Richard Castle: Frozen Heat

The detective cackled. “Hah-ha. Nice playing with you, Rook.”

“Sorry to throw cold water on this dance of the peacocks,” said Heat, “but Randy, I have plans for you that would put your talents to better use than duplicating effort with me. And Rook? Don’t take this personally, but this isn’t a case I want to be tripping over you every time I turn around.”

“Gee, how could I take that personally?”

Then Captain Irons stepped up from behind them. “Mr. Jameson Rook. Welcome back to the Two-oh.” A chamber-of-commerce grin pulled back the skipper’s fleshy face. He bumped aside Detective Feller reaching to grip Rook’s hand in a damp shake while he clapped his shoulder. “To what do we owe the honor? You writing a new story, perhaps?”

The precinct commander’s shameless attempts at self-promotion were always embarrassing, but clearly not to him. Wally Irons, who once accidentally knocked over a toddler after her AMBER Alert rescue while rushing to get his face in front of a TV camera, lacked the mortification gene when it came to massaging the press. But Jameson Rook had spent a career dealing with his type and didn’t miss a beat. In fact he grabbed the opportunity, for a cause.

“Hm,” he said. “Depends. Think there might be a story here, Captain?”

“Uh, Rook,” cautioned Heat.

“Ducks in a barrel,” Irons said, grinning. “To me, this new development cries out for a follow-up to your earlier article on my Detective Heat.” Nikki tried to get Rook’s attention, drilling him with her eyes and shaking her head no. Rook knew how much she hated the attention his cover story in First Press had brought, but Rook pretended not to notice her.

“A follow-up?” he said, as if taken by the notion.

Irons said, “To me, it’s a no-brainer.”

“Well, you’d be the expert there,” Rook said, and the captain’s quick “thank you” certified that the insult had gone over his head. “Could have some merit. I’m not the editor, though, so don’t hold me to this. But I like it.” Rook stroked his chin and said, “I suppose it would hinge on action, not just rehash, Captain.”

“I hear you.”

“For instance, I know Detective Heat’s fully engaged and so is her squad. But the story really gets easier for me to sell to a publisher if it goes bigger. I assume, in your leadership role, you’ve already marshaled all the forces you can.” He resisted winking to Nikki as he continued, “For instance clearing overtime and… I dunno… tapping extra manpower from other squads and precincts?”

A cloud crossed over Irons’s brow. “It has come up.”

“See, that’s something new I could run with. A precinct captain fighting the bureaucracy to rally the resources for his detectives. A leader who can crack a cold case and a frozen one in the same stroke.” He chuckled. “What do you know: Headline!”

The captain nodded like a bobble head and turned to Nikki. “Heat, let’s move forward with the resources we talked about earlier.”

“Thank you, sir.” She half-smiled at Rook.

“And I was also thinking, Captain Irons.”

“Yes?”

“Now that I’m back to a hundred percent, it might not be a bad idea for me to return to the arrangement I had with the first article and partner with Detective Heat. It’s a great way to follow up, plus it would help me document the fruits of your command from street level so-if there does turn out to be an article in this-I’d already be boots on the ground.”

“Done,” said Irons. Feller shook his head and walked away. “Heat, looks like the dynamic duo rides again,” said the captain on his way back to his office.

“Anything else I can help you with, Detective?” asked Rook.

“I just want to note for the record that, after that manipulative display of yours, I now know you are devious and can not be trusted. Ever.”

Rook just smiled at Heat and said, “You’re welcome.”

Rook disappeared to the battered desk in the corner where he used to perch during his old ride-along days, dragging along the same orphaned chair with the loco wheel he always ended up with. Heat immediately got on her computer to make her manpower grabs before Captain Irons realized he had just gotten his pocket picked. Detective Rhymer made a good fit from Burglary, so she put in her bid for him. As partners, Malcolm and Reynolds-also from the Burglary Unit-were nearly as formidable as Roach. She had heard the duo was already out on loan working undercover for Surveillance and Apprehension, but she sent an e-mail to their skipper anyway, asking for their use and nesting her personal IOU between the lines.

Randall Feller returned to Heat’s desk showing no hint of bother over basically getting hip checked by Rook minutes before. The detective, like everyone else in that room, had his head solidly on task. He gave her the photocopy he had scored of the truck driver’s route sheet for her to examine. “I’m going to hit the bricks with this and get interviewing at his stops before shifts change and people’s memories go south. So you know, I’m tearing Raley away from his work wife so he can come with me and eyeball security cams.”

“Ochoa will understand for one day. Their bond goes deeper than that,” she said with a dry smile before he left.

One of the administrative aides called across the chatter of the bull pen that Lauren Parry was on hold from the coroner’s office. Heat snatched up her phone before she finished her sentence. “Your e-mail said not to worry about being a pest,” said the medical examiner.

“You, Lauren? Never. Especially if it’s good news.”

“It is.”

“You have an ID on my Jane Doe?”

“Not yet.”

“Then it’s not good news to me, girlfriend.” Nikki gave her jab a light touch, but the truth lived inside the soft wrapper.

“What if I told you I’m already starting to get some pliability in the joints?”

Heat picked up a pen and sat at her desk. “We’re upgrading to pretty good news, Laur. Keep going.”

“First off, this tells us our Doe is not frozen solid.” The detective pictured a Thanksgiving turkey coming rock-hard from the freezer and nudged the thought aside. “The significance of this is helpful in multiples, Nikki. I put her in front of oscillating fans to bring her gradually to ambient temp so I wouldn’t destroy tissue, and the joint movement means we should be able to test sooner than later.”

“How soon?”

“This afternoon.” And then the ME added, “But beyond that, her semifrozen state tells us she did not get put aboard that truck at midnight at the food packer. That many hours inside an insulated container at subzero would have solidified her pretty good, so you can hypothesize-at least for now-that she was loaded somewhere along the route after the truck left early this morning.” Heat considered pulling Detective Hinesburg off her assignment at the loading dock and then rejected it. Better Sharon do a little wheel-spinning there than a lot of damage elsewhere. “This also means there’s a shot I can give you a more accurate time of death since there may not be any rupturing of cell walls by ice crystals. If we’re lucky there, I can get a decent measurement of melatonin from the pineal gland and urine for an accurate TOD window.”

Detective Heat had worked enough autopsies to grab hold of all the indicators and form the right questions. “Are you seeing any hypothermia?”

“Negative.”

“So we also can assume she was already dead when she became exposed to the frigid temps?”

“I’d definitely make that bet,” said Dr. Parry. “One more thing. I should have enough digital flexibility to get some fingerprints for you soon. I know you need these yesterday, but I’m being patient so I don’t tear tissue by being hasty.”