So she picked up the phone and dialed Rook’s cell.
“Heat,” he said with no surprise. It was more a shout-out, like on Cheers when they’d holler, “Norm!” She listened for background noise, but why? Did she expect Kenny G and a champagne cork?
“Is this a bad time?”
“The caller ID says you’re at the precinct.” Evasion. Writer Monkey wasn’t answering her question. Maybe if she threatened the Zoo Lockup.
“A cop’s work is never done, and all that. Are you writing?”
“I’m in a town car. Just had an awesome meal at Balthazar.” Then silence. She had called to screw with him, how did her head end up being the one messed with?
“You can give me your Zagat rating some other time, this is a business call,” she told him, even as she wondered if his halter groupie knew not to wear cutoff jeans to a bistro, SoHo hip or otherwise. “I called to tell you don’t come in for the morning meeting. It’s off.”
“Off? That’s a first.”
“The plan was for us to prep for a sit-down with Kimberly Starr tomorrow morning. That meeting’s in question now.”
Rook sounded beautifully alarmed. “How come? We need to get with her.” She loved the urgency in his voice more than she felt guilty for playing him.
“The whole reason to see her is to screen surveillance pictures from the Guilford yesterday, but I can’t get access to the surveillance tape without a warrant, and good luck reaching a judge tonight.” Heat envisioned underwater video of a big mouth bass opening wide for the miracle lure on one of those sport fishing infomercials she saw too many of on her sleepless nights.
“I know a judge.”
“Forget it.”
“Horace Simpson.”
Now Nikki was up, pacing the length of the bull pen, trying to keep the grin out of her voice as she said, “Listen to me, Rook. Stay out of this.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“Rook, I am telling you no,” she said in her best command voice.
“I know he’s still up. Probably watching his soft-core porn channel.” And then Nikki heard the woman giggle in the background just as Rook hung up. Heat had gotten just what she wanted, but it somehow didn’t feel like the win-win she’d envisioned. And why did she care? she asked herself yet again.
At ten o’clock the next morning, in the stickiness of what the tabloids were calling “The Summer of Simmer,” Nikki Heat, Roach, and Rook met under the Guilford canopy holding two sets of twelve still frames from the lobby surveillance camera. Heat left Raley and Ochoa to show one array to the doorman while she and Rook entered the building for their appointment with Kimberly Starr.
As soon as the elevator doors closed, he started in. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“Why should I thank you? I specifically told you not to call that judge. As usual, you do what you please, meaning the opposite of what I say.”
He paused to absorb the truth of that and said, “You’re welcome.” Then he broke out that shit-eater of his, “It’s the subtext thing. Oo, the air is thick with it this morning, Detective Heat.” And was he even looking at her? No, he was tilted back enjoying the up-count of LED numbers, yet she still felt all X-rayed and naked and at a loss for words. The soft bell chimed a rescue signal on six. Damn him.
When it was Noah Paxton who opened the front door of Kimberly Starr’s apartment, Nikki made a mental note to find out if the widow and the accountant were sleeping together. On an open murder case everything went on the table, and what belonged more on the “What If” list than a trophy wife with an appetite for cash and the man who handled the money hatching a pillow-talk conspiracy? But she let it go by saying, “This is a surprise.”
“Kimberly’s running late from her beauty appointment,” said Paxton. “I was dropping off some documents for her to sign and she called to see if I’d keep you entertained until she got here.”
“Nice to see she’s focused on finding her husband’s killer,” said Rook.
“Welcome to my world. Trust me, Kimberly doesn’t do focus.” Detective Heat tried to read his tone. Was it true exasperation or cover?
“While we’re waiting, I want you to look at some pictures.” Heat found the same tapestry chair as she had on her last visit and took out a manila envelope. Paxton sat opposite her on the sofa, and she dealt two rows of four-by-six prints on the red lacquer coffee table in front of him. “Look carefully at each of these people. Tell me if any of them looks familiar.”
Paxton studied each of the dozen photos. Nikki did what she always did during a photo array, studied the studier. He was methodical, moving right to left, top row, then bottom, no inordinate pauses, all very even. Without any sense of desire, she wondered if he was like that in bed and once again thought about her untaken road to the suburbs and more pleasant routines. When Paxton was done, he said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize any of these people.” And then he said what everybody said when they came up empty. “Is one of these the killer?” And he looked again, as they all did, wondering which one did it, as if they could tell by looking.
“Can I ask an obvious question?” said Rook as Heat slid her photos back in the envelope. As usual, he didn’t wait for permission to shoot his mouth off. “If Matthew Starr was so broke, why didn’t he just sell off some of his stuff? I’m looking around at all this antique furniture, the art collection…That chandelier alone could fund an emerging nation for about a year.” Heat looked at the Italian porcelain chandelier, the French sconces, the floor-to-cathedral-ceiling display of framed paintings, the gilded Louis XV mirror, the ornate furniture, and thought, Then again, sometimes Writer Monkey came out with a gem.
“Look, I don’t feel comfortable talking about this.” Then he glanced over Nikki’s shoulder as if Kimberly Starr might come walking in.
“It’s a simple question,” said the detective. She knew she’d regret giving the props to Rook but added, “And a good one. And you’re the money man, right?”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“Try me. Because I hear you telling me how broke the man was, company imploding, personal money leaking like an Alaskan oil tanker, and then I look at all this. What’s this worth, anyway?”
“That I can answer,” he said. “I.T.E., forty-eight to sixty million.”
“I.T.E.?”
Rook answered that. “In today’s economy.”
“Even at a fire sale, forty-eight mill solves a lot of problems.”
“I’ve opened the books to you, I’ve explained the financial picture, I’ve looked at your pictures, isn’t that enough?”
“No, and you know why?” With her forearms on her knees, she leaned forward to him and bored in. “Because there is something you’re not wanting to say, and I will hear it here or at the precinct.”
She gave him space to have whatever his internal dialogue was, and after a few seconds he said, “It just feels wrong to dump on him in his own home after he just died.” She waited again and he let go. “Matthew had a monster ego. You have to have one to accomplish what he did, but his was off the chart. His narcissism made this collection bulletproof.”
“But he was in financial quicksand,” she said.
“Which is exactly the reason he ignored my advice—advice hell, my hounding—to piece it off. I wanted him to sell before bankruptcy creditors went after it, but this room was his palace. Proof to him and the world he was still king.” Now that it was out, Paxton became more animated and paced along the walls. “You saw the offices yesterday. No way Matthew would meet a client there. So he brought them here so he could negotiate from his throne surrounded by his little Versailles. The Starr Collection. He loved big shots standing over one of these Queen Anne chairs and asking if it was OK to sit. Or looking at a painting and knowing what he paid for it. And if they didn’t ask, he made sure to tell them. Sometimes I hid my face, it was so embarrassing.”