Detective Hinesburg, ever sensitive and empathic, turned from her computer monitor to ask Heat if she wanted to see the online pics of Soleil’s death scene from the Web edition of the Ledger. She didn’t. Fortunately, the pictures taken by the two paparazzi at the scene hadn’t surfaced yet. They were still being reviewed by investigators as corroborative evidence of the sequence of events. No doubt the moment-of-death shot would go up for bidding and be purchased by some British or German webloid for six figures. People would shake their heads in disgust and then surf to see if they had to register to see it.
Heat looked at the board, staring at Soleil’s name, hearing the plaintive echo of her voice before her death, lamenting “that night.” She called Ochoa’s cell phone and caught him en route back to the precinct. “I’m revisiting every loose connection I have here,” she told him, “and I can’t get past the missing limo manifest for the night of Wakefield’s death.”
“I’m with you,” said Ochoa, “but it’s sort of like that last chapter. As long as it’s missing, we can only guess.”
“Tell Raley to turn that Roach Coach around. I want you guys to go back to Spanish Harlem. Talk to the family again, the coworkers again. Maybe if you ask more specifically about Reed Wakefield something will kick loose. See if Padilla was in service that night and if he confided anything about what he saw or heard, even from the other drivers.”
Ochoa paused, and Nikki was afraid he was about to offer her some sort of condolence for her ordeal by the tracks. But he sighed and said, “We’ll do it, but I have to tell you, me and my partner have had a bitch of a day today. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Yep. A gal could get misty.
It was not quite six, and Rook was sliding the strap of his messenger bag over his shoulder. “Knocking off early?” said Nikki.
“Got a text from my editor at First Press. Now that this Soleil business has kicked the story up to an international scale, they want me to file by tomorrow so they can get a rush edition into production.”
“So you’re going to go finish up the article?”
He laughed. “Hell no. I’m going to go start the article.”
“I thought that’s what you had been doing.”
“Shh.” He looked around conspiratorially and lowered his voice to a whisper. “So does my editor.” Then he added, “Call me later. If you want, you can come over for a beer or something.”
“You have a full night ahead of you, mister. You’ll be busy . . . with your toy helicopter and all. Besides, the sooner the new edition is on the newsstands, the sooner mine is off, so don’t let me slow you down.” He started to go, and as he went she said, “Hey, Rook?” He stopped. “I need to tell you how foolish you were following me like that today. First on the carrier and then with that paparazzo on the motorcycle. So first of all, never pull a stunt like that again. And second? Thanks for having my back.”
“Sorry and you’re welcome,” he said as he turned and left.
Roach waited before they got out of the car. They had cruised the block for a space, and when they passed Esteban Padilla’s old address, his cousin was just stepping out the front door. “Shall we reach out?” said Raley.
“Know what?” said his partner. “That dude’s just a buzz killer. Let’s hang back until he’s gone and see if the kid’s home. We’ll start with him.”
Twenty minutes later, Esteban Padilla’s buzz-killing cousin unlocked his front door and, as he stepped in, called out in Spanish, “Yo, Pablo, I’m back. You ready to roll?” Then he stopped short when he saw that the detectives were once again in his living room with Esteban’s teenage nephew.
“You taking some kind of trip, Victor?” asked Ochoa.
Victor gave Pablo a WTF look and the boy looked away.
“This is some nice luggage, man. Quality stuff, all brand-new. This is real Tumi, huh, not that knockoff crap.”