Raging Heat

by Richard Castle

  Rook came up behind her and voiced her thoughts. “Do you think Commissioner Gilbert knows that his soldier of fortune’s fortunes have turned unfortunate?”

  “Oh, so you’re with me now on Gilbert?”

  “When did I ever doubt you?”

  The news from the press conference was grim. Over ninety deaths in a sixty-mile radius, forty-three of them right there in New York City, mostly in Queens and on Staten Island, which took a wallop. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark airports were closed. All seven East River subway tunnels had flooded and were closed. Same with the Midtown, Holland, and Battery Park automobile tunnels.

  “Got breaking news here.” Ochoa lofted the phone on a stiff arm toward the ceiling. “Feller and Rhymer calling in from da Bronx.”

  Nikki muted Gilbert’s press briefing. “Put them on speaker so we all can get it at once.” She, Raley, and Rook circled Ochoa’s desk. “Whatcha got, Detectives?”

  “We found Zarek Braun’s crib,” said Feller.

  Another chill, a good one this time, raised hairs on Nikki’s arm. “How’d you manage that? Neither of these guys carried ID, not even a wallet.”

  “Hence the term, going commando,” added Raley.

  “Correct, but as all of us who have endured long hours of stakeout know, you need to do something to pass the time.”

  Detective Rhymer said, “Before you start with the dirty jokes, we combed through that Fort Knox on wheels they were driving and found a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition stuffed in the driver’s side pocket.” He paused. “Huh. Still no dirty jokes, what’s wrong with you guys? Anyway, your deceased BearCat driver, Mr. Bill Santinelli, was a subscriber, and—employing all our savvy and cunning as professional investigators—we went to the address on the magazine label. By the way it’s off Bathgate. Same block as the rest of his crew was living when I checked their places out.”

  Everyone thought the same thing—about Wally Irons walking into an IED trap. “You two should hold,” said Heat.

  “Not to worry. Bomb squad sniffed it and passed it a half hour ago while you were in with Zarek Braun.” Randall Feller cleared something from his throat. “By the way, if he’s still hanging around, I’d like to soften him up for you.”

  Everyone on that call felt the same. Heat steered them away from that black hole. “Are you sure Braun lived there, too?”

  “Affirm. Got some picture ID here with numerous assumed names. Driver’s licenses, fake passports, even a private gym card.” They could hear door hinges squeak and the acoustics change as Feller stepped outside. “I’m walking to the detached garage, which ESU is still clearing so we can’t go in yet. But, standing here looking in, I can see all sorts of ordnance, ammunition, tear gas, flash bangs.”

  “Zip cuffs?” asked Ochoa.

  “Don’t see any right off, but I would bet on it. The infamous Impala is also parked in here under a tarp. And there’s a big space here with some wide-track tire marks that I’m sure belong to a BearCat.”

  Heat said, “Just before you called we got a trace back on that ’Cat. It was reported stolen by Mexican police last year.”

  Rook said, “That explains how Braun got it. You can’t just buy those things on eBay. I’ve tried.”

  “Hang on, hang on.” The phone rustled on Feller’s end and they heard muffled chatter. Then he came back on. “The bomb sarge found a wallet on the workbench. No picture ID in it, but there’s a paycheck stub from the chicken slaughterhouse. It’s made out to Fabian Beauvais.”

  Feller and Rhymer hung up to resume their search of Braun’s hideout up in the Bronx. Before Heat got involved in other things, Roach led her to the Murder Board. Like the other detectives, they had taken to heart Nikki’s directive to drill down on every aspect of the case. Since both of them felt a proprietary interest in Jeanne Capois and her unresolved connection to Opal Onishi, that’s where they had put their initial efforts.

  Ochoa began, “I read over the notes from your interview with Onishi.” He took his pen out of his teeth and tapped the woman’s name in his quadrant on the whiteboard. “Squirrelly, that one.”

  “You think?” said Nikki. “If we ran a polygraph on her, we’d probably have to order in more ink.”

