High Heat

by Richard Castle

  “Like what?”

  “Like you are weighing whether disembowelment hurts more than dismemberment.”

  “No, I’m just…distracted, I guess.”

  “Because she’s a blow-up doll, remember?” Rook said. “And no one wants to have sex with a blow-up doll. Except for, I mean, people who actually do have sex with blow-up dolls. Not that’d I’d know anything about that.”

  The taxi driver reached toward the small door in the bulletproof glass that separated his part of the cab from the back and slid it shut.

  “Anyhow, my point is, you have nothing to worry about with Lana,” Rook said. “That’s just…professional cordialness.”

  “Okay,” Heat said. “Anyhow, where does he want you to meet him? A hotel, or…”

  “No, we’re going to do the interview in the air on our way from New York to I-don’t-know-where.”

  “In his 737.”

  “Yes.

  “The one with the king-size bed in it,” Heat said.

  “This bed seems to be something of a fascination of yours. Am I to read into this that perhaps you haven’t seen enough of my bed lately, Captain Heat?”

  “I’ve seen plenty of it,” she said. “It’s just that your side has been empty the whole time.”

  “Which I will remedy as soon as I come back from…wherever it is we’re going.”

  “I know,” Heat said, her lip clenched between her teeth.

  “What?”

  “I just…Listen, I know we think we have the guys who did this. But until we have them in custody and know we’ve neutralized the threat, I’m nervous about you being out there without any protection.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Rook said. “Legs Kline is a leading presidential candidate. He’s already under Secret Service protection, plus I’m sure he has his own security detail. And if I don’t know where I’m going to be, how can these ISIS clowns? There’s probably no safer place for me to be than…wherever it is I’m going.”

  He slid the glass divider back open.

  “Excuse me, sir, but could you make a few more stops? Once you drop off my wife, I’ve got an address for you in Tribeca, then I’d need to head out to LaGuardia. It’s a private hangar belonging to LokSat Aviation.”

  The driver mumbled his assent. Rook slid the door closed.

  “LokSat Aviation,” Heat said. “What an ominous-sounding name.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re making too much of everything,” Rook said. “There’s nothing ominous about the name LokSat.”

  He let that hang out there for a moment.

  “In any event, I’ll be safely returned before you know it,” he said. “And then we’ll both be more than ready for a very memorable return to Reykjavík.”

  “You promise?”

  “It will be all I’m living for,” he said.

  Just as long as you keep living at all, Heat almost said, but she stopped herself. The thought was too morbid to be spoken out loud.

  They settled into silence, watching the blocks fly by as the cab slalomed through small openings in traffic on 7th Avenue.

  Heat pulled out her phone and checked her messages. “Feller texted to say El-Bashir and Al-Aman are definitely holed up inside their apartment. He says his team is moving on them shortly.”

  She clicked over to e-mail. “And Raley says he’s got a preliminary height match on the video. El-Bashir and Al-Aman are both within an inch on either side of six feet, and so are the two men in the video.”

  “See? Everything is going to be fine,” Rook said.

  Heat just looked out the window as lower Manhattan continued to flash by. She knew what was bothering her, of course. It wasn’t what was in the video, but what was just offscreen. The two men had clearly kept glancing at something just to the side of the camera. Something—like cue cards—or someone.

  Someone who was really in charge.

  Someone who would view El-Bashir and Al-Aman as expendable commodities and wouldn’t register their arrests as anything more than a slight hiccup.

  Someone who would see Jameson Rook’s kidnapping and death as a vital part of a larger plan to instill terror.

  The cab was slowing to a stop, having reached Helen Miksit’s office, just around the corner from Tweed Courthouse. Rook’s Tribeca loft was just a few blocks to the northwest. Heat could tell his attention was already on the bag he would quickly grab on his way to meeting Legs Kline’s private jet at LaGuardia.

  She kissed him, then grabbed his face with both hands.

