Nikki had already told him just before strip Proust that there had been tension with Montrose, but this time she told him the details. She shared the unsettling suspicions that arose in her beyond the captain oddly showing up at Graf’s the night he was killed: how he obstructed her case in every way, plus the blood on the priest’s collar that coincided with the bandage on his finger. And then there was the baffling recurrence of TENS burns . . . on Graf, on the male dancer, and on a victim in an old murder case Montrose had worked when he was a Detective-1.
Rook listened intently without interruption, interested in her story but more eager to let her download and relieve the pain she bore. When Nikki finished, he asked, “The suspicions you had, did you share them with anybody? Internal Affairs? Your new friends downtown?”
“No, because they were only, you know, circumstantial. He was in a world of hurt already. You open that lid, it’s Pandora’s Box.” Her lower lip quivered and she bit on it. “I opened the door a crack about it with him this morning. He kind of boxed me into it, and let me tell you, it hurt him. It really hurt him.” She tilted her head back and squinted, refusing to let herself cry, then continued, “I’m ashamed to admit it now, but there was a part of me, this morning in the park . . . ?”
He knew where she was going. “You wondered if he could have been part of it?”
“Only for a second, a second I hate myself for, but he gave me this warning at the end of our meeting. It had to cross my mind.”
“Nikki, there’s nothing wrong with thinking things. Especially in your work, come on, it’s what you do.”
Her head bobbed in acceptance and she forced a thin smile.
“Did you ever get an ID on your attacker, the Human Popsicle?”
“You are a sick man, Jameson Rook.”
He bowed theatrically. “Thank you, thank you.”
Then Heat told him about Sergio Torres. How his rap sheet was the legacy of an ordinary gang banger but he was trained like a soldier.
“I don’t get it,” said Rook. “How does a mundane metropolitan miscreant master menacing military methods and maneuvers? Mystifying.”
“. . . Yeah . . .” Nikki cocked an eye at him. “I was sort of thinking the same thing . . .”
“Have you looked into whether he was connected to the Mara Salvatrucha gang? The MS 13s supposedly called a hit on all NYPD cops about a year ago,” he said. “And, breaking news from my recent arms trip, the cartels are giving paramilitary training to MS 13 gangsters to fight their drug war in Mexico.”
“I’ll check that out tomorrow.” She slid off the bar stool and excused herself. A few seconds after she disappeared down the hall, she called out, “Rook? Rook, come here.”
When he reached the bathroom, she was standing near the window. “Have you been in here since you got here?”
“I think the answer is evident in the lowered toilet seat. No.”
“Look at this.” She stepped to the side, indicating water drops from melted ice dotting the windowsill. She pointed to the latch. It was unlocked. “I always lock that.” She grabbed a flashlight from the cabinet under the sink and shined it on the latch. A minute abrasion in the brass tongue gleamed where it had been jimmied. It was nothing Nikki would have noticed had it not been for the droplets.
Together they made a survey of the apartment. Nobody was hiding and nothing was missing or out of place. Mindful of the careful snoop somebody had performed at the rectory, Heat took extra care to notice the little things. Nothing was disturbed. “You must have scared him off when you came in, Rook.”
“Ya know, my days of droppin’ in unannounced may be over.”
They locked up and went downstairs to tell The Discourager, who was parked across the street. “Want me to call it in?”
“Thanks, Harvey, but I’ll do it in the morning.” The last thing she wanted then was an evening of bright lights and forensic dusting. It wouldn’t kill Rook and her to use the other bathroom for one night. “Just wanted to give you the heads-up.”
Rook said, “Hey, Harvey, don’t you ever sleep?”
The veteran cop looked at Heat. “Not after today, I don’t.”
* * *