Frozen Heat (2012) (11 page)

“You know, at least that has possibilities.”

“Really?”

“Yes. So quit while you’re ahead.” She closed the file and stared at the passing marshes and woodlands, seeing none of it, really. Less than a minute passed, and Rook was back, as if he’d hit reset. “There must be some reason your own mother never mentioned such a good friend.”

“Rook?” she said. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

“Shut up?”

“Thank you.”

He concentrated on the view again, glimpsing the last of the solitary islands of rock just before the train entered an underpass and the concrete wall blocked it from sight.

Even though they had to detour around a frozen zone set up on Dyckman due to a gas leak caused by the earthquake, they still made record time getting to Nicole Bernardin’s apartment in the northernmost section of Manhattan. Her building, a slender two-story town house facing Inwood Hill Park across the avenue, would be Realtor-listed as a charming Tudor. The neighborhood felt safe and looked well maintained, the sort of quiet street where people used canvas car covers and the half walls surrounding porches gleamed with fresh coats of paint. Heat and Rook entered the town house to find a different picture entirely.

From the downstairs foyer, in every direction they looked, the disarray was alarming. Cabinets and closets stood ajar. Paintings and pictures ripped from hooks sat askew, with busted frames tipping against wainscoting and doorjambs. An antique china cabinet in the dining room lay split open on its side with shattered crystal glassware surrounding it like ice chips. Strewn decorative objects covered all the floors as if the whole place had been shaken. “Tell me this wasn’t from the earthquake,” said Rook.

Detective Heat put on a pair of blue gloves. Raley handed him a pair and said, “Not unless the earthquake walked around crushing everything under size eleven work boots.”

Touring the ransacked town house shrouded Nikki in yet another suffocating cloud of deja vu. Her own apartment—once the scene of her mother’s murder—had also been tossed back then, although not so thoroughly violated. Detective Damon had called that an interrupted search. This one clearly went on nonstop until the perp either found what he was looking for or was satisfied he never would.

Ochoa met her in the doorway as she entered the upstairs master bedroom. As they stepped around the fingerprint technician who was dusting the cut glass knob, she asked her detective, “Any sign of blood anywhere?”

He shook no and said, “No obvious sign of struggle, either. Although I don’t know how you’d ever be able to sort that out a hundred percent in all this mess.”

“I can give you about ninety-nine-point-nine percent, if that’s helpful,” said the lead for the Evidence Collection Unit, Benigno DeJesus, as he rose up from kneeling on the rug behind a tossed mattress. Nikki’s shoulders immediately relaxed when she saw him. The crime scene was in excellent hands.

“Detective DeJesus,” she said. “To what do we owe this honor on a Sunday?”

He pulled down his surgical mask and smiled. “I don’t know. I had an uneventful day planned when Detective Ochoa called to tell me about this case of …,” he paused and then, in his typically understated fashion, continued, “some interest. So here I am.” She gave Ochoa a quick study, wondering what favor Miguel had traded for pulling in the best evidence man in the department on a day off, but Oach’s stoic face gave nothing away.

DeJesus gave her and Rook an overview tour of the town house, with his preliminary assessment being that the disarray constituted a property search without an assault associated with it. He pointed to the second bedroom, which Nicole Bernardin had set up as a home office. That had received the brunt of the rummaging. He used a penlight to indicate four tiny circular marks where the rubber feet of her laptop had lived before it got taken. The charger cord as well as the USB cable to her missing external hard drive all remained where they had once connected to the computer. Desk drawers and files all sat open and empty, except for stationery odds and ends. “The level of meticulousness here tells me whoever searched the residence focused most of his attention and care in here,” he said.

