The moment she hung up, Rook came up behind her and startled her. “Who the hell ground decaf in this when I was gone? Smell.” He held out his coffee grinder. “What did The Hammer say about your IAB tail?”
Nikki mulled their conversation of the night before about Rook’s travel absences—then thought about the ring receipt—and punted. No sense making waves right then. “You know him. Double-talk. He says it was just some Internal Affairs zealots getting out of hand. You know how those men in black are.” Before Rook could question her further, she gave the grinder a cursory sniff. “Want me to dust it for prints?”
“‘Unity Makes Strength,’” translated Rook to the squad as Heat posted a hard copy of the tattoo JPEG on the Murder Board. Hearing him say those words made it difficult for her to meet his face when she turned to continue her briefing. But she did, and the corners of his eyes crinkled from that smile that made her heart skip again. And then flutter once more from the pair of secrets she held: the job offer that threatened to make her the globe-trotter for a change and finding the engagement ring receipt in his Simple Human trash can. Neither was so simple to Nikki.
Just before the meeting, Rook had cornered her in the break room, telling her that they needed some Us Time and asking how she felt about canoodling in their favorite booth at Bouley that night at nine o’clock. Her bobblehead nodding felt stupid and inadequate, so she’d said yes loud enough to turn heads in the hallway. “I’ll take that as a yes!” he’d bellowed back, then inhaled deeply. “Mm, Bouley. I can already smell the wall of apples in the vestibule.”
Randall Feller got a text, jogged out of the meeting, and returned in less than a minute holding a cellophane evidence bag. “Look what CSU found.” He lofted it like an auction item on his way up front to hand it to Heat. “A nylon zip tie. Those of us who’ve worked crowd control and riot duty will recognize this puppy as a double-cuff disposable wrist restraint. And it’s got blood on it.”
“Where’d they make the find?” asked Nikki.
“Food cart vendor who works Eighty-first and Central Park West reported it. Apparently, the bloody zip tie landed in his chestnuts.”
“Schproing,” said Ochoa, kicking off the inevitable gallows laughs.
Rook joined in with, “I can eat around the nylon, but is blood gluten free?”
Heat didn’t have to settle them down. Detective Raley accomplished that by observing the wrist restraints would explain why the victim’s hands were tucked behind him when he crashed into the planetarium. The room grew very still indeed.
“Gentlemen, I believe we are leaving the realm of accidental death as a possibility,” said Heat as she block printed WRIST RESTRAINTS on the whiteboard.
While Feller stepped out to get the evidence bag to Forensics for labbing, Rhymer reported no missing persons hits yet, even though he’d been checking in hourly with all the agencies. Detective Ochoa had met with similar dead ends on the aviation front. He said he contacted all the local airfields for lists of takeoffs and landings, then followed up with the pilots, and tower personnel, none of whom reported any unusual activity, visually or over the radio. The only aircraft over the area during that time were radio station traffic, government, and police helicopters.
“What about the tourist choppers?” asked Rhymer.
“All grounded. Low ceiling, no customers.”
A lull of contemplation ended with Ochoa saying, “Come on, Rook, let’s hear it. Close Encounters castaway? Rocket pack malfunction? Bring it.”
But Rook remained pensive. “Sorry to disappoint, but I know as well as you do, it’s going to be tough to speculate on a means, let alone a motive, without knowing who our victim is.”
“Buzz killer,” said Raley. “I was kind of hoping for more, you know, Rook signature whack theories.”