“Immediately following disposition of assault case, subj. left US to freelance in Europe. Current information ends there. Will maintain database search and contact Interpol. Will apprise as new info avail.”
Rook finished reading a full minute after Heat did because he wasn’t as adept at the police jargon and abbreviations as the detective—but he certainly understood the significance. “This guy made his career working with celebrities and VIP clients. Someone is paying him to cover something up.”
“No matter what it takes,” Nikki said.
Heat immediately made copies of the dispatch and fast-tracked their circulation both in the squad and in the usual places out in the field, including ERs and other medical facilities, like the ones Roach had canvassed the morning after the Texan’s escape. She also assigned detectives to recontact previously interviewed witnesses to see if they recognized him now that they had a picture, not just a sketch.
Nikki also spent some time back at the murder board, studying all the names on it. Rook came up behind her and voiced her thoughts. “Time line isn’t your friend so much now, is it?”
“No,” she said. “Case has been bending the other way for the last thirty-six hours, but now it’s pointing in a different direction. With a pro killer on this level we’re off alibis and totally onto motives.” She tacked up the color photo of Rance Eugene Wolf beside the sketch and stepped away from the whiteboard. “Saddle up. I want to revisit some of these myself,” she told Rook.
“You mean the dog walker I heard was such a fan, Miss Heat?”
“No, definitely not that one.” And on the way out, she paused at the door and said in a British accent, “The adulation. Sometimes it bores me so.”
Cassidy Towne’s nosy neighbor was easy to find. Mr. Galway was at his usual post on West 78th, in front of his town house grinding his teeth at the rising wall of uncollected garbage. “Can’t you police do something?” he said to Nikki. “This strike is threatening the health and safety of the citizens of this city. Can’t you arrest someone?”
“Who?” asked Rook. “The union or the mayor?”
“Both,” he snapped. “And you can go in the clink with them for having such a smart mouth.”
The old fossil said he never saw the guy in the picture, but asked to keep it in case he showed up again. Back in the car, Rook suggested that Rance Eugene Wolf would have done them all a favor if he had just gone to the wrong address, which earned an arm swat from Nikki.
Chester Ludlow said he had never seen Wolf before, either. Ensconced at his usual corner in the Milmar Club, he didn’t even seem to want to touch the photo, let alone keep it. The duration of his observation of the picture barely qualified as a glance.
Heat said, “I think you should take another, more careful look, Mr. Ludlow.”
“You know, I preferred when people still called me ‘Congressman’ Ludlow. With that form of address, they very seldom told me what I could and couldn’t do.”
“Or, apparently, who,” said Rook.
Ludlow narrowed his eyes at him and then smiled thinly. “I see you still roam Manhattan without neckwear.”
“Maybe I like borrowed ties. Maybe I like the way they smell.”
“I’m not ordering you to do anything, sir.” Nikki paused to let him enjoy her white lie of respect. “You did say you retained a private security firm to gather information on Cassidy Towne. Well, this man worked for such a firm, and I would like to know if you ever saw him.”
The disgraced politician sighed and took a longer look at Wolf’s ID shot. “The answer’s the same.”
“Have you ever heard the name Rance Wolf?”
“No.”
“Maybe he had another name?” she asked. “Talked with a Texas drawl, soft-spoken?”
“No. Y’all.”
Nikki took back the photo he was holding out to her. “Did you employ a firm called Hard Line Security for your inquiry?”