburg. Heat let her eyes drift to the pair in the office and saw Irons wagging a finger at Detective Hinesburg, but they both seemed to think something was funny. “On the way in this morning, I saw Wally drop her at the far corner down on Amsterdam so they wouldn’t walk in together.”
Heat remembered how she and Rook used to put on charades like that before they were a public item, but she said, “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“They kissed each other before she got out. And it was full-tonsil exploratory.”
Sharon Hinesburg falling off the grid Sunday and the media leak that had made Irons the hero now made sense in a way that got Heat angry. Angry at being saddled with Hinesburg in the first place. Angry that Irons had crossed the line with a squad romance. Angry that, as a result, a toxic dynamic had been created in her unit that jeopardized her case. And angry, most of all, at herself for not having seen it coming. But she took a beat and said, “You two know how I feel about gossip. So this goes no further.” And then she added, “But keep me posted.”
As Roach moved off, Rook came to her desk. “Did you tell him it was Hinesburg?” She nodded and he said, “Think he’s going to give her a tongue-lashing?”
“Oh, count on it.”
“Listen, Nikki, one more thing about this leak.” And then he spoke the worry that had been nagging her from the moment she read the article in the car. “I imagine your dad reads the papers and watches the news, huh?”
She nodded solemnly, got her cell phone from her pocket, and then surveyed the openness off the bull pen. “I’ll be outside,” Nikki said. “I need to make a personal call.”
Heat came back into the bull pen ten minutes later smelling like fresh air and asked Rook if he wanted to take a ride to Scarsdale. He didn’t say any more than “Sure,” lest she change her mind about bringing him to meet her father. But by the time their gold unmarked crossed Broadway heading toward the West Side Highway, he felt his seat was adequately secured and said, “Can I tell you I’m surprised you asked me along?”
“Don’t feel too flattered. I’m using you.” Nikki’s comment came without eye contact because she was making a show of putting her attention on the road instead of him. “You’re my rodeo clown to distract him so things don’t get too mired.”
“A high honor, indeed. Thanks. Mired, how?”
“With any luck, you won’t have to know.”
“That bad between you two?” Her shrug didn’t satisfy him, so he asked, “How long since you last saw him?”
“Christmas. We see each other birthdays and major holidays.” Rook let silence work for once. Sure enough, nervous spaces need filling. “We’re sort of living the cards and calls relationship. You know, e-gifts instead of gifts. Seems to work for both of us.” She ran a dry tongue across her lips and focused on the road again. “Or seemed to.”
“Didn’t you want that on-ramp?” he asked. Heat blew an exhale through her teeth and circled the 79th Street rotary back to the entrance she had passed in her distraction. Rook waited until she settled into her lane. Out her window, to the west, he watched thunderheads building into giant cauliflowers across the Hudson. “Were you two always arm’s length?”