“Think he’s helping Jess duck us?” asked Raley.
“Always possible,” said Nikki, “but I think Toby wants his Firewall about now, not to have him be MIA like this. A good indicator is that I let him try to call Jess, thinking he’d need his handler.”
“Generous of you, Detective Heat,” said Ochoa.
“In a self-serving, clever, tricky way. Thanks. Anyway, all Toby got was Ripton’s voice mail. We have someone staking out his apartment, but let’s also detail somebody else to roam on this overnight. I’ll ask Captain Montrose to pull a detective off Burglary who can keep making the rounds to Ripton’s usuals. Parking garage, his gym, his office.”
Raley said, “But don’t you think if Ripton’s trying to go off the grid, he’s too smart to go to any of those places?”
“Probably. Might be wheel-spinning, but we have to check anyway,” said Heat.
Ochoa nodded. “Man, I know somebody’s got to do it, but it sounds like a pointless exercise for some poor dude.”
Raley laughed. “Give it to Detective Schlemming.”
Roach scoffed, shook their heads, and muttered his nickname. “Defective Schlemming.”
“Sounds about his speed,” said Heat.
Ochoa’s face grew serious. “I think we ought to quit picking on Schlemming. I mean, come on, just because a guy rear-ends the mayor’s limo trying to shoo a bee out of his car is no reason to— Aw, hell, yes it is.”
“Can I tell you something?” said Raley. “All those bodies. It’s hard for me to buy Toby Mills as the contract killing type. And I’m a Mets fan.”
“Come on, partner, you ought to know one thing by now and that is that you can never know. His Yanks contract, all those endorsements? That’s millions of motives for Toby Mills to clamp a lid on that mess.”
“Or Ripton,” countered Raley. “He has a stake, too. Not just because he was the cleaner at Reed’s hotel that night, but Toby’s image is his meal ticket also. You agree, Detective?” He leaned over from the steering wheel to look across Ochoa out the side window to Heat. She was busy scrolling on her cell phone. “Detective Heat?”
“Hang on, just reading this e-mail from Hinesburg. It’s a forward from Hard Line Security of the list of the Texan’s old freelance clients.” She continued to scan and then stopped.
“Whatcha got?” said Roach.
“One of his clients? Sistah Strife.”
“Should that mean something?” asked Raley.
“It sure does. It means Rance Eugene Wolf and Jess Ripton both worked together for Sistah Strife.”
As Raley and Ochoa departed, Heat called in to elevate the search status for Jess Ripton to an APB with an alert that his known associate was a professional killer. Spent and aching from the ordeal of her day, she got into her Crown Victoria and felt her body begin to melt into the driver’s seat from fatigue. Tired as she was, she felt bad for Rook that, in his journalistic diligence, he had to miss the Toby takedown. She tried his cell phone one more time to fill him in.
The iPhone sitting on Rook’s desk sounded with Nikki Heat’s ringtone, the theme from Dragnet. The writer sat and stared at it from his chair as it continued to loop its ominous “Dum-dah-dum-dum . . . Dum-dah-dum-dum . . .” The screen header he had entered for her flashed “The Heat,” and her ID badge photo filled the screen.
But Rook didn’t answer the call. When it finally stopped ringing, a melancholy swept over him as her image faded and the screen went blank. Then he shifted uncomfortably against the duct tape lashing his wrists to the armrests.
Chapter Nineteen
“You’ve got to be one smart aleck putting something like that on your phone,” drawled the Texan.
“If you don’t like it, cut me loose and I’ll change it,” said Rook.
Jess Ripton turned from the bookcase he was searching. “Can you button it?”
“I can tape his trap if you want, Jess.”
“Then how’s he going to tell us where it is?”