Richard Castle: Raging Heat

“This old guy was a prime target. A retired broker from the Gordon Gekko days who had plenty to show for it.” Detective Ochoa drifted off mic. Heat could picture him surveying the apartment as he spoke. “The place has been tossed pretty good, but we contacted his insurer so we can get an inventory, in case somebody tries to fence anything.”

“Good move,” she said. “He was a stockbroker, so you might also check past clients or business partners. Gekko’s gone. We’re in the Madoff era now, so maybe somebody was getting revenge.”

Raley said, “Ahead of you,” and she could hear his smile at being able to say it. “Opie’s got a buddy at the First Precinct who’s the Wall Street go-to. His pal’s already doing some legwork for us.”

“Well, you guys are making me feel sort of unnecessary.”

“Just doin’ our jobs, ma’am,” said Ochoa before they hung up. “Just doin’ our jobs.”

The second she cradled her phone Rook took a seat on her pile of mail. “What’s your take on Commissioner Gilbert?”

“You really want to know?” she asked. Heat mulled the numerous possibilities she had been weighing and said, “Too soon to tell.”

He grinned and stood. Then he made a show of extracting a five-dollar bill from one pants pocket and putting it in his other. “I bet myself that’s what you’d say.”

“You’re a wiseass, know that?”

“Wise, smart, irresistible, whatever. This ass is all yours, Nikki Heat.”

Even clowning like he was, that declaration sparked another chest flutter, an echo of the one she’d felt that morning when she found the receipt. Nikki diverted by clearing her e-mail. “Check this out from Forensics.” He leaned in, his shoulder gently brushing against hers as they shared the screen. She didn’t move away. “The lab found residue of chicken blood and chicken feathers on that New Balance trainer from the planetarium.”

“You know what this means, don’t you?”

“Rook, I swear if you say he was a trying to be a birdman…”

He pulled a face. “Birdman? Where the hell did you come up with something as whack as that? I was going to say voodoo sacrifice.”

She hung her head and shook it. “All right,” he said, “you doubt me? Fire up your search engine and type in “Haiti” and “chicken blood” and see if Mr. Google doesn’t slap you with a page of voodoo links.”

“I don’t need to, Rook, I’m sure that’s so. But I had a more practical thought. An illegal immigrant needs a job, right?” She entered a search for chicken slaughterhouses in the area and came up with three. “I remember passing one of these places once in Queens and a lot of alien day laborers were hanging around outside hoping for work. Now, I won’t rule out some voodoo connection, but with two of these places so near to Flatbush, don’t you think we’d be smarter to put our limited manpower there first?”

“Well,” he said. “I suppose I can humor you.”

“You from the Health Department?” hollered the woman. The screen door of the run-down corner market slammed behind her and she rushed across the road toward the undercover car, nearly getting clipped by a lumber-supply truck. “The fuck took you so long? I been calling.”

Their second slaughterhouse that afternoon, and this marked the second complainer to accost them on arrival. An amused Rook came around to join Nikki on the sidewalk, which was wet in a radius around a coiled hose and tinged pink from rinsed blood. “No ma’am, I’m with the police.”

“Even better. Bust these fucking assholes.” She gestured with her cigarette to the slaughterhouse behind them, an orange, one-story, boxy industrial that was probably an auto body shop at one time. It had no windows, and its rolling metal garage door, prolifically tagged, was closed. “I put together three-fifty for a nice condo, and I gotta listen to the fucking squawking all day and night. And the fucking stink. I want them out of here.”

Nikki assessed the moment and said, “I’ll see what I can do,” sympathetic to the woman’s gripe but not disposed to deal with it, either.

They were let in an aluminum door cut into the metal roller, and when Heat showed her badge, about a half dozen of the workers, observing warily through the hazy glass partition, shrunk back in the warehouse and, most likely, exited out the rear. While they waited for the general manager, she gave Rook the same advice Lauren Parry had shared on her first visit to the basement autopsy room. “Breathe through your mouth, it’ll trick your brain.” It worked, sort of.

Standing at the glass, Rook surveyed a line of chickens hung on hooks by their feet, headless and bleeding out, waiting to be plucked. “So much for Emily Dickinson. She called hope…”

“…the thing with feathers,” said Heat. “Yes, I know.”

“I can’t let you go out onto the floor,” said the GM, a doughy guy in whites with JERRY stitched on the left breast above a pocketful of pens and a quick-read thermometer. “I’ve got sani-caps for you both, but he’d need a beard net.” Which got Nikki to tilt her head and regard Rook with a pleased grin.

“Fetching,” she said.

“We’re good out here,” said the Jameson Rook action figure.

Heat showed the Beauvais mug shot. “We won’t take much of your time. I was wondering if you could tell us if you recognize this man.”

“Sure, that’s Fabian.” He pronounced it like the fifties rock-and-roll star instead of the Island French, but the ID hit was all Nikki cared about. In her excitement, she drew a nasal inhale and tasted death.

According to Jerry the GM, Fabian Beauvais was a dayworker like most of his crew. The immigrant community liked the job because he paid fair and didn’t ask a lot of questions. Beauvais had come there nine months ago, referred by some of his Haitian buddies, and was one of his best workers. “He pulled a no-show, Jesus, must have been end of August. Then came back, I dunno, about five days ago, all nervous and stooping like he was really hurt.”

“Did he say what happened?”

“Like I said, you don’t ask a lot of questions here. But he was hurting, for sure. And jumpy. Fabian was always kind a cool and easy-peasy, but this guy came back totally paranoid. Is he in some kind of trouble? Is that why he disappeared on me again?”

“When did he disappear?”

“Yesterday he pulled another no-show.”

Rook asked, “Did he ever say where he was or what he was doing during those two months he was gone?”

“That much I know. Said he scored a steady job doing manual labor. Construction helper, I’m thinking. I just figured he fell off a ladder, or something.”

Nikki poised her ballpoint over her notebook. “Where was that job?”

“Not sure where exactly. All he said was the Hamptons.”

“Hi, Bouley? Jameson Rook. I need to cancel my dinner reservation, party of two, for this evening?” He nodded as he listened to the reservation agent. “Thank you. Yes, I’m sorry, too. My lady decided her career is more important than Us Time.”

“Rook.”

“Relax, he’d already hung up. That last part was for your benefit. Bite?” He held out his Italian sub, but even though it was two growls past lunchtime, she didn’t like to eat behind the wheel.

The decision to drive to the Hamptons didn’t come easily. In truth, there was never a good time to leave the city when you were working a case. Heat had two of them going. Plus, she was down a detective. But Raley and Ochoa had risen to the challenge of the home invasion, which definitely relieved some pressure. And Randall Feller, the best street cop she’d ever seen, had Beauvais’s Brooklyn neighborhood covered. He’d even texted his plans to branch out and spend the afternoon circulating his picture around the Haitian cafés and diners concentrated near Flatbush Avenue. Her decision to go came out of the axiom drummed into her by her late mentor, Captain Montrose: “When in doubt, follow the hottest lead.”