Richard Castle - Deadly Heat

That brought her to the connection between the two murders. “We have a unique telltale that indicates a serial killer.” She posted blowups of CSU photos of the string found at each crime scene and then picked up her notes. “Forensics burned some midnight oil to get us some data this morning. Both the red and the yellow string are made from a braided polyester widely used for everything from hobbies and crafts, to jewelry making, to yo-yo strings and something called kendama.”

Randall Feller raised a finger for attention and said, “That’s a Japanese game that uses a wooden spindle with a cup at one end that you use to catch a wooden ball attached to it by a string.” He paused only briefly and added, “Don’t ask.”

“Nice to know when Rook’s not here there’s somebody to pick up the know-it-all slack,” observed Raley.

Since Detective Feller had demonstrated a special interest, Heat assigned him to make checks of area hobby, craft, hardware, and toy stores to see if they had any customers worth checking out. “Detective Rhymer, you assist. I’m sure this string is also available on the Internet. Find out who sells it and contact those sites for customer records.”

A civilian aide came in from the front office and handed a message to Heat, who digested it and addressed her crew. “A foot patrol making checks of trash cans discovered a three-foot coaxial cable not far from the Eleanor Roosevelt statue. Forensics has it now. It’s only prelim, but there appear to be traces of makeup in the center of the cord.” Heat reflected on the tissues she saw protecting Greer Baxter’s collar from her TV makeup and said, “That would be consistent with our strangulation.”

“What about the Rollerblade wheel?” asked Rhymer.

“Strange, isn’t it?” said Heat. “The strings are plenty creepy, but the Rollerblade is weird, too. Forensics says it’s a brand-new, standard polyurethane inline skate wheel, no prints, no wear. It’s straight from the package.” She reflected a moment and said, “Sharon?” Detective Hinesburg sat up like she’d been poked with a stick. “I’d like you to team with Raley and Ochoa and run the skate wheel.”

That evening, when the shift had ended and Heat had the bull pen to herself, she embraced the stillness to contemplate the Murder Boards and let her instincts talk. The case work had not yielded any new clues, and her cop sense told her that the elimination of the few leads they had was not a negative but a means to an end. For instance, both George Putnam and his wife’s alibis had been confirmed. Similarly, Roy Conklin continued to check out as a man who was easy to love but difficult to investigate for that very reason.

Nikki sat on her desktop, letting her eyes drift from board to board, letting the known elements speak the mind of a serial killer over the low hum of fluorescent tubes. String. String was the literal common thread. What else? Oddball props. A dead rat. An inline skate wheel. How were they connected? Or were they at all?

Geography. The obvious. Both victims had been found on the Upper West Side, in particular, the Twentieth Precinct-a self-canceling clue because it meant the killer lived or worked there, or else traveled there to kill away from his home base.

Minutes passed, maybe even an hour. When Nikki got into this flow, she not only lost time, she hid from it. She reached for her notebook and wrote one word: “Jobs.”

What came to her was more than just that both victims had been either mutilated or killed by an instrument related to their work: the restaurant inspector by an oven; the TV reporter by a coaxial cord, the kind used to connect cable TV. Those similarities were already top-lining the squad conversation. This was something not as obvious, but close enough. She called Roach, Feller, and Rhymer back to the precinct.

Far from being annoyed at getting boomeranged in, the four detectives gave off the edgy vibe of anticipation, and when Heat began, “It’s right in front of us. Both vics were in the business of consumer protection,” she saw their eyes come alight. “I want to find out if they knew each other or if they knew someone in common.” From there on, the meeting was short. She put Roach on contacting Olivia Conklin, Feller back on his beat at the Health Department, and Rhymer on Maxine Berkowitz’s coworkers and friends. “Check e-mails, texts, phone records, everything that leaves a trail,” she said, and watched them cancel their evenings and hit the phones with renewed purpose.

Back early the next morning, with little to go on yet much to cover, the day for all of them became the essence of good detective work: drudgery. The hours of phone calls and computer checks got broken up only by meeting up to compare notes after pounding the pavement for face time with shop owners, park nannies, and doormen who’d seen nothing out of the ordinary. The true chore of Nikki’s day came when Captain Irons arrived in the late morning, camera-ready with a fresh white uniform shirt in dry cleaner plastic, just in case someone needed a statement. After satisfying himself nobody had tried to kill his lead homicide detective in the last twenty-four hours, he asked for a briefing of both active cases. Wally was more an administrator than a cop, and his eyes glazed over as she filled him in on the details. When she finished, his first question was his go-to: “How much overtime is this gonna drain from my budget?”

Always prepared for that resistance, Nikki managed to sell the precinct commander on the long-term savings of bringing in more manpower, and came out of his glass office with an OK to bring in one of her favorite detective teams, Malcolm and Reynolds.

Rook checked in from a taxi heading from Charles de Gaulle Airport to his hotel in Paris. It was night there, New York plus six, and he said he’d left word with Anatoly Kijé, his old Russian spy friend, hoping they could meet for a late dinner-slash-debrief.

“You mean the same Anatoly Kijé whose henchmen kidnapped us from Place des Vosges just so he could be sure we weren’t being followed?”

“Ah, memories,” said Rook. “Don’t you wish you’d come?”

“So you know, Rook, I don’t consider it a Michelin Tour just because my nose is pushed against one of their radials in the trunk of a car.”

They hopped off the line with the promise to catch up later that night so Heat could grab a call from OCME. Lauren Parry’s prelim on Maxine Berkowitz bore out the COD as asphyxia by strangulation. “The killer took her from behind with a cord. And Forensics is committing to that coaxial cable found in the park. The makeup residue on the insulation is an exact match to the victim’s.”

“Save me a call to geekland, Lauren. Any prints on the cable?”

“None,” said the ME. “And no sign of struggle. He chloroformed her and strangled her when she was out.”

Nikki jotted that down then riffled pages in her spiral until she came to notes on her other case. “OK to switch gears?”

“Detective Heat, you have got more corpses to ask about than anyone I know.”

“You should give me a rewards card.”

“Cold, girl.”

“As ice. What about my poison vic from the Starbucks?”

“Same as what Salena Kaye used to kill Petar. A fast-acting cocktail of strychnine and cyanide, plus a few additives, including a lab-modified derivative of bismuth subsalicylate, which is what turned the tongue black. It’s not a poison, it’s mainly for show.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t applaud.”

“Nikki,” said Dr. Parry, “this is potent stuff. She knows her chemistry. You watch yourself.”

Heat awoke with a start on her couch at six-fifteen the next morning to the Norwegian duo Röyksopp singing “Remind Me”-the ringtone Rook had installed to ID him on her cell. It took Nikki so long to orient herself and find the phone, she was afraid he’d dump to voice mail, but she caught it in time. “You were going to call me last night,” she said.