Frozen Heat (2012)

by Richard Castle

  “God, will you look at me back then?” said Eugene Summers as he examined the old snapshot of himself. “Good lord, and the width of that tie. Margaret Hamilton could land her broom on it and still have room for three flying monkeys.” He handed the photo back to Nikki. “I loved your mother, you know. Those were great years, and Cindy was absolutely special.”

  Nikki thanked him for saying so, while he took a sip of iced tea, avoiding eye contact with the other lunchers at Cafeteria who recognized him from the cable TV show that had made the real-life butler a breakout sensation in his sixty-first year. After decades as a professional manservant in Europe, Eugene had gotten a call from a studio head he had served during a summer in London, who had an idea for a TV show like Arthur, pairing the fastidious and urbane Mr. Summers with various unruly young celebrity stoners. Thus was born Gentlemen Prefer Bongs, whose success transformed Eugene into America’s ex officio arbiter of taste and propriety in everything from grooming to etiquette to wine pairing.

  In his message, when he had called her back from his Chelsea loft, Summers seemed thrilled to have heard from Cindy Trope’s little girl and agreed to meet for lunch. Rook couldn’t have been happier, too. Not only was he addicted to the series, but on the way to the restaurant, he had said to Nikki, “What do you think the odds are this is going to be one of those cases where the butler did it? Because I could sell that story to any magazine in the country just for the headline.”

  Of course, when they met at his table, Nikki heard the obligatory praise about how much she resembled her mom. Rook, who regularly hobnobbed with Hollywood A-listers and blockbuster music icons, just grinned like a dope as he shook hands with the reality star. Heat prayed he wouldn’t embarrass her by asking her to take a photo of the two of them.

  They began on a somber note with Eugene’s condolences to Nikki for the loss of her mother, and his disbelief at the deaths of Nicole and, now, Tyler Wynn. “I got a call about Tyler when I woke up Sunday morning. I’m still reeling.” He made a brave face and sat tall. “However, I am reminded of the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, ‘Good Americans when they die, go to Paris.’”

  Nikki found it interesting that he was still in the loop. “May I ask who told you about Wynn’s death?”

  “Not by name. Let’s say a mutual acquaintance.”

  “Were you and Tyler Wynn close?” she asked.

  “Once. But we hadn’t seen each other, oh, in ages. But he’s a man you hold in your heart.”

  Heat said, “I guess this leads us to where I want to start. Were you part of this Nanny Network of Tyler’s that my mother was in?”

  “Not that I don’t want to cooperate, Detective, I do,” said Summers, “but you put me in an awkward position.”

  “You took an oath not to divulge secrets?” asked Heat.

  “Oath or not, I’m preternaturally discreet. It’s not just professional, I have personal standards.” Then he saw her disappointment. “But despair not. For Cindy’s daughter, I can bend the rules. I’ll speak in generalities. Or use non-denial denials. For example, to the question you just asked, my answer is that I’m sworn not to say. And that tells you exactly what you want to know, doesn’t it?”

  “Good enough,” said Nikki.

  Summers noticed Rook absently playing leapfrog, as he often did, with his knife and spoon, and fixed a chastening look on him. Rook ceased and said, “Wow, just like the show. Did you see, Nikki? I just got the Summers Stare.” Then he pleaded to the TV butler, “Give me the catchphrase. Come on, just once? Please?”

  “Very well.” Summers arched a brow and delivered a haughty “How uncouth.”

  “Effing awesome.” Rook laughed with glee but settled when he saw Nikki stare, and said, “Continue. Please.”

  Heat formulated a question according to the rules. “Let’s say—if you had been in this network—would you recall the names of some of the enemies whose homes became infiltrated?”

  “If I had working knowledge of that network I’d probably take a wild guess and suppose that not everyone spied on was an enemy. Intelligence-gathering is often back channel, so the subjects of surveillance might just as likely be diplomats or businesspeople ripe with information. Or merely social friends of an enemy.”

  “And what about my mother? If you had been in a position to know, would you know the names of the subject homes she infiltrated?”

  “Sorry. If I had known such information I didn’t retain it. And that’s flat-out true. I would have had my own full plate.”

