They took a short break. Those without wounds removed their bandages, coffeed up, and gathered around the Murder Board for that delicious moment when the scribbles up there started to make sense. Rhymer said, “Sorry, but I was driving back from Forensics and missed the first part of the confession. Did Backhouse say why the two different MOs? You know, the car crash for one and the drone for all the others?”
Heat nodded. “Actually, Opie, there were three MOs. They killed Lobbrecht first at the hangar on Staten Island because they knew he’d be there. Lon King was a different story. Remember Maloney had been stalking him and knew about his kayaking. They came up with the drone idea to get him, and that worked so well, they used it for Abigail Plunkitt, too. Then they experimented with a higher caliber on Nathan Levy and missed. So Backhouse did him face-to-face, knowing he’d duck away from a drone, but not from his friend. That’s why Levy’s window was rolled down and there was no lubricant on his pickup’s door. Backhouse met him for a chat, and popped him close range, small caliber, just no quadcopter.”
“Makes sense,” said Detective Rhymer, “because Forensics just found GSR on a shirt in Backhouse’s laundry hamper.”
Ochoa added that to the Murder Board. “One more nail.”
“Which leads me to an imaginary fist bump to you and Detective Aguinaldo for working that apartment,” continued Nikki. “Finding that piece of the glove compartment tipped the scale.”
“Any sign of Lon King’s missing patient files?” asked Rook.
“So far, MIA,” said Feller. “Not at his apartment. Not at his office. Not at that Craigslist special in Astoria he rented under a fake name.”
A familiar thorny knot tightened in Nikki’s gut. It surfaced every time she thought about her intimate counseling sessions floating out there somewhere.
“Hey, I know where they are,” said Detective Ochoa, trying to keep from grinning. “In the trunk of Captain Heat’s car with that prisoner, what’s his name, George Gallatin.”
As the meeting broke up, she heard Feller say, “Poor dude’s probably in New Mexico by now, looking out that back window, praying for a rest stop.” Their laughter made Heat recall the old saying, “In all humor there is a grain of truth.” Heat knew one thing for sure: Until she uncovered it, this case was far from closed.
After getting an update from Detective Raley on his special assignment, Nikki released her King of All Surveillance Media to continue his mission. Sean headed downtown to One Police Plaza; she went to the ladies’ room to change her dressing.
Afterward, she went to Rook’s desk in the bull pen to offer to change his gauze and found him pounding keys on his laptop. “Surfing for alternate honeymoon locales? Pyongyang? Chernobyl? Perhaps a Barney the Dinosaur cruise?”
“No cruises, remember? I’m typing up my notes for Confessions of a Blown Whistle.” He paused and flicked a glance to read her reaction. “Or whatever I call it. Eventually.”
He resumed typing. At the next desk, Opie made a call and, while he waited, took out a cloth to clean his iPhone.
Nikki said, “I wanted to check your dressing.”
“Already done.”
“You should go home.”
“You first.” His attention then became riveted on Rhymer’s ritual of spraying the microfiber cloth and buffing the glass.
Her gaze followed his to the detective’s polishing, then back to Rook. “What?”
“What if I told you I might be able to figure out the number of the Black Knight so we can trace it and get a line on whoever it was who kidnapped me? That’s what.”
Within the hour a service aide from Forensics had delivered George Gallatin’s cell phone, sealed in a plastic bag. Heat signed the chain of evidence voucher, pulled on a pair of crime scene gloves, and set the handheld on her desk in front of Rook. “CSU double confirmed when I asked for this that the SIM card history is wiped.”
“Indulge me,” he said. With his one gloved hand, he spread out the papers he had been doodling on the past few days in his effort to remember the phone number he had seen Gallatin tap to call Black Knight. “As you can see, I’ve got most of the digits of the phone number filled in on this page.”