“For putting Rhymer on river watch?”
“For not talking to me first. Sean made the assignment before I got in, and didn’t consult. I get here, Opie’s gone, and my so-called squad co-leader has also assigned Detective Aguinaldo to run license plate checks from the Roosevelt Island Bridge cam.” Ochoa shook his head mildly to himself and said, “Glad you asked?”
Nikki felt the heft of one more rock getting piled on her shoulders to go with the burden of the others: problems with Rook; pressure from the chief of detectives; hassles with IA; a nut-job ex-cop who might have killed her shrink and seemed to have slipped off the grid; and now a turf battle between her squad co-leaders. Day two was shaping up to be an extension of day one. “Is this an issue I need to step in on?”
He shook his head no. “We’ll work it out. You just caught me while it was still up my ass. Pretend you didn’t hear it.”
“Where’s your partner now?”
“In his kingly realm.” The detective tilted his head to indicate the closet Raley used to screen video. “He’s scrubbing this morning’s F train and tram cams for the dude in the sketch.”
“How about you? Free for a detail?” Heat couldn’t let go of Rook’s question to Stallings about whether Lon King had been offered a bribe in exchange for information about a patient. As irritating and undisciplined as he could be, Jameson Rook was a talented investigative journalist with two Pulitzers, both well earned. Whatever story he was working on, Nikki’s own investigative antenna told her that his question had been a giveaway, and that the angle he was working involved money and corruption. So, if Rook was taking advantage of information he was gathering from her case, turnabout would be fair play. “Miguel, I’d like you to run a complete financial check on Lon King.”
He nodded with some uncertainty, but opened his notebook. “Sure. What am I looking for?”
“What else, the Odd Sock. Something out of pattern. Especially big infusions of cash. He would, I imagine, be running low because of his gambling losses. A spike is going to tell us something.” And because nothing and no one could be ruled out, she added, “And do a check of his partner, Sampson Stallings. He’s an artist, so his income pattern may be more erratic, but give it an X-ray, anyhow.”
Randall Feller checked in later on from the field, and he wasn’t happy. “Captain Heat, I’ll let you guess where my tail-and-surveil of Jameson Rook has taken me.”
“I don’t know, Detective. Has he bought you a Mister Softee cone because he made you again?” Nikki played it as a joke, but only as cover for her genuine concern and curiosity about what Rook was up to.
“No, I have not been detected. My subject is too focused on his mission.”
“Out with it. Where is he?”
“On Warren Street down near City Hall.” While Nikki mentally street-viewed the area, trying to conjure up a notion of what that mission could be, Feller filled in the blank. “He’s in a pen store.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am outside the shop window now.”
“The Fountain Pen Hospital,” she said. Heat could picture Feller’s view because she had been there so many times before to Rook’s Mecca for vintage and collectible fountain pens. “He’s at the repair counter, right?”
“You don’t need me. You have, what, psychic powers?”
“I wish. Last week he was cleaning his limited edition Hemingway Montblanc, and it rolled off his desk and landed point first on the floor. Rook is dropping off his prize pen to get a new nib.”
After a long pause filled with the doop-doop-doop of a truck backing up, the detective said, “I don’t wanna second-guess, but is this really the best use of my time while we’re working a homicide? I mean, your boyfriend’s getting—a nib replacement?”
“First of all, you are second-guessing. And also, he’s not my boyfriend, he’s my fiancé. Stay on him.”