Frozen Heat E-Book

Richard Castle

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Paired once again with top journalist Jameson Rook, NYPD Homicie Detective Nikki Heat arrives at her latest crime scene to find an unidentified body stuffed inside a suitcase. Nikki is in for a big shock when this new homicide connects to the unsolved murder of her own mother. Will Nikki Heat finally be able to solve the dark mystery that has been her demon for ten years?

Leseprobe

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Print edition ISBN: 9781781166338

E-book edition ISBN: 9781781166345

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition November 2012

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Castle © ABC Studios. All Rights Reserved.

This edition published by arrangement with Hyperion.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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To all the remarkable, maddening, challenging, frustrating

people who inspire us to do great things

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Acknowledgments

ONE

“Oh, yeah, that’s it, Rook,” said Nikki Heat. “That’s what I want. Just like that.” A trickle of sweat rolled down his neck to his heaving chest. He groaned and bit down on his tongue. “Don’t stop yet. Keep it going. Yes.” She hovered over him, lowering her face just inches from his so she could whisper. “Yes. Work it just like that. Nice, easy rhythm. That’s it. How does it feel?” Jameson Rook stared at her intently just before he pinched his eyes into a squint and moaned. Then his muscles went slack and he dropped his head backward. Nikki frowned and brought herself upright. “You can’t do that to me. I cannot believe you’re stopping.”

He let the dumbbells hit the black rubber floor beside the exercise bench and said, “Not stopping.” He pulled in a chestful of air and coughed. “Just done.”

“You’re not done.”

“Ten reps, I did ten reps.”

“Not by my count.”

“That’s because your mind wanders. Besides, this rehab is for my own good. Why would I skip reps?”

“Because I turned away once and you thought I wasn’t looking.”

He scoffed, then asked, “. . . Were you?”

“Yes, and you only did eight. Do you want me to help you do your physical therapy, or be your enabler?”

“I swear I did at least nine.”

A member of Rook’s exclusive gym slid in behind her for some free weights, and Nikki turned to gauge how much of her and Rook’s childish exchange he’d picked up. From the tinny music spilling from his earbuds, the only thing the other man heard was the Black Eyed Peas telling him it’s gonna be a good night while he stared in the mirror. Heat couldn’t tell what the guy admired more, the row of plugs from his new hair transplants or the snap of his pecs under his designer wife beater.

Rook stood up beside her. “Nice chesticles, huh?”

“Shh, he’ll hear you.”

“Doubt that. Besides, who do you think taught me the word?”

Chesticle man caught her eye in the mirror and favored her with a wink. Apparently surprised that her knees didn’t turn to jelly, he racked his weights and moved on to the tanning beds. Moments like that were precisely why Heat preferred her own gym, a throwback joint downtown with painted cinder-block walls, clanging steam pipes, and a clientele there to work instead of preen. When Rook’s visiting physical therapist—whom he’d dubbed Gitmo Joe—called in sick for his morning session and Nikki volunteered to spot him in his rehab routine, she had considered using her club instead. But there were negatives there, too. Well, one. Namely Don, her ex–Navy SEAL combat training partner with whom she had a history of grappling in bed, not just on the wrestling mat. Don’s trainer-with-benefits days had come and gone, but Rook didn’t know about him and she couldn’t see the point in forcing an awkward encounter.

“Whew. I don’t know about you,” said Rook, toweling his face, “but I’m ready for a shower and some breakfast.”

“Sounds great.” She held out the dumbbells to him. “Right after your next set.”

“I have another set?” He maintained the innocent pose as long as he could pull it off, and then snatched the weights from her. “You know, Gitmo Joe may be the spawn of an unholy union between the Marquis de Sade and Darth Vader, but at least he cuts me some slack. And I didn’t even take a bullet to save his life.”

“One,” was all she said.

He paused and then did his first rep, grunting, “One.”

They kidded about it, but that night two months before at the sanitation pier on the Hudson, she thought she had lost him. The ER doc assured her afterward that she indeed almost had. In the blink of an instant after she beat down and disarmed one bad cop in the garbage transfer warehouse, his crooked partner took an ambush shot at her. Heat never saw it coming, but Rook—damn Rook—who wasn’t supposed to be there, leaped out and tackled her, taking the slug himself. Over her NYPD career as a uniform and a homicide detective, Nikki Heat had seen many bodies and watched many men die before her, and as the color left him that winter night and she felt his warm blood flow out of his chest across her arms, the vision resonated with all the fragile breaks and hopeless endings she had witnessed. Jameson Rook had saved her life, and now his own survival was nothing less than a miracle.

“Two,” she said. “Rook, you’re pathetic.”

Out on the sidewalk, he took in a long, exaggerated breath. “I love the smell of Tribeca in the morning,” he said. “It smells like . . . diesel.”

The sun had risen just enough for Nikki to peel off her sweatshirt and enjoy the April air on her bare arms. She caught him looking and said, “Careful, you’re one hair plug from becoming chesticle man.”

She walked on and he fell in stride with her. “I can’t help it. You know, any moment can become romantic. I saw that on a TV commercial.”

“Let me know if you need me to slow down.”

“No, I’m good.” Heat gave him a side glance. Sure enough, he was keeping up. “Remember my first shuffles around that hospital corridor? Felt like Tim Conway on the old Carol Burnett Show. Now look at me. I’m back to my superhero stride.” He demonstrated and powered ahead to the corner.

“Nice. If I ever need help, and Batman or Lone Vengeance are booked, I know who I’ll call.” As she drew up to him, she asked, “Seriously, you doing OK? I didn’t tax you too much with that workout?”

“Naw, I’m fine.” He placed the tip of her forefinger on his ribs. “I just feel a little tugging sometimes when I stretch.” They waited for the light to change, and he added, “Speaking of tugging.”

Nikki gave him her best blank expression. “Tugging? I’m sorry, I don’t follow.” They held each other’s gaze until he arched one brow and cracked her up.

Rook laced his arm through hers as they crossed the street. “Detective, I do believe if we skipped breakfast, you could still get to work on time.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for this? Seriously, I can wait. I’m the queen of delayed gratification.”