  “Yeah, my antenna was up all over. So I thought, what’s in that interview that I could at least run some kind of check on? So I left word with the Happy Hazels. Remember, Opal told you that she hired Jeanne Capois through that agency?”

  “I sort of prompted her with that, but, yeah.”

  “But no. It took awhile because of all the craziness with the storm, but the happiest Hazel called me back about a ten ago. She never referred Jeanne Capois to anyone other than her boss, the old man from the home invasion.”

  “Shelton David,” said his partner.

  “And she has never heard of Opal Onishi. I’ll admit,” he said, “that it’s not so much a lead, as a confirmation of a lie.”

  “At this point, everything helps, Miguel.” And then she said, “You actually read my notes?”

  “Hey, just doin’ the fact-donkey dance.”

  Rook scooted his chair over and said, “The next question is, why? Why lie?”

  Heat agreed. “And why move in the middle of the night like some traveling circus?”

  “Was she in debt?”

  Raley hopped on that one. “No. I ran a credit check on her ’cause I wondered the same thing. It’s maybe the most logical reason to make a midnight run like that. Opal’s not rich, but she’s making all her payments on time. And she’s got a steady job.”

  “We’re back to where we started,” said Heat. “Wondering what the connection is between Opal Onishi and Jeanne Capois.”

  “Which is where some of my donkeywork might help,” said Raley. Nikki could tell by looking, Sean was holding. “Although I did mine wearing the crown.”

  “As my King of All Surveillance Media?”

  “A little more like a commoner. I didn’t scrub surveillance vids; I only used the Internet. To Google Opal Onishi. You can find out a lot about people online.”

  “But don’t believe all of it,” said Rook. He felt their stares and dismissed them with a wave. “I reveal too much. Go on.”

  Rales said, “What got me started was, in your interview—which I also read, thank-you—Onishi said she had been sleeping with an actress on a film shoot, she’s referencing old films, and we knew she went to NYU film school. Anyway, that got me thinking: gopher on Iron Chef? Rental clerk for movie equipment? That’s not career work for a film grad, that’s the J-O-B job you do to pay for your passion. Film.” He had their attention but could see they were only partly with him. “Maybe it’s better if I can just show you.” They followed him to his desk where he clicked on a bookmark that brought up a page of search engine hits.

  “Check this out, she’s got her own site.” He opened the home page to a full-screen pose of Opal Onishi standing at the gate of a Cherokee reservation, resting her arm on an Arri Amira camera body presenting a defiant look to the viewer.

  Nikki drew closer to the monitor. “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about Opal’s other life. As an independent documentary filmmaker.”

  “And a serious one, too,” said Rook. “Look at the films and subjects she’s made.” Raley obliged by scrolling as he read. “‘Village of the Slammed—Gay violence and bashing in New York’s Greenwich Village; Heart of the Bully—Chronicle of the aftermath of spousal violence; Tribe and Punishment—Exposing corruption and abuse on Native American reservations.’ That must be where that home page pic was taken.”

  Raley swiveled his chair to Heat. “So, it looks to me like the Gen-Y kid who’s been fetching coffee and schlepping stage lights is really a Michael Moore in the making.”

  Heat made the connections in a blink. “Kind of makes you wonder what her latest social justice projec
t was. But I have a pretty good idea.” She went to her desk to grab her keys. “If anyone needs me, I’m off to the East Village to visit an indie filmmaker.”

  “You keep waking me up,” said Opal Onishi when she opened the door to let in Heat and Rook. “You know, it’s polite to call first. The power’s all fucked up, but my cell works.” She thumbed the home button to check for bars and held it out as a visual aid. Heat ignored it and instead surveyed the living room. The surplus furniture remained stacked, as before, but the cardboard cartons had been razored open revealing their contents: kitchen gadgets in one; surge suppressors and orphan TV remotes in another. Some of the boxes were empty, and their contents covered every open surface in the room.

  “I see you’ve had time to move in since my last visit.”

  “Yeah, sorry for the mess. Wasn’t expecting company, and I was up working on a project. At least till the lights went out.”

