Crashing Heat

by Richard Castle

  There was no doubt Cooley was a patriot. A large painting of the American flag hung on the wall above the long table behind his desk. On the left stood a flagpole with another American flag. On the right was a flagpole with the New York State flag. It hung loosely, showing only part of the state’s coat of arms. The CEL of the word Excelsior was visible, as well as the green of the mountain, the yellow of the sun, and the center of the eagle atop a world globe. Nikki noticed other details, as well: an open case of Mountain Dew; a coatrack draped with a police-issue jacket and a windbreaker; a half-eaten sandwich and a jumbo-sized bag of Doritos, the opening like a gaping black hole. They’d interrupted Ian’s lunch, but Nikki didn’t care.

  Ian gestured to the chairs. “Take a seat.”

  “Here’s the theory,” Nikki said after Ian had settled himself in his own chair. She proceeded to tell him about the university’s secret society, the fraternal order of the Freemasons, and the possible connection to the Illuminati.

  He narrowed his eyes skeptically. “The Illuminati? Are you serious?”

  “Dead serious,” Rook said, speaking for the first time.

  “Because of a tattoo you caught a glimpse of on the victim’s father’s arm, do I have that right?”

  “Ian, don’t be an ass,” Nikki said.

  He leveled his gaze at her. “I didn’t think I was. I do think, however, that this theory of yours sounds a little conspiratorial.”

  “Conspiracy theories are grounded in fact,” Rook said. “Most people choose to dismiss them out of hand, but if they would take a closer look and consider the facts, they’d be more open-minded.”

  “And your mind is open, I take it?” Ian asked Rook.

  Whenever he talked conspiracy, Rook got his sharply angled grin. The sides of his mouth curved up and the center angled down so that his smile looked like a shallow V and his eyes lit up with anticipated excitement. “As a matter of fact, it is. Wide open to the possibilities that things are not always what they seem.”

  Ian rolled his eyes, obviously not convinced and looking as if he didn’t care all that much, to boot. “What else do you have that supports this theory?”

  Nikki took over the narrative, telling him about the secret room in Zabro Hall at the university, and about Chloe’s notes on the matter. “She was on to something, Ian. She figured it out, and we need to see her notebook. Now that we know the track she was on, we want to look at things through the lens she did.”

  Ian propped his elbows on his desk, steepling his fingers. He gave a light, scornful laugh. “Secret societies. Really?”

  Rook’s laugh matched Ian’s. “Indeed. Secret societies. They seem to be everywhere. Especially around here.”

  Nikki breathed a sigh of relief. She remembered something about Ian Cooley in that moment. That sigh. That laugh. It was resignation, of a sort. Right now that meant he was on board with them.

  Ian stood. “Wait here,” he said. He left the office, returning a few minutes later with Chloe’s composition book. He handed it to Nikki without blinking an eye, which gave her pause. Being beholden to Ian for information that was normally at her fingertips at the Two-Oh made her uncomfortable, and she was suddenly skeptical of his ulterior motives. Her work had taught her that people usually put their self-interest first; police officers were no exception.

  Rook could hardly contain his eagerness. He scooted his chair closer to hers, waiting for her to crack open the notebook.

  “Officer Breckenstein and I spent the afternoon scouring that,” Ian said. “We found a few trails to follow, but nothing that panned out. I’m entertaining the idea that the victim’s death was not related to any story she was working on. We think there was a boyfriend. It’s another avenue to pursue.”

  He might have avenues, but she and Rook had speedways. Heat knew how to play this game. “We spoke to her roommate, to the editor in chief at the newspaper, to her father. Not one of them has mentioned that she had a boyfriend.”

  He shrugged. “Could be a friend with benefits, I guess, but we know his name, anyway.” He nodded to the comp book in her hand. “Places and times they hooked up. Doodlings. Now we’re looking for him.”

  Heat tried not to begrudge Ian a win. If she’d had more time with the notebook, she’d have made the discovery.

  “What is his name?” Rook asked.

  Ian cleared his throat. “Todd Reynolds.”

