Heat Rises (11 page)

“Figures a male stripper would move in across from a firehouse,” said Ochoa. “In case he needs a pole to practice on.”

“What’s his name again?” asked Heat.

Raley consulted his sheet. “Horst Meuller. He’s from Hamburg, Germany. My witness at the strip club says when Meuller started, he danced in a World War I getup as The Red Barin’. Now he does a Eurotrash strip in silver lamé as Hans Alloffur.” He half-turned to Nikki. “All these guys have theme acts, you see.”

“Tell her the name of that one stripper last night.” Ochoa chuckled. “You’re gonna love this.”

“Marty Python,” said Raley.

Nikki shook her head. “I won’t even ask.”

The super let them in so they didn’t have to warn Meuller by buzzing his intercom. They took position outside his door and Ochoa knocked.

“Who is there?” came the accented voice from inside.

Raley held his shield to the spy hole. “
NYPD
to speak with Horst Meuller.”

“Of course. Just a moment, please.”

Nikki could smell the stall and was already down a half flight of stairs by the time she heard Meuller’s deadbolt snap into place on his door, followed by Roach-kicks to the wood. She sailed through the vestibule and out onto the sidewalk, looking for the fire escape. “That way!” called Ochoa out the open third-floor window.

Heat’s gaze followed Ochoa’s gesture to the far end of the building, where the male dancer was sliding down and around the corner pole of the scaffolding, toward the sidewalk. Heat called for him to freeze, but he somersaulted off the last rung, landing on both feet. Meuller slipped and almost fell on the icy walkway but quickly got his balance and started to run, his long, blond Fabio hair fluttering behind him.

As Detective Heat took off after him, Raley blasted out the front door calling coordinates for backup on his walkie-talkie as he joined the foot chase.

Footing was treacherous with about an eighth-inch of ice granules down and more falling. When Meuller bolted across the intersection at Henry Street, an auto parts delivery truck slammed its brakes to avoid hitting him and skidded helplessly sideways, crashing into a parked car. Heat didn’t cross Henry to pursue him. His side of the street was open sidewalk. Hers was largely restaurant and retail with numerous awnings overhanging the way, which meant she had a shot at running on concrete instead of ice.

By the next intersection, she was parallel with him. Heat made a fast street check over her left shoulder. The road was clear except for up the block, where she clocked the Roach Coach coming around the corner with its gumball lit. Slowing to keep from falling, she jogged across the intersection, calling, “
NYPD
, Meuller, stop!”

He turned, startled at the closeness of her voice, and when he did, his momentum pulled his center of gravity out from over his feet and he stumbled. Meuller would have fallen flat, but he grabbed the railing of some concrete steps leading up to the promenade to some high-rise apartments and only went down on one knee. He was just hoisting himself up when Heat leaped, grabbed the railing, and vaulted herself over, landing on top of him and taking him down.

The snap she heard as Meuller went down was followed by a “
Scheiss!
” and a moan. He writhed, groaning on the concrete stairs as Heat cuffed him. By then Raley had arrived and they brought him to his feet.

“Careful,” said Nikki, “I think I heard something break.”

“
Ja
, my collarbone, why did you do that to me?”

Ochoa had the Crown Victoria double-parked with the back door open, and they led their prisoner to it. “Why did you run?”

Horst Meuller never answered. The bullet ripped through the collar of his shirt, and Heat and Raley were sprayed with blood. He dropped again but didn’t moan. Or make any sound.

Heat called, “Down, down, everybody down!” and hit the deck, covering Meuller’s body as she brought up her Sig, scanning the apartment promenade, the high-rise, the roof across the street. On the other side of the fallen dancer, Raley had his weapon out and was doing the same; even as he called in the 10-13, shots fired.

On Henry Street, an engine thundered and tires spun, whining for purchase in the ice. Heat ran in a low crouch for cover beside Ochoa at the Roach Coach, but it was too late. The
SUV
spun its tires and sped off, driving over the curb as it turned onto Orange and out of view.

Heat recognized the
SUV
. She called it in as graphite gray with heavy-duty tires, but that was the best description she could give. This time, it had no license plates.

The two paramedics in the back of the ambulance were still working on keeping Horst Meuller from slipping away when the uniform buttoned up the rear doors and it rolled from the scene. Nikki Heat stood holding her breath against its issue of diesel exhaust and watched it lumber off in the sleet, following the same route the
SUV
had not a half hour before. A block down Orange Street, at the perimeter of the crime scene, the siren kicked on, a sign that, at least for the moment, there was still a life on that gurney.

