“Yes.”
Heat suppressed a lilt of excitement. The Port Authority commissioner had bent over with his elbows on his thighs and practically had his chin on the table while his hit man sang. She tamped down the thrill because she wasn’t there yet; there were still details—vital stuff—that were necessary to get on record to lock the case down. If that worked, there’d be ample time to do a happy dance.
“How did you come to kill Fabian Beauvais.”
“Can I tell you a funny thing? That was an accident.” Zarek laughed alone. “OK, not so funny he died, but I was meant to kill him later.”
“Mr. Braun,” said Heat, “how did you come to kill Fabian Beauvais?”
“I had him at my hide.”
“Up in the Bronx?”
“That place, yes. I needed to find out who else knew about this blackmail, this, how you say…extortion information. I worked on him good. But he was stubborn. I thought fuck it. I knew Mr. Gilbert flew in from Southampton on his helicopter, so I had the pilot pick me up after it dropped him off for his speech. So the chopper picked us up in Crotona Park near my place, and I took the bastard for a little thrill ride to loosen his tongue.” He paused, sharing a brief, knowing look to Hays. “It is a legitimate technique of interrogation.”
Heat had an idea, but needed it said. “Describe it.”
“It is a terrifying thing to behold a potential fall from great heights. Men talk. They always do. Beauvais talked. He fought hard, very hard. But he gave up this fiancée. The maid on West End Avenue.” Nikki’s heart clinched at imagining Fabian’s anguish at giving up his lover in terror, and of the indelible picture of Jeanne Capois at her murder scene as a result.
“After the Haitian talked, I brought him in the hatch. The plan was to drop him over the ocean, past the Rockaways. But he still had fight. His hands were zip tied, but he tried to butt my head. I smacked him. A little too hard, huh? Out he went.”
And then came the shared thought of the detectives and Rook. Each one rerunning the tourist video taken outside the planetarium that had captured Beauvais’s plummet into the glass.
Rook said, “I thought there was no reported copter traffic that morning.”
“Only police and government,” said Ochoa, who directed himself to Gilbert. “Government chopper. Son of a bitch.…”
Nikki steered Zarek Braun back on track. “So Fabian Beauvais’s information led you to the home invasion? You and your guys did that, too?”
“Completing the assignment, lady.”
“Even if it meant killing an old man?”
“Shit happens.”
“And why did you torture Jeanne? Why not just kill her?”
“Because her boy gave up that she was talking to some filmmaker. The maid cashed out before we got a name or address.”
“So you followed me to Chelsea,” said Nikki.
“Where you killed my two best men.”
“Shit happens.”
Nikki took a moment to run everything in her head. She’d been through this once before with unhappy results. Satisfied, she stood and surveyed her people: Raley, Ochoa, Feller, Rhymer, and finally, Rook. She wordlessly checked them for assent. They all gave her good-to-go nods.
“Stand up, please,” she said when she reached the head of the table.
This time, as Detective Heat read off the charges for his arrest, Commissioner Keith Gilbert, billionaire, power broker, senatorial hopeful, and golf buddy with the mayor, did not bite back. Like Hurricane Sandy, his bluster, too, had become a spent force. This time he knew Heat had nailed him.