Pochenko glanced from the mirror to her with an unsettled look. Whatever had gotten into Rook’s pea brain and made him slip his leash in there, he had succeeded in undercutting the Russian’s moment of intimidation. Detective Heat latched onto the opportunity and flipped the subject without comment.
“Let me see your hands,” she said.
“What? You want my hands, come closer.”
She stood, trying to gain height and distance and, most of all, dominance. “Put your hands flat on the table, Pochenko. Now.”
He decided he would choose when it was time, but he didn’t wait long. The shackles on one wrist clacked against the table edge, and then the shackles on the other, as he spread his palms on the cold metal. His hands were scuffed and swollen. A few knuckles were plumming into bruises, others were missing skin and wept where they had not yet scabbed over. On the middle finger of his right hand, there was a thick stripe of blanched skin and a cut. The kind a ring would leave.
“What happened here?” she said, relieved to feel in charge again.
“What, this? Is nothing.”
“Looks like a cut.”
“Yeah, I forgot to take my ring off before.”
“Before what?”
“Before my workout.”
“What workout at what gym? Tell me.”
“Who said anything about a gym?” And then his upper lip curled, and she instinctively took a step back, until she realized he was smiling.
Captain Montrose’s office was empty, so Nikki Heat ushered Rook inside and pulled the glass door shut. “Just what the hell was that all about?”
“I know, I know, I lost it.”
“In the middle of my interrogation, Rook.”
“Did you hear what he was saying to you?”
“No. I couldn’t hear him over the pounding on the observation mirror.”
He looked away. “Pretty lame, huh?”
“I’d call it a first. If this were Chechnya, right now you’d be riding down the mountain feet-first on a goat.”
“Will you knock it off about Chechnya? I get one movie option and you pick, pick, pick at it.”
“Tell me you don’t have it coming.”
“This time, maybe. Can I say something?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t know how you can stand doing this.”
“You kidding? It’s my job.”
“But it’s so…ugly.”
“War zones aren’t so much fun, either. Or so I’ve read.”
“War, not so good. But that’s just one part. In my job I get to move from place to place. It may be a war zone one time or riding in a Jeep with a black hood over my head to visit a drug cartel, but then I get a month in Portofino and Nice with rock stars and their toys, or I shadow a celebrity chef for a week in Sedona or Palm Beach. But you. This is…this is a sewer.”
“Is this the equivalent of ‘what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’ Because if it is, I’ll kick you in the balls to show you how not nice I can be. I like my job. I do what I do, and deal with the people I deal with, and here’s a headline for your article, writer boy: Criminals are scum.”
“Especially that G.”
She laughed. “Excellent research notes, Rook. You sound so street.”
“Oh, and by the way? No goats. Popular misconception. Up in the Caucasus with General Yamadayev, it was all horses. That’s how we rolled.”
When she watched him leave the room, she was surprised not to feel pissed anymore. How angry could you be at somebody who acted like he cared a little?
A half hour later, she sat with Raley, screening the surveillance video from the Guilford. Detective Heat did not look pleased. “Run it again,” she said. “And let’s watch every corner of the screen. Maybe we missed a piece of them coming back later.”
“What’s wrong?” Rook arrived behind them, his breath smelling of contraband espresso.
“It’s the damn time code.” She tapped her pen on the pale gray digital clock embedded on the bottom of the surveillance video. “It shows Miric and Pochenko arriving at 10:31 A.M. They go up the elevator, right? And come back down to the lobby roughly twenty minutes later.”
“Sure puts a big hole in Miric’s statement that Starr never answered his door. Unless it was a twenty-minute knock.”
“Ask me, the only thing that got knocked was Matthew Starr,” said Raley. “This had to be when Pochenko gave him a boxing lesson.”
“That’s not our problem, guys,” said Heat. “According to this, our two Elvises left the building at 10:53 A.M., about two and a half hours before our victim was thrown off his balcony.” She tossed her pen onto the desktop in frustration. “So our two primes get cleared by the tape.”
“And they’ve lawyered up,” added Ochoa, looking at his BlackBerry. “They’re getting sprung now.”
From outside the security door, Heat stood with Roach and looked across the processing area as Miric and Pochenko collected their property. Of course Miric was the one who had the attorney on call, and when the lawyer caught Detective Heat’s eye, he didn’t like what he saw, so he got extra busy with paperwork.
“Guess I should cancel that search warrant for torn blue jeans at their apartments,” said Raley.
“No, don’t,” said Nikki. “I know what the time code says, but what’s the harm in checking? Details, gents. You’ll never regret being thorough.” And as Pochenko spotted her, she added, “In fact, add another item to Iron Man’s search warrant. A large ring.”
When Ochoa left to get the warrant processed, she gave an assignment to Raley. “I know it’s drudgery, but I want you to screen that lobby video again from the moment those jokers left until a half hour after Starr’s time of death. And do it in real time so we’re sure we don’t skip past them at high speed.”
Raley left to do his screening. Nikki stayed to watch Miric, his lawyer, and Pochenko head for the exit. The Russian lagged and split off from the other two, crossing to Heat. A uniform shadowed him so he stopped in a safe zone, a good yard away from her. He took his time looking at her head to toe, then said in a low whisper, “Relax. You’re gonna like it.” Then, with a shrug, “Or not.”
And then he left without looking back. Nikki waited until the exit door shut with Pochenko on the other side before she went back to work.
SIX
Nikki stepped into the rooftop bar of the Soho House and wondered what her friend had been thinking when she booked outdoor cocktails during a heat wave. Seven-thirty on a weeknight in summer was too light out to feel cool and too early for any action, especially on this stretch of Ninth Avenue. In the hipper-than-thou meatpacking district, seven-thirty was beyond outré. It was downright early bird.
Lauren Parry, who clearly wasn’t bothered by any of that, flagged her from her street-view table where the canopy ended and the pool area began. “Is this too hot?” she said when Nikki arrived.
“No, this is fine.” After they hugged, she added, “Who couldn’t stand to sweat off a few pounds?”
“Well, sorr-ee. I spend my day in the morgue,” said the medical examiner. “I grab all the warm I can get.”
They ordered cocktails. Nikki went for a Campari and soda, craving something dry, sparkling, and, most of all, cold. Her friend stuck with her usual, a bloody Mary. When it came, Nikki observed that it was an ironic favorite for a coroner. “Why don’t you break out, Lauren? This isn’t Sunday brunch. Get one of those sake-tinis or a sex on the beach.”
“Hey, you want to talk ironic drinks, that would be it. In my line of work, sex on the beach is usually what led to body under the pier.”