Nikki decided which way to take it. “Yeah. But we’ll catch him.”
The sketch artist was waiting for them when they got to the First. So were Raley and Ochoa, who took the typewriter ribbon from Heat to run up to Forensics. Raley held up the evidence bag holding the cartridge. “Do you think this is what the Texan was looking for?”
Heat could hear that soft drawl asking, ‘Where is it?’ and the memory of it made her inner ear tickle. The columnist’s ransacked office, the missing filing cabinet, the looted trash, and absent typewriter ribbons . . . Clearly someone was trying to get their hands on whatever Cassidy Towne was working on. And she knew if he didn’t get everything he was looking for, he’d kill again.
There were only three remaining sketch artists in all for the NYPD. Nikki’s was a detective who did his sketching on a computer using software to cut and paste facial features onto the graphic he was creating. As an artist, he was fast and he was good. He asked Nikki precise questions, and when she was unsure of the most descriptive term she could use to explain some of the Texan’s features, he guided her to choices, making use of his experience and his degree in Behavioral Psychology.
The result was a portrait of a lean, groomed man with short gingery-red hair, parted on the left; narrow, alert eyes; a sharp nose; and a look made earnest by thin lips and hollow cheeks.
Heat’s sketch result was added to the sheet, with her description of the suspect: early forties, six-one, 165 to 170 . . . (muscular but lean, she thought; more Billy Bob than Billy Ray). Last seen wearing a tan sport coat with bloodstain, dress white Western shirt with pearl buttons, brown dress slacks, and brown pointed cowboy boots. Known to be carrying an eight-inch knife. From the computer database of blades, Heat was able to find a picture of his weapon, a Robbins & Dudley 3-Finger Knuckle Knife with a cast aluminum molded grip.
With that done, Rook waited in the lobby while Heat met with the shooting team from Police Plaza. The meeting didn’t take long, and she left it still carrying her gun on her hip.
Detective Nguyen had offered them each a ride home in a blue-and-white, and Rook said, “Look, I know we had plans for a drink, but I’d understand if you wanted to bag it for the night.”
“Actually . . .” She looked up at the wall clock in the lobby. It was almost nine-thirty. And then she looked at Rook. “I’m really not up for a bar tonight.”
“So, rain check? . . . Or has the fact that we cheated death made us fated to kick it out privately?”
Nikki saw she had a half-hour-old text from Don, her trainer with benefits. “Still good for tonight? Y/N?” She held the phone in her hand and then glanced up at Rook, who looked just as frayed as she must have from an evening with a killer. But the post-trauma fragility she felt wasn’t just from her throw-down with the Texan. She was still recovering from the fear throb she’d felt when she walked down the hall to Rook’s office afterward, not knowing what she would find in there.
“We could compare notes on the case so far,” he said.
She looked thoughtful. “I suppose we could do that. Take a fresh look at the evidence.”
“Do you have wine?”
“You know it.” Heat put her thumb on her keypad, pressed the N, and said to Rook, “Not your place, though. I’m not much for yellow tape and graphite dust, either.” When they reached the blue-and-white, she gave the uniform the address of her apartment, and they both got in.
Heat handed Rook a glass of Sancerre while he stood in her living room, in front of the John Singer Sargent poster he’d given her last summer. “You can’t hate me too much, you’ve still got my Sargent prominently displayed.”