“Whoa,” said Rook. “Was that Dodge City or Queensboro Plaza?”
“Again,” was all Nikki could muster. She’d been too unsettled by the first play to study it and wanted a more clinical look. In the second screening she focused on detail. Beauvais carried something under an arm; a light-colored bag or, perhaps, a manila envelope. She’d missed that before. He had on a different shirt than the still photo from the ATM, suggesting it was a different day. The two running him down were also dressed differently. The way the shooter drew and fired: pulling the piece from his waistband; holding the pistol flat, like a John Woo gangster; and hurrying his rounds, told her he wasn’t police or service trained. Sideways shots look sexy and work for speed in close quarters, but, especially for a moving target gaining distance, department trainers drilled Heat’s cadet class to take the time to cup and brace: stabilize, sight, squeeze. This wasn’t an idle observation. It told her these guys were not part of the professional group that went after her the night before.
She didn’t need to ask for a replay. Rook said, “One more,” and rolled it again. The impression Nikki got on this viewing was that Beauvais clutched the bag or envelope under his arm like it mattered. You want to lose time in a footrace? Carry something. He was running for his life but wouldn’t give up his package for speed.
After it timed out, Rook sat back on his barstool and folded his arms, watching her. He didn’t say anything, but his manner felt the same as outside the loading dock the night before when Irons asked her if she thought her attack was related to Gilbert. Then, as now, he remained silent but acted like a horse pawing the stable floor when it smelled smoke. Nikki picked up her coffee mug. It felt cold in her palm so she replaced it beside her phone. “It’s inconclusive, you know that,” she said at last.
“In what way? It kinda looks to me like our guy getting chased and shot at.”
“Oh, are we being smart-asses? Not now, OK? Of course I know what it looks like. But did he get hit? Beauvais was out of frame.”
“Three shots, Nikki.”
“And he was hauling it. And the shooter was showboating his weapon. I’ve seen veteran cops miss when a perp is on the run.”
“But not you,” he said, attaching an impish grin to it.
“Don’t try to make up to me with flattery.” Then she caved a little under that smile of his. But just a little. “Hey, I never looked at the time stamp. When was this?”
Rook brought it up and read the embedded digital code. Then he did some silent math, moving his lips. “The morning before Beauvais went to Dr. Ivan to get his bullet wound fixed.”
That timing could fit. If one of those slugs did hit home, and it caused the clean graze described by the Russian medic, a span of forty-plus hours from wound to treatment put this incident in the zone. Even though this challenged her gut feel about the case, Heat clung to her detective’s core value of objectivity, allowing the potential that some street thug, and not Keith Gilbert, could have shot Beauvais. She turned again to the screen in time for a replay of the three silent jerks of the gun in the shooter’s hand, thinking that whatever was going on, there certainly was a complicated context to what her Haitian friend had been doing with his days. What the hell was Beauvais up to?
Nikki kept hoping for the lightbulb clue that explained everything, but all she kept getting were these orphan leads that confused more than clarified. She told herself to be patient, that she just hadn’t gotten the story yet. And that, at the end of the day, it would all make sense. As long as she didn’t lose heart and give up the hunt.
And then, she asked a basic question. “You got this in e-mail. From whom?”
He told her without hesitating. Like it was nothing. Like it was a no-brainer. “Raley shipped it over.”