The two paramedics in the back of the ambulance were still working on keeping Horst Meuller from slipping away when the uniform buttoned up the rear doors and it rolled from the scene. Nikki Heat stood holding her breath against its issue of diesel exhaust and watched it lumber off in the sleet, following the same route the SUV had not a half hour before. A block down Orange Street, at the perimeter of the crime scene, the siren kicked on, a sign that, at least for the moment, there was still a life on that gurney.
Detective Feller handed Heat and Raley each a cup of coffee. “Can’t vouch for it, it’s from the Chinese place over there. But it’ll warm you up.”
Raley’s assist call had drawn a swarm. First on the scene had been the crew of New York’s Bravest from the 205 up the block. If the dancing German pulled through, he would owe it to his firefighter neighbors for slowing the bleeding within minutes. Cruisers from the Eighty-fourth Precinct and the neighboring Seventy-sixth were first cops on-scene, followed immediately by Feller and Van Meter in their undercover taxi. With their roving status, it was typical for Taxi Squad cops to be first responders to officer assist calls, and Ochoa threw a barb at the pair for letting the home blue-and-whites beat them.
Dutch Van Meter winked to his partner and lobbed one back. “Oh, by the way, Detective, how’d you do apprehending the vehicle after your pursuit?”
Ochoa had come up empty. The chase was perfunctory at best given the shooter’s head start, and they all knew it. But he had given it his best effort, able at least to follow the wide tracks in the freshly fallen sleet until he lost them on Old Fulton Street, which was more heavily traveled. He drove the Roach Coach on a honeycomb of the neighboring streets on his way back just to make sure, but no SUV.
On the other side of the yellow tape, the first TV news minicams were setting up. Nikki saw a lens pointed at her from under a blue Gore-Tex storm cover and heard her name. She rotated to present her back to the press line and once again grumbled a mental curse about her magazine cover.
Feller took a sip of his own coffee and made a face. “So none of you saw the shooter?” Steam rose as he poured it out into the gutter. Heat, Raley, and Ochoa all looked at one another and shook their heads.
“It was one of those split-second things,” said Raley. “We’re all focused on our prisoner, you know, and out of nowhere, bang.”
“More like boom,” said Ochoa. All nodded in agreement. “I make it a rifle.”
“Boom,” said Van Meter. “Not much to go on.”
Heat said, “I know the vehicle.” They all turned to look at her. “I saw it yesterday. Twice. Once in the afternoon on Columbus on the way to Andy’s and then last night in my neighborhood.”
“What’s this, Detective?” Heat turned. Captain Montrose had come up behind her. He must have read their surprise, and explained, “I was on my way to 1PP for a meeting and heard the ten-thirteen. Now, am I to infer that you were being tailed but you didn’t report it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I could have called in protection.”
“I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t want to draw resources without more certainty.” Heat left out the part about how the strain between them made her hold back.
The old Montrose would have taken her aside for a chat. But New Montrose snapped at her right there in front of her colleagues. “That’s not a call for you to make. I’m still your commander. My job isn’t yours . . . yet.” At that, the captain turned and crossed the sidewalk to confer with the CSU team gathered around the bullet hole in the service door of the high-rise.
An ass-kicking in front of the family is an uncomfortable thing for everyone, and in the dead air that followed, the other detectives busied themselves trying not to make eye contact with Heat. She turned her face upward into the sleet and closed her eyes, feeling the hundred little stings of the sky falling.