Finally, someone picked up. “Hi, it’s Detective Heat at the Two-?Oh. I want to arrange for transport of a prisoner you’re holding. His name’s Buckley, Gerald Buckley…. Yeah, I’ll hold.”
While she was waiting, Rook said, “Aren’t you beating a dead horse? That guy’s not going to tell you anything. Especially with that ambulance chaser of his.”
Nikki beamed a smug grin. “Ah, but that was yesterday in Interrogation. Today, we’re going to stage a little theater.”
“What kind of theater?”
“A play. As in,” she switched to an Elizabethan accent, “‘The play’s the thing, Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.’” Then she added, “That would be Buckley.”
“You really wanted to be an actress, didn’t you?”
“Maybe I am,” said Nikki. “Come along and see.”
Heat, Roach, and Rook were waiting in the hallway at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Kips Bay when the corrections officers delivered Gerald Buckley with his attorney in tow.
Nikki looked him up and down. “Coveralls flatter you, Mr. Buckley. Rikers all it’s cracked up to be?”
Buckley turned his head away from Heat the way dogs do when they’re pretending they didn’t deliver the nearby turd to the new carpet. His lawyer stepped between them. “I’ve advised my client not to answer any further questions. If you have a case, bring it. But no more interviews unless you have lots of time to waste.”
“Thanks, Counselor. This isn’t going to be an interview.”
“No interview?”
“That’s right.” The detective waited as his lawyer and Buckley traded confused looks, then she said, “Step this way.”
Nikki led the entourage, Buckley, his lawyer, Roach, and Rook, into the autopsy room where Lauren Parry stood beside a stainless table with a sheet over it.
“Hey, what are we doing in here?” said Buckley.
“Gerald,” said the lawyer, and he pursed his lips. Then she turned to Nikki. “What are we doing in here?”
“They pay you to do that? Repeat what he says?”
“I demand to know why you dragged my client down here to this place.”
Nikki smiled. “We have a body that needs identification. I believe Mr. Buckley may be able to provide it.”
Buckley leaned toward his attorney’s ear and got as far as muttering, “I don’t wanna see any—” when Heat signaled Lauren Parry, who whipped the sheet off the table and revealed the corpse.
Vitya Pochenko’s body was still clothed as they had found him. Nikki had phoned ahead to debate the subject with her friend, who felt that naked-?for-?the-?autopsy was an impactful display that was tough to beat. Heat managed to persuade her that the Great Lake of dried blood on his white T-?shirt told a better story, and so that was the presentation the M.E. made.
The Russian lay on his back, eyes left open to make the maximum impression, the irises fully dilated, leaving only pupil, the effect exhibiting the darkest window to his soul. All color was gone from his face except for blotches of deep empurplement near one jaw, where gravity had pooled blood in the direction of his bench slump. Then there was that gruesome butterscotch and salmon burn welt covering one side of his face.
Nikki watched the color drain from Gerald Buckley’s cheeks and lips until he was only about two hardware-?store paint chips from matching Pochenko.
“Detective Heat, if I may interrupt,” said Lauren, “I may have a determination on the caliber of the weapon.”