“Trust me, we’ve waited long enough.”

“Maybe you should double-check with your doctor to see if you’re healthy enough for sexual activity.”

“Oh,” said Rook. “So you’ve seen the commercials, too.”

Instead of stopping for a bite at Kitchenette, they made a sharp turn at the corner and headed toward his loft, arm in arm, picking up the pace as they went.

They kissed deeply in his elevator on the way up, pressing against each other, his back to the wall, and then, suddenly, hers. Then they broke away, resisting or maybe teasing, or maybe a bit of both. Their eyes locked in on each other’s, only flicking away to monitor the floor count.

Inside his front door, he reached to kiss her again, but she ducked him and raced through the kitchen, bolted up the hall at a sprint, and leaped at the bed, flying airborne like a club wrestler and landing with a bounce, laughing out a “hurry up” while she kicked off her cross trainers.

He appeared in the doorway, completely naked. At the foot of the bed, he struck a regal pose. “If I am to die, let it be this way.”

And then she grabbed him and pulled him on top of her.

The heat took them beyond caution, even beyond play. Lost time, raw emotions, and aching need all cycloned into a swirl of passion with no mind, only frenzy. In minutes the room itself was in motion, not just the bed. Lampshades swayed, books toppled on shelves, even the pencil cup on Rook’s nightstand tipped, and a dozen Blackwing 602s rolled onto the floor.

Then it was over and they flopped back, panting, smiling. “Oh you’re definitely healthy enough for sex,” said Nikki.

All Rook could manage was a dry-throated “That was . . . Whoa.” And then he added, “The earth moved.”

Nikki laughed. “Feel good about you.”

“No, I think it literally moved.” He got up on one elbow to look at the room. “I think we just had an earthquake.”

By the time she came out from drying her hair, Rook had tidied up the fallen items in his loft and planted himself in front of the TV. “Channel 7 says it was a 5.8 on something called the Ramapo Fault Line, epicenter in Sloatsburg, New York.”

Nikki put her empty mug on the counter and checked her cell phone. “I’ve got service back. No messages or TAC alerts, at least not for me. What’s the impact?”

“They’re still assessing. No fatalities, some injuries from fallen bricks and whatnot, nothing major, so far. Airports and some subway lines closed as a precaution. Oh, and I won’t have to shake the orange juice. Want some?”

She said no and put on her gun. “Who’d have thought? An earthquake in New York City?”

He put his arms around her. “Can’t complain about the timing.”

“Hard to top.”

“Guess we’ll just have to try,” he said, and they kissed. Her phone rang, and Heat pulled away to answer. Without being asked, he handed her a pen and notepad and she jotted an address. “On my way.”

“You know what I think we should do today?”

Nikki slipped her phone into her blazer pocket. “Yes, I do. And as much as I’d love to—believe me, I’d love to—I’ve got to get to work.”

“Go to Hawaii.”

“Very funny.”

“I’m not joking. Let’s just go. Maui. Mmm, Maui.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Give me one reason.”

“I’ve got a murder to handle.”

“Nikki. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in our time together, it’s never let a murder get in the way of a good time.”

“So I’ve noticed. And what about your work? Don’t you have some magazine article you should be writing? Some exposé of corruption in the dark corridors of the World Bank? A chronicle of your ride-along with a bin Laden hunter? Your weekend in the Seychelles with Johnny Depp or Sting?”

Rook pondered that and said, “If we left this afternoon, we could be in Lahaina for breakfast. And if you feel guilty, don’t. You deserve it after taking care of me for two months.” She ignored him and clipped her detective shield onto her waistband. “Come on, Nikki, how many homicides are there in this city in a year, five hundred?”

“More like five thirty.”

“All right, that’s fewer than two a day. Look, we peace-out to Maui today and come back in a week, you’d miss, maybe, ten murders. And not all of them would be in your precinct anyway.”

“You’re making a very clear point here, Rook.”

He looked at her, mildly taken aback. “I am?”

“Yes. And the point is, I don’t care how many Pulitzer Prizes you’ve won. You still have the brain of a sixteen-year-old.”

“So is that a yes?”

“Make that a fifteen-year-old.” Nikki kissed him again and cupped him between the legs. “By the way? So worth the wait.” And then she went to work.

* * *

The crime scene was on her way to the precinct, so instead of going up to the Twentieth first to sign out a car and double back, Heat got off the B train a stop early at 72nd Street to hoof it. The bomb squad had ordered a precautionary traffic shutdown at Columbus Avenue, and Nikki came up the subway steps near the Dakota to witness nightmare gridlock backed up all the way to Central Park. The sooner she finished her investigation, the sooner relief would come to the stuck drivers, so she quickened her stride. But she didn’t short her contemplation.

As always, on approach to a body, Detective Heat steeped herself in thoughts of the victim. She didn’t need Rook to remind her how many homicides there were in the city every year. But her vow was never to let volume dehumanize a single lost life. Or inure her to the impact on friends and loved ones. For her, this wasn’t lip service or some PR tagline. Nikki had come by it honestly years ago when her mother was murdered. Heat’s loss not only spurred her to switch college majors to Criminal Justice, it forged the kind of cop she vowed to be. Over ten years later, her mother’s case remained unsolved, but the detective remained unbending in her advocacy for each victim, one at a time.

At 72nd and Columbus she picked her way through the knot of spectators who had gathered there, many with their cell phones aloft, documenting their proximity to danger for whatever street cred that gave them on their Facebook pages. She reached down to draw back her blazer and flash her shield to the uniform at the barrier, but he knew the move and gave her the fraternal nod before she even showed it. Emergency lights strobed two blocks ahead of her as she headed south. Nikki could have taken the empty street but kept to the sidewalk; even as a veteran cop, it unsettled her to see a major downtown avenue completely shut in morning rush hour. The sidewalks were vacant, too, except for uni patrols keeping them clear. Sawhorses blocked 71st, also, and a few doors west of them, an ambulance idled in front of a town house that had shed its brick façade in the earthquake. She passed one of the green ash trees growing from the sidewalk planters and looked up through its budding limbs at dozens of rubberneckers leaning out of windows and over fire escapes. Same on the other side of Columbus. As she drew closer to the scene, dispatch calls from the roundup of emergency vehicles echoed off the stone apartment buildings in enveloping unison.

