NH: [Pause. Seeks composure] I grew up there. I…lived my life there. [Very long pause]
LK: Your mother was murdered there.
NH: Can we…? [Stands] Can we deal with this later?
LK: Sure. Let’s plan another session. Is that what you’d like?
NH:…I think I need to.
“Captain?…Captain?” Raley and Ochoa, both in her office. Both calling her name. Nikki startled out of her blank stare at the streetlight on 82nd and turned to them.
“Got something,” said Raley. “I asked Personnel to gather that list of patient referrals made to Lon King.”
“The idea being,” continued Ochoa, “that a cop psych referral would be the shortest distance between no client list and a pool of likelies for us to work from.”
“What did you get?”
Ochoa gestured with a thumb and Heat followed the partners to Roach Central, where their paired desks were shoved in one corner of the bull pen. Miguel gestured to his task chair, and Heat rolled it up for a view of his monitor. A color NYPD identification photo stared out from the top quarter of the screen. On sight, she profiled the man as a handful. Every cop got told not to smile for their ID pics; this one had followed procedure but managed to dab a hint of a smirk on his face. Or maybe it wasn’t the mouth so much as the wise-guy squeeze of his eyelids.
“Detective Third-Grade Timothy James Maloney,” said Raley.
“Actually, homes, it’s ex-grade-three.” Ochoa double-tapped the space bar, opening the next page, which was watermarked in red as confidential. It was a single-spaced report on the events leading to the suspension of Maloney for numerous complaints of excessive force, followed by a mandatory referral to a department psychologist after the detective cleared the desk of his Burglary Division squad leader with the sweep of an arm.
“A little tightly wound, wouldn’t you say?” said Heat.
Raley said, “You don’t know the half of it. Go to the next screen.”
On page three of Maloney’s digital Personnel file was a list of suspected multiple tire deflations and auto-paint scratchings of his Burglary lieutenant’s personal vehicle, a pickup truck. None of the vandalism could be unequivocally attributed to Maloney. Heat tapped to the next page, which displayed the transcript of an anonymous text message to Lon King from an untraceable burner cell phone:
You are the worst kind of coward. You always sit there pretending to care, always acting like my friend when I open a fucking vein to you, but it’s all more Department Bullshit. The fix is in. As always. You’re in their pocket. You think you can squeeze my balls just because you give blowjobs to the Commish? Well, here’s a dose of honesty, which you NEVER showed me, you sanctimonious prick. I know where you live. I know where you park. I know about your stops on the F Train. I know about your dick-substitute canoe. I know about that organic café you were at last Friday night with your boyfriend. Now who’s paranoid, motherfucker?
Heat swiveled to Roach. “Personnel knows this was from Maloney?”
“Knows. Proving is something else,” said Raley.
“Why him?”
Ochoa gestured to the bottom of the screen. “For one thing, date of the text. Same day Lon King wrote Maloney up, recommending he be permanently removed from duty.”
“Lon King got him fired,” said Raley, with the distinct sound of advocacy.
“We have an address?” asked Heat. When Raley held up his notepad in reply, she stood. “Let’s make a house call for the doctor.”
When Rook saw them saddling up to go, he had the good sense, for once, not to call shotgun, and he let the homicide squad co-leaders compete for Heat’s passenger seat. Ochoa won a curbside round of Rochambeau with a surprise repeat of paper to Raley’s rock, so Sean rode in back with Rook on the brief ride uptown. “Careful he doesn’t yack on you back there, Sean,” called Ochoa over the headrest.