Nikki Heat: Deadly Heat Part 8

Even when he signed on the Internet, covering the same ground she had again and again, Nikki didn't warn him off or try to stop him. With his Beginner's Eyes Rook might find something she hadn't, and she didn't want to pollute his fresh thinking.

His quest went beyond her searches of the Egyptians, Mayans, and urban taggers, to the Phoenicians and Druids. Rook even investigated a site devoted to the mutt languages of some TV series called Firefly. That was when they knew it had come time to call it a night and start fresh at sunup. "You mean in about forty-five minutes?" she asked.

Immune to the caffeine, Heat fell into the deepest sleep she had enjoyed in ages. Call it the power of sharing her burden. When she awoke, the sheets on Rook's empty side of the bed felt cold to her touch. She pulled on her robe and found him sitting on the bench seat of the bay window, staring down at Gramercy Park, although Nikki couldn't be certain he was actually seeing anything at all except pencil marks on sheet music.

"Now you know where my head's been all these weeks," she said, resting her palms on his shoulders.

"My brain itches." He tilted backward and she kissed the top of his forehead. "You're going to hate me."

"You're giving up?"

"No."

"You don't believe it is a code?"

"I do."

"Then what?"

"I've been thinking."

"Always a source of concern."

"We're not going to crack this on our own. At least not soon enough to do any good. We need an a.s.sist." Nikki tensed and withdrew her hands. He turned from the window to face her. "Relax, I'm not talking about going to Yardley Bell. Or Agent Callan."

Old doubts about sharing with Rook began their noxious trickle. "Who then?"

It was only eight in the morning, but when Eugene Summers opened the door to his Chelsea loft, he greeted them looking radiant, groomed, and polished. The professional butler turned reality TV star bowed his silver head and smartly kissed the back of Nikki's extended hand, dismissing her apology about coming by so early and on short notice. "Nonsense. I'm delighted to see you. Plus it got me out of my robe."

"No kidding," said Rook. "You'll have to show me how you get a perfect dimple like that in a necktie."

"Will I?" said Summers. In spite of the fact that Rook was an unabashed fan of the reality star (or maybe because of that), his idol seemed less than thrilled to see him again. But the Maven of Manners, as the network promos and billboards advertised him, shook pleasantly nonetheless and gestured them to the living room, where he had set out warm croissants and jam beside a porcelain coffee service.

Back in the mid-1970s, then-twentysomethings Eugene Summers and Cynthia Heat had operated as spies for Tyler Wynn's CIA operation in Europe. They both had been part of his team, nicknamed the Nanny Network because Wynn's moles gained access to the homes of intelligence targets by working in domestic service. Heat's mom worked undercover as a piano tutor; Eugene, as a butler. That connection was why Rook had proposed that morning's visit to Nikki: to find out if the Nanny Network had a secret code.

Initially she was opposed. Sharing the existence of the code with Rook had been a giant step. Widening the circle of awareness-especially to someone once handled by Tyler Wynn-represented great risk. But Rook's calling out of the truth, that they were stuck, led her to agree. As long as they agreed to back-door the subject and not reveal they were personally in possession of the coded message.

"What brings you here so urgently, Detective?" asked the butler, politely waiting until after he'd poured their coffees and sat. His posture was perfect, and when Rook got appraised by the star's TV trademark Summers Stare, he rose up out of his slouch. And smiled.

She began her lie with "Just routine, really. As you must have heard, Tyler Wynn is still at large. We're just doing our diligence, following up with everyone who knew him."

"I had heard." Summers placed a palm against his top vest b.u.t.ton and continued, "And I read the account of your horrible ordeal in Mr. Rook's Web article. Terrifying and heartbreaking." He paused, and she nodded to acknowledge his sympathetic look. "But I honestly don't know if I can be of use. The man certainly hasn't been in contact with me."

"Naturally that's one of my questions," said Heat. "Thank you."

"Good java." Rook set his cup down, sounding as offhanded as possible. "Some of Tyler Wynn's other acquaintances may have received communications from him."

"May have?" Eugene had smarts. They could see the granules of each sentence getting sieved and sorted behind his frameless gla.s.ses. "You aren't sure?"

"We're wondering, that's all," said Heat. "As we go through some of the effects of Tyler's accomplices, it occurs to me that there might be messages in code that we would never recognize as such."

"You want to know what you're looking at," said the butler. "For clues."

"Precisely," said Rook.

"Did you ever use a code in Wynn's network?" asked Heat.

