She turned to him wearing a sly smile. “I know when you’re done, mister. You’re done when I’m done.”
“It’s a beautiful thing,” he said. She turned her attention back to the board, then rose with a red marker and drew circles around Rook’s notation: “Montrose—What was he doing??” He said, “Guess we got the answer to that today, thanks to Eddie.”
“No, we got half of it. We know what he was trying to do, but we don’t know what investigative course he was following. And he kept it from me. Either because he had some pride thing about cracking it himself or he didn’t want to admit it if he failed.”
“Or . . . ,” said Rook. “More likely, he knew it was dangerous and was trying to keep you out of it. Even at the expense of pissing you off.”
She mulled that, then said, “Or any of the above. But what were his leads? Where was he going?”
“You could have Roach check his files, but, according to you, Internal Affairs beamed them up to the mother ship.”
“I knew Montrose, and if he wanted secrecy he wouldn’t have kept anything at the office. Especially with IA all over him.” Heat tapped the barrel of the marker against her lip and then tossed it on the tray, a decision made. “I want to break into his apartment.”
* * *
It was nine-thirty, still early enough not to freak out Captain Mon trose’s next-door neighbor, although Penny the dachshund went on high alert on the other side of the door after they knocked. As the multiple locks snapped open, they heard Corrine Flaherty shushing and saying, “Relax, Pen, it’s Nikki, you know Nikki.” She opened the door and the two women hugged. Corrine, dowdy and late fifties, primped her hair and said, “I’m glad you called, it gave me a chance to chase the men out.”
The long-haired mini dachshund turned absolutely inside out over Rook. She rolled onto her back in the living room, and he knelt on the carpet to administer a tummy rub while she melted, her caramel tail waving like a flag. “I’m next,” said Corrine, followed by a smoker’s laugh.
When she excused herself from the room, Rook stood and said to Heat, “So how are we going to do this, use her balcony to jump to Montrose’s like Spider-Man? I mean the movie, not the musical; it’s six floors down and I don’t have my health insurance card on me.”
“How would we get in the sliding door on his balcony if it’s locked, which you know it must be?”
“Hmm,” he said, “does Corrine have a hammer? I could break the glass with a mighty blow.”
“Here ya go, Nikki,” said Corrine as she came back from the kitchen with a key ring. “This one’s the knob, this is the deadbolt.”
Rook frowned as if deep in thought and said, “Spare keys. Very crafty.”
* * *
At Montrose’s front door Rook stepped in front of Heat, blocking her. “I’ll do this part.” He tore the police tape seals off the door and stepped back. “Wouldn’t want you getting in any trouble with the cops, ha ha.”
Once they were inside, Nikki felt a chill that had nothing to do with the low thermostat. They kicked up the temp and turned on all the lights, but it still felt like a place that would never be warm for her again. She kept her coat on and stood in the middle of the living room, turning a slow rotation, trying to put aside memories of the dinners she had enjoyed with the skip and Pauletta or the Super Bowl party the captain had invited her squad to three years before, after they got their citation for top case clearances. She shut those things out as best she could and simply observed.