  “What about when this picture was taken in London? Was she there to spy on her patron family?”

  “Again, I can’t say.”

  “Same for Nicole Bernardin?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Rook said, “Can I play this word game, too? You said if you had known such information, you didn’t retain it. If you were in a position to find out what a fellow spy was working on, how would you guess that you—or someone—would do that?”

  “Well played, Mr. Rook.”

  “I have a headache,” he said.

  “I would imagine, like any close friends in their twenties moving about Europe, social contact would be important. No Twitter back then. So systems probably developed. Mail and phone calls would be out of the question due to surveillance, so I would guess …,” he paused and winked, “that enterprising kids would communicate their whereabouts and sensitive information through a series of unorthodox secret mail stashes. Let’s call them drop boxes.”

  “A drop box,” repeated Rook. “You mean like a loose brick in the town square with a chalk mark on it?”

  The famous butler pinched his face into a sour grimace. “Oh, please. That is so Maxwell Smart.”

  Nikki asked, “How, then?”

  “I suppose,” he said with another wink, “that each member might have had his or her own signature drop and might find unique means to communicate its secret location so the bad guys couldn’t figure it out.”

  Images surfaced in Heat’s mind of her mom’s and Nicole’s ransacked apartments. Plus the phone call to the Bernardins from a Mr. Seacrest looking for a package. “If you had such knowledge, would my mother or Nicole have drop boxes other than in Europe? Let’s say—hypothetically—here in New York?”

  “That I wouldn’t know. I would have left the network by then—if I had been in it in the first place.” Another wink, why not?

  “When might that have been, if you’d left it?” Rook asked.

  “Late nineties.” Then he added with a chuckle, “If.”

  “Would you have still been in Europe when her mother was killed?”

  “That’s where I was when I heard the news, yes.” Summers thought some more and said to Rook, “Did you just ask me for my alibi?” Then he turned to Nikki. “Is that what this was for? To check me out as a suspect?”

  “No, not at all,” said Heat.

  “Well, it feels like it to me. And I have to say, as someone who came here out of respect and in good faith, that I am insulted. If you wish to speak with me again, it will be along with my attorney. Excuse me.” Heads in the restaurant turned from red pear salads and chicken and waffles as Eugene Summers scraped the feet of his chair from the table and stormed out.

  Rook leaned down and plucked the butler’s napkin off the floor. He held it up and said, “How uncouth.”

  Nikki flipped to a fresh page in her spiral and made a note to have someone check the whereabouts of Eugene Summers on the murder dates. If only to dot the i on the if.

  Heat had just finished double-parking her Crown Victoria on West 82nd with the other double-parked undercover cars outside the precinct, when Lauren Parry called her on her cell phone. “Got a second, Nikki?” Her voice sounded constricted and low. Something was up. Nikki waved at Rook to go inside ahead of her and leaned on her car. “This is not a good news call, Nik,” said her pal, the medical examiner. “I really, really have to apologize.”

  “What’s up?”

&n
bsp; “It’s the toxicity test on Nicole Bernardin. It’s ruined.”

  “You’re going to have to help me here, Lauren. I’ve never heard about a tox test getting ruined. What’s that mean?”

  “Just what it sounds like. Something went wrong in the lab. You know how we put blood and fluids through tests using gases to screen for chemicals and toxins in the system of the deceased?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Well, that’s what we do. And somehow, the gases got screwed up. The supply of pressurized gas canisters that got delivered was contaminated, and now we cannot lab Nicole’s body chemistry. I feel awful. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

  Nikki said, “Don’t beat yourself up. Unless you are the one responsible for gas delivery. You aren’t, are you?”

  Lauren didn’t chuckle. Instead she said a sulky “No.”

  “Then when you get your gas supply situation cleared up, just run her tox test again from other samples.”

  “I can’t, Nikki, that’s the thing. This morning Nicole Bernardin’s body was cremated at the request of her parents and sent back to France.”

  In spite of Heat’s disappointment and frustration, she reacted to her friend with a feather touch. Nikki told Lauren not to dare to take it personally, and that she would be in contact later about a follow-up investigation since this had a fishy quality, particularly in light of the lost glove at Forensics.