Summers shook his head. "The closest we came were the drop boxes I told you about last time. We only put plain messages in them. Handwritten, and certainly not in any code." He grinned. "We were all a bit too rowdy and undisciplined to learn codes, let alone use them."

"What about Tyler Wynn?" she asked. "Did he use a code?"

"That I don't know. You could ask me anything else about Tyler Wynn. I could tell you his favorite wine, where he got his shoes custom made, the shop where he bought his Brie de Meaux. But as far as his means of encrypted communication, I'm sorry."

Nikki stared down at the coffee she'd let grow cold. Just as she put away her notebook, lamenting the trip and the exposure that had come with it, Rook spoke. "Eugene," he began, "something you said just gave me an idea. Tyler Wynn is a man of specific tastes, right?"

"Oh, please, you have no idea how particular."

"If you would indulge me some time, could I take a few hours to pick your brain about some of his habits, his likes and dislikes? It would really help me color my next article about him. You know, the American James Bond with his custom shoes and his personal fromage."

"A couple of hours... I have an interview with Lara Spencer this morning."

"Great," said Rook. "Then lunch after?" Boxed into the obligation, the famous butler gave Rook his trademark Summers Stare, then said yes.

On the elevator down from his loft, Heat said, "Tell me something, Rook, is everything in my life all about helping you write your next article?"

"That? That's not for any article. Here's what I'm thinking. If I can get a line on a few of Tyler Wynn's personal tastes and buying habits, we might be able to track him down through his purchases."

The doors opened in the lobby and Nikki said, "That's a horrible idea."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't think of it." Then she stepped out ahead of him, hiding her grin.

The bull pen sounded like a telemarketing boiler room when Heat came in from her meeting with Eugene Summers. All the detectives were either working their phones or at the Murder Boards conferring on leads they'd checked out. Except, of course, for Sharon Hinesburg, whom Nikki glimpsed shoe shopping on Zappos before she boss-b.u.t.toned the screen to an NYPD internal site.

Raley and Ochoa were saddling up for Sotheby's, to interview a contact that they met last summer when they solved the murder of one of the auction house's art appraisers. Raley said, "If anyone could tell us what oil painting this hand belonged to, she could." That made Heat think of Joe Flynn. A top art recovery specialist like him would also be a great resource. As Roach left, she even scrolled her iPhone for his number. But before she pressed Call, Nikki remembered her last visit to Quantum Recovery, and his needy, longing looks. She put her phone away. Flynn could wait until Sotheby's had a shot.

Heat checked in with the Sixty-first Precinct over in Brooklyn to get an update on their search for Salena Kaye spottings. After getting bounced to three different voice mails, she hung up, called over Sharon Hinesburg, and a.s.signed her to head out to Coney Island and conduct a search herself. "It's early in the season for tourists, so hit the hotels and, especially, the by-the-week apartments."

The detective gave Heat an exasperated look. "Shouldn't I be working the serial killer instead of pounding the pavement on this?"

"Nothing wrong with pounding the pavement." Nikki couldn't resist a shot. "I'm sure you've got the shoes for it."

Early in the afternoon, her cell phone vibrated. Greer Baxter of WHNY, by the caller ID. Heat let it dump to voice mail, then listened back. "Detective Heat, Greer Baxter, Channel 3 News. Have you forgotten that I need you on my live segment? We'd love to hear what's happening with our serial killer." Then the news anchor paused for effect and added, "Unless, that is, you're h.o.a.rding this story for your boyfriend's exclusive. Call me."

Heat felt a brief swell of light-headed rage. At the dig, at the manipulation, at the distraction. She set the phone gently on her desk and rested her eyelids to collect herself. "Detective?" She opened her eyes. Feller stood over her, looking ready to burst. "I got one. I just found the coolest connection between our victims."

SEVEN.

Detective Feller wanted to show, not tell. Nikki followed him to his desk, where he gestured her to sit. "Like you told us to, I've been drilling down on our three victims, searching for anything that ties them together." He reached for the mouse on the desktop and double-clicked. An image loaded on the monitor, of Maxine Berkowitz seated on a kitchen floor in sweats and Uggs, surrounded by puppies. "Been going over all her social media and found this Facebook posting she made three years ago." Nikki's heart grew heavy, as it always did, at the sight of the joyful smile of a murdered young woman beaming at a camera. "Note the beagle pups," said Feller.

"Adorable."

