“They’re lying.” He gave her a eureka look. “Or they have an inside source. Maybe a mole at First Press. I’ll bet that’s it.”
Wally Irons interrupted, joining them at the window. “Talk about a travesty.” He shook his head. “I put my face out there in public, and now this? Makes me look like a dumbshit.”
“Sir, nobody’s unhappier about this than I am,” said Heat, “but it’s just a setback. It’s an OR release. We still have a case.”
“Yeah? Sounds like you’d better start plugging holes. Beginning with asking your boyfriend to excuse himself from the precinct premises.” The captain left on that note, retreating to his office so he wouldn’t have to deal with Rook himself.
“Did he just throw me out of here?”
Heat witnessed a brisk round of handshakes between Gilbert and his Dream Team as they paraded out. Then she turned to Rook. “Probably best for all concerned.”
“What?” His head whipped to her. “Did you really just say that?”
“It’s orders, Rook.”
“But I can help. Especially now that this has blown up.”
“You’ve already done plenty for one day.”
“Nikki, are you saying you don’t believe me?”
Angry and disheartened as she felt, Heat knew better than to take it that far. “I’m saying my commander has asked you to go. We’ll sort the rest out later.”
He gave Nikki a pained look. Disappointment, it seemed, was a team sport.
The first call Heat returned when she got back to her desk was to Lauren Parry. “Bad news up top,” said the medical examiner. “Forensics can’t verify the bites on Beauvais’s trousers as any breed or specific dog. They’d been laundered and there was no dog hair or DNA. But I also had the lab study the abrasive indentations on Jeanne Capois’s wrists. They were absolutely consistent with the disposable zip-tie handcuffs found near the planetarium following Fabian Beauvais’s crash.
“Got something else that’s interesting,” said her friend. “Under the victim’s fingernails we found the usual defensive residue of human skin from scratching her assailant or assailants. Got it all tubed and tagged for DNA potential matches.”
“Let’s hope,” said Nikki. Lauren kept it clinical when she talked about normal defensive residue, but Heat found it difficult to remain detached. All she could envision was a woman brutally hauled behind some trash cans clawing against hope to survive.
“We also found some unusual fibers.” Nikki scrawled in her notepad as Dr. Parry continued. “Both under her fingernails and, as Forensics found, snagged on the clasp of her watchband, we’ve got black fibers of ripstop nylon mixed with spandex. Nikki, these suggest the kind of materials you find in police uniforms. Most especially, police tactical uniforms.”
“You mean like from ESU or SWAT?”
“Inconclusive, of course. We’re going to do some more testing on these, but I wanted to give you the preview.”
And with that short phone call another puzzle piece landed on Heat’s table—an orphan with no place for her to fit it. Why would Jeanne Capois’s attacker be wearing a tactical uniform? Was this about something that was going on with her or her boyfriend, Fabian Beauvais? Or both? The two guys Nikki chased from the SRO had a military demeanor. But how did that profile connect to Keith Gilbert beyond a Port Authority car they had been seen using? It seemed the more information Heat got, the more it muddied her thinking, rather than clarifying it. The only thing Nikki could be certain of was that a guy falling from an airplane was complicated enough. And this went deeper than that. What was the context here? Heat didn’t have it yet, but, as Rook would say, there was a story to be told. Figure out the story, figure out the murderer.
She decided it was time to fill in some blanks.