The bomb squad had turned out with its armored mobile containment unit parked in the center lane of the avenue, just in case anything needed detonating. But from twenty yards off, Heat could tell from body language that Emergency Services had pretty much stood down. Elevated above the roofs of vans and blue-and-whites, she caught a glimpse of her friend Lauren Parry walking around inside the open rear cargo door of a delivery truck in her medical examiner coveralls. Then she ducked down and Nikki lost sight of her.

Raley and Ochoa from her squad stepped away from a middle-aged black man in a watch cap and green parka, who they were interviewing beside the Engine 40 fire truck, and met up with her as she arrived. “Detective Heat.”

“Detective Roach,” she said, using the partners’ house nickname that amicably squashed Raley and Ochoa into one handy syllable.

“No trouble getting here,” said Raley, not asking, not expecting that she, of all people, would ever have any.

“No, my line’s running. I hear the N and the R are down for inspection where they go under the river.”

“Same with the Q train coming out of Brooklyn,” added Ochoa. “I made it across before it hit. But I’ll tell you, Times Square station was unreal. Like a Godzilla movie down there, the way people were screaming and running.”

“Did you feel it?” asked Raley.

She replayed the circumstances and said, “Oh, yeah,” trying to sound offhanded.

“Where were you when it hit?”

“Exercising.” Not a total lie. Heat side nodded to the armored blast container. “What are we working here that warrants the parade of heavy metal?”

“Suspicious package lit things up.” Ochoa flipped to the first page of his notepad. “Frozen food delivery driver—that’s him over there—”

“—in the green jacket—” chimed in his partner in their usual duet.

“—opens the back of his truck to unload some chicken tenders and burger patties at the deli here.” He paused to allow Nikki a beat to eyeball the All In Bun storefront, where a trio of cooks in checked pants and aprons slouched at the window counter waiting out the closure. “He slides a carton aside and finds a suitcase sitting there between the boxes.”

“I guess ‘See Something, Say Something’ is working,” Raley said, picking up. “He books it out of there and calls 911.”

“Emergency Services Unit deploys and sends Robocop in to check it out.” Detective Ochoa beckoned her to walk with him while he led her past the bomb squad’s remote control robot. “The ’bot does a sniff and an X-ray. Negative on explosive elements. Their bomb tech was suited up anyway, so—abundance of caution—he pops the lock and finds the body inside the suitcase.”

A few feet behind her, she heard Detective Feller. “That’s why I go strictly carry-on. Those checked bags’ll kill ya.” She snapped her head around and saw the surprise on his face, while his audience of two uniforms laughed. He’d been speaking in a low voice, but not low enough. Feller’s cheeks reddened as Heat left Raley and Ochoa to cross to him. The unis melted away, leaving him alone with her. “Hey, sorry.” Then he tried to charm it away with a preemptive grin and the self-effacing cackle that always reminded her of John Candy. “Don’t think you were supposed to hear that.”

“Nobody was.” She spoke so quietly, so evenly, and so without expression that the casual observer would think they were simply two detectives comparing notes. “Look around, Randy. This is serious as it gets. A murder scene. My murder scene. Not open mic night at Dangerfield’s.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know I stepped in it.”

“Once again,” she noted. Randall Feller, perennial class clown, had a nasty habit of cutting up at crime scenes. It was the one bad habit of one great street detective. The same detective who, along with Rook, had gotten shot saving her life on that sanitation pier. Feller’s gallows humor might have fit right in during the years he spent in the Special Operations Division, riding around all night in undercover yellow cabs in the macho, kick-ass, Dodge City world of the NYPD Taxi Unit, but not in her squad. At least not inside the yellow tape. This wasn’t their first conversation about it since he’d transferred to her Homicide Unit after his medical leave.

“I know, I know, it just sort of comes out.” She could tell he meant it, and there was no point belaboring it. “Inside voice next time, I promise.” Heat gave him a short nod and moved off to the delivery truck.

From street level at the rear hatch, Nikki had to tilt her head back to look up at Lauren Parry, who squatted on the floor inside the cargo hold. The stacks of cardboard cartons deeper inside wept with condensation; some even glistened from ice crystals encrusting their sides. Even with the freezer motor off, refrigerated air rolled out cool across Heat’s face. At Lauren’s knee, a blue-gray hard-side suitcase rested open and flat with the lid clamshelled up, blocking Nikki’s view of its contents. She said, “Morning, Dr. Parry.”

Her friend pivoted to her and smiled. When she said, “Hey, Detective Heat,” Nikki could see puffs of Lauren’s breath. “Got a complicated one here.”

“When isn’t it?”

The ME rocked her head side to side, weighing that and agreeing. “Want the basics?”

“Good a place as any to start.” Nikki took out her own notebook, a slender, reporter’s cut spiral that fit perfectly in her blazer pocket.

“Female Jane Doe. No ID, no purse, no wallet, no jewelry. Estimating age as early sixties.”

“Cause of death?” asked Heat.

Lauren Parry’s eyes left her clipboard and settled on her friend’s. “Now, how did I guess that would be your question?” She glanced inside the suitcase and continued, “I can’t say, except preliminarily.”

Nikki echoed back, “Now, how did I guess that would be your answer?”

The ME smiled again, and small trails of vapor floated from her nostrils. “Why don’t you come on up here, and I can show you what I’m dealing with.”

Detective Heat gloved up as she ascended the corrugated metal ramp sloping from the pavement to the back ledge of the truck. As she stepped aboard, her gaze momentarily stuck on the suitcase, and when it did, her teeth clacked with an icy shiver. Attributing it to crossing climates—leaving behind the mild April morning for a January chill inside the cargo hold—she shook it off.