  That name...Heat thought back to the photographs in the apartment Chloe and Tammy had shared. One of them featured Tammy’s brother. Hadn’t she said his name was Todd?

  From the way he was biting his lip, stopping himself from bursting out with the information, Rook seemed to have had the same realization. “Half brother?” he whispered to her.

  She nodded. It was the logical conclusion.

  Ian looked from her to Rook and back. “That name rings a bell, I take it?”

  Nikki addressed the question. “It does, actually. You’ve interviewed the victim’s roommate, I assume.”

  “This may not be Manhattan, but give me some credit, Captain Heat. Officer Breckenstein did the honors.” He was more serious now, leaning forward, tamping down his insecurities. “Why?”

  “Because her roommate, Tammy Burton, has a brother,” Nikki said.

  Rook cleared his throat and went in for the kill. “And his name is Todd.”

  Captain Heat watched Tammy Burton as she led her to the interrogation room. The first time she’d met her, Tammy had had red-rimmed eyes. This time, her eyes were tinged red from anxiety. She had to be wondering why she was at the Cambria police station. She had a very bohemian vibe to her with her gauzy skirt and peasant blouse. Her auburn hair was pulled into a loose bun, strands carelessly cascading around her face.

  Heat ushered Tammy to a chair at the table, closing the airlock door to the room behind them. Tammy looked nervously at the rectangular mirror on one wall of the small room. She’d obviously seen enough TV crime shows and movies to know it was a two-way and that someone was behind it, watching everything.

  Heat excused herself. She wanted to let Tammy sweat it out for a minute. The more anxious she was, the easier it would be to rattle her and get to the truth.

  She entered the small observation room to find Rook standing alone at the window. “Ian’s gone?” she asked.

  He didn’t take his eyes off Tammy, but he answered, “Said he’d be back in a few. You’re letting her stew. Good plan. It’ll make it easier to break her, if, that is, there’s something to break.”

  She and Rook had been partners for so long now that he knew her moves and motives. They stood side by side, observing Tammy Burton. Heat always focused on the eyes first, the hands second. Tammy twisted hers, then clasped them, bringing them to her nose. She dropped them to the table, and then raised them to tuck loose strands of her hair behind her ears.

  “What do you have to be so nervous about?” Heat muttered.

  “Looks to me like she has something to hide. But then, in my experience, most people do,” Rook said.

  She shot him a sideways glance, noting his taut jaw and intense stare. She frowned. He was usually a pillar of optimism. It was one of the things she loved best about him. Seeing murder after murder after murder meant she saw a vast array of darkness in humanity. Rook was the sliver of light that kept her grounded and helped remind her that there was a lot of goodness on the planet. But maybe so many years in her world had begun to snuff out that light. “You’re beginning to sound cynical, Rook. That’s not like you.”

  “Not cynical. Realistic.” He turned to her. “Come on, Heat. You know what I’m talking about. That’s what the job is, right? Someone is murdered, and it’s up to us to sift through all the lies and deceit in order to get to the truth. Along the way, almost everyone has something to hide.”

  “Do you?” she asked him. “Have something to hide?”

  “No. I’m an open book, Heat.”

  “No hidden creases in the binding that I don’t know about?�
��

  “You mean like having a former spouse that was heretofore unmentioned?”

  “Touché,” she said, knowing that if it weren’t for the sly rise of one side of his mouth and the twinkle in his eyes, the comment would have had a different connotation.

  “So what does Tammy Burton want to keep close to the vest? That’s the question that needs answering. Because from her body language, I’d say there is definitely something she doesn’t want us to know.”

  “That her brother had something to do with Chloe’s death? That’s my first guess.” Heat was itching to get started. She left Rook to his musing, returning to the interrogation room. She took the chair opposite Tammy. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  The young woman moved her visibly trembling hands to her lap and out of view. She didn’t quite manage to look Nikki in the eyes, and her voice quavered. “What am I doing here? I told you everything I know.”

  “Did you?” Heat had brought her notebook with her. She flipped it open and consulted it. “Because looking back on our chat, you didn’t mention anything about the fact that Chloe was dating your brother.”

