“I could lose the underwear if it would make you happy,” he said.
“That would make me very happy, but I just got a text that I’ve got a drug dealer coming in to be interviewed.” She bent to kiss his forehead. “Plus I have my oral boards today. Last hurdle before the lieutenant promotion.”
“I could help you with that. The orals.” She just stared at him, and he turned to her with a face of innocence. “What?”
“Tell me, Rook, is there a single word in the dictionary a guy can’t turn into something salacious?”
“Quatrain. Big points at Scrabble. Zip when it comes to double entendre, and I have tried. Oh, how I’ve tried.” Then he said, “With all that’s happened, couldn’t you get a postponement?”
“I could.” It was all on her face. Nikki was not going to let down. “But I won’t.” She gestured to his MacBook. “I thought you finished your arms smugglers piece. Is that your next bodice ripper, Miss St. Clair?”
“Nothing so lofty.”
“What is it?”
“Rather not say just yet.” He closed the lid and stood to face her. “Bad luck.” Then Rook drew her to him and they kissed. He was tender and gentle, comforting. “You doing OK this morning?”
“No, but I’ll get through.”
“There’s French Roast on.” Rook made a move toward the kitchen, but she clung to him and held him in place.
“Thank you for last night. You were... a friend.”
“Anytime, anywhere, Nikki Heat.” And they kissed again.
She dressed while he poured her coffee and squeezed them both some juice. Nikki reappeared looking puzzled and holding up her cell phone. “Want to hear something odd? I just checked my office voice mail. One of the messages was from the travel agent I referred Captain Montrose to. She said she can’t believe the news, especially since she just talked to him yesterday. He booked an island cruise.”
“Yesterday?” When she affirmed, he clapped his hands once and said, “John le Carré!” He read her bewilderment and added, “You know John le Carré, right? Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Constant Gardener... Oh, and A Perfect Spy — transcendent, best ever! But... John le Carré’s first novel was Call for the Dead. This secret agent is found. Suicide, they say. But that theory unravels because he left a wake-up call the night before. See the logic? Who leaves a wake-up call if he plans to kill himself?”
“Right,” she said. “And who books a cruise? Especially Montrose.” She frowned. “Now? And alone?” She had started to mull the oddness of that when he interrupted.
“I’ll be dressed in two seconds.”
“For what?”
“To come with you,” said Rook. “We have to get to work. This suicide theory is full of holes. Oo, sorry. Poor choice of words, forgive me, but I’m getting fired up.”
“Well, take a breath. We went over this. Your ride-along days are over. I can’t have you tagging along now. There’s too much going on.”
“I won’t be in the way.” Her stare forced him to admit, “Much.”
“Not happening. Besides, it’s too complicated now. I’m under a lot of attention and it might appear unprofessional.”
“Why? Lieutenants have boyfriends, too.”
“Maybe, but not working cases with them.” She watched his jaw flex. “Why is this such a big push for you?”
“Because of yesterday. I want to keep an eye on you.”
She moved close and held him. “Rook, that is so very...”
“. . . Sweet?”
“I’ll go with stupid.”
The seal was off the door to the glass office, and the two Men in Black from Internal Affairs were waiting for Heat when she entered it. “You can close that,” said Lovell, the angular one with the sharp, pterodactyl features, who was seated behind the desk. His partner, DeLongpre, had perched on the bookcase, strategically in Lovell’s eye line and slightly behind the guest chair so they could trade signals. Nikki noticed the hefty one had carelessly shoved the framed photos of Montrose’s wife aside to make room on the shelf for his ass.
“We have some questions for you about your commander,” began Lovell when she took her seat.
“You mean there’s something you don’t know? You spent enough time working him over.”
Lovell smiled patiently. “Just because we’re IA doesn’t make us the enemy, Detective Heat, you ought to know that.”
Then DeLongpre said, “So let’s dial down the snark factor,” making himself sound exactly like the enemy. Or the bad cop to Lovell’s good one.
“How can I help you?” she said.
They asked general questions at first: how long they knew each other, her view of his performance, how she would characterize his leadership over the years. Heat was truthful but guarded. These guys were in the business of looking for spiders in the basement, and Nikki didn’t want to further sully the captain’s rep. Actually, she was glad for the opportunity to put it out that Montrose had been such an exemplary boss and, not insignificantly, a fine human being. But all that goodwill Nikki thought she was building ended up leveraged against her.
Lovell said, “Sounds like you had a great relationship.”
“We did.”
“Then what happened?” He tilted his head back and scrutinized her over his hooked Triassic Period nose. When she didn’t reply, he said, “Come on, he lost it. What was it about, and when?”
Nikki had conducted enough interrogations of her own to know when she was getting channeled. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable with those exact words.”
“Then choose your own,” said Lovell.
DeLongpre added, “Because goodness knows we want you to feel comfortable.”
“I don’t know if I would say he lost it,” she said. “It was more like a slow change. A little more tense, that’s all. I cut him slack because of his wife getting killed.” She didn’t know which was stronger, her instinct to protect his memory or her mistrust of these two.
Lovell said, “Is that why you said to your squad yesterday... ,” he read from his notepad, “ ‘Cap’s been off the charts lately, but this has me shaking my head’?”
Who gave them that? Heat wondered. Although she had an idea. “That’s out of context. I think I said it when he was MIA.”
Lovell held the pad up and repeated, “ ‘Cap’s been off the charts lately...’ Sounds like plenty of context to me. I hear you two really tore it up in this office yesterday morning. Shouting, desk pounding... Well?”
“He was feeling pressure. The CompStat push, you know. Target numbers.”
“Yeah, he told us about that, too. But why was he up your skirt?” said DeLongpre. Heat knew that was calculated to press a button, so she ignored it. But she had to answer. So she tossed them a bone.
“We had some disagreements about the case I’m working on.” She was prepared to say little and leave it general. But they had other ideas.
“The priest, right? And you thought he was involved somehow in the killing, is that what set him off?”
Heat was stunned. As she grappled for a reply, DeLongpre jumped in. “He conducted a solo search of the rectory, correct? You found that suspicious.”
Then Lovell hit her with “And he screwed with your case, blocking viable avenues of your investigation.”
“Especially hinky, since the phone records established Montrose had a relationship with the vic,” said his partner.
These guys were thorough. “If you know all these things, what do you want from me?”
“More.” Lovell unfolded all six-two of himself from the chair and came around to sit on the front of the desk. He smoothed his skinny black tie and looked down at her from his perch. “We want to know what else you’re holding.”
“You expect me to dish dirt on my old skip?”
“We expect you to assist the department in its investigation, Detective.”