“Pochenko,” she said. “Where did you Pochenk-go?”
Nikki went meditative. She was anything but mystical, but she did believe in the power of the subconscious. Well, at least hers. She pictured her mind as a whiteboard and erased it. Clearing herself, she became open to what sat before her and whatever patterns formed in the evidence so far. Her thoughts floated. She batted stray ones away and stuck to the case. She wanted an impression. She wanted to know what spoke to her. And she wanted to know what she’d missed.
She let herself travel, gliding above the days and nights of the case using the big board as her Fodor’s. She saw Matthew Starr’s body on the sidewalk and revisited Kimberly surrounded by art and opulence in her faux-preppie grief, saw herself interviewing the people in Starr’s life: rivals, advisors, his bookie and Russian enforcer, his mistress, doormen. The mistress. Something the mistress said pulled her back. A nagging detail. Nikki paid attention to nags because they were the voices God gave to clues. She stood and went to the board and faced the mistress info she had posted there.
Office romance, love letter intercepted, top performer, left the company, muffin shop, happy, no motive. And then she looked to the side. Nanny affair?
The former mistress had seen Matthew Starr in Bloomingdale’s with a new mistress. Scandinavian. Nikki found Agda personally inconsequential and, more importantly, properly alibied for the murder. Yet what was that nag?
She put the empty Chinese take-out carton on Raley’s desk and slapped a Post-it note to it, thanking “Raley!!!” and taking perverse glee in her triple exclamations. Underneath, she wrote another note to bring in Agda for a 9 A.M. chat.
There was a blue-and-white from the One-Three parked outside her apartment when she got there. Detective Heat said hi to the officers inside it and went upstairs. She didn’t call her captain to wave it off that night. Barbara Deerfield’s neck bruises were fresh in her mind. Nikki was exhausted and ached for sleep.
No indulgence for her. She showered instead of bathing.
Nikki got into her bed and smelled Rook on the pillow beside her. She pulled it to her and breathed deeply, wondering if she should have called him to come over. Before she could answer, she was asleep.
It was still dark when her phone rang. The sound reached her through a depth of slumber she had to claw her way up from. She reached for her cell phone on the nightstand with sleep-dead hands and it fell to the floor. By the time she got to it, the ringing had stopped.
She recognized the number and did a voice-mail fetch. “Hey, it’s Ochoa. Call me right away, all right? Soon as you get this.” He vibed a breathless urgency not like him. The sweat on Nikki’s naked skin chilled when his message continued, “We found Pochenko.”
SIXTEEN
Nikki was tucking in her blouse as she sailed down her front steps, raced to the cruiser, and asked the cops for a lift. They were glad to have their monotony broken and roared off with her in back.
At 5 A.M. the northbound traffic was light on the West Side Highway and they hauled ass. “I know the area, there’s no vehicle access from this direction,” Nikki told the driver. “Instead of killing time looping back from 96th, hop off at the next exit. When you get to the bottom of the ramp, I’ll get out and hoof it the rest of the way.”
The officer was still braking at the bottom of the 79th Street off-ramp when Heat told him she was good to go. She called over her shoulder to say thanks for the ride. Soon Nikki was running under the highway, scuffing over dried pigeon droppings on her way to the river and the police lights in the distance.
Lauren Parry was working Pochenko’s body when Nikki jogged up, panting and sweaty from her sprint. “Catch your breath, Nik, he’s not going anywhere,” said the M.E. “I was ready to call about our man here, but Ochoa beat me to it.”
Detective Ochoa joined them. “Looks like this guy won’t be bothering you anymore.”
Heat circled around to look at the corpse. The big Russian was slumped to one side on a park bench facing the Hudson. It was one of those picturesque rest stops on the slope of grass between the bike path and the bank of the river. Now it was Pochenko’s final rest stop.
He had changed clothes since the night he tried to kill her. His cargo shorts and white T-shirt looked brand-new, which was how criminals on the run dressed, using stores as their closets. Pochenko’s outfit was right off the shelf, except it was covered in blood.
“The homeless outreach patrol found him,” said Ochoa. “They’ve been making rounds trying to get guys into the cooling shelters.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Looks like he’s gonna stay nice and cool.”
Nikki understood Ochoa’s dark humor, but seeing the body didn’t put her in a sporting mood. Whatever he had been, Vitya Pochenko was a dead human now. Any personal relief she felt about the end of his threat was just that, personal. He was now in the category of crime victim and was owed justice like anyone else. One of Nikki Heat’s talents for The Job was her ability to put her own feelings in a box and be a professional. She looked at Pochenko again and realized she was going to need a bigger box.
“What do we have?” she asked Lauren Parry.
The M.E. beckoned Nikki around behind the bench. “Single gunshot to the back of the head.”
The sky was starting to brighten, and the buttermilk light gave Nikki a clearer view of the bullet hole in Pochenko’s brush cut. “There’s muzzle burn,” she said.
“Right. So it was extremely close range. And look at his body position. Big bench, he had the whole damn thing to himself, but he’s all the way on one end.”
Heat nodded. “Someone was sitting with him. No sign of struggle?”
“None,” said the M.E.
“So it’s most likely a friend or associate to get that close.”
“Close enough for a sneak attack,” said Ochoa. “Bring it up behind, and pop.” He gestured behind them at the West Side Highway, which was already filling with morning commuters. “No witnesses, traffic noise covered the shot. Don’t see a D.O.T. cam aimed this way, either.”
“What about the gun?” Nikki asked the M.E.
“Small-caliber. I’d call it a twenty-five if you put a gun to my head.”
“Lauren, honey, you need to get out more.”
“I would, but business is too good.” Then she pointed at the dead Russian. “This facial burn and the broken finger. Your work?” Heat nodded. “Anything else I should know about?”
“Yeah,” said Ochoa. “Don’t mess with Nikki Heat.”
Rook was waiting back at the precinct when she and Ochoa came in. “I heard about Pochenko.” He bowed his head grandly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Ochoa laughed. “Hey, writer monkey’s catching on.”
Again, Nikki ignored the gallows humor. “Ochoa, double-check the tail we have on Miric. He’s Pochenko’s known associate. I want to know where his bookie pal was when he was shot.”
Detective Ochoa hit the phones. Rook brought a Dean & DeLuca cup to Heat’s desk. “Here, I got you your usual. A nonfat, no-foam, double-pump vanilla latte.”
“You know how I feel about frou-frou coffees.”
“And yet you have one every morning. Such a complex woman.”
She took it from him and sipped. “Thanks. Very thoughtful.” Her phone rang. “And next time remember the chocolate shavings.”
“So complex,” he said.
Nikki picked up. It was Raley. “Two things,” he said. “I’ve got Agda waiting in the outer.”
“Thanks, I’ll be right there. And the other?”
“Before I went home last night, I hocked one in that Chinese.”