Lauren stood so Nikki could squeeze by to get a view of the corpse. “I see what you mean,” Heat said.

The woman’s body was frozen. Ice crystals like the ones shimmering on nearby boxes of ground beef, chicken, and fish sticks glistened on her face. Clothed in a pale gray suit, she had been folded into the fetal position and fit into the suitcase, where she now lay on her side. Lauren gestured with the cap of her pen to the frosty bloodstain covering the back of the suit. “Obviously, this here is our best guess for cause of death. It’s a significant puncture delivered laterally to the posterior of the rib cage. Judging from the amount of blood, the knife entered sideways between the ribs and found the heart.” Heat experienced that uneasy déjà vu she felt every time she saw one of those wounds. She made no comment though, just nodded and folded her arms to warm the gooseflesh the refrigeration had no doubt raised on them, even through the blazer. “With her frozen like this, I can’t do my usual field prelim for you. I can’t even unfold her limbs to check for other wounds, trauma, defense marks, lividity, and so forth. I can do all that, of course, just not yet.”

Nikki kept her gaze fixed on the stab wound and said, “Even time of death is going to be a challenge, I suppose.”

“Oh, for sure, but not to worry. We can still come close when I get a chance to work on her down at Thirtieth Street,” said the medical examiner. And then she added, “Assuming I don’t get back there to a major situation following the quake.”

“From what I hear, it’s mostly a small number of treat-and-release injuries.”

“That’s good.” Lauren studied her. “You all right?”

“Fine. Just didn’t know I’d need a sweater today.”

“Guess I’m more used to the cold, right?” She uncapped her pen. “Why don’t I stand aside and make some notes while you do your beginn-y thing?” Parry and Heat had worked enough cases together that they knew each other’s moves and needs. For instance, Lauren knew that Nikki had an initial task she performed at each crime scene, which was to survey everything from every possible angle with what Heat called beginner’s eyes. The problem with veteran detectives, Heat believed, was that after years and years of cases, even the best investigators became numbed by habit; counterintuitively, experience worked against them by blunting observation skills. Ask a refinery worker how he deals with the stink, and he’ll say, “What stink?” But Detective Heat remembered how it felt on her first homicides. How she saw everything and then looked for more. Every bit of input held potential significance. Nothing could be overlooked. Just as the experience of her mother’s killing ritualized her empathic approach to the crime scene, her belief in keeping it fresh prevented her survey of it from lapsing into ritual. As she often reminded her squad, it’s all about being present in the moment and noticing what you notice.

Detective Heat’s eyes told her this truck was not likely the murder scene. Walking the tight area of the cargo section, flashing the beam of her Stinger on the floor between boxes and on the walls, she saw no signs of any blood spatter. Later, after the body removal, the Evidence Collection Unit would offload all the cartons for a thorough inspection, but Nikki was satisfied in her mind that the suitcase had been brought aboard with the victim in it and, possibly, dead already. Time of death and a timeline of the truck’s loading and unloading would help button that down. She turned her attention to the victim.

ME Parry’s pick of early sixties seemed right. Her hair was flatteringly cut to a shorter business length correct for a woman of that age and, from the roots that were starting to show some gray and dark brown in the part, her honey blond do, subtly streaked with caramel, indicated two things. First, she was a woman with some money who cared enough about her hair to have an expensive cut and a skilled colorist. Second, in spite of that, she was long overdue for a visit. “What kept her away?” wrote Nikki in her notebook. The clothes were similarly tasteful. Petite size. Off the rack, but clearly the rack lived on one of the upscale floors of the department store. The blouse was from the current season and the gray suit was a lightweight wool with some function to it. The feeling Heat got wasn’t so much expensive as good quality. Not the uniform of the lady who lunches, but the woman who power lunches. Nikki crouched to look at the one hand that was visible. It was partially closed and tucked up under her chin, so she couldn’t see all of it, but what she could see told a story. These were busy hands, toned without being muscular or abused by hard labor. The slender fingers had the kind of strength you see on tennis players and fitness enthusiasts. She noted a small scar on the side of the wrist, which looked years, maybe decades, old. Nikki stood again and looked straight down at her. The body fit the profile of a runner or cyclist. She made another note to have the vic’s picture shown at fitness clubs, the New York Road Runners, and cycle shops. Heat squatted again to examine a grimy, dark brown dirt scuff on the knee of the woman’s pants, which could say something about her last moments. She made a note of it and scooted around to look more closely at the knife wound. Furthering Heat’s notion that the victim had been killed before being put in the truck, the frozen bloodstain formed a wide pond, as if she had bled out facedown. The width of the stain indicated great volume, yet there was not much blood in the satin of the suitcase interior other than from abrasion smears on the lid. Nikki shined her flashlight where the victim’s back met the inside hinge of the suitcase and saw only similar bloodstain rub-off, with no evidence of pooling. Again, when they removed her later, better measurements could be taken, but Heat was getting a picture of a murder not only outside the truck, but outside the luggage.

One more indicator would be to look at the exterior of the suitcase for any major blood collection along the hinges or seams. Taking care not to disturb it, she knelt on both knees, palmed one hand on the cargo deck for balance, and dropped her head, leaning over far enough for her eyebrow to nearly touch the floor. Slowly, methodically, she ran the beam of her flashlight from right to left along the bottom edge of the case.

When her light reached the left corner of the suitcase, Nikki gasped. Her vision fluttered and a vertigo sensation swept over her. The light slipped from her hand and she toppled over onto her side.

Lauren said, “Nikki, you all right?”

She couldn’t really see anything in that moment. Hands came on her. Lauren Parry cradled her head off the floor. A pair of EMTs started for the ramp, but by then Nikki had recovered enough to sit herself up and wave them off. “No, no, I’m fine. It’s OK.” Lauren crouched beside her at eye level to check her out. “Really, I’m OK,” said Nikki.

But to her friend, her face said anything but. “You scared me there, Nik. I thought you went over in an aftershock or something.”

Heat swung her legs over the back of the truck and let them dangle. Raley and Ochoa approached, followed by Feller. Ochoa said, “What’s up, Detective? You look like you saw a ghost.”