Back in the bedroom, the ECU detective said the owner of this place wasn’t sharing it with a spouse. All the toiletries, clothing, foods in the kitchen, and other tells suggested a mature woman living alone, although she had kept a supply of condoms in the nightstand and a new toothbrush, shaving cream, and a package of disposable razors in a bathroom cabinet. Hearing that, Nikki and Rook side-glanced each other, each tentatively ticking one unspoken thought off a mental list about Cynthia Trope Heat and Nicole Aimee Bernardin. The prescriptions in the medicine cabinet all matched Nicole’s name, and the few pictures in broken frames on the floor showed the victim in Europe at various ages with people resembling parents and siblings. Nikki crouched over, curious to see if her mother appeared in any of them, but she did not. She stood up and observed Rook doing the same thing in the next room.

Roach had already briefed Detective DeJesus about the traces of lab solvent and the railroad grime found on her body, and he promised to be on the lookout, as well as to coordinate with Lauren Parry at OCME on Nicole Bernardin’s toxicology to match prescription use and any other findings she learned in her postmortem. Heat was content to leave it in the capable hands of ECU, but she indulged herself in a solitary, sense-of-the-house tour before she drove back to the Twentieth Precinct. One thing she wanted to see satisfied a big piece of curiosity for her when she found it. In the downstairs closet she discovered a complete set of luggage, including the exact size of her mother’s stolen piece. All were empty, and there was no space left in the closet for the suitcase the victim’s body had been found in. That was not definitive information, but it did lessen the likelihood that Nicole Bernardin had been in possession of that American Tourister, and therefore it moved her one step down the roster of her mother’s potential killers. A bittersweet thought for Heat since, ten years later, that roster was still empty.

The silence that fell over the bull pen while Detective Heat updated the pair of Murder Boards was so complete the only sound was the squeak of her marker on the white surface as she printed in red block letters: “1. WHY KILL NICOLE BERNARDIN? 2. WHY KILL NICOLE BERNARDIN
NOW
?” As she wrote, she said, “As the connections between the old murder and this new one deepen, we need to be thinking about not just the why but the timing, the ten-year lag between the two.”

She turned to the room, where Rook and her squad formed a semicircle around her. Even though she had called them in on a Sunday afternoon, the detectives had turned out without complaint. In fact, beyond just showing commitment, they seemed energized by the mission sense of working this one all-out for her. Some had even brought the group snacks that they had stopped for on the way in from their homes or from the town house up in Inwood. The take-out containers of bagels, cookies, and salads sat behind them on the desktop of the lone no-show, Sharon Hinesburg, who had her phone turned off, a violation of policy. Heat tapped the board with the marker cap. “Keep coming back to these, OK? When this falls together for us, it will be because, above all else, we found the answers to these two questions.”

Their attention was on her, but their eyes were riveted on the new photos Nikki had posted, and the profound—literally graphic—story they told. On the left whiteboard, the familiar death pose of Jane Doe, now Nicole Bernardin. Inches away on the right-hand board, Nikki’s mom’s suitcase, bearing Nikki’s girlish initials, and the new addition, the blowup of Nicole and Cynthia in performance forty years ago at the Esplanade. Not only did the connection between the two victims drawn by the photo impact on the group, but the striking resemblance of young Cynthia Trope Heat to their squad leader dramatically underscored the stakes they already felt.

“By now, you all know about the lead we picked up in Boston,” she began. “And that her apartment has been tossed and, most likely, scrubbed of evidence. That includes, paperwork, laptop, even her mail. Now, these two apartment searches—my mother’s and now Nicole Bernardin’s—tell us that this one,” she said pointing to her mom’s Murder Board, “was not likely a simple burglary gone bad. Someone was searching hard for something in both places.”

Feller’s hand went up. “Do we assume it’s the same person?”

“We don’t assume. And we sure don’t know. Yet. We also don’t know if the hunt was for the same object. All we have is the common MO. Just like the killings.”

Rook said, “Here’s a notion. Nicole was French. What about international jewel thieves looking for two halves of a treasure map?”

Malcolm kept his face deadpan and said, “Oh. Like
The Pink Panther
.”

Rook was about to say yes, but he felt their stares. “Well. One possibility.”

