Nikki asked, “How, then?”
“I suppose,” he said with another wink, “that each member might have had his or her own signature drop and might find unique means to communicate its secret location so the bad guys couldn’t figure it out.”
Images surfaced in Heat’s mind of her mom’s and Nicole’s ransacked apartments. Plus the phone call to the Bernardins from a Mr. Seacrest looking for a package. “If you had such knowledge, would my mother or Nicole have drop boxes other than in Europe? Let’s say—hypothetically—here in New York?”
“That I wouldn’t know. I would have left the network by then—if I had been in it in the first place.” Another wink, why not?
“When might that have been, if you’d left it?” Rook asked.
“Late nineties.” Then he added with a chuckle, “If.”
“Would you have still been in Europe when her mother was killed?”
“That’s where I was when I heard the news, yes.” Summers thought some more and said to Rook, “Did you just ask me for my alibi?” Then he turned to Nikki. “Is that what this was for? To check me out as a suspect?”
“No, not at all,” said Heat.
“Well, it feels like it to me. And I have to say, as someone who came here out of respect and in good faith, that I am insulted. If you wish to speak with me again, it will be along with my attorney. Excuse me.” Heads in the restaurant turned from red pear salads and chicken and waffles as Eugene Summers scraped the feet of his chair from the table and stormed out.
Rook leaned down and plucked the butler’s napkin off the floor. He held it up and said, “How uncouth.”
Nikki flipped to a fresh page in her spiral and made a note to have someone check the whereabouts of Eugene Summers on the murder dates. If only to dot the i on the if.
Heat had just finished double-parking her Crown Victoria on West 82nd with the other double-parked undercover cars outside the precinct, when Lauren Parry called her on her cell phone. “Got a second, Nikki?” Her voice sounded constricted and low. Something was up. Nikki waved at Rook to go inside ahead of her and leaned on her car. “This is not a good news call, Nik,” said her pal, the medical examiner. “I really, really have to apologize.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s the toxicity test on Nicole Bernardin. It’s ruined.”
“You’re going to have to help me here, Lauren. I’ve never heard about a tox test getting ruined. What’s that mean?”
“Just what it sounds like. Something went wrong in the lab. You know how we put blood and fluids through tests using gases to screen for chemicals and toxins in the system of the deceased?”
“If you say so.”
“Well, that’s what we do. And somehow, the gases got screwed up. The supply of pressurized gas canisters that got delivered was contaminated, and now we cannot lab Nicole’s body chemistry. I feel awful. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
Nikki said, “Don’t beat yourself up. Unless you are the one responsible for gas delivery. You aren’t, are you?”
Lauren didn’t chuckle. Instead she said a sulky “No.”
“Then when you get your gas supply situation cleared up, just run her tox test again from other samples.”
“I can’t, Nikki, that’s the thing. This morning Nicole Bernardin’s body was cremated at the request of her parents and sent back to France.”
In spite of Heat’s disappointment and frustration, she reacted to her friend with a feather touch. Nikki told Lauren not to dare to take it personally, and that she would be in contact later about a follow-up investigation since this had a fishy quality, particularly in light of the lost glove at Forensics.