Nikki shivered. This time, not from the refrigeration. She twisted to look behind her at the suitcase and then slowly turned back to the others.

“Nikki,” said Lauren, “what is it?”

“The suitcase.” She swallowed hard. “My initials are on it.”

The detectives and the ME all looked at one another, puzzled. Finally, Raley said, “I don’t get it. Why would your initials be on that suitcase?”

“Because I carved them there when I was a kid.” She could see them processing that, but it was taking them too long, so she said, “That suitcase belonged to my mother.” And then she added, “Her killer stole it the night she was murdered.”

TWO

Nikki Heat marched toward the homicide bull pen of the Twentieth Precinct at a determined clip that left little doubt in the minds of the detectives trying to keep up with her that she had recovered from the shock of her discovery, and then some. “Briefing in ten,” she called out to her squad as she strode through the door. On her way to her desk, she said, “Detective Ochoa, fire off the Jane Doe head shot to Missing Persons. Include Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey, and Fairfield County cops while you’re at it. Detective Raley, erase that whiteboard and roll the second one over beside it so we can work both Murder Boards at once.” Heat broomed aside the morning’s pile of message slips and dusted away grains of acoustical ceiling tile that the 5.8 shaker had snowflaked onto her desktop. Then she hit her keyboard, e-mailing Lauren Parry at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner the same message she had given her verbally fifteen minutes before at the crime scene: to interrupt her the moment she had any information, no matter how minor.

She hit send and a cardboard coffee cup materialized on her blotter. Nikki swiveled in her chair to find Detective Feller lurking there. “In lieu of flowers, consider this the apology coffee for my big mouth this morning. Tall, three pump, hazelnut mocha, if I remember. Right?”

Actually, her drink of choice was a grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar-free vanilla, but “Close enough” was all she said. He was trying to make amends, but she was focused places other than coffee flavorings at the moment. “Thanks. And let’s put it behind us, OK?”

“Won’t happen again.”

As soon as Feller stepped away, she set the tepid cup at the back of the desk, beside her unread messages, and started a to-do list on a letter pad. One third down the page, she bulleted “additional manpower” and stopped. That would require clearance from the precinct commander, a hurdle the detective didn’t relish. Heat scanned across the bull pen into the PC’s glass office that looked out onto her squad. The glass also let the squad look in and had the effect of a creating a life-sized diorama out of that movie Night at the Museum. Captain Irons was inside the exhibit, hanging his jacket on a wooden hanger. Heat knew he was next going to go through his ritual of tugging the fabric of his white uniform shirt, and he did—all in his constant quest to eliminate button pucker on the gut that lipped over his low-slung belt.

“Excuse me, Captain,” said Heat at his door. “A word?” True to form, Wallace “Wally” Irons paused before he invited her in, as if he were searching for a reason not to but had come up empty. He didn’t ask her to sit, which was fine with Nikki. Every time she sat across the desk from him, all she could do was envision the wonderful man who had occupied that chair until he got killed and Irons, a career administrator, got tapped to replace him. Captain Irons was no Captain Montrose, and Heat bet both cops in that room knew it.

Adding further awkwardness to the dynamic, the top brass at One Police Plaza had offered her Wally Irons’s job after she passed her exams for lieutenant with record scores. But Heat got soured by the ugly departmental politics surrounding the whole process. It made her realize how much she would miss the street, so Nikki not only declined taking Irons’s command from him but passed on the gold bar, too. Yet the fact that she had come a hairsbreadth from being the one on the other side of that desk made the unspoken friction between the detective and her commander loud and clear. From her perspective, he was an organizational survivor concerned more with career than justice, someone she constantly had to out-think or out-maneuver to get the job done right. For Irons, Nikki Heat was his Faustian bargain. She was a detective of incredible value whose case clearances made his CompStat numbers look hot ’n’ juicy downtown, but that same damned competency also diminished him. In short, Nikki Heat represented a daily reminder of everything he was not. Ochoa had told her he recently overheard Irons whisper to Detective Hinesburg in the kitchen, “Know what it’s like having Heat around? It’s like a football team with two head coaches.” Nikki shrugged it off and reminded Ochoa she wasn’t one for the gossip mill. Besides, she’d kind of known that without him telling her. To smell the paranoia you didn’t have to be much of a detective. Kind of like Irons.

“Word is you made quite a discovery this morning,” he said, not sounding so much interested in the actual discovery as praising his networking. Nikki kept her briefing to the broad strokes, building it as a multiple homicide worthy of high status and, most importantly, of added manpower from the beginning. The captain held out two palms to her. “Whoa, whoa, let’s not run away with the bit in our mouth here. Now, I understand your personal enthusiasm to hit code red with this, but, somehow, these resources have to be accounted for.”

“Captain, you see my numbers. You know I always exercise great restraint in overtime and—”

“Jeez, overtime?” He shook his head. “So it’s not just pulling uniforms and detectives from other squads, it’s OT for your crew, as well? Oh, man . . .”

“Money well spent.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t know what it’s like to have this job and . . .” He realized the road he’d put himself on and slapped it in reverse. “Easy for you to say, is all.”

“Captain, this is big. For the first time in ten years, I have a fresh lead to my mother’s murder.” She had learned never to take his obtuseness for granted, so she spelled it out for him. “The stolen luggage is a direct link between the two cases, and I am confident that if I can find the killer of this Jane Doe, I can find my mother’s killer, as well.”

He softened his face into a doughy grimace attempting compassion. “Look, I know this is charged by a highly personal element for you.”

“I can’t deny that, sir, but I assure you that I would pursue this just as vigorously regardless of my—”

“Knock, knock?” Detective Sharon Hinesburg leaned in the door. “Bad time?”

Captain Irons beamed at Hinesburg and then reeled his unmoored attention back to Nikki, offering her a sober look. “Detective Heat, let’s put a pin in this discussion until later.”

“But a simple yes would wrap it up.”

