Raley joined the circle. “I made contact with Kimberly Starr on her cell phone up in Connecticut. She said the city was suffocating so she and her son spent the night at a friend’s summer cottage in Westport. Some place called Compo Beach.”
“Alibi that, OK?” said Heat. “In fact, we’re going to split the list of everyone we’ve interviewed for the homicide and alibi-?check all of them. And be sure to include that relief doorman who missed his shift last night.” Nikki crossed that item off her pad and turned back to Raley. “How did she react to the burglary?”
“Freaked. I’m still waiting for the hearing to return to this ear. But like you told me, I didn’t say what got taken, just that there was a break-?in during the blackout.” He said Mrs. Starr was hiring a car service to bring her to the Guilford and that she would call when she was near so they could meet her there.
“Good going, Rales,” said Heat. “I want one of us to be there when she sees it.”
“Whoever it is, take earplugs,” he said.
“Maybe she won’t be so upset,” said Rook. “I assume the collection was insured.”
“I have a call in to Noah Paxton right now,” said Nikki.
“Well, assuming it was, she might be happy about this. Although, with all her face work, I don’t know how you’ll be able to tell.”
Ochoa confirmed what they suspected, that there was no security video of the burglary because of the blackout. But, he said, Gunther, Francis, and their team from Burglary were still knocking on doors at the Guilford. “Hopefully, it won’t be an infringement on anybody’s privacy issues to ask a few questions, what with bodies flying by their windows and sixty million bucks’ worth of art getting hauled out of their building.”
Detective Heat didn’t want to take a chance Kimberly Starr would get to her apartment before she did, so she and Rook went there to wait at the perennial crime scene. “You know,” said Rook as they entered the living room again, “she should just keep a supply of yellow tape on hand in the hall closet.”
Nikki had another reason for arriving early. The detective wanted to have some face time with the Forensics geeks, who never seemed to mind conversation with actual people. Even if they always stared at her chest. She found the one she wanted to talk to on his knees, tweezing something usable off the living room rug. “Find your contact lens?” she said.
He turned to look up at her. “I wear glasses.”
“That was a joke.”
“Oh.” He stood up and stared at her chest.
“I noticed you worked the homicide here a few days ago.”
“You did?”
“I did…Tim.” The techie’s face pinked around his freckles. “And I’ve been wondering something maybe you can answer for me.”
“Sure.”
“It’s about access to the apartment. Specifically, could someone have gained entry by the fire escape?”
“On that, I can answer empirically. No.”
“You sound so certain.”
“Because I am.” Tim led Nikki and Rook to the bedroom hall, where the fire escape met a pair of windows. “It’s standard to examine all possible points of entry. See here? It’s a code violation, but these windows are painted shut, and have been for years. I can tell you how many years if you want me to run it in the lab, but for our purposes, say during the past week, there’s no way these have been opened.”
Nikki leaned in to the window frame, just to check for herself. “You’re right.”
“I like to think science isn’t about right, it’s about thorough.”
“Well said.” Nikki nodded. “And did you dust for prints?”
“No, it seemed unproductive given that it couldn’t be opened.”
“I mean on the outside. In case somebody trying to get in didn’t know that.”
The technician’s jaw fell and he looked at the window glass. Whatever pink was in his cheeks bled out, and Tim, with his face of freckles, looked positively lunar.
Nikki’s cell phone vibrated, and she stepped away to take the call. It was Noah Paxton. “Thanks for getting back to me.”