“Who was he?”
“Male Hispanic, twenty-eight to thirty. No ID. We’ll run prints.”
“You see any of them?” Nikki shook her head. “Any idea who they were?”
“Not yet.”
He studied Nikki and could not miss seeing her resolve. “They say the SUV down in the Transverse is gone. No sign of the other guy, the driver you say you shot.” Then he said, “These guys were pros.”
It always annoyed her to have office functionaries roll up after the action and play cop. All she said was “Tell me.”
He looked at his watch and then around the crime scene. “By the way. Where the hell’s your boss? Where the fuck is Montrose?”
* * *
The Hammer irritated her, but he wasn’t wrong. Precinct commanders always showed at every major incident involving their people. Captain Montrose didn’t make Belvedere Castle. He wasn’t in his office when she got back to the Two-oh, either.
Everyone knew of her ordeal, and all eyes fell on her as she entered the bull pen. In any other profession Nikki would have been forced to spend the rest of the day being pestered by sympathetic coworkers milking every detail of her story out of her and pushing her to share her feelings. Not in Copland. Ochoa set the tone when she reached her desk and he sidled over, checking the wall clock. “About time you rolled in,” he said. “Some of us have been working this case.”
Raley pivoted on his office chair to face them. “I hope you have a good reason for keeping us waiting.”
Heat thought a moment and said, “I made the mistake of taking the park. The Transverse was a killer.”
Detective Ochoa had a ball of kite string in his hand. He set it on her blotter. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Old trick. Tie one end of it to your gun.” He winked and clucked his tongue.
Then the three paused five seconds, letting the silence express the friendship. Marking the end of the interval, Raley stood. “Ready to hear what we’ve got?”
“Am I ever,” said Heat. She wasn’t just seeking solace in work, Nikki now had highly personal stakes in jamming this case even harder.
Lancer Standard, the CIA contractor, had finally called Raley back to set an appointment with Lawrence Hays, who was due back tomorrow from his desert training facility in Nevada. “Weird,” he said. “His secretary said that he would only meet with you. By name, he specifically mentioned Detective Heat. I never brought you up.”
“Pushy, but it just means he’s done his homework,” said Nikki. “He’s a military type and probably wants to deal with the leader of the squad.”
Ochoa said to his partner, “Man’s busy. Can’t waste time on a loser like you.”
“Loser?” said Raley. “Partner, you are talking about the King of All Surveillance Media, now including hard drives.”
“Whatcha got, sire?” asked Nikki.
“I took another look through Father Graf’s computer and found a link to a second e-mail account that didn’t forward to his Outlook. I accessed it and found only one folder. It’s labeled ‘EMMA.’ There were no saved e-mails in it, nothing in the inbox. Either it was inactive,” Raley speculated, “or it’s been purged.”
“Call Mrs. Borelli at the rectory,” said Heat. “See if that name means anything to her.” She cast another glance at the dark office across the pen. “Any Montrose sightings?”
“Nada,” said Hinesburg, joining in as she crossed over. “And his cell is dumping to voice mail. What do you think it means?”
“Cap’s been off the charts lately, but I have to say this has me shaking my head.” Nikki recalled his warning an hour before her ambush to watch her back, and wondered if it was more than sage advice. The salacious hunger in Hinesburg’s eyes alerted Nikki that this was not the forum for thinking out loud about her boss, and she moved on. “Anything on the money in the cookie tins yet?”