He chuckled. “A for effort, I’ve got to respect that. But I need more convincing, and right now, I’ve got Detective Hinesburg on my calendar.” He made a gesture to his desk agenda as if that settled that.

Apparently, thought Heat, Hinesburg was now booking formal appointments for her brownnosing. She slipped by her detective, the low performer in her unit, on her way out of the office. “Squad meeting in three minutes, Sharon.” The glass door closed softly behind her and she heard muffled laughter.

Detective Heat put her irritation in her back pocket. Nikki was too professional to get sucked into that quicksand and too driven by the gravity of the new lead to let petty office politics draw focus from her mission. Raley had finished positioning the two large blank whiteboards in an open V-angle against the painted brick wall of the bull pen, and she went right to work, prepping the Jane Doe Murder Board first. At the top corner of the left-hand board, Heat posted eight-by-ten color prints of the victim from various angles: a facial close-up; a side view of her head; an overhead shot of her body in the fetal position inside the suitcase; and a detail view of the stab wound. Beside these, she put up photos of the delivery truck from five angles: front, rear, the two sides, and an overhead she had asked the photographer from the Evidence Collection Unit to grab from a fire escape. In New York City people did a whole lot of looking down at the street from their apartments and offices. The top view of the cargo box, including its telltale graffiti, might jar an eyewitness’s memory and help that wit track the vehicle’s journey. Any information like that, however small, could nail down how and when the suitcase got inside the truck. Or who put it there.

A burst of applause made her turn from the boards. Jameson Rook had entered the bull pen for the first time since he took the slug to save her life, and the full squad rose to its feet, cheering him. The intensity of the clapping grew as patrol uniforms, civilian aides, and detectives from other squads in the station gathered at the doorway behind Rook and joined in the standing o. He seemed taken aback and caught Heat’s eye, clearly moved by the spontaneous group welcome. As if the morning hadn’t been emotionally raw enough for her, Nikki found herself choking up at his reception and all that a gesture like that meant from the fraternity of cops, who weren’t known for overt demonstrations of sentiment.

When it died down, he swiped at one of his eyes, swallowed hard, smiled at the gathering, and said, “Garsh, do you do this for everybody who delivers coffee?” During their laughter, he crossed to Nikki and handed her a paper cup. “Here ya go. Grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar-free vanilla.”

“Perfect,” she said, and as soon as she had, Randall Feller’s face peered around from behind Detective Ochoa, wearing a slighted expression.

Rook noticed the group had remained in place, staring at him. “I guess I should say a few words.”

“Do you have to?” said Detective Raley, eliciting more chuckles.

“Just for that, I will. But I’ll be quick.” He indicated the Murder Boards behind Heat. “I heard there’s some new casework to be done, and I don’t want to slow it down.”

“Too late,” said Nikki, but she was smiling and they both laughed.

“I guess ‘thank you’ is my beginning and end. Thanks for the support, the cards, the flowers . . . Although a naughty nurse would not have been unwelcome.”

“As long as he didn’t have too much back hair,” said Ochoa.

Rook continued, “And I’ll say it for the last time. Thanks to Detectives Raley and Ochoa. Roach, thank you for rolling up your sleeves for my transfusion that night. I guess that now makes us officially . . .”

“. . . Creepy,” called out Detective Rhymer, who had come down from Burglary.

“No, man, it’s all good,” said Ochoa. “Know what you have now, Rook? You have the power of Roach Blood.”

Raley added, “Use it wisely.”

Nikki cleared her throat. “About done?”

“Done,” answered Rook.

Heat went official. “My squad, pull up chairs for the briefing.”

As the visitors departed and her people began to form up around the Murder Boards, Rook got close and studied her, speaking in a gentle voice. “Hey. You doing any better since our call?”

She shrugged ambivalently. “I’ll be fine. Putting the shock behind me. I’m sort of in all-out task mode now. Except I got Iron-gated.” Rook followed her glance to Irons, who was still in his office with Hinesburg. “He’s balking at giving me OT and resources.”

“Drone.”

“I don’t know what I can do to convince him.” She shook it off. “Hey, thanks for the latte. Any chance you can swing by my apartment to see how it did in the quake?”

“Already did. Minimal breakage. I re-straightened the pictures, re-fruited the fruit bowl, re-tchotchked your tchotchkes, and sniffed the range for gas. All is well. Oh. Except your elevator is out. Three flights was no picnic, but I’m a trouper.”

Nikki thanked him, but instead of saying you’re welcome, he rolled up a chair. “What are you doing?”

“Getting ringside for my briefing.” He read her objection and said, “Come on, you really didn’t think I came all the way up here to bring you coffee, did you?”

* * *

Heat began with details. The major headline, she didn’t need to put into words. Not with this group. It rang loud and clear to everyone in that room who knew the lead detective and her history. If that didn’t say it, the parallel boards and her ultra-focused demeanor did. This was The Big Case. The case of Nikki Heat’s lifetime.

Attention was sharp. Nobody interrupted, nobody joked. Nobody wanted to blow this for her. They all shared one thought: Bring this one home for Detective Heat.

Quickly recapping the discovery of the suitcase by the bomb squad, she used the Jane Doe photos as reference for her grand tour of the victim, explaining her frozen state, lack of ID or personal effects, and apparent—but unconfirmed—death by single stab wound to the back, expertly delivered. Next she indicated the array of truck pictures. “The driver is cooperating fully, and, along with his employer, we are establishing the timeline of deliveries to see when the suitcase got put in there. We can assume the luggage was deposited along his delivery route, but I want no assumptions. None. That brings us to my first assignment. Detective Hinesburg.”

Nikki caught Hinesburg off guard as she joined the meeting late from the captain’s office. “What’s up?” she asked from a half-sit.

“I want you to run a check for priors on the truck driver and anyone at the loading dock who had access to that vehicle before it rolled out this morning. That means anyone who cleaned it, loaded it, inspected it, or who could have slipped the suitcase in there before it left the facility.” Hinesburg found a seat and nodded. “Sharon, do you want to write any of this down?”