  Rook said, “What’s the project, American Hoarders?”

  “You’re not a cop, are you?”

  “No, this is Jameson Rook. He rides with me sometimes.”

  “The writer. Cool.” Opal scooped up a few of the tall stacks of papers that filled the couch, end to end. “Here, sit here.”

  When they sat, Nikki said, “So you’re trying to finish up your next documentary.”

  She got back a cautious reaction. “Yeah…How’d you know?”

  “Detective.” Heat side-nodded to the bundles of paper—drafts of screenplays—and four milk crates filled with DVDs, both sleeveless and in jewel cases. Fanned across the coffee table in front of a Mac Cinema Display were stapled forms entitled EDITING CONTINUITY in boldface with grids containing lists of time codes, shots, and scene notes marked by highlighters.

  “What gave me away?” Onishi chuckled and then lit a cigarette with an Ohio Blue Tip. She didn’t sit, but stood because it seemed to relax her, one hand on her hip and the other taking a satisfying drag.

  “Actually, to be truthful, we checked you out online.”

  “If one were to be truthful,” added Rook with a calculated degree of innuendo as an attachment. “You have some impressive reviews. I checked you out on Cultureunplugged and Documentarystorm. Your film on gay bashing won a Doxie Award at South by Southwest.”

  “Ancient history. That was my senior project at NYU.” She acted dismissive but seemed flattered by Rook’s notice. “Independent documentary film doesn’t get a lot of mass awareness, which is cool, really. It’s a passion. As an investigative journalist, you should screen it. I have a DVD of it here somewhere.”

  Nikki said, “I’m more interested in the project you’re working on now.”

  “Tribe and Punishment?”

  “Stop lying to me, Opal. You know the one I’m talking about. The one Jeanne Capois was helping you with.”

  “The maid? Helping me on a film?”

  “Stop. The. Lying.”

  “Looks to me like it’s called Smuggled Souls.” Rook held up one of the pages of editing notes.

  “Hey, that’s private.” She snatched it from him and tossed it in one of the empty cartons—a futile gesture since the title appeared in boldface atop every other piece of paper that was visible.

  “Opal, we checked,” said Heat. “The Happy Hazels did not refer Jeanne Capois to you. And we know now that she was a victim of human trafficking. I am forming the reasonable assumption that she had something to do with a film you are making, and I want you to cut the crap and tell me what it was.”

  “OK. This is true.” Onishi stubbed out her smoke and sat on one of the boxes, lighting up another. “Jeanne came to me a few times. Helped me out with some background stuff, you know, keeping it real. That’s all.”

  Detective Heat had done enough interviews in her career to know the dodges. One was the straight lie, which was what she got from Opal last time. Now she was getting the lie hidden inside a truth. Suspects and witness did that when they wanted to feed you enough to satisfy you, hoping you’d move on. Nikki wasn’t budging, and needed to call her out. “I did a records check and didn’t see any calls to you from Jeanne Capois.”

  Just as the woman started to relax, Nikki pulled the rug. “But I did another one before I came here and recognized several calls that turned out to be from the home phone of her employer, Shelton David. Including one the night she was murdered. The night you moved out of your place in Chelsea like it was on fire.” The cardboard box gave in a little under Opal’s weight, startling her. Nikki ignored the distraction. “Did she share something with you that made you afraid?”

  “I am not afraid.”

  Heat waited out her defiant glower through the smoke curl. After a few seconds Nikki spoke quietly as she laid out the crime scene death shots of Jeanne Capois in front of Opal, one by one. “Here is where they killed her. It’s a trash storage area behind a prep school.” She set out another. “Here is a close-up of what they did to her hands and fingers to make her talk.” Then another. “This discoloration on her neck is where they choked her.” Then one more. “This is what they did to her eyes. Poured antifreeze into them until they sizzled. See the discoloration?”

  “Stop it! Don’t!” She swept the pictures off the coffee table and turned away from them, covering her face. Nikki didn’t know what sickened her more: seeing the photos again or using Opal’s vulnerability to get what she needed from her. It didn’t matter. Heat had a job to do.

