“Well, then you won’t be quite so disappointed when I tell you. It’s going to be tough to have him drop by for an interview. His office said he was away on vacation. We checked with Customs and Immigration and they report that Vreeland exited the country on a flight out of JFK yesterday for Croatia.”
“Croatia,” said Rook with appreciation. “Have you ever been? Croatia has everything. Castles, beautiful woman…Stunningly. Beautiful. Women. Oh, and no extradition agreement with the United States.”
“The perfect vacation spot for a Person of Interest in a multiple homicide,” observed Heat. “Terrific.”
As everyone scattered on their assignments, Heat returned to her desk, which had taken on the appearance of an urban curbside on recycling day. The collateral effect of the cyber attack was the rapid, seemingly endless generation of paper. The height of the stacks, however neat, could be measured with a ruler, and they formed a bulwark around Nikki’s blotter. On the upside, they served as a graphic example of how the digital age had cut environmental waste. Plus it gave her a degree of privacy in her goldfish-bowl office.
The captain compliantly went about her administrative duties: meetings with the union steward, the vending machine supplier, and the lead officer in the precinct’s Traffic Division about staggering the maintenance of the Cushmans. None of these made her feel like she was fighting crime.
Detective Raley showed up at her door, a welcome interruption, with the word on his call to the ER up in the Hudson Valley. “Records indicate Nathan Levy showed up there in the middle of one night complaining of severe pain from an injury to his right leg. He reported that he whacked it on a table. His chart said he had a large amount of swelling and bruising. They did an X-ray that showed he had a hairline fracture of his tibia, right below the knee. They treated him, gave him some crutches, and he self-released.”
Nikki sat back and crossed her arms. “That must have been some table.”
“Yeah, doesn’t pass inspection to my nose, either.”
“What do we know about our patient?”
“Our boy liked his cars,” said Raley.
“And to drive them fast.”
“I’ll contact State and County up in that area and see if they worked any accidents around that date.” The detective got up from the guest chair. “Not quite sure what it means to us.”
“Never know until it does,” said Heat. “Or doesn’t. But let’s at least close the loop.” Then, before he left, she snagged him. “Hey, Rales? Things any better between you and Miguel?”
He almost answered, but left it with, “I’ll make those calls now,” and went back to his desk in the squad room.
The Office of Chief Medical Examiner had been slammed by the hacking event just like other city MISD services, so Lauren Parry called Heat personally with her postmortem results on Nathan Levy. “By the way, how many more of these cranials am I going to be doing?”
“Working on it. Hopefully the last one.”
“Good, ’cause I need another one of these like I need a—”
“Lauren, stop. You stop. If you were about to say ‘hole in the head,’ cease. I have all I can stand of that with Rook.”
“Oh, and now you’re complaining about him instead of getting hammered in your bathtub? Besides, I’m working morning and night with dead bodies down here, and I have one chance for a little human interaction, and you cut me off.”
“Damn right. You want to amuse me? Brief me on your post.”
Dr. Parry’s narrative regarding Levy echoed her reports on Lon King and Abigail Plunkitt, as expected. Small entry wound made by a .22-caliber slug, severed brain stem, no exit wound. Also, as with the other two, indication of a close-range weapon discharge, as evidenced by gunshot residue and muzzle burn.
“What about the condition of the bullet?”
“Not bad. I already gave the slug to ballistics.”
“Thanks,” said Nikki. “I’ll task a detective to go over to Jamaica and get the report personally. Last time they practically used a carrier pigeon.”
“Still beats my intranet. Other items of note that you’ll see in my write-up: I saw a recent hairline fracture—”