  “Be safe, not stupid,” she said. “And come back home to me in one piece.”

  “Always,” he said.

  She slid out of the cab and watched it pull away, hoping it wouldn’t be a moment forever imprinted in her mind as the last time she saw him.

  Like a lot of criminal defense attorneys, Helen Miksit didn’t tend to meet clients at her office.

  Generally speaking, she had two kinds of clients: the rich and powerful, who she went to see in their workplaces or mansions, and the poor (but high-profile), who she visited in their jail or holding cells or whatever government facilities they were incapable of getting themselves bonded out of.

  It meant her headquarters were unadorned and utilitarian: a small suite of offices in a building whose lobby, elevator, and hallways were about thirty years overdue for an update. Not designed to impress. Just designed to keep Miksit and her team—which consisted of a secretary, a paralegal, an associate she kept around to do research, and an investigator—out of the rain.

  It spoke to the nature of their relationship that Nikki Heat had known Helen Miksit the entire time she had been a defense attorney—ever since she had switched over from the prosecutor’s office years earlier—but had never once been to her office. It was usually Miksit trying to get something from Heat (namely, a client out of police custody), not the other way around.

  So this was a role reversal. And the surprise on Miksit’s secretary’s face when he saw Captain Heat of the Twentieth Precinct walking through the front doors of Helen Miksit & Associates spoke to that.

  “Good afternoon, Captain,” he said as he snuck surreptitious glances at the calendar on his computer screen. “I didn’t realize you were coming in today. Do you have an—”

  “No,” Heat said. “Is Helen—”

  “Is that Nikki Heat? In my office?” came a booming alto-basso from the next room. Hillary Clinton may have needed training to make her voice sound deep and commanding. Helen Miksit came by it naturally.

  Miksit didn’t just act like a bulldog in court; she sort of looked like one, too. Things that were round on most people were square on Helen Miksit.

  If she was smiling as she appeared in her small reception area, it was only viciously. Miksit had been around the game long enough to know that NYPD captains didn’t schlep themselves half the length of Manhattan just to make idle chat. They both knew: Heat was there to grovel for something she couldn’t get through other means.

  “Hello, Helen,” Heat said, determined to use the get-more-flies-with-honey approach to the conversation. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

  “Bullshit,” Miksit spat. “The last time we saw each other you were trying to railroad my innocent client—”

  “Who was so innocent you promptly sent him to Croatia,” Heat said.

  So much for honey.

  “I didn’t send him anywhere,” Miksit informed her. “He may or may not have come across some information about which countries did and did not currently have extradition treaties with the United States. He then chose to act on that information. Surely I, as an officer of the court, would never have advised him to do anything that would impede the seeking of justice.”

  “Of course not,” Heat volleyed back. “And it just so happens that my visit today will give you another opportunity to prove how, as an officer of the court, you will do whatever you can to aid a police investigation.”

  Miksit didn’t bother to hide the rolling of h
er eyes. “Oh, my, it’s getting deep in here. I hope you brought a shovel.”

  Heat took a deep breath, as much to calm herself down as to give the conversation a chance to de-escalate. She thought about Rook and how much he needed her to close this investigation—whether he acknowledged it or not. Maybe Tam Svejda’s supernova-big story truly had nothing to do with her death.

  Or maybe it had everything to do with it. Helen Miksit was right now the gatekeeper of the data that could give Heat clarity.

  “Can we just talk for a moment?” Heat asked quietly. “I really need a favor.”

  Miksit frowned. Bluster aside, Helen Miksit was a member of the bar in good standing. As such, she could scarcely tell Heat, a sworn law enforcement officer, to stop back when she had more time. Miksit looked testily at her secretary. “Craig, hold my calls.”

  “Yes, Ms. Miksit,” he said.

  “Come on, Captain,” Miksit said, turning back toward her office without really looking at Heat.

