She had been waiting for this shoe to drop. She had known that her dimwit
commander, who’d initially been so alarmed by Nikki’s poisoning attempt that he
tried to bench her ass, would forget all that. Had known that he’d whimper about
her split focus. Had known that because his coconut couldn’t hold two thoughts at
once, he’d assume nobody else’s could. It pissed her off that Irons talked so
casually about this “other case” when it was her own mother’s murder she was
trying to solve. But as Nikki had waited for this inevitable chat to come down, she
’d been forming a strategy.
Cement heads like Wally Irons had to be managed, not cornered. Heat needed to set
her personal anger aside and be effective, because much more was at stake than
justice for her mom. Nikki felt in her bones that something else was coming from
this Tyler Wynn conspiracy. Otherwise all this new activity—including the attempt
on her life—wouldn’t be bubbling up. So instead of outboxing the Iron Man, she’d
outsmart him.
“Sir, although my connection to the Tyler Wynn investigation started personally,
there is one thing I am dead sure of.”
“Which is?”
“That you and I are probably the only two cops in this department smart enough to
see that this is all bigger than one homicide.” A white lie of flattery couldn’t
hurt. In fact, it was pathetic to see how Wally lapped it up.
“True…” He smiled to himself, then to her. “True.”
“And when the handcuffs come out—and they will—who is going to be the hero of
this?” She watched his eyes rise to the trophies on his bookcase. “One more thing,
sir? What you have so wisely done here is put me on notice not to drop the ball on
either of these cases. You have my pledge, Captain. I won’t fail you. Just watch.”
She held her breath while his brow creases deepened in some version of thought. Then
Irons stood and said the magic words. “Just let me know if you get swamped.”
“Will do.”
“Meantime, the media’s storming me with ladders and torches. Can you give me
something to tell them?”
“Sure,” she said. “You might even want to write this down.” She waited for him
to uncap a pen with his teeth and turn to a fresh page of his legal pad. “ ‘No
comment.’ ” And then she left to get to work.
Heat recited a download of the HMS crime scene for the bull pen. When she finished,
Detective Rhymer said, “Trying to grab at any connection here. We found that rat
with our first vic. Did Bedbug Doug, by chance, also exterminate rats?”
“Bedbug Doug?” asked Ochoa, incredulous.
“No rats, just bedbugs,” said Raley, reenacting one of Bedbug Doug’s TV
commercials.
Rook couldn’t resist. “What about ants?”
Raley came right with it. “Nope, just bedbugs.”
“Raccoons?”
“Just bedbugs.”
“Skunks? Cockroaches? Opossums?”
“Nope, nope, nope. Just bedbugs.”
Heat said, “Are you done? Be done.”
“Got something,” said Detective Malcolm as he and Reynolds rolled chairs over from
their shared desk. “A link between our first two victims.” The room hushed, and
all heads tilted toward them. “Know how in ratings sweeps, TV stations do those
shocking exposés about restaurant kitchen gross-outs? I just tracked down an ex–
assignment editor at Channel 3. When they bumped Maxine Berkowitz off the anchor
desk at WHNY, guess what her first ‘Doorbuster’ segment was? And who her prime
on-camera source was from the Health Department?”
Nobody said it. But Heat took a red marker and drew a line connecting restaurant
inspector Roy Conklin and Maxine Berkowitz. She tossed the dry erase pen on the
aluminum tray of the whiteboard and said, “Malcolm and Reynolds, you rock.”
Feller said, “I wonder if Maxine B. ever did a ‘Doorbuster’ report on bedbugs or
Bedbug Doug. That would connect them.”
“We’re all connected one way or another,” said Rook. “You can trace anyone to
anyone in six hops. It’s like playing Six Degrees of Marsha Mason.”
Detective Rhymer said, “You mean Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
Rook said, “Please. I grew up with a mom who’s a Broadway diva. In our house, it
was always Marsha Mason.”