DeLongpre said, “He was into something, let’s hear what you’ve got.”
She looked from MIB to MIB. They had positioned themselves so that following their conversation felt like watching a tennis match. “I don’t have anything. No more than you already mentioned.” Which was mostly true. The rest was unfounded and circumstantial, like the captain’s finger cut.
In a singsong, DeLongpre said, “Bull... shit...”
She didn’t turn his way but spoke her remarks calmly to Lovell. “I deal in facts. You want to spitball, call Detective Hinesburg in again. I’m going to apply myself to finding out who killed my commander.”
“Find out who killed him?” When Lovell raised his eyebrows, the lines in his vast forehead formed an inverted V. “Nobody killed him but him.”
“You don’t have proof of that.”
“You just gave it,” he said. The Internal Affairs man got off the desk and walked the room, ticking off each point on a finger. “Straight-shooting, tough-but-fair captain’s wife dies a year ago and he goes around the bend. He starts to slip. Can’t handle the pressure of the command, and the pack wolves at HQ descend on him, making him even more erratic. Maybe it’s temptation, maybe it’s anger at the system, he gets himself involved in something — we don’t know what yet, but we’ll damn sure find out — and when you... his protégée... called him on it and handed him his ass yesterday, he felt the walls closing in.” Lovell snapped his fingers once. “He leaves your meeting and eats his gun.”
Nikki shot to her feet. “Hold on, you’re putting this on me?”
Lovell smiled, and deep vertical creases appeared on his cheeks. “Give me something that says it isn’t.”
“Till then,” said DeLongpre, “live with it.”
Heat was aware of someone standing over her and broke off her glazed stare following her floating screen saver. It was Ochoa. “Ran a check on the doc who wrote the weird prescription for Father Graf. Dude’s bogus. Address is a mail drop. Nobody heard of him.”
Nikki shook off the heavy residue of her IA meeting. “Is he licensed to practice in New York?”
“Was,” said the detective. “A little bit tough, though. Seeing how he died at a nursing home in Florida ten years ago.”
Her phone rang. Hinesburg was calling from outside Interrogation to tell her the drug dealer had arrived.
“I have never seen this man before in my life,” said Alejandro Martinez. He slid the mug shot of Sergio Torres across the table to Heat. She noticed how delicate his hands were. Immaculately manicured, too.
“Are you positive?” she asked. “His rap sheet includes drug busts up in Washington Heights and the Bronx. Would have been about the time you got out of O-Town.”
“I assure you, Detective, since I left the penitentiary I have not engaged in any narcotics sales or consorted with any criminals. That would be a violation of my parole.” He chuckled. “Ossining has a lot of fine qualities, but I don’t plan to return.” Nikki took in this dapper man, sounding so refined, positively Continental — and wondered how much blood had gotten under those clear lacquered nails before he was finally busted. Watching him sit there, looking all soap opera patrón at sixty-two, with his distinguished gray temples and his Dries Van Noten suit complete with pocket square, who would ever suspect the scores of lives he had ruined and bodies he had disposed of in empty oil drums and lime pits?
“Life’s been good for you since then, it appears,” she said. “Expensive clothes, jewelry... I like the wristband.”
Martinez pulled back the monogrammed cuff on his right wrist and extended his arm across the divide so Nikki could appreciate the pounded silver bracelet studded with gemstones. “Nice,” she said. “What are these, emeralds?”
“Yes. Like it? It’s from Colombia. I saw it on a business trip and couldn’t resist.”
“Did you buy that recently?” Heat wasn’t jewelry shopping. She was laying groundwork.
“No, as I’m sure you know, the terms of my parole do not permit international travel.”
“But you sure could afford a piece or two like that. Mr. Martinez, you seem to have plenty of money.”
“My experience in Sing Sing brought me to reflect humbly on money and its use. In my own individual way, I try to use whatever wealth I have managed to save as a tool for good.”
“Does that include your drug money? I’m thinking specifically about a few hundred thou you scored back in 2003 in Atlantic City.”
The man was unruffled. “I’m sure I am not aware of what you’re talking about.”
Nikki reached over to the chair beside her and moved the open cookie tins of cash onto the table. “Does this refresh your memory?” For the first time since she came in the room, Heat saw the veneer crack. Not much, but his eyes flicked side to side. “No? Let me help you. This cash has been traced back to a deal brokered in your hotel suite at one of the casinos. The buyer was undercover DEA. He went in with a wire and this cash and was supposed to come out with a duffel of cocaine. Instead, he turned up in a Pennsylvania landfill three weeks later.”
The twinkle of rogue charm left his eyes as they hardened. But still he said nothing. “Let’s try some more show-and-tell.” Nikki handed over a picture of Father Graf.
“I don’t know this one, either.” He was lying. Cool as he was, Martinez showed the classic stress tells... the blinks, the dry mouth.
“Look again, I think you do.”
He gave the most cursory glance and slid it back. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Do you have any idea how this money ended up in his possession?”
“I would refer you to my prior answer. I don’t know him.”
Nikki told the ex-con about the priest’s murder and asked him where he was that night. He pondered, fixing his eyes to the ceiling and swabbing a chalky tongue over his laminates.
“As I recall, I was out to dinner. Yes, at La Grenouille and then back to my apartment for the remainder of the night. I’d rented Quantum of Solace on Blu-ray. You could be a Bond Girl yourself, Detective.”
Heat ignored the comment but made a note of his alibi. She collected the tins of cash to go. Then she sat them back down and opened her pad again. “And where were you yesterday between eleven A.M. and two P.M.?”
“Do you plan to convict me of every murder in New York City?”
“No, Mr. Martinez. I’ll be satisfied with just two.”
After Nikki returned the DEA cash to Property, she went back to the bull pen to check messages before she left for her orals. At the entrance, she stopped and stared in disbelief. Internal Affairs had boxed and cleared everything in Captain Montrose’s office. It sat completely empty.
Late that afternoon at One Police Plaza, they called Heat’s name. She put down the magazine she couldn’t concentrate on and stepped into the examination room.
It was just as Nikki had pictured it when she had visualized the orals in her mental preparation. Heat had learned from others who had taken the boards what to expect, and there was the scene before her. She stepped into a fluorescent-lit, windowless classroom where five examiners — a mix of active duty captains and administrators — sat behind a long table facing a lone chair. Hers. When Nikki said hello and took her seat, the dynamic suddenly reminded her of the ballet school judges scene in Flashdance. If only she could get through this by busting a move.
“Good afternoon, Detective,” began the administrator from Personnel who was moderating. Ripples of test anxiety stirred in Nikki. “Each member here will be asking you open-ended questions relevant to the duties of lieutenant in the NYPD. You may answer in any way you choose. Each of us will score your answers, then we’ll combine results to determine the disposition of your candidacy. Do you understand today’s procedure?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
And then it began.