“What if there’s a sniper?”
“Come on, Rook. Who goes around worrying about a sniper?” He checked the higher rooftops anyway. She said, “I am not going to run scared and I am not going to give up on finding out how Gilbert pulled this off.”
“You always love a high degree of difficulty.”
“Just because something’s difficult doesn’t make it impossible.”
“True,” he said. “For instance, did you know a French author published an entire novel—two hundred thirty-three pages—using no verbs?”
“Snapple cap?”
“Snapple cap. An education inside every lid. More tequila?”
“We should maybe pace ourselves,” she said. “Speaking of difficult, but not impossible, are you done publishing blogs and articles that make my life miserable?”
“Are you calling me difficult?”
“But not impossible.” She leaned in to kiss him again. “OK, one more.”
“Kiss or shot?”
“Surprise me.” Rook kissed her, then poured. Before she drank it, her cell phone rang. “Ochoa. I’d better.…”
He agreed and threw back her ounce while she answered.
“Sorry to call you so late,” said Ochoa.
“You kidding? You guys can call me anytime.” She tried to sound bright and, yes, conciliatory but didn’t get a response. “Where’s your partner?”
“I’m on, too,” said Raley.”
“Hey, Sean. Good. Got the full Roach.” Nikki heard herself pushing too hard. Whether it was from the tequila or trying to rekindle lost camaraderie, she decided to dial it back to business mode. “Going to put you on speaker because I’m with Rook.” She pressed the button. “What’s up?”
“Just got off my conference call with the state BCI inspector handling the fugitive warrant for Earl Sliney.” By reflex, Heat reached for her notebook the way ex-smokers go for phantom packs, but she’d left it downstairs. Rook pulled out his and handed it to her with a pen. “Sliney’s been off the grid, but they caught a break because, apparently, he’s traveling with the other guy from the Queensboro Plaza video cam.”
“Mayshon Franklin?”
“Right. Well, Mayshon screwed up day before yesterday and shoplifted some beer at a package store up the Hudson in Rhinebeck.”
“Got his picture taken by the cash register cam,” added Raley. “And they pulled his prints off the glass on the beer case.”
Ochoa dovetailed right in to the narrative. “Database spit him out as a known associate of Sliney’s, who has a brother living in that area, a small town called Pine Plains up in Dutchess County. State and county vanned up and raided the brother’s place. They’d missed nabbing these dirtbags by six hours.”
Nikki asked, “Did Sliney’s brother say where they went?”
“Nah, either he doesn’t know or he’s throwing up a wall. But that’s not the reason we called.”
“It’s about what we learned about the brother,” said Raley with some weight attached.
“Yeah…?”
Ochoa said, “Earl Sliney’s brother works at a farm up there. His job is he flies the crop duster.” After the shortest pause, he continued, “So what we’re saying is that Earl Sliney’s brother had access to an airplane.”
Even slowed half a step by the tequila, Heat quickly calculated the math of Roach’s intel: Fabian Beauvais worked the ATM theft crew with Franklin and Sliney; Sliney was already known and wanted as a murderer; security video depicted Sliney popping off three rounds at Beauvais, who was on the run from him; Beauvais had a gunshot wound; Sliney’s brother had a plane; Beauvais fell from the sky.
A familiar claw grabbed hold of Nikki’s gut. She wasn’t liking at all where this was going. Not liking the bright, shiny, and new probabilities of Earl Sliney versus Keith Gilbert as the killer.
“It’s food for thought,” she said and found out what it sounds like when a Roach sighs on a conference call. “I’m not saying it’s not viable stuff. It’s just—”