“Nikki,” said Lauren, “what is it?”
“The suitcase.” She swallowed hard. “My initials are on it.”
The detectives and the ME all looked at one another, puzzled. Finally, Raley said, “I don’t get it. Why would your initials be on that suitcase?”
“Because I carved them there when I was a kid.” She could see them processing that, but it was taking them too long, so she said, “That suitcase belonged to my mother.” And then she added, “Her killer stole it the night she was murdered.”
TWO
Nikki Heat marched toward the homicide bull pen of the Twentieth Precinct at a determined clip that left little doubt in the minds of the detectives trying to keep up with her that she had recovered from the shock of her discovery, and then some. “Briefing in ten,” she called out to her squad as she strode through the door. On her way to her desk, she said, “Detective Ochoa, fire off the Jane Doe head shot to Missing Persons. Include Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey, and Fairfield County cops while you’re at it. Detective Raley, erase that whiteboard and roll the second one over beside it so we can work both Murder Boards at once.” Heat broomed aside the morning’s pile of message slips and dusted away grains of acoustical ceiling tile that the 5.8 shaker had snowflaked onto her desktop. Then she hit her keyboard, e-mailing Lauren Parry at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner the same message she had given her verbally fifteen minutes before at the crime scene: to interrupt her the moment she had any information, no matter how minor.
She hit send and a cardboard coffee cup materialized on her blotter. Nikki swiveled in her chair to find Detective Feller lurking there. “In lieu of flowers, consider this the apology coffee for my big mouth this morning. Tall, three pump, hazelnut mocha, if I remember. Right?”
Actually, her drink of choice was a grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar-free vanilla, but “Close enough” was all she said. He was trying to make amends, but she was focused places other than coffee flavorings at the moment. “Thanks. And let’s put it behind us, OK?”
“Won’t happen again.”
As soon as Feller stepped away, she set the tepid cup at the back of the desk, beside her unread messages, and started a to-do list on a letter pad. One third down the page, she bulleted “additional manpower” and stopped. That would require clearance from the precinct commander, a hurdle the detective didn’t relish. Heat scanned across the bull pen into the PC’s glass office that looked out onto her squad. The glass also let the squad look in and had the effect of a creating a life-sized diorama out of that movie Night at the Museum. Captain Irons was inside the exhibit, hanging his jacket on a wooden hanger. Heat knew he was next going to go through his ritual of tugging the fabric of his white uniform shirt, and he did—all in his constant quest to eliminate button pucker on the gut that lipped over his low-slung belt.