While Raley dug out and loaded the surveillance video, Heat made her usual phone and computer rounds to check petty thefts, assaults, and ATM robberies to see if the latest reports lit up any Pochenko radar for her. There had been no sign of him since his drugstore grab. A friend of Nikki’s, an undercover vice cop who was tapped into the Russian neighborhoods in Brighton Beach, had come up with nothing, either. Heat told herself these compulsive checks were good detective work, so much of success was just donkey-?level diligence. But in her true heart she just didn’t like the idea that there was a dangerous man out there who’d made it personal with her and slipped off the grid. This challenged Detective Heat’s cherished ability to separate herself from the emotional aspects of her work on a case. After all, she was supposed to be the cop, not the victim. Nikki allowed herself her momentary trespass onto the turf of the fully human and then got back on the path.
Where did he go? A man like that, big and obvious, injured, on the run, cut off from his apartment, would have to convert into scavenger mode at some point. Unless he had a support system and/or money stashed, his presence should be felt somewhere. Maybe he had those things. Maybe. It didn’t feel right. She hung up her last call and stared out of focus at nothing.
“Maybe he got on one of those reality shows where they sequester the competitors on some desert island to eat bugs and berate each other,” said Rook. “You know, like I’m a Mouth-?Breathing Killer, Get Me Outta Here.”
“Black with one Equal, right?” Nikki set a coffee down on Raley’s desk.
“Oh…thanks, yeah, appreciate it.” Raley scanned forward in the surveillance video of the Guilford lobby. “Unless that means I’m pulling another all-?nighter on this.”
“No, this won’t take long. Roll up to Miric and Pochenko and slow it down for me.” Raley had plenty of experience with this section and found the exact spot where they came in from the street. “OK, when you hit just Pochenko, stop there.”
Raley froze the picture and manipulated it to zoom in on the Russian’s face. “What are we looking for?”
“Not that,” she said.
“But you wanted to stop on this frame.”
“That’s right. And what have we been doing? Focusing only on his face for the ID array, right?”
Raley looked at her and smiled. “Ah, I getcha.” He pulled out from the zoom of Pochenko’s face and reconfigured the shot.
Nikki liked what he was going for. “Exactly, there you go. Rales, you catch on quick. Keep this up, I’m going to let you screen all the surveillance vid from now on.”
“You’ve seen through my plan to become the precinct video czar.” He moused over to the other part of the freeze frame and worked a drag and zoom. When he had what he wanted, he sat back and said, “How’s that?”
“No more calls, please. We have a winner.”
Filling the computer screen was Pochenko’s hand. And on it, a not-?bad shot of his hexagonal ring, the same one Lauren had shown her at the impound. “Do a save and print that for me, Czar Raley.”
Minutes later, Heat added the shot of Pochenko’s ring to the gallery that was growing on the whiteboard. Rook stood leaning against the wall, taking it in, and raised his hand. “Am I allowed to ask a question?”
“Rook, I’ll take a question over one of your open-?mic-?night comedy attempts any day.”
“I’ll mark that down as a yes.” He stepped up to the board and pointed to the autopsy shots of Matthew Starr’s torso. “What exactly was it your M.E. ghoul friend said about the punch bruises and the ring?”
“She has a name, it’s Lauren, and she said all of the bruises on the torso had the telltale ring mark except one. Have a look.” She indicated each. “Bruises with the ring: Here, here, here, and here.”
Rook pointed to one of the bruises. “But this one here, one punch, same hand, no ring mark.”
“Maybe he took it off,” said Nikki.
“Pardon me, ah, Detective, who’s the speculator here?” Nikki shook her head. She hated it that he was so cute. Sort of hated it. He continued. “Pochenko had the ring on when he and Miric came by to ‘encourage’ Starr to pay up his debt, right?” Rook shadowboxed. “Boom, boom, and boom. Get Raley to rack up that video again and I’ll bet you anything Pochenko’s still wearing the ring on his way out.”
Heat called across the room. “Raley?”
Raley answered, “I hate you,” and reloaded the video to check.
“After they go, the art appraiser comes for her meeting and leaves. My speculation is this,” said Rook. “This bruise here, the one without the mark, came later, when Pochenko returned in the afternoon to kill Matthew Starr. Pochenko didn’t have the ring on then because he lost it in the car fight when he was strangling Barbara Deerfield.”