  The statement was a heavy cloud hovering between them. “They, um, they broke up, so I didn’t think it was important.”

  Heat let that go for a minute. “Tell me about your brother. Or is he a half brother?”

  Tammy blew out a breath, no doubt relieved that Heat had changed to a different line of questioning. “Same mom, different dads,” she said.

  “Right. So your half brother, Todd, was dating your best friend, Chloe. And Chloe ends up murdered.” Heat leaned in, keeping her gaze steady and watching every move—every twitch—that Tammy made. “Why wouldn’t you think it was important to share that information? Unless...are you protecting him, Tammy? Is that it? Because that I might understand. He is your brother, after all. If I had to choose between my best friend and my brother, well...blood is thicker than water.”

  Tears pooled in Tammy’s eyes. “Todd didn’t have anything to do with Chloe’s murder. You have to believe me,” she pleaded.

  Here Nikki shook her head, not giving an inch. “Why should I believe you, Tammy? You already withheld some pretty important information in a murder investigation.”

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  Nikki’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. She glanced at it, nodded, and then pushed up from the table. “I guess we’ll see.”

  “What do you mean? Where are you going?”

  “You are free to go, Ms. Burton.” Heat stood at the door, waiting and watching.

  Tammy walked out on shaky legs, but she stopped short when she saw Chief Cooley leading a young man down the hallway. Heat acknowledged Ian with a slight nod that said perfect timing. With his own perfect timing—or perhaps just a sixth sense whenever Ian was around—the door to the observation room opened and Rook stepped into the hallway.

  Tammy spun around to face Heat. “What the hell. What’s going on? This is all some game to you, isn’t it?”

  Rook, hands deep in his pockets, shook his head in utter seriousness. “Au contraire, Ms. Burton. This is far from a game. Murder is far too serious a business for dalliances.”

  Tammy puzzled through Rook’s response while Ian led Todd Reynolds into the interrogation room Heat and Tammy had just vacated. “Wait!” Tammy rushed forward. “Toddy—”

  She stopped abruptly when Ian kicked the door shut an inch from her nose. She spun around again. The trepidation and anxiety they’d witnessed earlier had been replaced with desperation. “You don’t seriously think Todd killed Chloe, do you? I’m telling you, he didn’t.”

  “I’m sure Chief Cooley will sort all that out, one way or another,” Heat said. The words were encouraging; the tone was not. She wanted to keep Tammy unsteady. Until she knew what Tammy and her brother were hiding, Heat wasn’t giving the girl an inch. She walked the girl down the corridor, showing her the way out. Tammy gave one more furtive backward glance at the door her brother was behind, and then she was gone.

  Back in the observation room, Rook stood at the window, this time watching Ian and Todd Reynolds. Nikki could hear the textbook questions Ian lobbed at Todd, but the guy seemed to have taken a vow of silence. “He’s not giving anything up, huh?” she said, coming up next to Rook just in time to hear Ian’s frustrated voice shouting at Todd Reynolds. Todd’s voice snapped through the intercom. Even through the glass, Nikki could see the beads of sweat on his forehead. “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “That’s up to you, Mr. Reynolds. Do you have something to hide?” Ian said, challenging him.

  “Honestly, Heat,” Rook said. “I’m not sure what you saw in that guy.” He lifted his chin to indicate Ian. “He does not have the finesse you do. He’s an amateur, and you—you are an artist. You interrogate circles around the chief. You smoke him. Clobber. Destroy. Annihilate—”

  “Got it,” she said, cutting him off. Inside, she grinned at the compliments from her husband, but outside, she smirked. “Do you think you might be a touch biased, though?”

  “I’m a journalist. I can’t afford to be biased,” he said in all seriousness.

  She slid her hand onto his backside, giving a suggestive squeeze. “Really? No bias at all? You sure about that, Mr. Rook?”

  “Mmmm.” He grinned and waggled his brows. “Well, when you put it that way, Mrs. Rook...”

  A loud bang rattled the window. Ian had stormed out of the interrogation room. Heat turned to see him standing in the doorway in front of them. “The guy’s a brick wall.”

