“No-brainer,” said Feller, who immediately held up surrender hands. “I fucking swear, I wasn’t goofing on him. Come on.”
Nikki gave him a pass and continued, “Single GSW to the forehead. Small caliber, no exit wound. Ballistics will get a slug to analyze by this afternoon.”
Ochoa scrawled that in his notebook. “Small bore kind of rules out sniper.”
“So does this.” Nikki held up a printout one of the administrative aides had come in with and placed on her podium. “Follow-up from ME Parry says there were trace metals and gunpowder residue surrounding the entrance wound.” The significance of that hung in the room while the investigators pondered.
“Takes away a passing boat, too,” observed Raley. “Unless it was mighty close.”
Rhymer raised his hand. “Like another kayaker?”
“Or somebody on his dock. Or a boat that launched him,” said his partner.
“Or suicide.” Detective Feller tucked his boots under his chair and leaned toward Heat. “It’s tough, but it’s got to be in the mix. Shrinks off themselves, too. I’m just sayin’.”
Nikki, who had always drilled it into her squad to approach every case with beginner’s eyes—not to be complacent, not to work by rote—nodded in agreement. “Everything’s on the table.” She added “suicide” as a subheading along with the other options and, like the others on the list, put a question mark beside it. “When we left the Greenway, I saw Dr. Parry bagging the victim’s hands. Detective Ochoa, as soon as we break here, I’d like you to put in a call to Lauren and let us know immediately if she found any residue on them.”
“Done.”
“Mind one from left field?” asked Rook.
Nikki, glad to see him finally engaging in the process, said, “Well, left field is sort of your area.”
“That, and Area Fifty-one,” added Feller, who was about as much a fan of Rook’s passion for spitballing conspiracy theories as he was of having his pronunciation tweaked.
Undaunted, or perhaps merely oblivious to his fellow cop’s disdain, Rook said, “What if he wasn’t killed in the boat? The shooter murders King somewhere else, puts him in the kayak, and either gives it a push or a tow just to confuse us and keep us from knowing where the crime scene was.” By the time he had finished, other brains were chewing that very real possibility—even Randall Feller’s.
Detective Aguinaldo raised a tentative hand and spoke for the first time in the meeting. “Not sure whether this is too half-baked for group discussion…”
“No such thing,” Rook said, chuckling. “Didn’t you hear my theory? Let ’er rip.”
“It’s not so much a theory.”
The new detective’s transition had been a slow one. Heat, who had liaised with Aguinaldo in the Hamptons on a case around the time of Hurricane Sandy, knew her potential and constantly prodded her not to feel intimidated by the squad of veterans in a big-city department. “Inez, if you’re holding, don’t be shy, let’s hear it.”
“OK. Since I was on duty here this morning instead of down by the river, I called Forensics to touch base with whoever was assigned to this case.”
“Benigno DeJesus,” said Heat. “I pushed for him to catch this one, because he’s simply the best there is.”
Aguinaldo nodded. “So I’ve heard. And we had a nice chat while you were en route here.”
“You already talked to him?”
“Seemed like routine meeting prep to me.”
That was one of many reasons Nikki liked Inez. She was always thinking, always anticipating.