When Heat came back in, the nanny was ushering Kimberly’s son out of the room. “Take Matty outside for a while, Agda. But not out front. Do you hear me? Not out front.” She pulled another tissue and dabbed her nose.
Agda stopped in the archway. “It is so hot in the park today for him.” The Scandinavian nanny was a looker and could have been Kimberly’s coed sister. A comparison that made Heat ponder the age disparity between Kimberly Starr, who she ballparked at twenty-?eight, and her dead husband, a man in his mid-?sixties. Can you say Trophy Wife, boys and girls?
Matty’s solution was the movies. The new Pixar film was out, and even though he’d seen it on its first day, he wanted to go again. Nikki made a note to take her niece to it on the weekend. That little girl loved animated movies. Almost as much as Nikki. Nothing like a niece to provide the perfect excuse to spend two hours enjoying pure innocence. Matty Starr left with an unsure wave, sensing something amiss but so far spared the news that would descend upon the little boy soon enough.
“Once again, Mrs. Starr, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, Detective.” Her voice came from a far place. She sat primly, smoothing the pleats of her sundress and then waited, immobile except for the tissue she absently twisted on her lap.
“I know this isn’t the best time, but there are some questions I’m going to need to ask.”
“I understand.” Again, the waif voice, measured, remote, and what else? Heat wondered. Yes, proper.
Heat uncapped her pen. “Were you or your son here when it happened?”
“No, thank God. We were out.” The detective made a short note and folded her hands. Kimberly waited, rolling a chunk of black onyx from her David Yurman necklace, then filled the silence. “We went to Dino-?Bites over on Amsterdam. We had frozen tar pit soup. It’s just melted chocolate ice cream with Gummysaurs. Matty loves the tar pit soup.”
Rook sat down on the toile Chippendale wing chair opposite Heat. “Do you know if anyone else was home?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She seemed to see him for the first time. “Have we met? You look familiar.”
Heat jumped in to close that flank, and fast. “Mr. Rook is a journalist. A magazine writer working with us in an unofficial capacity. Very unofficial.”
“A reporter…You’re not going to do a story about my husband, are you?”
“No. Not specifically. I’m just doing background research on this squad.”
“Good. Because my husband wouldn’t like that. He thought all reporters were assholes.”
Nikki Heat said she understood completely, but she was looking at Rook when she said it. And then she continued, “Did you notice any changes in your husband’s mood or behavior recently?”
“Matt did not kill himself, don’t even go there.” Her demure, preppy composure vaporized in a flare of anger.
“Mrs. Starr, we just want to cover all—”
“Don’t! My husband loved me and our son. He loved life. He was building a mixed-?use low-?rise with green technology, for God’s sake.” Beads of perspiration sprouted under her side-?swept bangs. “Why are you asking stupid questions when you could be looking for his killer?”
Detective Heat let her vent. She had been through enough of these to know that the composed ones had the most rage to siphon off. Or was she just recalling herself back when she was the one in The Loss Chair, nineteen years old with her world suddenly imploding around her? Had she really siphoned off all her rage, or merely clamped a lid on it?
“It’s summer, damn it, we should be in the Hamptons. This wouldn’t have happened if we were at Stormfall.” Now, that’s money. You don’t just buy an estate in East Hampton, you name it. Stormfall was beachfront, secluded, and Seinfeld-?adjacent with a partial Spielberg view. “I hate this city,” Kimberly shouted. “Hate it, hate it. What is this, like, murder number three hundred so far this year? As if they even matter to you people after a while.” She panted, apparently finished. Heat closed her notebook and circled around the coffee table to sit beside her on the sofa.
“Please hear me. I know how difficult this is.”