“As I said, pay no attention to this back there while I brief my partner, all right?” The detective finished jotting a note on his pad and turned to Raley. “Tucker Lee Steljess, male cauc, thirty-three, has a few assaults in his jacket. Mostly beefs in biker bars plus he recently got early release serving fifteen days of a forty-day sentence for breaking the front window of a liquor store. By the way, know what he used to break the window?”
Raley said, “I love it when you spice the story, pard. What did he use?”
“A pimp.”
“Only awesome.”
“Just wait. You ready? Digging back, Mr. Steljess was once a cop.” Ochoa gave Nikki a quick glance over his shoulder. “That’s right. Uniform for a long time before he finally made D-3, then worked undercover Narco in the Bronx.” He consulted his notes again. “Reports are he was volatile and pretty much a loner. Nickname was Mad Dog. Service discharge says he, quote ‘identified excessively with his undercover narcotics subjects’ unquote. Also known to harass hookers. In spite of that stellar record, they cut him loose in ’06.”
“Go figure,” said Raley.
Ochoa said, “But neither of you heard that.” Then he handed his notes over the seat to Nikki.
The two of them said nothing on the elevator ride up to Rook’s loft. They just stared at each other as they had in the backseat of the Roach Coach. The air between them flowed thick with a longing that had no words, and they both knew that to try to find them or speak them would only weaken the overwhelming magnetic pull each of them felt. They stood close. Not touching — that would break the spell, too. Just near enough to almost touch... just enough to each taste the breath of the other as the rocking motion of the ride brought them to almost brush bodies.
When he closed his front door, they threw themselves at each other. The force of the heat that engulfed them plus the wave of exhilaration from their close call propelled Heat and Rook into a dimension of sexual longing that was as unstoppable as it was primal. Gasping, Nikki pulled her mouth away from his and leaped up onto him, hooking her legs behind his. Rook flexed his leg muscles for balance and steadied himself, pulling her tightly to him. She pressed her face to his ear and bit. He moaned with surprise and excitement and turned her to sit up on his kitchen counter. As he undid her coat front, Nikki reclined herself backward onto her elbows so she could watch him, finally speaking. “Now,” she said, “I need you right now.”
“This is where petting leads,” he said later.
“Petting? What century are you from?” She unfolded herself from their lazy, naked tangle on his couch and poured each of them another glass of wine from the bottle on the coffee table.
“Do not mock me because I am a wordsmith. Would you rather I called it groping? Because that’s what you did in the Roach Coach, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” Nikki handed him his glass and they tinked. “You say that like you’ve never been groped in a police car.”
“Well, only yours.” Her cell phone rang, and as she got up to retrieve it from her knot of a coat, he continued, “But if you have some notion about starting some sick sexual game where we do it in police cars, I’m all for it.”
Lauren Parry said, “Hope I’m not interrupting sump’n-sump’n. Miguel says by the look of you two when he and Raley dropped you off, I should wait a decent interval. Actually, he called it an indecent interval.” Nikki looked down at herself, not wearing a stitch, and Rook, just the same, his fine ass making its way down the hallway.
“No, we were just relaxing.”
Her friend said, “Pants on fire.”
“What pants?”
The two had a nice laugh about that, then Lauren said, “Listen, since I’m betting you don’t have a pen anywhere on you, I’ll give you a second to find one. I have some interesting off-the-record stuff to share.... Even though Detective Ochoa tells me you are anything but still involved in case work due to your suspension.”
Nikki plucked a rollerball from one of the numerous coffee mugs that Rook had converted to pencil cups and scattered around his loft. One of the perks of sleeping with a writer. “I’m ready.”
“First off,” began the ME, “and this is why I really called, because I knew it would give you some peace of mind.... The bloodwork on Father Graf’s Roman collar came in and it was a negative match for Captain Montrose.”
“Yessss.”
“Yeah, I thought that would be a lift. I’m already having them run Sergio Torres, and now I’ll add this guy you took on tonight — unarmed.” Lauren put an underscore on the word that made it sound as boldly comical as it did insane. The objective view of her best friend wasn’t lost on Heat.
“OK, I do have to admit I got a little sloppy. Still adjusting to the whole unarmed private citizen thing.”
“Don’t know what to say, Nikki. I’d tell you to get a hobby, but we both know what the chances are of that.”
“Don’t be so sure,” said Heat. “Is vigilante considered a hobby?”
“You’ve been hanging out with Jameson Rook too long; you’re starting to talk like him.” Which gave Nikki the second reason to smile in that conversation. Lauren continued, “I also have lab results that came in on that little chip of leather. Remember that?”
Heat pictured it, looking like a tiny bacon bit in the bottom of the vial when Lauren had showed it to her in the autopsy room. “Sure, the fragment you found under Father Graf’s fingernail.”
“That’s the one. It came back sourced from a commercial brand of leather.”
“Bondage gear?” asked Nikki.
“No. The manufacturer may be familiar to you. Bianchi.”
The brand was well known to Heat as it was to anyone who geared up for law enforcement. “It came from a police belt?”
Always precise, Lauren clarified, “Or a security guard’s. It came from either a holster or a cuff case. You’re the one who tipped me to the handcuff bruising on the victim’s lower back, so, if you want to speculate, cuff case is a good bet.”
“I wonder... that is, if you knew anyone who could possibly have a word with Detective Ochoa at this late hour of the night...”
“Go on,” she said, enjoying Nikki’s counter to her teasing about Rook.
“I wonder if a search of a certain dead ex-cop’s home or his motorcycle repair shop would show an old Bianchi cuff case with a new scratch on it.”
Heat heard the mouthpiece get covered and hushed voices. One of them was Miguel Ochoa’s. “Will do,” said Lauren when she came back on. “He and Raley will head to Steljess’s place tomorrow first thing. Do you want me to also have him look at Captain Montrose’s case and holster?”
Lauren’s question was the one Heat was afraid to ask out loud. “I suppose. I mean, it would be nice to eliminate that possibility.” And then, feeling disloyal to his memory, she added, “However remote.” As Rook drifted back in the room with a robe on and carrying one for her, Nikki said, “And Lauren, as long as we’re talking about the captain, would you mind if I pester you about one other thing?”
“Name it.”
“I know they must have run his gun by now.”
“That’s right. It had been fired, but they never recovered the slug. It was a through-and-through and out the roof.”
Heat recalled the dimple around the hole in Montrose’s Crown Vic. “And that’s that?”
“Of course not,” said the ME. “The gun had his blood and tissue on it. Also his hand tested positive for powder residue and trace metals.”
“How many bullets in the magazine?” asked Heat.
“Report said all but one... I think.”
“Humor me, Ms. Parry. Would you ask Miguel to look into it himself? And by himself, I’m not saying I don’t trust the testing. I’m just saying nobody comes close to a Detective Ochoa–quality job.” And then Nikki said with a tease, “And you must know what I mean by that, right, Laur?”