Of course, when they met at his table, Nikki heard the obligatory praise about how much she resembled her mom. Rook, who regularly hobnobbed with Hollywood A-listers and blockbuster music icons, just grinned like a dope as he shook hands with the reality star. Heat prayed he wouldn’t embarrass her by asking her to take a photo of the two of them.
They began on a somber note with Eugene’s condolences to Nikki for the loss of her mother, and his disbelief at the deaths of Nicole and, now, Tyler Wynn. “I got a call about Tyler when I woke up Sunday morning. I’m still reeling.” He made a brave face and sat tall. “However, I am reminded of the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, ‘Good Americans when they die, go to Paris.’”
Nikki found it interesting that he was still in the loop. “May I ask who told you about Wynn’s death?”
“Not by name. Let’s say a mutual acquaintance.”
“Were you and Tyler Wynn close?” she asked.
“Once. But we hadn’t seen each other, oh, in ages. But he’s a man you hold in your heart.”
Heat said, “I guess this leads us to where I want to start. Were you part of this Nanny Network of Tyler’s that my mother was in?”
“Not that I don’t want to cooperate, Detective, I do,” said Summers, “but you put me in an awkward position.”
“You took an oath not to divulge secrets?” asked Heat.
“Oath or not, I’m preternaturally discreet. It’s not just professional, I have personal standards.” Then he saw her disappointment. “But despair not. For Cindy’s daughter, I can bend the rules. I’ll speak in generalities. Or use non-denial denials. For example, to the question you just asked, my answer is that I’m sworn not to say. And that tells you exactly what you want to know, doesn’t it?”
“Good enough,” said Nikki.
Summers noticed Rook absently playing leapfrog, as he often did, with his knife and spoon, and fixed a chastening look on him. Rook ceased and said, “Wow, just like the show. Did you see, Nikki? I just got the Summers Stare.” Then he pleaded to the TV butler, “Give me the catchphrase. Come on, just once? Please?”
“Very well.” Summers arched a brow and delivered a haughty “How uncouth.”
“Effing awesome.” Rook laughed with glee but settled when he saw Nikki stare, and said, “Continue. Please.”
Heat formulated a question according to the rules. “Let’s say—if you had been in this network—would you recall the names of some of the enemies whose homes became infiltrated?”
“If I had working knowledge of that network I’d probably take a wild guess and suppose that not everyone spied on was an enemy. Intelligence-gathering is often back channel, so the subjects of surveillance might just as likely be diplomats or businesspeople ripe with information. Or merely social friends of an enemy.”
“And what about my mother? If you had been in a position to know, would you know the names of the subject homes she infiltrated?”
“Sorry. If I had known such information I didn’t retain it. And that’s flat-out true. I would have had my own full plate.”
“What about when this picture was taken in London? Was she there to spy on her patron family?”
“Again, I can’t say.”
“Same for Nicole Bernardin?”
“Afraid so.”
Rook said, “Can I play this word game, too? You said if you had known such information, you didn’t retain it. If you were in a position to find out what a fellow spy was working on, how would you guess that you—or someone—would do that?”
“Well played, Mr. Rook.”
“I have a headache,” he said.
“I would imagine, like any close friends in their twenties moving about Europe, social contact would be important. No Twitter back then. So systems probably developed. Mail and phone calls would be out of the question due to surveillance, so I would guess …,” he paused and winked, “that enterprising kids would communicate their whereabouts and sensitive information through a series of unorthodox secret mail stashes. Let’s call them drop boxes.”
“A drop box,” repeated Rook. “You mean like a loose brick in the town square with a chalk mark on it?”
The famous butler pinched his face into a sour grimace. “Oh, please. That is so Maxwell Smart.”