Nikki took the chair across from him and noticed he had ordered for her. Coffee and a plain bagel with two plastic pots of cream cheese. “Coffee should still be hot,” he said. “It gets jammed in here, and I didn’t want us to spend our whole morning in line behind the construction goons.” At the table beside them, a hardhat with a brush mustache looked up from his Sudoku, buck-snorted, and then went back to his puzzle. If Zach Hamner noticed — or cared — he didn’t let on. “Anyway, glad you could make it. Hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.”
She felt the side of her coffee cup. It was cool. She tried not to begrudge the extra hour she might have had with Rook, not to mention getting a jump on her case work. “I’m an early riser,” she said. “Plus you were pretty insistent.”
“Thank you,” he said, making Nikki wonder if there had been some unintended flattery in her tone. “I reached out to make sure we had the opportunity to connect early in your process. Not just to let you know we’re here — that Legal is here — if you need an assist along the way, but also because we think it’s important to have a relationship with the up-and-comers of the department.”
Heat was getting the picture fairly quickly.... How could she not? Zach, this — what did he say his title was? — Senior Administrative Aide to the Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters, was a career networker. One of those functionaries who ate and slept the job, basked in the reflected glory of his boss, and drew power from the proximity he forged with the upper ranks. Hence the royal we. She decided he probably kept a picture of Rahm Emanuel taped to his bathroom mirror so he could see it when he shaved.
“You should know I have briefed the deputy commissioner on your stellar test score. I also slipped in a copy of that magazine piece on you. He’s quite impressed.”
“That’s nice to know.” She tore off a bite-sized piece of bagel and, as she smeared some cream cheese on it, continued, “Although, you know, if we do only get fifteen minutes, I hope those were mine.”
“Interesting. I assumed that you had maintained a close relationship with the press.” If he only knew, thought Nikki. She flashed on the wake-up surprise she had given Rook that very morning. Hamner continued, “From the article, I got the impression you knew just how to handle that reporter.”
“It’s a skill I’ve learned to develop,” said Heat, suppressing a smirk. “But I’m not one for the limelight.”
“Oh, please, we’re grown-ups here,” he said. “Ambition isn’t a dirty word. Not at this table, I assure you.” Clearly, she thought. “Your decision to take the lieutenant’s test, was that not ambition?”
“In a way.”
“Yes. And we are thankful you did. We need more Nikki Heats. And fewer bad apples.” He sat back in his chair and jammed his hands deep in his pockets, studying her reaction as he added, “Tell me what’s going on with Captain Montrose.”
Nikki felt her small bite of bagel pushing against the inside of her sternum. Whatever agenda Heat had perceived for this meeting, pure networking wasn’t it. She didn’t yet know how much weight Zach Hamner carried, but caution led her to choose her words carefully. She sipped some cold coffee and said, “I’ve been hearing that Captain Montrose has been going through a rough patch over there.” Nikki hitched a thumb behind her right shoulder in the direction of 1PP. “But I’m at a loss to understand it. Maybe after so many years working together, my experience with him has been different.” Heat thought about leaving it at that, but there was a distasteful undercurrent of something hungry and cunning coming off the young lawyer. In spite of Nikki’s unsettling feelings about whatever was going on with the Cap, her loyalty was strong and something about seeing all the dorsal fins break the surface lately made her add a little push-back. “With all due respect?”
“Please.”
“If you invited me to breakfast hoping I would give you some dirt or to go on record and disparage my commander, you’re going to be disappointed. I deal in facts, not innuendo.”
Hamner cracked a grin. “You’re good. No, I mean that. Well handled.”
“Because it’s the truth.”
He nodded and leaned forward, casually pressing his forefinger into a cluster of sesame seeds on his plate before he nibbled them off. “But we all know, especially a veteran detective knows, there are many truths. It’s really just another value, isn’t it? Like discretion. Hard work. Loyalty.” His BlackBerry vibrated on the table. He looked at his screen, made a sour face, and pressed a button to silence it. “The thing about loyalty, Detective Heat, is that critical times come where a reasonable person has to be objective. Take a hard look at truths. To make sure old loyalties aren’t suddenly misplaced. Or blinding.” Then he smiled. “Or, who knows? To see if it may be time for some new ones.” He rose to go and gave her a business card. “The office number rings to my BlackBerry after hours. Let’s fly close.”
It was still early for her squad to be in for shift, so Detective Heat speed-dialed their mobiles on her walk from the deli to HQ. The oystery clouds rolling in from New Jersey began to issue ice pellets that stung her face and bounced off the interlocking brickwork of the walkway between the Municipal Building and police headquarters. Halfway there Nikki stopped for shelter under the Tony Rosenthal sculpture and listened to the frozen rain tinking like handfuls of rice off its red metal discs while she made her calls.
The male strip club didn’t open until eleven, so her plan was to split up Roach, assigning Ochoa to concentrate on getting Father Graf’s computer from Forensics to check his e-mails and Raley to run a check on the priest’s phone records. However, when she reached him, Ochoa reported that he and Raley had already hit the club the night before. “You were still behind closed doors with Montrose and we didn’t want to disturb you since it looked like you were having such a good time in there.” The detective paused to let his dry humor land then continued, “So we dropped by One Hot Mess at happy hour to see if we could get some momentum in the case.”
“That’s a load. You two just wanted an excuse to walk on the wild side.” She could have just said what she felt and expressed her genuine appreciation for their initiative, but that would have been a breach of UCRAP — the Unspoken Compliments and Relationship Avoidance Protocols observed among cops. So Heat said the opposite. As if she meant it.
“I did it for Raley,” he said, responding in kind. “My partner, he’s a curious pony who will not be broken.” They’d had some success. After showing Father Graf’s photo around, one of the strippers recognized him. The Nekked Cowpoke (whose name and spelling, he pointed out, had for the price of a lap dance been legally parsed to avoid trademark infringement) said the priest in the photo had been in the club a week before and had gotten into a shouting match with one of the other dancers. It was so heated the bouncer kicked the padre out.
“Did your cowpoke hear what they were arguing about?” asked Heat.
“No, that must have come before they threw down. But he did hear one thing before the bouncer intervened. The dancer grabbed the priest by the neck and said he’d kill him.”
“Bring him in for a chat. Now.”
“We have to find him first,” Ochoa replied. “He quit three days ago and cleared out of his apartment. Raley is doing a trace now.”
Her next call was to Sharon Hinesburg. She had been with Heat when Mrs. Borelli hesitated over one of the surveillance stills, so she got the call to work on finding an ID of the man. When Nikki reached Detective Rhymer, she told him to pass word to Gallagher that the two of them were back on the bondage beat. She wanted them to generate a list of freelance dominatrixes that they missed the day before. “I don’t want any to slip through the cracks just because they didn’t have relationships with the clubs in The Alley,” she explained.