Detective Feller handed Heat and Raley each a cup of coffee. “Can’t vouch for it, it’s from the Chinese place over there. But it’ll warm you up.”

Raley’s assist call had drawn a swarm. First on the scene had been the crew of New York’s Bravest from the 205 up the block. If the dancing German pulled through, he would owe it to his firefighter neighbors for slowing the bleeding within minutes. Cruisers from the Eighty-fourth Precinct and the neighboring Seventy-sixth were first cops on-scene, followed immediately by Feller and Van Meter in their undercover taxi. With their roving status, it was typical for Taxi Squad cops to be first responders to officer assist calls, and Ochoa threw a barb at the pair for letting the home blue-and-whites beat them.

Dutch Van Meter winked to his partner and lobbed one back. “Oh, by the way, Detective, how’d you do apprehending the vehicle after your pursuit?”

Ochoa had come up empty. The chase was perfunctory at best given the shooter’s head start, and they all knew it. But he had given it his best effort, able at least to follow the wide tracks in the freshly fallen sleet until he lost them on Old Fulton Street, which was more heavily traveled. He drove the Roach Coach on a honeycomb of the neighboring streets on his way back just to make sure, but no
SUV
.

On the other side of the yellow tape, the first TV news minicams were setting up. Nikki saw a lens pointed at her from under a blue Gore-Tex storm cover and heard her name. She rotated to present her back to the press line and once again grumbled a mental curse about her magazine cover.

Feller took a sip of his own coffee and made a face. “So none of you saw the shooter?” Steam rose as he poured it out into the gutter. Heat, Raley, and Ochoa all looked at one another and shook their heads.

“It was one of those split-second things,” said Raley. “We’re all focused on our prisoner, you know, and out of nowhere, bang.”

“More like boom,” said Ochoa. All nodded in agreement. “I make it a rifle.”

“Boom,” said Van Meter. “Not much to go on.”

Heat said, “I know the vehicle.” They all turned to look at her. “I saw it yesterday. Twice. Once in the afternoon on Columbus on the way to Andy’s and then last night in my neighborhood.”

“What’s this, Detective?” Heat turned. Captain Montrose had come up behind her. He must have read their surprise, and explained, “I was on my way to 1PP for a meeting and heard the ten-thirteen. Now, am I to infer that you were being tailed but you didn’t report it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I could have called in protection.”

“I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t want to draw resources without more certainty.” Heat left out the part about how the strain between them made her hold back.

The old Montrose would have taken her aside for a chat. But New Montrose snapped at her right there in front of her colleagues. “That’s not a call for you to make. I’m still your commander. My job isn’t yours . . . yet.” At that, the captain turned and crossed the sidewalk to confer with the
CSU
team gathered around the bullet hole in the service door of the high-rise.

An ass-kicking in front of the family is an uncomfortable thing for everyone, and in the dead air that followed, the other detectives busied themselves trying not to make eye contact with Heat. She turned her face upward into the sleet and closed her eyes, feeling the hundred little stings of the sky falling.

When she got back uptown, Nikki made a quick stop to do an appear ance check outside the door to the bull pen, where the fluorescent overheads created a poor man’s mirror in the window of Montrose’s dark office. It wasn’t about vanity; it was about dried blood. At the shooting scene in Brooklyn Heights, EMTs had given her wipes to clean her face and neck, but her clothes were another story. The emergency shirt and slacks she usually kept folded in her desk file drawer were still at the cleaners following a latte mishap, so the rust-colored spray on the collar of her blouse and in the V pattern down the front where her coat had been open would have to do. While Nikki made her appraisal, she heard Detective Rhymer’s soft drawl coming around the corner from the squad room.

Heat couldn’t hear all he was saying, just snippets because he was speaking in hushed tones. She picked up phrases like “. . . wheel spinning and make-work . . .” and “He said, ‘Screw it, life’s too short . . .’ ” and then “. . . Heat’s more worried about her freaking promotion . . .”

Listening in was tantalizing but made Nikki feel skeevy, like she was in a soap. What had Phyllis Yarborough said a few hours before? Something like “transparency means no shame”? So Heat turned the corner to face whatever she would face.

