All she said was “Just tell me how.”
“Simple. I started liquidating and divesting. But when the real estate bust came along, it ate our lunch. That’s when we ran into the buzz saw with financing. And then we hit a snag maintaining our labor relations. You may not know it, but our sites are not working these days.” Nikki nodded and swept her glance to Fat Tommy’s champion. “We couldn’t service our debt, we couldn’t keep construction going. Here’s a simple rule: no building, no rent.”
Heat said, “It sounds like a nightmare.”
“To have a nightmare, you have to be able to sleep.” On the office couch she noted the folded blanket with the pillow resting on it. “Let’s call it a living hell. And that’s just the business finances. I haven’t even told you about his personal money problems.”
“Don’t most CEOs build a firewall between their corporate and personal finances?” asked Rook.
Damn good question. He’s finally acting like a reporter, thought Nikki, so she jumped aboard. “I always thought the idea was to structure things so a failure in business doesn’t wipe out the personal and vice versa.”
“And that’s how I built it when I took over his family finances, too. But, you see, both sides of the firewall were blazing cash. You see…” A sober look came over him and his young face gained twenty years. “Now, I truly need assurance this is off the record. And won’t leave this room.”
“I can promise that,” said Rook.
“I can’t,” said Detective Heat. “I told you. This is a homicide investigation.”
“I see,” he said. And then he took the plunge. “Matthew Starr indulged some personal habits that compromised his personal fortune. He did damage.” Noah paused then took the plunge. “First, he was a compulsive gambler. And by that, I mean losing gambler. He not only hemorrhaged cash to casinos from Atlantic City to Mohegan Sun, he bet the horses and on football with local bookies. He was in debt to some of these characters for serious money.”
Heat wrote a single word on her spiral pad: “Bookies.”
“And then, there were the prostitutes. Matthew had certain, um, tastes we don’t need to get into—unless you say so, I mean—and he satisfied them with very expensive, high-end call girls.”
Rook couldn’t help himself. “Now, that’s a marriage of terms that always tickles me, ‘high-end’ and ‘call girl.’ Like, is that your job status or a sexual position?” He earned their silent stares and muttered, “Sorry. Go on.”
“I can detail the burn rate of the money for you, but suffice it to say these and a few other habits ate away at him financially. Last spring we had to sell the family estate in the Hamptons.”
“Stormfall.” Nikki reflected on Kimberly Starr’s upset that the murder never would have happened if they had been away in the Hamptons. Now she understood its depth and irony.
“Yes, Stormfall. I don’t need to tell you about the bath we took on that property in this market. Sold it to some reality show celebrity and lost millions. The cash from the sale barely made a dent in Matthew’s debt. Things got so bad he ordered me to stop payments on his life insurance, which he let lapse against my advice.”
Heat jotted two new words. “No insurance.” “Did Mrs. Starr know about that?” In the periphery of her vision, she saw Rook lean forward in his chair.
“Yes, she did. I did my best to shelter Kimberly from the seedier details of Matthew’s spending, but she knew about the life insurance. I was there when Matthew told her.”
“And what was her reaction?”
“She said…” He paused. “You have to understand, she was upset.”
“What did she say, Noah? Her exact words, if you remember.”
“She said, ‘I hate you. You’re not even any good to me dead.’ ”
In the car on the ride back to the precinct, Rook went right to the grieving widow. “Come on, Detective Heat, ‘No good to me dead’? You talk about gathering information that paints a picture. What about this portrait we’re seeing of Samantha the Lap Dancer?”
“But she knew there was no life insurance. Where’s the motive?”
He grinned and needled her again. “Gee, I don’t know, but my advice is to keep asking questions and see where they lead.”
“Bite me.”
“Oh, are you talking tough with me now that you have other irons in the fire?”
“I’m talking tough because you are an ass. And I don’t get what you mean by other irons.”
“I mean Noah Paxton. I didn’t know whether to throw a bucket of water on you or fake a cell phone call to leave you two alone.”
“This is why you’re a magazine writer who only plays cop. Your imagination is greater than your grasp of facts.”
He shrugged. “Guess I was wrong.” Then he smiled that smile, the one that made her face flush. And there she was again, feeling this torment over Rook for something she should have laughed off. Instead, she popped in her earbud and speed-dialed Raley.
“Rales, it’s me.” She angled her head toward Rook and sounded brisk and formal, so he wouldn’t miss her meaning, even though she did radiate subtext. “I want you to run a background on Matthew Starr’s financial guy. Name’s Noah Paxton. Just see what kicks out, priors, warrants, the usual.”
After she hung up, Rook looked amused. This was going nowhere she liked, but she had to say it. “What.” And when he didn’t answer, “What?”
“You forgot to have him run a check on Paxton’s cologne.” And then he opened a magazine and read.
Detective Raley looked up from his computer when Heat and Rook came into the bull pen. “That guy you wanted me to run, Noah Paxton?”
“Yeah? You got something?”
“Not so far. But he called for you just now.”
Nikki avoided the playground look she was getting from Rook and surveyed the stack of messages on her desk. Noah Paxton’s was on top. She didn’t pick it up. Instead, she asked Raley if Ochoa had checked in. He was on Kimberly Starr surveillance. The widow was spending the afternoon at Bergdorf Goodman.
“I hear shopping is a balm for the bereaved,” said Rook. “Or maybe the merry widow is returning a few designer rags for ready cash.”
When Rook disappeared into the men’s room, Heat dialed Noah Paxton. She had nothing to hide from Rook; she just didn’t want to deal with his preadolescent taunts. Or see that smile that chapped her ass. She cursed the mayor for whatever payback made her have to deal with him.
When Paxton got on the line, he said, “I located those life insurance documents you said you wanted to see.”
“Good, I’ll send someone over.”
“I also got a visit from those forensic accountants you were talking about. They copied all my data and left. You weren’t kidding.”
“Your tax dollars at work.” She couldn’t resist adding, “You do pay your taxes?”
“Yes, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Your CPAs with badges and guns look like they’ll be able to tell you.”
“Count on it.”
“Listen, I know I wasn’t the most cooperative.”
“You did all right. After I threatened you.”
“I want to apologize for that. I’m finding I don’t do well with grief.”
“You wouldn’t be the first, Noah,” said Nikki. “Trust me.”
She sat alone that night at the center row of the movie theater laughing and munching popcorn. Nikki Heat was transfixed, swept up in an innocent story and spellbound by the eye candy of digital animation. Like a house tied to a thousand balloons, she was transported. Just over ninety minutes later she carried the weight again on her walk home in the mugginess of the heat wave, which brought fusty odors up out of subway grates and, even in the dark, radiated the day’s swelter off buildings as she passed them.