Nikki closed Ochoa’s file and looked at the clock. She could text her boss, but he might not see it. Like if he was sleeping. Drumming her fingers on the phone was only making it later, so she punched his number. On the fourth ring Heat cleared her throat, preparing to leave a voice mail, but Montrose picked up. His hello was not sleepy and she could hear the TV blasting the weather forecast. “Hope it’s not too late to call, Captain.”
“If it is too late, it’s too late to hope. What’s up?”
“I came in to screen that surveillance cam video from the Guilford and it’s not here yet. Do you know where it is?”
Her boss covered the phone and said something muffled to his wife. When he came back to Nikki, the TV sound was off. He said, “I got a call tonight during dinner from the attorney representing their residents board. This is a building with wealthy tenants sensitive about privacy issues.”
“Do they have issues with their fellow tenants hurtling past their windows?”
“You trying to convince me? For them to give it up it will take a court order. I’m looking at the clock and thinking we’ll wait to find a judge to issue one in the morning.” He heard her sigh because she made sure he did. Heat couldn’t stand effectively losing another day waiting for a court order. “Nikki, get some sleep,” he said with his usual gentle touch. “We’ll get it for you sometime tomorrow.”
Of course the skipper was right. Waking a judge to cut a warrant was capital you spent on high-?priority matters against a ticking clock. To most judges this was just another homicide, and she knew better than to push Captain Montrose to squander a chip like that. So she switched her desk lamp off.
Then she switched it back on. Rook was pals with a judge. Horace Simpson was a poker pal at the weekly game she always ducked when Rook invited her. Simpson was not as sexy a name drop as Jagger, but last she heard, none of the Stones was issuing warrants.
But hang on, she thought. Eager was one thing, owing a favor to Jameson Rook was another. And besides, she had overheard him boasting to Roach he had a dinner date with that groupie in the halter who crashed Nikki’s crime scene. At this hour, Heat might be interrupting the application of his autograph to a new and more exciting body part.
So she picked up the phone and dialed Rook’s cell.
“Heat,” he said with no surprise. It was more a shout-?out, like on Cheers when they’d holler, “Norm!” She listened for background noise, but why? Did she expect Kenny G and a champagne cork?
“Is this a bad time?”
“The caller ID says you’re at the precinct.” Evasion. Writer Monkey wasn’t answering her question. Maybe if she threatened the Zoo Lockup.
“A cop’s work is never done, and all that. Are you writing?”
“I’m in a town car. Just had an awesome meal at Balthazar.” Then silence. She had called to screw with him, how did her head end up being the one messed with?
“You can give me your Zagat rating some other time, this is a business call,” she told him, even as she wondered if his halter groupie knew not to wear cutoff jeans to a bistro, SoHo hip or otherwise. “I called to tell you don’t come in for the morning meeting. It’s off.”
“Off? That’s a first.”
“The plan was for us to prep for a sit-?down with Kimberly Starr tomorrow morning. That meeting’s in question now.”
Rook sounded beautifully alarmed. “How come? We need to get with her.” She loved the urgency in his voice more than she felt guilty for playing him.
“The whole reason to see her is to screen surveillance pictures from the Guilford yesterday, but I can’t get access to the surveillance tape without a warrant, and good luck reaching a judge tonight.” Heat envisioned underwater video of a big mouth bass opening wide for the miracle lure on one of those sport fishing infomercials she saw too many of on her sleepless nights.
“I know a judge.”
“Forget it.”