She assigned Ochoa to look up Dr. Colabro about the mysterious prescription. “Then I want you and Rales to make another visit to Justicia a Garda. I hear they have paramilitary connections. Find out who their leaders are and invite them in for a chat. Use the waiting room instead of Interrogation. I don’t want them treated like suspects, but I want them on our turf, in a formal setting.”
She put Detective Hinesburg on the found money from the rectory attic. “Reach out to Forensics and hustle along a complete workup on that cash. Everything. And Sharon? Like yesterday.” Hinesburg arched a brow, taking that like the shot it was. Nikki couldn’t give a rat’s ass. She continued, “I want to pay a visit to the archdiocese later today to ask them if they had any accounting concerns from Our Lady of the Innocents. So whatever you can get before I go—get.
“Rhymer. You’re off dommes. Dig into Horst Meuller. He’s able to speak this morning, so I’m going to make a hospital call. Meanwhile, you learn all you can. Obviously any more on his connection to Graf, but also work history, financial, any connection to Pleasure Bound . . . Also run him through Interpol and Hamburg police.”
Rhymer dotted a sentence on his pad and said, “Nice to see we’re moving out of the horse latitudes.”
“You and me both,” she said. “Tell your pal Gallagher. If he wants to come back, I can let bygones be bygones.”
* * *
From where she stood looking out a tenth-floor window of New York Downtown Hospital, Nikki could pick out the spot across the East River where the shooting had taken place the day before. A low range of buildings south of the Brooklyn Bridge blocked her street-level view of the exact location on Henry, but on their far side she was able to pinpoint the high-rise where it all went down. Ragged, bruisey clouds streaming trails of snow and frozen rain gobbled the top of the apartment building as she watched, darkening the neighborhood until it disappeared in a curtain of foul weather.
“Excuse me?” Nikki turned. A male nurse with a youthful face and surfer dude curls was smiling at her. “Are you waiting for Dr. Armani?”
“Yes, I’m Detective Heat.”
He took a step closer and his smile widened. Nikki thought he had the most brilliant teeth she had seen since the Dawn of Bieber. “I’m Craig.” He gave her a quick head-to-toe that was approving yet somehow not creepy. She bet Nurse Craig got laid a lot. “Dr. Armani is stuck on rounds. We’re a teaching hospital, you know, and she is, well, she is definitely not one to be hurried.” Craig said it with the intimacy of a patient lover.
“How long will she be?”
“If I had a nickel . . . But good news, she told me to personally escort you to Mr. Meuller’s room.” He flashed his teeth again. “My lucky day.”
The uniform outside the door rose from his metal folding chair when Heat approached. She gestured for him to sit and he did. The detective turned to her guide and said, “I can take it from here.”
“Craig,” he answered.
Nikki said, “Yeah, I got that,” and that seemed to please him no end. He walked on but not without a turn back to wave before he rounded the corner.
The dancer had his eyes locked on her the moment she entered the room. Because of his wound he couldn’t turn his head, so Heat stopped at the foot of his bed to help him out. “How are you feeling?” He croaked out something she couldn’t make out. Either it was in German, or the thick bandages framing his jaw made it hard for him to talk. “You got lucky, Horst. An inch or two lower, you wouldn’t be here.”
Heat had been briefed on the phone by his surgeon. The bullet had completely blown out his trapezius muscle but missed the carotid artery. If the shot had come from above, say from a rooftop or balcony, instead of from a car window, the trajectory would have been downward with fatal consequences.
“Lucky?” he said. “You break my collarbone and now this.” Meuller paused and pushed the morphine button connected to his drip. “My dancing career is over. What do I do now?”
“You talk,” she said. “Why did you run from us?”