It was still dark when her phone rang. The sound reached her through a depth of slumber she had to claw her way up from. She reached for her cell phone on the nightstand with sleep-?dead hands and it fell to the floor. By the time she got to it, the ringing had stopped.
She recognized the number and did a voice-?mail fetch. “Hey, it’s Ochoa. Call me right away, all right? Soon as you get this.” He vibed a breathless urgency not like him. The sweat on Nikki’s naked skin chilled when his message continued, “We found Pochenko.”
Heat Wave
SIXTEEN
Nikki was tucking in her blouse as she sailed down her front steps, raced to the cruiser, and asked the cops for a lift. They were glad to have their monotony broken and roared off with her in back.
At 5 A.M. the northbound traffic was light on the West Side Highway and they hauled ass. “I know the area, there’s no vehicle access from this direction,” Nikki told the driver. “Instead of killing time looping back from 96th, hop off at the next exit. When you get to the bottom of the ramp, I’ll get out and hoof it the rest of the way.”
The officer was still braking at the bottom of the 79th Street off-?ramp when Heat told him she was good to go. She called over her shoulder to say thanks for the ride. Soon Nikki was running under the highway, scuffing over dried pigeon droppings on her way to the river and the police lights in the distance.
Lauren Parry was working Pochenko’s body when Nikki jogged up, panting and sweaty from her sprint. “Catch your breath, Nik, he’s not going anywhere,” said the M.E. “I was ready to call about our man here, but Ochoa beat me to it.”
Detective Ochoa joined them. “Looks like this guy won’t be bothering you anymore.”
Heat circled around to look at the corpse. The big Russian was slumped to one side on a park bench facing the Hudson. It was one of those picturesque rest stops on the slope of grass between the bike path and the bank of the river. Now it was Pochenko’s final rest stop.
He had changed clothes since the night he tried to kill her. His cargo shorts and white T-?shirt looked brand-?new, which was how criminals on the run dressed, using stores as their closets. Pochenko’s outfit was right off the shelf, except it was covered in blood.
“The homeless outreach patrol found him,” said Ochoa. “They’ve been making rounds trying to get guys into the cooling shelters.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Looks like he’s gonna stay nice and cool.”
Nikki understood Ochoa’s dark humor, but seeing the body didn’t put her in a sporting mood. Whatever he had been, Vitya Pochenko was a dead human now. Any personal relief she felt about the end of his threat was just that, personal. He was now in the category of crime victim and was owed justice like anyone else. One of Nikki Heat’s talents for The Job was her ability to put her own feelings in a box and be a professional. She looked at Pochenko again and realized she was going to need a bigger box.
“What do we have?” she asked Lauren Parry.
The M.E. beckoned Nikki around behind the bench. “Single gunshot to the back of the head.”
The sky was starting to brighten, and the buttermilk light gave Nikki a clearer view of the bullet hole in Pochenko’s brush cut. “There’s muzzle burn,” she said.
“Right. So it was extremely close range. And look at his body position. Big bench, he had the whole damn thing to himself, but he’s all the way on one end.”
Heat nodded. “Someone was sitting with him. No sign of struggle?”
“None,” said the M.E.
“So it’s most likely a friend or associate to get that close.”
“Close enough for a sneak attack,” said Ochoa. “Bring it up behind, and pop.” He gestured behind them at the West Side Highway, which was already filling with morning commuters. “No witnesses, traffic noise covered the shot. Don’t see a D.O.T. cam aimed this way, either.”