  Helen Miksit’s inner sanctum was just as unadorned and straightforward as her litigation style. There were no family photos, no quirky effects. The artwork was chain-hotel neutral and appeared to have been chosen without any attempt to match the taste or personality of the inhabitant.

  For as strange as it sounded, Heat recognized in Miksit a kind of kindred spirit: a woman who didn’t want to give away anything without a fight. Certainly not with something as cheap and easy as a memento of childhood left in the open. Miksit didn’t even hang her undergraduate or law school diplomas. The details of Helen Miksit’s personal life were on a need-to-know basis, and as far as Miksit was concerned, no one in her professional life had that need.

  Miksit smoothed her St. John knit dress as she sat behind her desk. Heat perched herself on the edge of a chair set on the other side.

  “So,” Heat began. “I’m sure you’ve heard about this new ISIS-style beheading video?”

  Miksit’s face registered immediate disgust. “Yes, of course. But what does that have to do with me? I represent innocent victims of law enforcement overreach, not lunatic fringe-religious zealots.”

  “We’ve identified the victim,” Heat said. “I’m sorry to say it’s Tam Svejda from the Ledger. I assume you knew her?”

  Miksit’s nonverbal reaction told Heat the answer. The blocky lawyer went oval just for a moment as she digested the news.

  “Knew her, loved her,” Miksit said. “Unlike a lot of her colleagues, she didn’t just lap up whatever slop the NYPD was spilling from its trough. She actually cared about the truth and didn’t mind getting her hands dirty lifting up rocks to find it. The world would be a better place if there were a thousand more Tam Svejdas, not one less of her.”

  “You may or may not believe it, but I actually agree with you,” Heat said. “That’s why I’m hoping you’ll help us catch her killers.”

  “Because of Tam or because of Jameson Rook?” Miksit asked. “I saw the video, Captain. I know they threatened to do your boyfriend next.”

  “Husband,” Heat corrected. “But what does it matter? The end result is the same. We get some garbage off the street.”

  “Sure,” the lawyer said, picking up a pen off her desk and giving it a twirl in her fingers. “But I don’t see how I can possibly—”

  “I’m told you represent the New York Ledger in criminal matters.”

  “I do.”

  Here goes nothing, Heat thought. “I’m also told Tam was working on something big when she was killed. Something her editor called ‘supernova big.’ And I think it might have gotten her killed.”

  “Might?”

  “At this point, this is a lead I’m trying to track down. Someone recently sent her a bullet at the office. We think it might have been some kind of message, like maybe someone was trying to threaten her or scare her off a story.”

  “I see. And what are you looking for from the Ledger?”

  “Phone records. Tam’s mobile phone was company issued. She used her desk phone as well. I’d like to look through both.”

  Miksit pushed back in her chair, almost as if she was trying to appraise Heat from a wider angle.

  “You’re joking, right?” Miksit said. “Oh, no, wait, I get it: I’m being punked. Ashton Kutcher is hiding under Craig’s desk and he’s going to burst in here any second, right?”

  “Helen, please…”

  “No, no. You don’t get to ‘Helen, please’ me with something like this. You said you needed a favor. A favor is like, ‘Hey, I forgot my wallet today, can you buy me a sandwich?’ A favor is ‘Mind dropping off my dry-cleaning?’ This is…This isn’t a favor. This is asking me to commit a serious ethical breach. And all because you have a half-cocked hunch and some wild story about a bullet? Get real, Captain—”

  “Listen, Helen—”

  “No, you listen. You’re a sharp cookie, Heat. So use that big brain of yours to think about it from our perspective for a second. You’re asking for permission to go on a wide-open fishing expedition through the phone records of one of that paper’s most high-profile and successful reporters, a woman who had more confidential sources than most people have Facebook friends. People talked to her because they trusted her, because they knew she was a real journalist who would never burn them, because they knew she would sooner go to jail than reveal her sources.