“No, I got it.” And then, as she processed, Hinesburg added, “If the driver called in the 911, we probably don’t like him as the perp, do we? Isn’t this kind of busywork?”

If thought bubbles were visible in life, the one over Heat’s head would have said, You bet. Nikki had learned the hard way that the best way to contain the damage Sharon Hinesburg caused on a case was to give her assignments where her laziness and sloppy detail work would do the least harm. “Guess we’ll only know after you get busy, Detective.” She scanned the room. “Detective Feller.”

“Yo.” He had been leaning forward, intent, with his elbows on the thighs of his jeans. Hearing his name, he sat tall and poised his pen.

“You’ll work the delivery route. That means not only checking out the workers at the delis and bodegas he hit, but did he stop for gas? Did he leave the truck to use a restroom? Does he have an affair going on the side that made him park for a quickie? Is he skimming food off the books and dropping calamari at his uncle’s with the loading door unlocked? You get the idea.”

“On it.”

“Interface with Raley. As our King of All Surveillance Media he’s going to find all the security cams working the delivery route. And Rales?” The detective raised his chin to her, signaling complete attention. “Of course we’re hoping to score footage of the suitcase and the person or persons who put it on the truck, but also scrub the video for eyewits. Pedestrians, news vendors—you know what I want.”

“Anybody who saw the truck and anything that was happening around it, everywhere it went,” answered Detective Raley, making it sound daunting and doable at the same time.

“Detective Ochoa, you run the fingerprints as soon as we get a set. Also, contact the Real Time Crime Center. See what their database spits out as far as disturbance calls, women screaming, even if they’re classed as domestic disputes.”

“Time frame?” asked Ochoa.

“We can’t fix our time of death until OCME can do some extra lab work after she thaws, so let’s tentatively set the kill zone in the past forty-eight and widen later, if we have to.”

As she noted that on the board, Feller asked, “You think this could be a serial killer? I wouldn’t mind running the MO through the database. Also see how the two kills match up with prison release times, stuff like that.”

“Good idea, Randy, do that.”

“What if it’s just a coincidence?” asked Sharon Hinesburg. The other detectives shifted in their chairs. Ochoa even dropped his face into both hands.

“I believe you know what I think about coincidences, Sharon,” Nikki said.

“But they do exist, right?”

“Come on,” said Feller, unable to contain his contempt. “You mean a different killer with the same MO just happens to defy all odds and put the body in the suitcase owned by the prior vic? If that’s so, I’m buying a lottery ticket.”

As the derisive laughter quieted, Heat said, “Tell you what. Just to cover the base, let’s check out eBay and area thrift shops to see if we get any tracking on the suitcase.” And then, to show how much faith Nikki put in that road, she said, “Sharon, why don’t you work that, too.”

Heat then lowered her gaze to a photo on the table, and when she saw it, the crackling energy she had been running on since her discovery on Columbus Avenue took a slight dip. Then she straightened up, willing herself back to full speed, and held the eight-by-ten for them to see. “This . . .” she said, then had to come to a full stop, fearing her voice would crack. Something moved in her periphery. It was Rook clasping his hands together and squeezing them before him in a gesture of strength. That small, secret move bolstered her, and Nikki felt a rush of gratitude that she hadn’t kicked his ass out of there, after all. Composed again, she resumed, “This is a detail shot of the bottom of the suitcase.” She posted it on the upper right corner of the Jane Doe board. The silent room creaked with the sound of Sam Browne belts as they all leaned forward for a good look. The ECU camera flash had brightened the suitcase from blue-gray to a sky at high noon. In the center of the shot, two initials were crudely scratched into the case: N H.

While the squad silently absorbed the haunting significance—that the little girl whose hand had marked the suitcase now stood before them—the adult hand of the little girl slapped a duplicate photo of the initials on Murder Board 2. “Here is our connection,” said Detective Heat, accessing a reserve of coolness and control in denial of her emotional turmoil. “Our hot lead runs to the unsolved ten-year-old homicide of Cynthia Trope Heat.” She traced an invisible arc back and forth in the air between the photos of her initials on both boards. “This case is going to help us solve the cold case.”

“And vice versa,” said Roach, in unison.

“Damn right,” said Nikki Heat.

As the group broke up to work its assignments, Detective Feller made his way to Heat through the dispersing crowd. “We’ll crack this one,” he said. “In my mind, this is my only case.”

“Thanks, Randy. Means a lot.” He waited, standing there looking like he wanted to say something else. Once more, Nikki read the unspoken crush on his face. She had seen it there from the first day they had crossed paths the autumn before, when his undercover taxi had been first to respond to her officer-in-distress call. Ever since, this rough-and-tumble street cop melted into the shy kid at the junior high sock hop whenever he was alone with her.

“Listen, I was wondering. If you hadn’t partnered up with anyone yet . . .” He had let it hang there, leaving her to figure out how to deal with it, when Rook swooped in.

“Actually, I was thinking Detective Heat and I would pair up on this case.”

Feller looked Rook up and down like he had just jumped out of a clown car. “Really.” And then he turned back to Nikki. “I was thinking a veteran detective might work out better than . . . a ride-along writer. Maybe that’s just me.”

“You mean, the ride-along writer who got shot saving her life?”

Nikki said, “Um, OK, listen.”

“I mean, the veteran detective who got shot saving her life,” said Feller, pulling back his big shoulders and taking a half step to Rook.

“I know how to settle this,” Rook said. “Rochambeau.”

“You’re on.”

Nikki said, “Seriously? No, you two are not doing rock, paper, scissors.”

Rook leaned close to her and whispered, “Don’t worry. I know the type. Macho guys like this always go for the rock.” And before she could protest again, he counted, “One, two, three, shoot.” And put out his flat hand for paper—to Feller’s scissors.

The detective cackled. “Hah-ha. Nice playing with you, Rook.”

“Sorry to throw cold water on this dance of the peacocks,” said Heat, “but Randy, I have plans for you that would put your talents to better use than duplicating effort with me. And Rook? Don’t take this personally, but this isn’t a case I want to be tripping over you every time I turn around.”

“Gee, how could I take that personally?”