  Detectives Rhymer and Feller were her free team at the moment, so when she got into the bull pen Heat told them she wanted to see them immediately for an assignment. But then she saw the light blinking on her desk and checked her voice mail first.

  The message was from Lysette Bernardin calling from Paris, in tears. Between her anguish and her accent Nikki had to strain to understand her message at first, then it suddenly became chillingly clear. Mme. Bernardin and her husband Emile wanted to know how this could happen. How in the world could someone cremate their daughter’s body against their wishes?

  FOURTEEN

  Detective Ochoa came to Heat to thank her for not assigning him the toxicity lab investigation at OCME. “Even though Lauren and I are in a relationship, I want you to know I could deal, if you put me on it. But the doc takes a lot of pride in her work, and she’s wicked upset right now. I’m just as glad to have Feller and Opie handle it so I can just be her shoulder, know what I mean?”

  “I get it, Miguel. Hey, look at me, working my own mother’s case. I think we both know how to shut out our personal feelings.”

  He frowned. “Didn’t say I could do that. But good for you.” And then before he walked on, he added, “I guess.”

  Nikki gathered the troops to get some new assignments rolling. Her squad made a smaller circle with Hinesburg away in Larchmont and Detectives Feller and Rhymer off covering OCME, but Heat was eager to regain momentum her first day back, so she decided not to wait for a full house.

  On the walk from his desk, Detective Raley put his hand up and said, “I just got some news you might be interested in.” Nikki’s heart skipped, fearing he might slip and make a public report on the bank account she had asked him to keep low-key, but Sean Raley knew better than that. “For the last few days, I’ve been surfing traffic cam archives along East Twenty-third and I finally scored a hit.” He handed her a color still. “This is at Third Ave, just after that maroon van tried to snowplow you and Rook.”

  “This is the van.” She could see Rook craning, so she held it up for all to see.

  Rook said, “Sure is. Too bad the cam didn’t get a shot of the driver.”

  “I know,” said the King of All Surveillance Media. “And the plate’s a stolen. But check out the side of the van. Righty-O Carpet Cleaners. Don’t get too excited, the name’s bogus. So’s the phone number.” He consulted his notes. “It’s listed to some business called the Pompatus of Love.”

  Rook said, “Oh, right, that hotline where sex goddesses fulfill your wildest fantasies. As long as you have a valid major credit card.” He caught Nikki’s look and added, “Or, so I’ve read.”

  Raley tapped the photo with his pen. “I’m betting this is the same van that was parked outside Nicole Bernardin’s when her place got tossed.”

  “Let’s find out,” said Heat. “When Feller and Rhymer get back, have them run the pic up to Inwood to show their power walker eyewit. If it’s a match, put it out as an APB. Nice work, Sean.” She smiled and added, “It’s good to be king.” As Heat posted the shot of the van on the Murder Board, she said, “Malcolm and Reynolds.”

  “Yeah, I see our initials up there beside ‘cremation,’” said Reynolds.

  “I want you to find out where that order came from. Now, I don’t need to tell you this is about as serious as it gets. Not just because somebody messed with our case, it’s a desecration that brought tremendous heartache to a bereaved family.” The partners could read how deeply Nikki felt this and managed to say they’d handle it without adding their usual gallows humor. The embargo didn’t last long.

  Detectives Feller and Rhymer came into the bull pen from OCME, and Malcolm said, “Hey, look who’s back. The gas masters.”

  Reynolds jumped in, “That was fast. What, you both have a tail wind?”

  And they were off for several rounds of gas ribbing. Nikki knew better than to fight a room full of guys lapsing into locker room adolescence, so she waited them out, clocking one minute on her watch. “OK, OK, now I’d like to hear their report.”

  Ochoa said, “Hey, guys? I think she wants to move on. That is, if you culos are done venting.”

  Following a chorus of “whoas,” Feller and Reynolds reported that the contaminated gas didn’t end up at the coroner’s by mistake. They explained that the medical examiner’s toxicity lab receives scheduled deliveries of pressurized gas tanks from an outside supplier for its tests. But the morning of Nicole’s lab workup, the delivery truck got stolen and used by someone to deliver the tainted supply of canisters.

