“Didn’t notice,” said Raley, checking his phone and spotting two misses.
Ochoa got off a walkie-talkie call and checked his own iPhone, which, like his partner’s, had been on silent for the stakeout. “We were sorta busy.”
“Well, as you can see, so was I.”
“Warrant cleared,” Ochoa said to Heat, brandishing the radio in his hand.
“Timothy James Maloney, we have a warrant to search your apartment.”
The ex-cop smirked and shrugged. “All you had to do was ask, Captain.”
Nonetheless, Maloney made them wait for the formality of the paper to arrive from the DA’s office. Forty minutes of Heat’s overtime budget eroding while their prime murder suspect, a man with a history of violence and insolence, stood docilely enjoying some private amusement as he sucked his teeth.
Heat, Roach, and Rook ascended the steps to the front door with the writ and Maloney’s key. Nikki paused before she opened the door. All four shared a silent collective memory of Captain Irons grandstanding his way inside a dangerous suspect’s house not too far from where they now stood and losing his life to a booby trap. She turned to the street where her prisoner stood flanked by patrolmen. “Maloney. You first.”
He entered without hesitation and with a stride about as cocky as a person can manage with his hands bound behind him. “I’d offer you chips and dip, but I’d need a little help opening the bag.”
Nikki and her crew ignored his comment, cleared the two-bedroom and one bath, then slipped on evidence gloves while CSU followed them in with their tackle boxes of swabs, powders, and camera gear. Three unis placed Maloney in a kitchen chair in the center of the living room and stood by while he relaxed to some inner monologue. Heat caught a glimpse of the tableau. It looked to her as if the jester had taken the throne.
“Records search shows you have numerous guns registered to you at this address,” she said.
“Correct. Key word, registered. All legal. Just like my ankle carry. I’m in a dangerous line.”
“Were,” snapped Ochoa, poking his head around an open closet door.
Heat referred to the list on the warrant. “‘A pump-action twenty-gauge shotgun, a Glock .44 Mag, a Glock 26, a Sig Sauer 9mm, a Smith and Wesson .500 Mag…’”
“Big Poppy,” he said with a proud nod.
“Here’s what especially interests me: ‘One Ruger SR-22 long rifle, one Walther P22, and one ISSC M22 with laser sighting.’”
“For puttin’ it where ya want it.”
Heat folded the pages in three and held up the warrant. “You want us to rip this place apart, or just show me where they are?”
“They’re not here, that’s for damn sure.” He chuckled. “But I can tell you where to find them. Each and every one.”
“You have a storage unit somewhere?”
“Even better.” He almost told her. Then pursed his lips and simply sat back. “Later. Maybe.”
Back at the precinct an hour afterward, Heat and Rook stood in the Observation Room looking through the magic mirror at Timothy Maloney as Raley and Ochoa conducted his interrogation.
“You’re not getting shit from me until you cut me loose from these.” He jerked his manacles upward, filling the ob booth with rattling metal and prompting Nikki to turn the mic volume down slightly.
“‘I wear the chain I forged in life,’” said Rook, in a ghost’s voice. “Or was that forged in Pittsburgh?”
“Still waiting,” said Ochoa. “Tell us where you were yesterday between three and eight P.M.”
“Listen, Paco, you can ask me ten more times. We’re not talking.”
“What about me then?” asked Raley.
“What about you? You’re what, the Lucky Charms leprechaun?”
An administrative aide entered, handed Nikki a file, and left. She opened it and skimmed. “Well, this makes sense. Lon King’s diagnosis of Maloney was paranoid personality disorder.”