Then Captain Irons stepped up from behind them. “Mr. Jameson Rook. Welcome back to the Two-oh.” A chamber-of-commerce grin pulled back the skipper’s fleshy face. He bumped aside Detective Feller reaching to grip Rook’s hand in a damp shake while he clapped his shoulder. “To what do we owe the honor? You writing a new story, perhaps?”

The precinct commander’s shameless attempts at self-promotion were always embarrassing, but clearly not to him. Wally Irons, who once accidentally knocked over a toddler after her AMBER Alert rescue while rushing to get his face in front of a TV camera, lacked the mortification gene when it came to massaging the press. But Jameson Rook had spent a career dealing with his type and didn’t miss a beat. In fact he grabbed the opportunity, for a cause.

“Hm,” he said. “Depends. Think there might be a story here, Captain?”

“Uh, Rook,” cautioned Heat.

“Ducks in a barrel,” Irons said, grinning. “To me, this new development cries out for a follow-up to your earlier article on my Detective Heat.” Nikki tried to get Rook’s attention, drilling him with her eyes and shaking her head no. Rook knew how much she hated the attention his cover story in First Press had brought, but Rook pretended not to notice her.

“A follow-up?” he said, as if taken by the notion.

Irons said, “To me, it’s a no-brainer.”

“Well, you’d be the expert there,” Rook said, and the captain’s quick “thank you” certified that the insult had gone over his head. “Could have some merit. I’m not the editor, though, so don’t hold me to this. But I like it.” Rook stroked his chin and said, “I suppose it would hinge on action, not just rehash, Captain.”

“I hear you.”

“For instance, I know Detective Heat’s fully engaged and so is her squad. But the story really gets easier for me to sell to a publisher if it goes bigger. I assume, in your leadership role, you’ve already marshaled all the forces you can.” He resisted winking to Nikki as he continued, “For instance clearing overtime and . . . I dunno . . . tapping extra manpower from other squads and precincts?”

A cloud crossed over Irons’s brow. “It has come up.”

“See, that’s something new I could run with. A precinct captain fighting the bureaucracy to rally the resources for his detectives. A leader who can crack a cold case and a frozen one in the same stroke.” He chuckled. “What do you know: Headline!”

The captain nodded like a bobble head and turned to Nikki. “Heat, let’s move forward with the resources we talked about earlier.”

“Thank you, sir.” She half-smiled at Rook.

“And I was also thinking, Captain Irons.”

“Yes?”

“Now that I’m back to a hundred percent, it might not be a bad idea for me to return to the arrangement I had with the first article and partner with Detective Heat. It’s a great way to follow up, plus it would help me document the fruits of your command from street level so—if there does turn out to be an article in this—I’d already be boots on the ground.”

“Done,” said Irons. Feller shook his head and walked away. “Heat, looks like the dynamic duo rides again,” said the captain on his way back to his office.

“Anything else I can help you with, Detective?” asked Rook.

“I just want to note for the record that, after that manipulative display of yours, I now know you are devious and can not be trusted. Ever.”

Rook just smiled at Heat and said, “You’re welcome.”

THREE

Rook disappeared to the battered desk in the corner where he used to perch during his old ride-along days, dragging along the same orphaned chair with the loco wheel he always ended up with. Heat immediately got on her computer to make her manpower grabs before Captain Irons realized he had just gotten his pocket picked. Detective Rhymer made a good fit from Burglary, so she put in her bid for him. As partners, Malcolm and Reynolds—also from the Burglary Unit—were nearly as formidable as Roach. She had heard the duo was already out on loan working undercover for Surveillance and Apprehension, but she sent an e-mail to their skipper anyway, asking for their use and nesting her personal IOU between the lines.

Randall Feller returned to Heat’s desk showing no hint of bother over basically getting hip checked by Rook minutes before. The detective, like everyone else in that room, had his head solidly on task. He gave her the photocopy he had scored of the truck driver’s route sheet for her to examine. “I’m going to hit the bricks with this and get interviewing at his stops before shifts change and people’s memories go south. So you know, I’m tearing Raley away from his work wife so he can come with me and eyeball security cams.”

“Ochoa will understand for one day. Their bond goes deeper than that,” she said with a dry smile before he left.

One of the administrative aides called across the chatter of the bull pen that Lauren Parry was on hold from the coroner’s office. Heat snatched up her phone before she finished her sentence. “Your e-mail said not to worry about being a pest,” said the medical examiner.

“You, Lauren? Never. Especially if it’s good news.”

“It is.”

“You have an ID on my Jane Doe?”

“Not yet.”

“Then it’s not good news to me, girlfriend.” Nikki gave her jab a light touch, but the truth lived inside the soft wrapper.

“What if I told you I’m already starting to get some pliability in the joints?”

Heat picked up a pen and sat at her desk. “We’re upgrading to pretty good news, Laur. Keep going.”

“First off, this tells us our Doe is not frozen solid.” The detective pictured a Thanksgiving turkey coming rock-hard from the freezer and nudged the thought aside. “The significance of this is helpful in multiples, Nikki. I put her in front of oscillating fans to bring her gradually to ambient temp so I wouldn’t destroy tissue, and the joint movement means we should be able to test sooner than later.”

“How soon?”

“This afternoon.” And then the ME added, “But beyond that, her semifrozen state tells us she did not get put aboard that truck at midnight at the food packer. That many hours inside an insulated container at subzero would have solidified her pretty good, so you can hypothesize—at least for now—that she was loaded somewhere along the route after the truck left early this morning.” Heat considered pulling Detective Hinesburg off her assignment at the loading dock and then rejected it. Better Sharon do a little wheel-spinning there than a lot of damage elsewhere. “This also means there’s a shot I can give you a more accurate time of death since there may not be any rupturing of cell walls by ice crystals. If we’re lucky there, I can get a decent measurement of melatonin from the pineal gland and urine for an accurate TOD window.”

Detective Heat had worked enough autopsies to grab hold of all the indicators and form the right questions. “Are you seeing any hypothermia?”

“Negative.”