Nikki continued, “Of note, all Nicole’s suitcases are apparently accounted for, as are all knives, which are in the wooden holder. I’ve assigned a group of uniforms to canvass neighbors and Parks PD for unusual activity or strange vehicles. We have some of our own work to do.”

On the Nicole Murder Board, she began a list of new assignments, placing the initials of detectives beside each. “Detective Ochoa, I’d like you to look into her personal life. Hit all the usuals: boyfriends past and present; stalker complaints; restraining orders; family feuds. If you have trouble finding anything official, check with her hairdresser. You’d be amazed what you can learn.”

“Like maybe doing something about that bald spot,” said Reynolds. “You’re blinding me, homes.”

“Detective Reynolds, you’ll contact the local sports and running clubs again now that we have a name to go with the face. And also check out Internet dating services. See if she was registered and if she had any hookups that might have gone bad. Do the upscale matchmakers, too. A professional woman might have gone to them.”

“And what do we know about the profession?” asked Detective Malcolm.

“Letterhead and business cards that turned up at the town house indicate the victim worked as the owner of her own business as a corporate headhunter.” Heat read from one of the cards. “‘The NAB Group. Discreet and confidential executive searches for industry and institutions, worldwide.’ NAB being her initials.”

Rhymer asked, “Address?”

“Mail drop. No offices evident. Phone is an eight-eight-eight. I’ve put in for a check on that number and any other phone accounts she had. Landline, if she even had one, got taken. And, as you recall, she had no cell phone on her.”

Rook said, “No cell phone? That’s like one step away from cave paintings and medicinal leeches.”

Heat posted the business card. “She had a Web site, but it’s one page stating all of the above plus an added line, ‘References and testimonials on request.’”

Raley said, “Sounds like a front or a home business.”

“Rales, you work that thread. Put on your media crown and surf for any hits on executive placements, business testimonials, you know what I’m after.” He nodded as he jotted his note. “Detective Feller, you do a search for her state and federal tax ID. That will also tell us if she used an accountant.”

“And if so, I follow the proverbial money,” Feller said.

“Like the bloodhound you are. That includes all bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, credit cards, credit check—the works. Detective Malcolm, do you own a suit?”

“Birthday,” his partner, Reynolds, heckled him.

“Whatevs,” said Heat. “Nicole Bernardin was a French national. Take a jaunt across Central Park and visit their consulate when they open. See if she’s known to them. Also put in a call to the French consulate in Boston.” She indicated the Esplanade photo. “This was for a cultural program they sponsored. Maybe she kept in contact. Find out.”

Rook had his hand up. “A thought?”

“Let’s hear it,” said Nikki.

“Her laptop is missing, right?”

“And her external drive and memory keys.”

“Right,” he continued, “but in my own travel experience with a notebook computer, I always do compulsive backing up, either by e-mail attachments I send to myself or, the new fail-safe, syncing everything to a remote internet storage cloud service like Dropbox.”

Heat said, “That’s actually a good idea.”

“Second one today,” said Rook.

Ochoa said, “I tell ya, the man’s got the power. The power of Roach Blood.”

“Detective Rhymer,” she said. “Soon as we adjourn, bust down some geek doors at the Computer and Information Technology Unit to see if they have any Big Bangers who can work a trace on whether she used a Web cloud for data backup.”

The soft-spoken detective formerly from the South lived up to his nickname of Opie by politely asking, “And it’s cool if I kick some butt, even if it’s a Sunday?”

“Even better,” said Detective Heat. “That way, they’ll know how important this is.”

After dinner they arrived at Heat’s apartment building to find the elevator still had the out of order seal on its doors. On the second landing of the stairs, Rook paused momentarily to swap grips on his Boston overnight bag. “Now I know why these are called carry-ons and not carry-ups.”

“Want me to take yours?”

“Ah-ah,” he said, shooing her hand away. “I’ll just consider this my rehab for the day.”

“Let me see if I can write the story, Pulitzer boy. Rehab today, naughty nurse massage tomorrow?”