What she found was Detective Rhymer leaning in gossip mode with Sharon Hinesburg at her desk. Both sat upright in their rolling chairs when they saw her walk in. “Damn, look at you,” said Hinesburg, hopping to her feet. “Who took the bullet, you or the dancer?” She was extra loud, the way people get when they’re diverting attention. Or hoping to.

Nikki ignored her and gave a puzzled look to Rhymer. “Are you and Gallagher done working your list of dommes already?”

He rose, too, albeit more tentatively. “Not quite. We came back so I could drop Gallagher off.”

Nikki scanned the room and didn’t see his partner. “What, is he sick?”

“Gallagher, he, ah . . . He requested a reassign back to Burglary.” The detective turned to Hinesburg as if he’d find some help, but Sharon was letting him deal his own hand. The whispers Nikki had just overheard sufficed for her to do the math. Another day talking to dominatrixes felt like a waste to Gallagher and so he booked out. Apparently with some opinions expressed about Detective Heat on his exit. “You know,” continued Rhymer, “we had some cases hanging that needed some attention, and he must have just felt, you know, obliged to mind them.”

Heat knew it was bull but didn’t expect Opie to throw in his partner. This latest piece of unrest created by her coming promotion tasted bitter, but she set it aside. Her immediate concern was that she was suddenly down one investigator. “In that case, I’m glad you hung in, Ope.”

“I’m here, Detective.” But then he couched it. “Long as I can be, that is.”

At the Murder Board a few minutes later Heat selected a new marker color and printed the dancer’s name in the upper left corner where there was plenty of white space. “Probably doesn’t feel like it to him, but it’s Horst Meuller’s lucky day,” she told the squad. “The slug they pulled from that door was a .338 Magnum.”

Raley said, “Any brass?”

She shook no. “My guess is he either never threw the bolt since it was one shot, or if he did, the casing ejected into the vehicle and left with him.”

Ochoa let out a low whistle. “.338 Mag. Man . . . Hunters use those loads to drop grizzlies.”

“And, apparently, pole dancers,” said Heat. “I want to find out why. Detective Rhymer, dig deeper on Horst Meuller.”

“I thought you wanted me to check out the freelance dommes,” he said.

Nikki stopped herself and for the hundredth time thought about her contentious meeting with the captain and all the lines of this investigation he had closed down. She clenched her teeth and reversed herself, trying not to choke on her own words. “Stay on the
BDSM
canvass. When you finish, let me know. Then we’ll see where we are with Meuller.”

“Are you sure Meuller was the target?” asked Raley. “If that
SUV
was tailing you, seems like maybe you’re the one who got lucky this morning.”

“As a trained sleuth that possibility did not escape my notice,” said Nikki, tugging at her bloodstained collar and triggering a laugh from the squad. Heat turned to the board and sketched a looping arc from Meuller’s name to Father Graf’s. “What I really want to do is see what the connection is, if any, between these two victims. Hopefully, our dancer will survive and be able to shed some light. Meanwhile, let’s treat these two incidents as related.”

“By interviewing random dominatrixes?” said Detective Rhymer.

His instincts were right; it was her orders that were wrong, and she knew it. But she followed the edict. “Dommes for now, Opie. Clear?”

“What about the money in the cookie tins?” asked Raley. “Want me to contact the archdiocese, see if they have any suspicions about the padre doing some skimming?”

Once again, Heat came nose first against one of the brick walls Montrose had put up. It was an obvious trail to follow; why had the captain obstructed it? “Leave that to me for now,” she said.

Hinesburg reported that she had no hits yet on the man in the surveillance photo Father Graf’s housekeeper reacted to. “Which only means he may not have a criminal background.”

Nikki said, “I’ll call Mrs. Borelli and press her. But keep working it and all the other stills.” Heat opened the folder of surveillance pictures and took one out. It was of a man and a young woman coming down the stairs into the lobby of Pleasure Bound. The woman was laughing with her face turned up at her companion, but his was obscured by a Jets cap. Nikki posted it on the board with a magnet. “Had a thought about this one. See on his arm there, the tattoo?” First Raley and then the others rose to gather closer. The tatt was of a snake coiled around his left upper arm. “Real Time Crime Center keeps a data bank of scars and tattoos. Why don’t you have
RTCC
run it, Sharon. See if you get any matches.”