  “How come nobody reported the truck stolen?” asked Rook.

  “Because it showed up back in the lot with its original load an hour later,” said Rhymer. “They figured it for a joy ride.”

  Feller added, “And when the real driver made his usual delivery, it was a different shift at OCME, so they just unloaded it and kept them as spares. Nobody said anything.” He shrugged. “Flaw in the system.”

  “That someone exploited and sabotaged Nicole’s tox test,” added Heat.

  Rhymer asked, “Why would someone go to all that trouble?”

  “Same reason they’d order the cremation of the body,” said Rook. “To hide something in the results.” He saw they weren’t looking at him like he was so nutty this time, so he continued. “But what?”

  “And who?” asked Heat. “I want to find out who.”

  “I’ll take point on that.” The roomful of detectives turned to see Captain Irons in the doorway. “Heat, your crew has its plate full. I’m going to handle this one personally.” Then he left, leaving no room for debate.

  Feller said, “Guess after his Hank Spooner screwup, Wide Wally is trying to prove his worth.”

  “Or pull his weight,” said Ochoa. “Good luck with that.”

  Much as she didn’t care for his leadership, Heat didn’t abide public contempt for a precinct commander. “A little respect, all right?” That was all she needed to say to shut that down.

  Detective Rhymer asked her, “What do you suppose is going on here, Detective? First the missing glove, then the bad gas, then the body gets cremated.”

  “It’s no coincidence, we all know that.” She and Rook made eye contact, both thinking the same thing: that the hand of CIA, Homeland Security, or even some clandestine foreign agency might be orchestrating this. Nikki wondered if this was the time to share what she’d learned in Paris with the rest of the group. Then Raley spoke up, and the decision got made for her.

  “Does anybody else think it’s weird that we never got a match on Nicole Bernardin�
��s fingerprints? I mean, here she was, a foreign national without prints on file?”

  Malcolm joined in. “Odd, indeed. Especially since back in 2004 the feds changed immigration regs to make even permanent legal residents get printed. So how did Nicole skip that biometric documentation?”

  “And no alien registration number, either,” said Raley. “All those years in this country, and no A-card? I bet you know what this means, Detective Heat.”

  She tried to decide: Close it off, or share? Sharing would allow this bright group that was so eager to help her weigh in with ideas. But what a risky step, even with Hinesburg and Irons out of the building. Closing off discussion would be safe but potentially obstructive. Nikki stalled in the middle ground to buy time. “I have some thoughts, but I’m not sure I should go into them.”

  “Why not?” asked Reynolds.

  Rook said, “It’s need-to-know. Eyes-only.”

  “Nicole Bernardin was a spy?” asked Raley, not at all as a question.

  Heat turned to Rook and shook her head. He said, “What gave it away?”

  “Eyes-only? Clever … Max.”

  “Sorry about that, Chief.”

  Heat held up her hands to the squad, the palms separated by inches. “I was this close to telling you anyway. So now I’m this close.” She brought them together. “But with all the leaks around here lately, I need your pledge that this stays in this group and doesn’t go beyond you.” Every single one, without prompting, raised his right hand.

  So Nikki made a leap of faith.

  Sometimes risks pay off. If Heat had not opened up to her squad, she never would have found herself in Midtown with Rook an hour later waiting for an elevator in the lobby of the prestigious Sole Building and feeling her first excitement at a potential lead since spotting Nicole Bernardin on her mother’s old recital video.

  Nikki had given her detectives the cut-down version, editing out the Russian kidnapping, the Homeland Security encounter, and the most private parts. Nikki was not prepared to give up family secrets—especially not the nasty rumor that her mother had turned traitor at the end. Roach might piece that together if anything came of the hidden bank account, but she’d deal with that then. Meantime, filling the squad in on the Nanny Network, Tyler Wynn, and the CIA had given them plenty to digest. She’d finished by admonishing them again not to share and also to make sure to tell her immediately if anyone contacted them about the case.