“Where were you when it hit?”
“Exercising.” Not a total lie. Heat side nodded to the armored blast container. “What are we working here that warrants the parade of heavy metal?”
“Suspicious package lit things up.” Ochoa flipped to the first page of his notepad. “Frozen food delivery driver—that’s him over there—”
“—in the green jacket—” chimed in his partner in their usual duet.
“—opens the back of his truck to unload some chicken tenders and burger patties at the deli here.” He paused to allow Nikki a beat to eyeball the All In Bun storefront, where a trio of cooks in checked pants and aprons slouched at the window counter waiting out the closure. “He slides a carton aside and finds a suitcase sitting there between the boxes.”
“I guess ‘See Something, Say Something’ is working,” Raley said, picking up. “He books it out of there and calls 911.”
“Emergency Services Unit deploys and sends Robocop in to check it out.” Detective Ochoa beckoned her to walk with him while he led her past the bomb squad’s remote control robot. “The ‘bot does a sniff and an X-ray. Negative on explosive elements. Their bomb tech was suited up anyway, so—abundance of caution—he pops the lock and finds the body inside the suitcase.”
A few feet behind her, she heard Detective Feller. “That’s why I go strictly carry-on. Those checked bags’ll kill ya.” She snapped her head around and saw the surprise on his face, while his audience of two uniforms laughed. He’d been speaking in a low voice, but not low enough. Feller’s cheeks reddened as Heat left Raley and Ochoa to cross to him. The unis melted away, leaving him alone with her. “Hey, sorry.” Then he tried to charm it away with a preemptive grin and the self-effacing cackle that always reminded her of John Candy. “Don’t think you were supposed to hear that.”
“Nobody was.” She spoke so quietly, so evenly, and so without expression that the casual observer would think they were simply two detectives comparing notes. “Look around, Randy. This is serious as it gets. A murder scene. My murder scene. Not open mic night at Dangerfield’s.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I know I stepped in it.”
“Once again,” she noted. Randall Feller, perennial class clown, had a nasty habit of cutting up at crime scenes. It was the one bad habit of one great street detective. The same detective who, along with Rook, had gotten shot saving her life on that sanitation pier. Feller’s gallows humor might have fit right in during the years he spent in the Special Operations Division, riding around all night in undercover yellow cabs in the macho, kick-ass, Dodge City world of the NYPD Taxi Unit, but not in her squad. At least not inside the yellow tape. This wasn’t their first conversation about it since he’d transferred to her Homicide Unit after his medical leave.
“I know, I know, it just sort of comes out.” She could tell he meant it, and there was no point belaboring it. “Inside voice next time, I promise.” Heat gave him a short nod and moved off to the delivery truck.
From street level at the rear hatch, Nikki had to tilt her head back to look up at Lauren Parry, who squatted on the floor inside the cargo hold. The stacks of cardboard cartons deeper inside wept with condensation; some even glistened from ice crystals encrusting their sides. Even with the freezer motor off, refrigerated air rolled out cool across Heat’s face. At Lauren’s knee, a blue-gray hard-side suitcase rested open and flat with the lid clamshelled up, blocking Nikki’s view of its contents. She said, “Morning, Dr. Parry.”
Her friend pivoted to her and smiled. When she said, “Hey, Detective Heat,” Nikki could see puffs of Lauren’s breath. “Got a complicated one here.”
“When isn’t it?”