“Why are you resisting this?”
“Beer?” she said, and left him for the fridge. Nikki had just finished pouring them each a perfectly cloudy Widmer Hefeweizen when her cell phone rang. After she listened briefly, Heat said, “Got it. Meet you downstairs from Rook’s in five,” and hung up. “That was Roach. If you want to come, you’d better wear more than a robe.”
“Where are we going?”
“Queens. They found our guy with the suitcase.”
FOUR
The tattoo busted him. As Heat had hoped, the Real Time Crime Center had a match in its computer that connected to a suspect. A week before, the owner of a convenience store in the Bayside neighborhood of Queens had called in a complaint on a shoplifter. The surveillance cam picked him up, and even though the petty crime didn’t have the weight to make the news or light up an All Points, the RTCC logged the tatt into its database, and the hit came within minutes of Detective Raley posting his JPEG on the server. Uniform patrols flashed the picture around Bayside, and a night watchman at a used car lot recognized him as a guy he had seen hanging around lately. The break came when the security guard spotted him again a few hours after the uni visit and tailed him to a nearby house while he put in a cell call to NYPD.
Heat, Rook, Raley, and Ochoa rode in tense silence under the flashing gumball, shoulders swaying and knees bumping against the doors of the Roach Coach while Detective Raley threaded the needle through evening cross-town traffic to the Midtown Tunnel and onto the Long Island Expressway. The only gap in Raley’s concentration came on the straightaway passing the steel Unisphere at Flushing Meadows, when he side-glanced Ochoa in the shotgun seat and rabbit wrinkled his nose. His partner suppressed a smile about Rook, whose fragrant herbal massage oil had also hitched a ride in back. Heat picked up on it, but all she said was, “ETA?” Her succinct way of urging focus and speed.
Their Crown Vic rolled up to the tactical staging area at Marie Curie Park in Bayside six minutes later, and Raley angled it nose-out with the other police cars. Emergency Services Squad 9, including a unit of SWATs, stood by in black helmets and body armor. The ESS field commander greeted her as she climbed out. “You made good time, Detective Heat.”
“Thanks for waiting.”
“Listen. Going to let this be your show,” he said.
The underlying message of respect embedded in that gesture nearly choked her up, but she let it go with a crisp, “Thanks, appreciate that, Commander.”
“Got it all buttoned up for you,” he said. “Suspect is inside a single-family two-story on Oceania, next street over. Con-Ed records list the owner as a J. S. Palmer, although the bill hasn’t been paid for six months and the juice is off at the resident’s request.” He used the red filter on his flashlight, so he wouldn’t night blind her, and spread a map full of neatly drawn deployment markings on the roof of the car. “It’s the corner house here. I’ve got a tight perimeter covering all possible exits, including canines here and here. Blue-and-whites have Northern Boulevard choked off, and we blockaded Forty-seventh Avenue after you came through, so we own the streets. I also have a team inside the neighboring house, and we’ve moved that family out the side door.”
“Sounds like you’ve covered everything.”
“Not done yet.” He keyed his walkie-talkie mic. “ESU Nine to Chopper Four-one-four.”
“Go, ESU Nine,” replied a calm voice with a high-pitched purr behind it.
“Ready in five.”
“Confirm five minutes, on your signal. We’ll bring the daylight.”
Raley popped the trunk. Heat moved around to join him, Ochoa and Rook at the rear bumper. While the three detectives vested up, she said, “Rook, you wait here.”
“Come on, I promise I won’t get shot. I can wear one of those vests.”
Ochoa indicated the bold white lettering across his chest and back. “Check it out, bro. It says ‘POLICE.’”
Rook peered into the trunk. “Do you have one in there that says ‘WRITER,’ preferably in a large tall? You’re gonna like the way I look. I guarantee it.”
“Give it up,” said Nikki.
“Then why did you even bring me?”
Nikki almost let slip the truth and said, For the moral support. But she replied, “Because if I left you behind, I’d never hear the end of the whining.”
“That’s why?” said Ochoa, as the three detectives fell in with the SWAT unit. “I thought it was ‘cause Rook’s like the human Air Wick. Won’t need that cardboard pine tree in the Roach Coach with him around.”
ESU swarmed the house with a tactical precision that belied the laid-back demeanor of the commander and his team. Heat and Roach double-timed with the SWAT unit on foot, using the armored Bearcat vehicle for cover as it roared up the driveway. When the black truck came to a stop, the Bell helicopter thundered up the street and the pilot hit his Nightsun, beaming a dose of hot light to blind anyone looking out windows as the team deployed. They approached in efficient, textbook sequence, taking cover behind the porch rail, trash cans, and shrubs as they moved in. When Heat and the crew carrying the battering ram gained the front door, she knuckled it and called over the din of the chopper, “NYPD, open up.” After a pause too short to measure, Heat gave the go sign for the ram.
The thud of the door into the wall matched the pounding under Nikki’s vest as she entered the unlit house, leading the SWAT team in a surreal ballet of flashlight beams and rapid incursion. She called out, “NYPD, identify yourself!” but only heard the slap echo of her own voice in the near-vacant house. The assault force fanned out, a third rolling to the right side of the downstairs with Heat, a third going left, circling toward the dining room and kitchen, with Roach and the remainder heading upstairs to the second story and attic. The spotlight from the circling copter pierced the windows and crept along the walls, making the house feel like it was spinning. Each terse update whispered in Heat’s earpiece confused and disheartened her. “Dining room: clear.” “Kitchen: clear.” “Master bed: clear.” “Hall closet: clear.” “Attic: clear.” “Basement: clear.” The downstairs pincer groups met up in the kitchen, which smelled from enough stacked garbage to qualify for a cable TV hoarders show.
But no suspect.
“Garage status?” she said into her mic.
“Clear.”
The ESS commander came downstairs with Roach and met her in the living room. “Doesn’t make sense,” he said. “And there’s no place to hide. Closets are empty. Only a ratty mattress on the floor of the master.”
“On the vacant side down here, too,” said Detective Ochoa. He traced his Stinger LED across the nail hooks, illuminating the spots where pictures once hung above an unbleached rectangle in the hardwood the size and shape of a sofa. Now only a pair of mismatched patio chairs sat off to the side of a grimy, secondhand rug.
“Any false walls?” asked Rook, coming in the front door. “I know for a fact some of these old houses have fake doors behind bookcases.”
Heat sounded a familiar refrain. “Rook, I told you to wait outside.”
“But I saw the pretty light from the helicopter and it pulled me in against my will. It’s like Close Encounters for me. Or the rose ceremony on Bachelorette.”
“Outside. Now.”
“Fine.” He backed up to leave and stumbled to the floor, landing on his butt.
Ochoa shook his head. Raley helped him up and said, “See? This is why we can’t take you anywhere.”
“It’s not my fault. I tripped on something under that rug.”
“Well, lift your feet,” said Nikki. “On your way out.”
“Detective?” said Ochoa. He was down on one knee, running his palm across a lump in the stained green shag. He rose and whispered to her, “Hatch handle.”
They peeled back the rug and exposed a three-by-three square of plywood with a pull ring handle and hinges embedded into the floor. “I’m going in,” said Heat.
The commander cautioned her. “Let’s drop some gas down there first.”