  “Do you have any idea what kind of shit storm there would be if it came out at trial I just let the government sift through her phone calls? Do you have any conception of what that would do to the paper’s reputation? People would stop talking to the Ledger overnight, and I wouldn’t blame them. They might as well convert themselves to a Chamber of Commerce promotional piece because no one would ever take them seriously as a newspaper again.”

  Heat gritted her teeth. “You’re willing to potentially let two brutal murderers get away so you can stand on principle?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Captain. I really am. I’m as big a fan of Tam as there ever was. I want to see you solve this case. But it can’t be on this evidence. Some things are bigger than one case, and a free and vibrant press operating outside the purview of government meddling is one of them. You’re just going to have to find another way to hang those bastards, because I just can’t give you any string here.”

  Heat considered her possible options. She could go with threats…

  Well, then I’ll just have to hold a press conference and tell the world Helen Miksit sides with terrorists.

  Or insults…

  If you decide to change your mind and grow a conscience, let me know.

  Or low blows…

  I’m sure Tam’s parents will appreciate your devotion to the First Amendment.

  But ultimately Heat knew she had no leverage, and, in any event, Miksit would only get her back up higher the more Heat pushed. Heat decided on a graceful exit instead.

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Heat said. “I guess we’re done here.”

  “I guess we are,” Miksit said. “Sorry, Captain.”

  Heat took a business card and flipped it on the desk as she left.

  “In case you have a change of heart,” Heat said.

  She left without another word.

  Heat was still smarting from her defeat as she spilled back out onto Church Street.

  She checked her phone to see if there was any word from Feller and company, who had probably already kicked in the door to the Harlem apartment of Hassan El-Bashir and Tariq Al-Aman and were right now hauling the men back to the precinct for questioning.

  There were no updates. Heat considered her options: She could go back to the Two-Oh and wait for them, or she could take advantage of the fact that she was already downtown and see if Joanna Masters was still hanging around her Greenwich Village apartment, recuperating from her ISIS-inflicted injuries.

  The second option won easily. Heat put her phone away and started walking toward the Canal Street subway stop, knowing it would be the quickest way to get there at this poin
t in the afternoon.

  But as she got underway, something flashed in the corner of her eye. It was such a small glimpse, it barely even qualified as fleeting. Except suddenly, those old neurons and synapses—the ones that had fired that morning when she saw her mother sitting on that bus shelter bench—were going off again.

  What had she just seen? Heat frantically panned left, then right.

  And yes. There. On the other side of the street, pushing a cart southbound: a stooped homeless woman.

  Except Heat wasn’t fooled this time. Nor was she going to allow her mother to get away again.

  The afternoon traffic was pouring up Church Street as early birds tried to get a jump on the exodus at the Holland Tunnel. Heat was at the exact midpoint of the block. Running either up or down to the crosswalk would cost her time and wasn’t the shortest distance. A straight line was.

  Without hesitation and without a second look, Heat hauled out her badge, held it up, and stepped into traffic.

  A minivan lay on its breaks and horn at the same time, skidding to a halt just inches from Heat. In the next lane over, the driver of a produce truck also barely came to a stop, flipping Heat a one-finger salute in the process. Then a man in the bicycle lane, his suit pants neatly clipped, had to go up on the sidewalk to avoid hitting her.

  “Hey, lady!” he yelled.

  Heat didn’t pay them any attention. Nor did she notice a pair of pedestrians who were now standing with their backs to a nearby building, staring at Heat like she was a menace to their safety.

  “Stop,” Heat yelled. “Someone stop that woman!”

  Her mother had rounded the corner, just under a banner that read NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL, and was now heading west on Worth Street, out of Nikki’s sight.

  Was Cynthia Heat going to pull another spy trick on her? Was she going to vanish into some crack in the sidewalk or some crevice in a building as if she had never existed?

  No. Not again. Having now crossed the street, Nikki tore toward the corner. She barreled around it at top speed, just barely missing a woman in a pencil skirt who was carrying three cups of afternoon coffee in a cardboard caddy and swore at Heat when it was almost spilled.