  “Whatever Jeanne Capois shared with you so you could make your movie got her killed. And you know that. Make it right. Will you help me get these guys?”

  Opal Onishi didn’t answer yes or no, but simply began in a very distant voice to narrate, as if doing a voice-over in one of her docs. “Jeanne Capois was special because she was just like all the others. A girl who grew up in poverty but raised with hope. Like a lot of the Haitians I have interviewed over the past year, hope is not just aspiration, but takes form in tenacity. It is how you survive, it is how you keep going in the face of life’s unrelenting assault. Political corruption, violence, hunger, disease, squalor—even an earthquake does not stop them from seeking a better way.” The ash fell from her cigarette and she absently ground it into the rug with her slipper, then turned to them.

  “Jeanne told me she and her fiancé had been told a major hotel chain in the United States was looking for servicepeople to do the work the Americans were no longer willing to do. The man who met them at the patisserie in Pétionville bought them banana cakes and presse cafe and told them the hotel company had health insurance, training for advancement, and a weekly wage that surpassed what they could scrounge in a year in Haiti. They would also provide the transit to New York. Since Jeanne and Fabian had both lost family in the 2010 quake, they decided to take a chance and go.

  “Everything changed once they boarded the ship, where their possessions were confiscated and they were locked in the holds below. They were trapped aboard for weeks as it went port to port. Jeanne said they knew where they’d been by the other people who came down into the holds with them. Dominicans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Jamaicans, Hondurans, Mexicans. Even a group of prostitutes the captain won in a card game in the Caymans.”

  “Was this a cruise ship?” asked Rook.”

  “A cargo vessel.”

  Nikki said, “I’m going to guess who owned it.”

  “If you guessed Keith Gilbert, you would guess right,” Opal said. Nikki reflected on the visceral reaction Onishi had voiced last visit when she flashed his picture in the array. “The stories I got from other people enslaved by this ring—and it is slavery, let’s call it what it is—were all transported on ships owned by Gilbert Maritime.”

  “I want to see these interviews,” said Heat. “Starting with Jeanne’s. And get transcripts, if you have them. If you don’t, we can transcribe them.”

  Rook asked, “Did you also interview Beauvais?”
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  “No, I didn’t.” Then she held up her hands in a staving gesture. “Whoa, whoa, let’s all hold on here. I’m cooperating, right? Like I’m not ducking your shit anymore, OK?”

  “And?”

  “And this material is mine. This is what I was afraid of when you came around before. I’ve spent a year making a film. I’ve got more interviews I want to do, more writing, and tons more editing. If I let this raw footage out and it starts circulating before I’m ready, I can pretty much kiss off my funding and distribution.”

  Heat felt pressure. Half a day—or less—before the interim precinct commander arrived and took her off the case. Desperate, but trying not to show it, she pushed buttons. “I guess I was wrong. From your résumé, I kind of had you figured as someone who wanted to help fight oppression and injustice.”

  It was a valiant effort, but Opal tapped out another cigarette, played with it, unlit, in her hand while she mulled, then said, “If the film releases properly, it’ll do just that. Besides, I don’t think you can make me.” She turned to Rook, fishing for support. “Don’t I get some protection as a journalist?”

  He shrugged. “Might be debatable whether your indie project gets First Amendment protection. But I do have some perspective to share.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Ever hear of Mary Ellen Mark?” Opal shook no. “We’re going back thirty, thirty-five years here. Mary Ellen Mark was, and still is, a respected photojournalist who managed to gain access to Mother Teresa’s mission in the Calcutta slums. She’s going along, doing her job, snapping pictures of Mother Teresa and her volunteers working their asses off cleaning the lepers, mopping up after the sick, comforting dying kids, physically picking up and carrying the malnourished men and women she’d find collapsed in the gutters or sleeping in sewage. Mary Ellen got some great photos, too. Know what Mother Teresa said to her? She came up to her very calmly and said, ‘You should put down your camera and do some work.’”