  Heat disagreed. Todd hadn’t opened up to Ian, but maybe he would to her. “Mind if I take a crack at him?”

  Ian flourished one arm wide. “If you think you can do better.”

  Heat shot a glance at Rook before skirting past Ian and going back into the interrogation room. Over the years, she had conducted interviews using a variety of methods. Her approach depended on several factors: the reason for the questions and the time frame they were working with was one. The interviewee’s state of mind was another. Heat’s level of knowledge going in. While lawyers made a point of asking questions they knew the answers to, cops were seeking information they didn’t already have. They needed to lead the interviewee to reveal the very things they wanted so badly to hide.

  Sometimes she went in like a bull in a china shop with the sole goal of intimidation. This was the approach Ian had taken with Todd. As Rook had commented, no finesse. It hadn’t worked. Chloe’s ex-boyfriend was clearly nervous, but he had a tough-guy air about him. Heat had observed Todd enough to know that he wasn’t going to give in easily.

  Todd was wound tight as a drum after Ian’s verbal assault. As Heat entered the room, she could feel the heavy weight of tension in the air. Todd sat up straight, his spine stiffening, his shoulders square. He was not going to take any shit from anyone.

  Heat took a completely different approach. She smiled, greeting him in an effort to put him at ease. She slid into the chair opposite him, careful not to cross her arms or ball her fists. Instead, she placed her hands flat on the table. A gesture of openness. “I apologize for my colleague,” she said, knowing that an apology on his behalf would infuriate Ian, but also knowing that it was her best chance at breaking down the wall Todd had up around him. It was a classic good cop/bad cop, which was not a game Nikki particularly enjoyed playing.

  “He’s a real asshole.”

  Whether or not that was true, Heat wanted to validate his feelings. “Murder in Cambria is pretty rare. The department is using all of its resources to bring a killer to justice. Chief Cooley wants to get to the bottom of it, as you can imagine.”

  “Yeah? Well, I didn’t kill Chloe.” He looked up at the two-way mirror and shouted, “Do you hear me? I. Didn’t. Kill. Her. I loved her.”

  “Love is complicated, isn’t it, Todd?” Heat’s calm voice drew his gaze back to her. “It doesn’t always go like we plan, does it?”

  Behind the glass, she thought of Ian
stewing, imagining that she was talking about their failed marriage, and Rook preening because of the unexpected romance that had burned bright and hot for them.

  For the first time since he’d been in the room, Todd hung his head. “She was too busy—too into whatever article she was writing—to be in a relationship. I wanted it more than she did.”

  “So she broke up with you?”

  To her surprise, he shook his head. “No. I called it off. She was the smartest person I ever met, but she couldn’t read the signs in a relationship. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  The challenge of an interview like this one was sifting through the truth, the half-truths, and the lies. Todd hadn’t revisited the topic of calling a lawyer. And despite his tough-guy persona, he was cracking. His wall was coming down. If Heat had to lay odds, she’d bet that Todd was being honest with her. “How did she take it?”

  He flicked away a single tear that had slipped down his cheek. “I don’t think she gave it a second thought.”

  Unless he was an award-winning actor, Todd had real feelings for Chloe. She gently pushed him for more. “What do you mean?”

  “She was an obsessive personality. She lived and breathed whatever story she was working on. She didn’t give that same attention to the people in her life.”

  But she’d been the one to call her father, over and over, and to foster that relationship. If what Todd was saying was true, that supported the idea that she hadn’t been rekindling a relationship with her long-lost father, but had wanted something else from him—something related to her investigation.

  Todd went on, unprompted. “I broke up with her. It didn’t even faze her.”

  Heat brought her fingers together on the table. “Mr. Reynolds, we need your help.”

  He closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling with his shallow breaths. Nikki took a moment to really look at him. Where his half sister had a more rounded chin, Todd’s was squared. They shared the cleft chin, although the dimple that bisected Todd’s was far more prominent. Like Tammy’s, his eyes were a clear brown. They were clearly siblings, with the strongest dominant traits manifested in both of them.