"You'll love them even more when you see this." He opened another window, beside the Berkowitz image. It was an advertis.e.m.e.nt for Bedbug Doug posed beside Smokey, his bedbug-sniffing beagle. "Apparently beagles are great at finding bedbugs, and exterminators are using them like crazy. Doug even made Smokey his company mascot."

"Yeah, I've seen the ads," said Heat. "So you're telling me your connection is that both victims liked beagles? Kind of thin, Randall."

"Stand by, please." With the eraser end of a pencil he pointed to the litter surrounding Maxine Berkowitz. "Mixed litter, lots of colors. You've got one here that's mottled, these two are lemon and white, and then there's this boy here." He zoomed on the image of one puppy. "This, they call open marked. White coat with tan and black spots. Notice the pattern of these three black spots on his shoulder?" He zoomed on the image of Smokey.

"Identical," she said, more interested now. "Is it the same dog?"

The detective smiled. "You tell me." He moused open a YouTube video. While it loaded, he said, "This was shot a year and a half ago in Danbury, at a canine scent-training academy. Basically, it's Smokey's graduation from bedbug school." Nikki watched the amateur video of Douglas Sandmann climbing a riser to applause as he accepted a diploma, with his beagle matching stride, on heel. After Sandmann took the certificate, there was a jump edit to a video that chilled Nikki. Clearly taken in the parking lot after the ceremony, the camera captured Douglas Sandmann and Maxine Berkowitz kneeling and praising her little guy, Smokey, who licked her face.

Heat gave Feller a nod of appreciation. "Who's a good boy?" he said.

Rook came into the bull pen from his lunch meeting and joined Heat and Feller. Nikki recapped Randall's beagle connection for him then turned to the Murder Boards. "So we already had one connection from Roy Conklin to Maxine Berkowitz. Now we have one from Maxine to Bedbug Doug. We don't know what they mean yet but it's something." She turned to Detective Feller. "What you just did for Maxine? Do it for Douglas Sandmann. And the locksmith, Glen Windsor, too."

"Got it. Anything that connects to the other victims."

"Or helps us learn who his next one might be," she said. As Feller left for his desk, Nikki drew a line in marker from Berkowitz and Sandmann and labeled it "Smokey."

"Nice name for a beagle," said Rook as she capped her dry erase. "Barry Manilow had two beagles. Named them Bagel and Biscuit."

"Fascinating." Heat made her way back to her desk, and he followed along, still talking.

"Speaking of Barry Manilow, I just saw an ad for that sitcom The Middle. So funny, Patricia Heaton walks in on her mom dancing to Barry Manilow. Oh. The mom?" he said loudly to the room. "Played by... Marsha Mason. Even fewer than six degrees, thank you, thank you very much."

"Rook, maybe you could save the parlor games until we're a little less busy," said Heat. "Like after we finish, I dunno, catching a murderer or two?"

"Well, Detective Heat, as it turns out, I do have something to contribute to the search for one of your suspects, a certain Tyler Wynn." He sat on her desk, as was his habit, and she again had to yank a file out from under one of his cheeks.

"I'm listening."

He unwrapped the elastic band from his black Moleskine. "In spite of his misplaced enmity for me that I just don't get, Eugene Summers gave up some really useful intel on Tyler Wynn at our lunch. He's a perfect source. Summers not only spied for Wynn all those years, he's a butler-a combo of observant plus oriented to detail. The man gave me an incredibly complete list of Tyler's personal buying preferences." Rook opened to a page he had bookmarked with the notebook's black ribbon. "For instance, did you know Wynn wears custom shoes? Six-thousand-dollar bespoke loafers from John Lobb boot maker in Paris."

That got her attention. Not just the self-indulgence; the price served as a red flag for anyone doing a background check on a government employee. Tyler Wynn's treason clearly supported his expensive tastes. He looked up from his notebook. "Maybe it's just I, but if a shoe costs six grand, can it really be called a loafer?"

"Agreed. And superb use of that personal p.r.o.noun." She habitually needled Rook for being the writer boy, but seeing him riffling through interview notes, she respected his journalistic chops. All the more, if they led her to capture Wynn. h.e.l.l, it might even keep her alive.

"Let's see what else. Outerwear, only Barbour, only from Harrods. Briefcases from Alfred Dunhill, sweaters from Peter Millar, s.h.i.+rts from Haupt of Germany, and athletic socks from South Africa-Balegas, if you must know. His booze habits are also quite particular. His white Burgundy of choice is Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet. His red is a Mil-Mar Estates Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa. He goes for WhistlePig rye and Vya sweet vermouth. His Irish whiskey brand is Michael Collins."

