“Birthday,” his partner, Reynolds, heckled him.
“Whatevs,” said Heat. “Nicole Bernardin was a French national. Take a jaunt across Central Park and visit their consulate when they open. See if she’s known to them. Also put in a call to the French consulate in Boston.” She indicated the Esplanade photo. “This was for a cultural program they sponsored. Maybe she kept in contact. Find out.”
Rook had his hand up. “A thought?”
“Let’s hear it,” said Nikki.
“Her laptop is missing, right?”
“And her external drive and memory keys.”
“Right,” he continued, “but in my own travel experience with a notebook computer, I always do compulsive backing up, either by e-mail attachments I send to myself or, the new fail-safe, syncing everything to a remote internet storage cloud service like Dropbox.”
Heat said, “That’s actually a good idea.”
“Second one today,” said Rook.
Ochoa said, “I tell ya, the man’s got the power. The power of Roach Blood.”
“Detective Rhymer,” she said. “Soon as we adjourn, bust down some geek doors at the Computer and Information Technology Unit to see if they have any Big Bangers who can work a trace on whether she used a Web cloud for data backup.”
The soft-spoken detective formerly from the South lived up to his nickname of Opie by politely asking, “And it’s cool if I kick some butt, even if it’s a Sunday?”
“Even better,” said Detective Heat. “That way, they’ll know how important this is.”
After dinner they arrived at Heat’s apartment building to find the elevator still had the out of order seal on its doors. On the second landing of the stairs, Rook paused momentarily to swap grips on his Boston overnight bag. “Now I know why these are called carry-ons and not carry-ups.”
“Want me to take yours?”
“Ah-ah,” he said, shooing her hand away. “I’ll just consider this my rehab for the day.”
“Let me see if I can write the story, Pulitzer boy. Rehab today, naughty nurse massage tomorrow?”
“Now, there’s a story with a happy ending,” he said as he resumed his ascent.
Rook found an ‘07 Hautes-Cotes de Nuits in the back of the fridge that he accused her of hiding from him, and then he settled beside Nikki on the couch to look through the photo albums with her. “This is all I have left,” she said, indicating the banker’s box of family keepsakes on the floor beside her. “I don’t even know what’s missing. Whoever searched this apartment the night of the murder got the rest and must have left before he got to these.”
“Nikki, if this is hard for you …”
“Of course it’s hard for me. How could it not be?” Then she rested her palm on his thigh. “That’s why I’m glad to have you here with me to do this.”
They kissed, each tasting Burgundy on the other’s tongue. Then he surveyed the room and gave her a thoughtful look. “I’ve always wanted to ask, and I never quite knew how.”
“You mean, ask how I could live here after her murder?” When he reacted, she said, “Come on, Rook, the way you just scoped out this place was the most ridiculous tell I’ve seen. Well, since the last time I beat you at poker.” He didn’t respond, but just watched her.