“I’m a cop, I am the protection.”
He read her determination to go solo and for once didn’t argue. On her drive to Midtown Nikki felt guilty for ditching him. Hadn’t he welcomed her to his poker table and given her that gift? Sure he bugged her sometimes on the ride-?alongs, but this was different. It could have been the ordeal of her night and the aching fatigue she was carrying, but it wasn’t. Whatever the hell Nikki Heat was feeling, what the feeling needed was space.
“Sorry about the mess,” said Noah Paxton. He threw the remains of his deli tossed salad into the trash can and wiped off his blotter with a napkin. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I was in the neighborhood,” said Detective Heat. She didn’t care if he knew she was lying. In her experience, dropping in on witnesses unexpectedly brought unexpected results. People with their guard down were less careful and she learned more. That afternoon she wanted a couple of things out of Noah, the first being his unguarded reaction to seeing the photo array from the Guilford again.
“Are there new pictures in here?”
“No,” she said as she dealt the last one in front of him. “You’re sure you don’t recognize any of them?” Nikki made it sound casual, but asking if he was sure put pressure on. This was about cross-?checking Kimberly’s reason he hadn’t identified Miric. As he had the day before, Paxton gave a slow and methodical pass over each shot and said he still didn’t recognize any of them.
She took away all the photos but two: Miric and Pochenko. “What about these. Anything?”
He shrugged and shook no. “Sorry. Who are they?”
“These two are interesting, that’s all.” Detective Heat was in the business of getting answers, not giving them, unless there was an advantage. “I also wanted to ask you about Matthew’s gambling. How did he pay for that?”
“With cash.”
“Money you gave him?”
“His money, yes.”
“And when he went in the hole to bookmakers, how did that get repaid?”
“Same way, with cash.”
“Would they come to you for it, the bookies, I mean?”
“Oh, hell no. I told Matthew, if he chose to deal with that level of person, that’s his business. I didn’t want them coming here.” He shivered for emphasis. “No thanks.” She’d back-?doored him but had her answer. Kimberly’s reason the money man didn’t know the bookie checked.
Heat then asked him about Morgan Donnelly, the woman whose name Kimberly had given her. She of the intercepted love letter. Paxton verified Donnelly had worked there and was their top marketing executive. He also verified that the two had a hidden office affair that was hidden to no one and described at great length how the staff would refer to Matthew and Morgan as “Mm…” Morgan earned a few nicknames of her own, he said. “The two that won the office pool were Top Performer and Chief Asset.”
“One more piece of business and I’ll get out of your hair. I got the report this morning from the forensic accountants.” She took the file out of her bag and watched his brow fall. “They told me you were no Bernie Madoff, which is, I guess, what we needed to make sure of.”
“Makes sense.” Quite nonchalant, but the detective knew guilt when she saw it, and it was clinging to his face.
“There was one irregularity in your accounting.” She handed him the page with the spreadsheet and summary and watched him tense. “Well?”
He put the page down. “My attorney would advise me not to answer.”