"What," she said, "Jameson's not good enough for him?"

"Nikki Heat, it's like you're reading my mind."

Personal habits had a way of becoming a trail, and reality TV's premier butler had given them a trove of leads. So much to go on that Heat pulled in Detective Rhymer to pair with Rook and start making contact with the retailers and distributors who supplied Tyler Wynn with his unique brands of consumer products. "Your investigative journalist's gut is doing the job, Rook," she told him. "Now take it to the next step and find out if Uncle Tyler's been buying himself any goodies lately, and where they've been delivered."

"You can't have specific tastes like his and fall completely off the grid."

"Prove it," she said. And he and Rhymer got to work.

Raley called in from the Roach Coach. "Miguel and I are just now wheels-up from Sotheby's on the East Side," he said.

"Do you think they can ID the painting for us?"

"Already have. It took them five seconds. The hand on that slip of paper was clipped from a work by Paul Cezanne. It's called Boy in a Red Waistcoat. The appraiser e-mailed me a digital image of the whole painting. I'll forward it to you or you can pull it up online if you don't want to wait."

"Thanks, I will. That was fast, Rales."

"Yeah, well, turns out the painting is not only well known, it's on everyone's radar these days."

"How come?"

"It's hot. It got stolen in 2008 from the... hang on, I can't read my own writing. The painting got jacked along with a couple others from the Buhrle Collection. That's in Zurich, Switzerland." After a pause he said, "I lose you?"

"No," said Nikki, "I'm with you, just thinking I've got a call to make. Good work."

She hung up, bit the bullet, and dialed Joe Flynn at his Quantum Recovery office. While the phone rang, she Googled the Cezanne and got multiple hits, most two-year-old news items about its theft. "I'm sorry, Mr. Flynn's out of the office," said his a.s.sistant. "Would you like to leave a voice mail?"

After the beep, Nikki left word for him to call. Then she checked her notes for his cell number and left a message there, too. When she hung up, she chided herself for not calling him earlier; she could have saved half a day chasing down the painting. It's what happened, she thought, when she let her personal feelings interfere with an investigation. Heat vowed not to let that happen again.

That reaffirmation met a challenge sooner than she'd thought. "Nikki Heat. It's your number one fan," said the caller. At the sound of his voice, her guard went up and she cleared everything else from her mind. Zach "The Hammer" Hamner, senior administrative aide to the NYPD's deputy commissioner for legal matters, never made contact unless he wanted something. And when the man Rook had dubbed the unholy sp.a.w.n of Rahm Emanuel and Gordon Gekko wanted something, "no" came at your own risk.

"Glad to know my name's still alive at One Police Plaza," she said, keeping her side light; feeling anything but.

"Oh, you know it is," he said cheerfully. Guess Zach could keep the weasel out of his voice as well as Nikki could keep the dread out of hers. "Got your hands full, I know. We're all glad it's you on point with this serial killer. That's from the Commish on down." Zach knew the value of rank dropping.

"We'll get him."

"If anyone can, Heat, it's you. Now..." His pause must have lasted five seconds, a deliberate technique to suck in her attention. Superfluous. He had it. "Been getting calls from Greer Baxter over at Channel 3. Media requests usually kick over to Public Information, but Baxter has a relations.h.i.+p with this office, so here I am. You know what this is about."

"I do, Zach. But you must know what it's like running a case like this. If you're doing the investigation properly, the last thing you have time for is media."

"Which is why we're seeing f.u.c.king Wally Irons's face on every screen. Listen to me while I count fingers. One: Greer Baxter is a friend of the commissioner. Two: Her newsroom lost one of its own to this creep. Three..." He worked another pause. Heat knew what was coming before he said it. "You owe me this."

Nikki sank deeper in a quicksand of gloom. Earlier that year Hamner had championed her to become a captain and the precinct commander of the Twentieth, only to have her embarra.s.s him by publicly rejecting the promotion at the last moment. And just within the past month, she had come back to him for a favor when Captain Irons gave her an unfair medical suspension, citing a phantom concern for her mental state following a shooting. The Hammer got her badge back but warned her his bill would come due.

Today was payday.

"I'll bring you out to Greer's set in two minutes, Detective," said the stage manager, who then left the small room backstage at WHNY. Rook moved over to stand behind Nikki's makeup chair. The mirror framed them both. One of them looked unhappy.