“Not to worry,” said Rook. “Yes, I am prone to motion sickness, but I know better than to spoil the new car smell in the captain’s sweet ride.”
A blue-and-white from the Twenty-Eighth was waiting for them at West 128th, just outside the south entrance to St. Nicholas Park, a block from Maloney’s Harlem brownstone. Heat pulled up, driver’s window to driver’s window, thanked them for their precinct’s cooperation, and coordinated with the pair of uniforms to cover the back of the building and its fire escape while her crew doorstepped him from the front. The officers held up cell phones to confirm receipt of her text of Maloney’s ID photo, then split off to their position.
As the four of them got out and mounted the stoop, Rook asked Nikki, “By the way, what got this guy in hot water in the first place?”
“A volatile disposition and citizen complaints about back-alley beatdowns.”
Rook stopped and took a few steps backward onto the sidewalk. “May the excessive force be with you.”
The three others also exercised prudence, but in a different way. Heat, Raley, and Ochoa rested their hands on their holsters as they took positions beside the door. After several knocks and calls through it to Maloney without a response, they returned to the car to wait for the search warrant they had requested.
“If he skipped, I’m blaming Personnel,” said Raley.
“Freakin’ A,” echoed his partner, cleaning up his language in deference to Heat. “This homicide report went into the system at six-thirty this morning. Dude’s had a twelve-hour head start because they didn’t notify us of his threat. Aren’t we allegedly in this together? What the hell happened to sharing information?”
“Sure makes you wonder,” said Nikki. She found Rook in her rearview, but he was occupied watching an elm’s spring leaves rustle under the coppery street lamp and missed the dig. Either that, or he was just ignoring her.
“Update from Forensics,” announced Raley, scrolling an email on his phone. “Says, ‘the forward deck of the kayak also showed gunshot particles that were adhering to a fresh coating of a small patch of an undetermined oily residue.’”
“That’s weird,” said Ochoa. “Oil on a paddle boat? Like olive oil from a sandwich?”
“Nah, Detective DeJesus says that it’s a machine lubricant of some kind. Thin, like someone might use for a gun.”
“Or a fishing reel?” asked Heat.
“Yeah, but—remember? No fishing reel, no fishing tackle. Plus it’s in an odd pattern, diffused in a fine spray. Forensics is going to lab it, but also send off a sample for analysis at the National Lubricating Grease Institute.”
That brought Rook’s attention back from the treetops. “There’s an institute for lubrication?” he said with a naughty grin. “Imagine the possibilities.”
Raley, Ochoa, and Rook all exchanged smiles, all imagining. Heat said, “Boys? Don’t even.”
“Agreed,” said Rook. “It’s a slippery slope.”
Ochoa said, “Got our man.”
The others followed his gaze up the block. Timothy Maloney was approaching with an unhurried swagger, his eyes inside a Popeye’s takeout bag. As they prepared to move, he paused at the curb a few yards ahead, across from his brownstone. He pulled out an onion ring and munched it. “Soon as this van passes,” said Heat with a side-glance at the approaching headlight in her mirror. But when it came alongside her, Maloney dropped the Popeye’s and bolted into the street in front of it. The van screeched to a stop, blocking Nikki’s door and Raley’s behind her.
“Go, go, go!” shouted Raley to his partner.