There was a sea change in that room. Her skipper’s anger and irritation gave way to a steely wariness. He studied her with an intense concentration that made Nikki uncomfortable. His head was glistening, and behind him on the window that gave onto the street she noticed an aura of condensation forming on the glass, probably from his elevated body heat. It outlined Montrose like his own ghost. “Learned, like what?” he said.
Her tongue felt like it had a sock on it. “Your search of the rectory the night of Graf’s killing, for instance.”
“Asked and answered already.” His voice was chillingly calm and his face had taken on a flat affect. “If you have more, let’s hear it. Is there more?”
“Captain, let’s not go down this road right now.”
“What road? The one that leads to you implying I had something to do with his death?” Under his measured tone Nikki could sense the next wave of anger building pressure. “Is that what you think?”
When she hesitated, the interrogator in him kicked in. Nikki had always been impressed by how intimidating her mentor could be working a suspect against the ropes. Except now it was all on her. “You’re already knee-deep, Detective, so you’d better bring it—unless you want to go on the record in a formal conduct review.”
Heat ran down the short list in her mind. She looked at the fresh Band-Aid on his finger and pictured the blood on the priest’s collar. Then she thought of the TENS scars on Graf and how similar electrical burns had also appeared in the 2004 case Montrose had investigated. And now the latest revelation, that the bruise on the small of the priest’s back came from handcuffs . . . Yes, these raised lots of questions, and Nikki didn’t like the way the scale was tipping as she weighed them. However, none of these proved anything. And she certainly couldn’t voice them. Not without mortally wounding an already frail relationship. So she said, “Nothing worth discussing.”
He slapped the palm of his hand on the desk and she jumped. “Liar!” In her periphery, Nikki saw heads in the bull pen turn their way. “It’s all over you. Come on, Detective, lay ’em on the table. Or are you saving it for your new friends at 1PP?”
“Captain . . . no, I . . .” She trailed off, on the defensive now.
“Oh, or maybe you’re holding it for the next article.” He read her reaction and said, “You haven’t seen it yet?” He reached to his briefcase and pulled out the morning edition of the Ledger. “Metro section, page three.” He tossed the newspaper on the desk right in front of her. It was folded open to the story, a short item headlined, &UPHEAVAL AT UPPER WEST SIDE PRECINCT&. Reported by Tam Svejda. “You still claim you didn’t talk to that reporter?”
“I didn’t.”
“Somebody did. And gave her details, including Gallagher bailing in frustration. I wonder who.”
Rook’s phone call from the bouncing Czech played itself back, but Nikki dismissed it as a possibility. There was no way she could imagine him doing that. “I have no idea.”
“Bullshit.”
“Captain, whatever else is going on here, I hope you know . . .”
But he stopped her, holding out the palm of his hand in the gulf between them. “We’re done,” he said. There was a gravity, a global finality in the weight of his words. Montrose stood. She sat looking up at him. How had this meeting slipped out of her grasp? Nikki had only wanted one thing when she walked in there, and it had dissolved in the toxic haze. “And if you have anything to discuss about this case, you bring it to me, not reporters, and especially not the sharks downtown. Tempting as it is to go polishing that gold bar, remember, you work for me.”
“You don’t need to tell me who I work for.” Heat rose to face him, feeling herself reclaiming lost meaning from a mislaid motto. “There’s a killer out there, and for the sake of his victim, I want to catch him.”
“Damn it, Heat, not every victim is your mother.”
Her old friend might as well have slapped her face. He knew her vulnerability, and that stung her all the more. But she didn’t back off. Nikki absorbed it and spoke her guiding truth. “No, but every victim is somebody else’s mother. Or their father, or daughter. A son, or a wife.”
“I’m telling you. This time, let go of this.”