When she watched him leave the room, she was surprised not to feel pissed anymore. How angry could you be at somebody who acted like he cared a little?
A half hour later, she sat with Raley, screening the surveillance video from the Guilford. Detective Heat did not look pleased. “Run it again,” she said. “And let’s watch every corner of the screen. Maybe we missed a piece of them coming back later.”
“What’s wrong?” Rook arrived behind them, his breath smelling of contraband espresso.
“It’s the damn time code.” She tapped her pen on the pale gray digital clock embedded on the bottom of the surveillance video. “It shows Miric and Pochenko arriving at 10:31 A.M. They go up the elevator, right? And come back down to the lobby roughly twenty minutes later.”
“Sure puts a big hole in Miric’s statement that Starr never answered his door. Unless it was a twenty-?minute knock.”
“Ask me, the only thing that got knocked was Matthew Starr,” said Raley. “This had to be when Pochenko gave him a boxing lesson.”
“That’s not our problem, guys,” said Heat. “According to this, our two Elvises left the building at 10:53 A.M., about two and a half hours before our victim was thrown off his balcony.” She tossed her pen onto the desktop in frustration. “So our two primes get cleared by the tape.”
“And they’ve lawyered up,” added Ochoa, looking at his BlackBerry. “They’re getting sprung now.”
From outside the security door, Heat stood with Roach and looked across the processing area as Miric and Pochenko collected their property. Of course Miric was the one who had the attorney on call, and when the lawyer caught Detective Heat’s eye, he didn’t like what he saw, so he got extra busy with paperwork.
“Guess I should cancel that search warrant for torn blue jeans at their apartments,” said Raley.
“No, don’t,” said Nikki. “I know what the time code says, but what’s the harm in checking? Details, gents. You’ll never regret being thorough.” And as Pochenko spotted her, she added, “In fact, add another item to Iron Man’s search warrant. A large ring.”
When Ochoa left to get the warrant processed, she gave an assignment to Raley. “I know it’s drudgery, but I want you to screen that lobby video again from the moment those jokers left until a half hour after Starr’s time of death. And do it in real time so we’re sure we don’t skip past them at high speed.”
Raley left to do his screening. Nikki stayed to watch Miric, his lawyer, and Pochenko head for the exit. The Russian lagged and split off from the other two, crossing to Heat. A uniform shadowed him so he stopped in a safe zone, a good yard away from her. He took his time looking at her head to toe, then said in a low whisper, “Relax. You’re gonna like it.” Then, with a shrug, “Or not.”
And then he left without looking back. Nikki waited until the exit door shut with Pochenko on the other side before she went back to work.
Heat Wave
SIX
Nikki stepped into the rooftop bar of the Soho House and wondered what her friend had been thinking when she booked outdoor cocktails during a heat wave. Seven-?thirty on a weeknight in summer was too light out to feel cool and too early for any action, especially on this stretch of Ninth Avenue. In the hipper-?than-?thou meatpacking district, seven-?thirty was beyond outré. It was downright early bird.
Lauren Parry, who clearly wasn’t bothered by any of that, flagged her from her street-?view table where the canopy ended and the pool area began. “Is this too hot?” she said when Nikki arrived.
“No, this is fine.” After they hugged, she added, “Who couldn’t stand to sweat off a few pounds?”