“Research. He did focus groups to see what name people trusted that went with his looks. So what if I changed mine, too? BFD, ya know?”
Detective Heat decided she had gotten as much as she was going to get out of this line of questions and was happy at least to have a fresh alibi to check. She took out her photo array. As she began to lay down the pictures and tell her to take her time, Kimberly interrupted her on the third shot.
“This man here. I know him. That’s Miric.”
Nikki felt the tingle she got when a domino was tipping, ready to fall. “And how do you know him?”
“He was Matt’s bookie.”
“Is Miric a first or last name?”
“You’re all about names today, aren’t you?”
“Kimberly, he might have killed your husband.”
“I don’t know which name. He was just Miric. Polish dude, I think. Not sure.”
Nikki had her examine the rest of the array, without any other hits. “And you’re positive your husband placed bets with this man.”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be sure of that?”
“When Noah Paxton looked at these pictures, he didn’t recognize him. If he’s paying the bills, wouldn’t he know him?”
“Noah? He refused to deal with the bookmaking. He had to give Matthew the cash but looked the other way.” Kimberly said she didn’t know Miric’s address or phone number. “No, I only saw him when he came to the door or showed up at a restaurant.”
The detective would double-?check Starr’s desk and personal diary or his BlackBerry for some coded entry or recent call list. But a name and face and occupation was a good start.
As she squared her stack of photos to put away, she told Kimberly she had thought she didn’t know about her husband’s gambling.
“Come on, a wife knows. Just like I knew about his women. Do you want to know how much Flagyl I took in the last six years?”
No, Nikki did not care to know. But she did ask her for any names she recalled of her husband’s past lovers. Kimberly said most of them seemed casual, a few one-?nighters and weekends at casinos, and she didn’t know their names. Only one got serious, and that was with a young marketing executive on his staff, an affair that lasted six months and ended about three years ago, after which the executive left the company. Kimberly gave Nikki the woman’s name and got her address off a love letter she had intercepted. “You can keep that if you want. I only held onto it in case we got divorced and I needed to squeeze his balls.” With that, Nikki left her to grieve.
They found Roach waiting for them in the lobby. Both had their coats off, and Raley’s shirt was soaked through again. “You’ve got to start wearing undershirts, Raley,” said Heat as she walked up.
“And how about switching to an Oxford?” added Ochoa. “Those polyester things you’re wearing go see-?through when you sweat.”
“Turning you on, Ochoa?” asked Raley.
His partner jabbed back. “Much like your shirt, you see right through me.”
Roach reported the same hit off the photo array when they showed it to the doorman. “We had to sort of pry it out of him,” said Ochoa. “Doorman was a little embarrassed Miric slipped into the building. These guys always call up to the apartment before letting anybody in. He said he was taking a leak in the alley and must have missed him. But he did catch him coming out.” Quoting from notes, the doorman described Miric as a “scrawny little ferret” who came by to see Mr. Starr from time to time but whose visits had become more frequent over the past two weeks.