Heat made a turn north along the Hudson and said, “No it’s not. Rook, I
interrogate liars for a living, don’t snow me. Not about this.”
“Let me finish. I thought that was that—until six months later when I got
kidnapped on a mountain trail by a splinter group that accused me of working for the
Russians. They beat the shit out of me for a week in their caves. And guess who
found me and led the rescue mission?”
“Susan Stamberg.”
“Next best thing. Yardley hung out with me while I recuperated in Athens, and
eventually, I moved some of my stuff into a flat she kept in London. You can do the
math; it was great fun but it was complicated. She had a job that she couldn’t talk
about, and I had one that I wouldn’t. We shared a place but both traveled.” They
stopped at a light in Columbus Circle, just a few blocks from the precinct. “I won
’t lie to you, it was good while it lasted. But it didn’t last.”
“Conflict of interest?”
“The biggest. I met you.” Nikki turned to him, and they stared at each other until
a horn honked behind her on the green light. She drove on, and he continued, “That
’s when I stopped seeing her.”
Nikki thought about the intimacy of Yardley’s greeting, and her undisguised
physicality with Rook, and thought maybe she had a new understanding of Agent
Yardley Bell’s interest in her case. But the DHS meeting had told her something
else more important. If Homeland was pinging Salena Kaye’s cell phone calls deep in
a Situation Room bunker, something big was definitely going on with Tyler Wynn and
his band of conspirators.
Heat double-parked her Crown Vic along with the other police vehicles in front of
the precinct on West 82nd. “Wouldn’t lock it up,” called Ochoa. He and Raley
stepped out of the walled parking lot on their way to the Roach Coach. “Got a fresh
homicide.”
Nikki knew these guys and could read the signs: their impatient eyes, the pace of
their strides. Heat’s gut told her things were about to get jerked into a new
dimension. “What?” was all she said.
“There’s string,” said Raley.
His partner added, “Looks like we have ourselves a serial killer.”
THREE
Against the dimming of the day, the crime scene floods could have been lights from
one of Manhattan’s ubiquitous movie shoots. But as Heat and Rook rolled south on
Riverside Drive, approaching 72nd, there were no box trucks, no RV dressing rooms,
no port-a-potties with doors marked “Lucy” and “Desi.” When they pulled up, she
parked behind the van from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. None of this
would be make-believe.
Nikki got out and paused in the street before she closed her door. Rook asked her if
everything was OK. Detective Heat nodded. This time she took her private interval
for the deceased and felt ready. Raley and Ochoa joined up from the Roach Coach, and
the four moved on to work.
The first thing Heat did when she recognized the victim was to call for the ranking
scene supervisor. Nikki never broke stride, just told the sergeant to order up crowd
control immediately. “Press, paparazzi, gawkers—nobody gets near.”
“Whoa,” said Rook. “It’s Maxine Berkowitz.”
“None other,” said Raley. “Your Channel 3 Doorbuster.”