Frozen Heat (2012) Read Free

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?”
    The ME rocked her head side to side, weighing that and agreeing. “Want the basics?”
    “Good a place as any to start.” Nikki took out her own notebook, a slender, reporter’s cut spiral that fit perfectly in her blazer pocket.
    “Female Jane Doe. No ID, no purse, no wallet, no jewelry. Estimating age as early sixties.”
    “Cause of death?” asked Heat.
    Lauren Parry’s eyes left her clipboard and settled on her friend’s. “Now, how did I guess that would be your question?” She glanced inside the suitcase and continued, “I can’t say, except preliminarily.”
    Nikki echoed back, “Now, how did I guess that would be your answer?”
    The ME smiled again, and small trails of vapor floated from her nostrils. “Why don’t you come on up here, and I can show you what I’m dealing with.”
    Detective Heat gloved up as she ascended the corrugated metal ramp sloping from the pavement to the back ledge of the truck. As she stepped aboard, her gaze momentarily stuck on the suitcase, and when it did, her teeth clacked with an icy shiver. Attributing it to crossing climates—leaving behind the mild April morning for a January chill inside the cargo hold—she shook