Raging Heat

“I am all sleekness like the fabled ninja. I am made of wind and smoke, not flesh and bone. Well, except for that little trick in the bathtub, if you catch my reference.”

Nikki covered her ears. “Ew? Please? Ew?” She rotated the monitor so he could read the report along with her. Forensics had labbed clothes from Fabian Beauvais’s SRO. One pair of jeans was dappled with dried spatters and abrasion transfers of a hardened resin commonly used to shellac exterior wood as a weather seal.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” said Rook. “He shellacked shingles by the seashore. Which means Alicia Delamater lied. Her faux Moroccan eyesore is all stone with no exterior wood to speak of.”

“Slow down there. He could have picked up that shellac anywhere, not necessarily from singles on the shea — forget it. You know what I mean.”

“I do. You’re applying the transitive law of mathematical logic to tell me that C minus A does not equal B if C is not the sea. Get it? Sea?” Heat elbowed him. “Hey, read what else they found.”

But in her eagerness, she quoted the next section for him. “Spectral analysis revealed nonparallel rows of indentations, including several slight punctures of the denim at the calf of one leg. See: attached photo.”

She opened the attachment and both reacted to what they saw: “A dog bite.”

“Not a bite, exactly. Having just received one of those message-chomps myself, I’d say that’s a warning hold from Topper. What are you doing?”

Nikki talked while she typed. “Replying to Forensics. To see if they can detect or ID any dog hairs by breed.”

“While you’re at it, you might also ask if they can test the bite for a possible DNA match to my German shepherd pal.” She shrugged why not? and keyed that in, too. “The manager at the slaughterhouse said Beauvais was injured. Is it possible it was from the dog?”

“Always possible. But no mention of blood. Not on these pants, anyway. I’ll have them double-check all his other clothes.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet those lab types love it when street detectives tell them to be thorough.”

A telltale rustle of plastic announced the arrival of Wally Irons carrying a crisp white uniform shirt and blue jacket in dry cleaner bags. The camera-ready captain always kept spare wardrobe handy in the event of a news conference or photo opportunity. But instead of unlocking his office, he entered the bull pen and came directly to Heat’s desk.

Normally obsequious to the press, he didn’t even acknowledge Rook. “Guess what I’ve been doing the last fifteen minutes, Detective. No, I’ll tell you. Sitting in my car in the parking lot getting an earful from the Office of Emergency Management. And why? Because some pissant tropical storm near Jamaica just bumped up to a Category One hurricane, and there seems to be a strong sentiment that a witch hunt being conducted by my precinct is distracting key planners from readying this city for a potential landfall.”

“And let me guess. One of those key planners is Keith Gilbert?”

“You tell me, Heat. Have you been stomping around outside your jurisdiction, dogging the heinie of a respected Port Authority commissioner when this entire region is about to go on storm watch?”

So there it was. Nikki wondered how it would come down. She’d half expected another drop-in by the commish. Or a phone call. But the squeeze came through channels. Back channels, actually, utilizing a high-level proxy to apply Gilbert’s pressure. “Sir, I object to the term witch hunt.”

“Tell the mayor’s man from OEM. He’s the one who used it.” Wally shifted the clothes hangers to his other hand and examined the pink indents the hooks had left on his porcine fingers.

“Storm or no storm, sir, I am conducting an investigation into a suspicious death, which has now been linked to a homicide.” She paused to let that seep through the crust and mantles of Wally’s skull. “I have no doubt that Commissioner Gilbert finds it unsettling to have the police looking into his potential involvement in this matter, but you know how it goes here, Captain. We always follow the evidence wherever it leads without fear or favor.”

She could see that registered as a platitude on the political survivor standing before her. But the other edge of the sword facing Wally was to keep his skirts clean if some future probe into his handling of a murder case put him on the record as an obstructionist. Heat was savvy enough to see that and applied her own pressure from that angle. “Sir, are you telling me to cease my investigation because it involves a highly placed member of government?”

This time Irons did seem quite aware of Rook. He glanced from the journalist back to Nikki and said, “Absolutely not. I’m apprising you of all angles…as you move forward.” The words fell dead from his tongue. But all Heat needed was to hear them.

“Most appreciated, Captain.” Heat and Rook flashed celebratory faces behind his back. “Oh, and Captain Irons? I’d also like you to sign off on getting a warrant to search Keith Gilbert’s phone records.”