“To life,” said Nikki, and they both laughed.
Meeting her friend for a drink after work once a week was more than just cocktails and chill time. The two women had hit it off right away over Lauren’s first autopsy, when she started at the M.E.’s office three years ago, but their weekly after-work ritual was really fueled by their professional bond. Despite cultural differences—Lauren came out of the projects in St. Louis and Nikki grew up Manhattan middle-class—they connected on another level, as professional women navigating traditional male fields. Sure, Nikki enjoyed her occasional brew at the precinct-adjacent cop bar, but she was never about being one of the fellas, any more than she was about quilting bees or Goddess book clubs. She and Lauren clung to their camaraderie and the sense of safety they had crafted with each other, to have a time and place to share problems at work, largely political, and, yes, to decompress and let their hair down without having it be in a meat market or at a stitch and bitch.
Nikki asked, “Mind a little shop talk?”
“Hey, sister, on top of being cold all day, the people I hang out with don’t do much talking, so whatever the subject, bring it.”
Heat wanted to discuss Matthew Starr. She told Lauren she now understood how the victim got those torso bruises. She bullet-pointed her sessions with Miric and Pochenko, concluding by saying she had no doubt the bookie had his muscle man encourage the real estate developer to “prioritize” the repayment of his gambling debt. With experience talking, she added that, thanks to lawyers and stonewalling: Good luck making a case. What she wanted to know was if Lauren recalled any other marks that might be read as a separate event from the Russian’s work-over?
Lauren Parry was a marvel. She remembered every autopsy the way Tiger Woods could tell you every golf shot he made in every tournament—as well as his opponent’s. She said there were only two relevant indicators. First, a pair of uniquely shaped contusions on the deceased’s back, an exact match to the polished brass flip handles on the French doors leading to the balcony, probably where he was pushed outside with great force. Heat recalled Roach’s tour of the balcony crime scene and the powdered stone under the spot where the door handles had impacted the wall. And second, Starr had grip marks on both upper arms. The medical examiner air-demoed a thumb in each armpit, hands wrapped around the arms.
“My guess is it wasn’t much of a fight,” said Lauren. “Whoever did this picked up the victim, slammed him through those doors and then tossed him backwards to the street. I examined his legs and ankles closely and I’m certain Mr. Starr never even touched the railing when he went over.”
“No other chafing or cuts, no defensive wounds or marks?”
Lauren shook her head. “Although, there was one irregularity.”
“Out with it, girl, next to inconsistency, irregularity is the detective’s best friend.”
“I was detailing those punch bruises, you know the ones with the probable ring mark? And there was one that was an exact match for the others but no ring mark.”
“Maybe he took it off.”
“In the middle of a beating?”
Nikki took a long pull on her drink, feeling the carbonation bite her tongue as she stared through the Plexi barrier beside her at the avenue seven floors below. She didn’t know what Lauren’s information meant, but she got out her notebook and made a note: “One punch, no ring.”
They ordered some arancini and a plate of olives, and by the time their finger foods arrived they were on to other subjects: Lauren was teaching a seminar at Columbia in the fall; her dachshund, Lola, got picked for a dog food commercial when she took her to the dog run last weekend; Nikki had a week off at the end of August and was thinking of Iceland and did Lauren want to come. “Sounds cold,” she said. But she also said she’d think about it.
Nikki’s cell phone vibed and she looked at the caller ID.
“What’s up, Detective,” Laura asked, “are you going to have to deploy or something? Maybe rappel down the face of the building and spring into some two-fisted action?”
“Rook” was all she said and held up the phone.
“Take it. I don’t mind.”
“It’s Rook,” she reiterated, as if it required no further explanation. Nikki let his call drop to voice mail.
“Forward him to my phone,” said Lauren, stirring her bloody Mary. “You could do worse than Jameson Rook. That man is doable.”
“Oh, sure, that’s just what I need. The ride-along isn’t bad enough without putting that in the mix.” When her phone pulsed to indicate voice mail, she pressed the button for a fetch and held the phone to her ear. “Huh. He says he’s come upon something big about the Matthew Starr case and needs me to see it…” She held up a staying palm to Lauren as she listened to the rest and then hung up.
“What’s the development?”
“Didn’t say. He said he couldn’t talk now but to come to his place right away, and left his address.”
“You should go,” said Lauren.
“I’m almost afraid to. Knowing him, he’s probably made citizen’s arrests of anybody who knew Matthew Starr.”
When the industrial strength elevator reached his loft, Rook was waiting for her on the other side of the accordion mesh doors. “Heat. You actually came.”
“Your message said you had something to show me.”
“I do,” he said and strode from the entry and disappeared around a corner. “This way.”
She followed him into his designer kitchen. At the other end of it, in the great room, as the cable designer shows called those open spaces that merged living rooms and dining rooms off an overlooking kitchen, there was a poker table, a real poker table with a felt top. And it was surrounded by…poker players. She came to a halt. “Rook, there’s nothing you need to show me here about the case at all, is there?”
“Say, you are a detective, aren’t you?” He shrugged and gave a little impish grin. “Would you have come if I had just plain invited you to play poker?”
Nikki got hit with a major turn-around twinge, but then the poker crowd rose to greet her and there she was.
As Rook escorted her into the room, he said, “If you really, really need a work reason to be here, you can thank the man who got you your warrant for the Guilford. Judge, this is Detective Nikki Heat, NYPD.”
Judge Simpson looked a bit different in a yellow polo shirt, hunkered behind tall stacks of poker chips instead of his bench. “I’m winning,” he said as he shook her hand. A network news anchor she and the rest of America admired was also there, with her filmmaker husband. The anchorwoman said she was glad a cop was there because she had been robbed. “And by a judge,” said her husband. Rook placed Nikki in the empty seat between him and the newswoman, and before Nikki knew it, the anchor’s Oscar-winning husband was dealing her a hand.
It was a low-stakes game, she was relieved to discover, and then that turned to worry they had lowered the ante in deference to her pay grade. But it was clear this was more about fun than money. Although winning still mattered, especially to the judge. Seeing him out of his robe for the first time, the overhead light shining on his bald head, the manic obsession he brought to his play, Nikki couldn’t shake the comparison to another Simpson. She would have given up a whole pot just to hear the judge say “D’oh!”
After the deal of the third hand, the lights dipped out and came back up. “Here we go,” said Nikki. “Mayor said we’d have rolling brownouts.”
“How many days is it for this heat wave?” asked the filmmaker.
“This is day four,” said his wife. “I interviewed a meteorologist and he said it’s not a heat wave unless it’s three consecutive days above ninety degrees.”