In any other sort of profession this would be a warm moment leading to a group hug. But these were New York cops, so when Ochoa got off the phone and stood beside her, she said, “This the best you two could come up with?”
Raley, who was bent over writing, capped his marker and turned to face her, keeping an excellent straight face when he said, “Well, seeing how you let the suspect evade capture, there’s not much to work with.”
“But we all do our best,” added Ochoa. Then, for good measure, he threw in, “At least you got a piece of him before you let the yokel slip away, right?”
And that was that. Without a high five or even a fist bump, the three of them had had their say. For one it was, Thanks, guys, I owe you; for the other two it was an emphatic, Got your wing, anytime, anywhere. And then they got back to work before one of them got all misty.
Ochoa said, “That call I just got was Forensics. I’ve been all over them about the typewriter ribbon you found on the subway platform. Tests are done, they’re e-mailing the digital images right now.”
“Way to gochoa.” A poke of excitement pressed her gut at the prospect of actual evidence to examine as she moved to her computer to log on.
Rook entered with a cheery “Morning” and handed Raley a paper bag blotched with grease stains. “Sorry, all they had left was plain.”
Raley squinted at the corner of Rook’s mouth. “You got a little something. There.”
Rook touched a finger to his face and came away with a blue sprinkle embedded in some icing. “Huh. Well, I didn’t say when they ran out. Just that they had.” He ate the sprinkle and turned to Nikki, selling a bit too hard. “How are you this morning?”
She flicked only the slightest of glances up from her screen. “Busy.”
While Heat waited for the server to log her on, Ochoa said, “Remember yesterday at the ME’s, you asked me to talk to Lauren Parry about the status of Coyote Man?” She gave him one of her nickname looks and he bobbed his head side to side. “I mean, Mr. Coyote Man? . . . You were right, Padilla’s autopsy was stacked. She’s going to get on it herself first thing this morning.”
“Not so good news on the other Padilla front,” said Raley. “Our canvass of residents and businesses where his body was found turned up NG. Same for security cams.”
Rook said, “Which reminds me, have you seen today’s Ledger?”
“Ledger’s crap,” from Ochoa.
“We’ll leave that to the Pulitzer committee,” said Rook, “but check this out. About sunset last night they spotted a coyote hiding in Central Park.” He held up the front page. Nikki turned from her monitor and recognized the brazen eyes in the grainy picture of the animal peeking out of the shrubs near Belvedere Castle.
“Gotta love the headline,” said Raley, who then read it aloud, as if they all couldn’t make it out. It was only in the size font they use on the top line of an eye chart. “ ‘Coy-ote.’ ” He took the paper from Rook to examine it. “They’re always doing that, putting some kind of groaner pun with the story.”
“Hate that,” said Ochoa. “Can I have it?” Rook nodded and Raley passed him the newspaper, which he set aside for later. “Like I said, Ledger’s crap. But the price is right.”
“Here we go, boys and girls.” Detective Heat opened the attachment from Forensics. It was a huge file containing enhanced screen captures of every inch of the typewriter ribbon. Nikki read the accompanying e-mail from the lab technician aloud for the others. “ ‘In case you are not familiar with the low-tech phenomenon known as the typewriter,’ great—geek humor,” she said, and continued, “ ‘each time a key is touched, the corresponding raised metal letter on the type bar strikes the ribbon, which not only prints the letter on the page but also embosses itself on the ribbon. Each letter strike causes the ribbon to advance one space, allowing us to scan the ribbon like a reverse tickertape, reading the sequence of letters that were printed on the writer’s page.’ ”