The Kills

by Fairstein, Linda

“And he was also posted in France, Senegal, Hong Kong, Lebanon, and Ghana,” I said, ticking off the countries I could remember on my fingers. “Maybe I should have polled the United Nations on what kind of danger that put Paige in.”

  “You know that he came out of retirement after the Persian Gulf War?”

  “Hey, Squeeks,” Chapman said, jabbing the shorter man’s chest with his finger. “If you’re such a frigging fountain of knowledge, why didn’t you give blondie a call?”

  “‘Cause I just found this stuff out while they got Paige Vallis on ice up at the morgue.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s amazing how people start to regurgitate the truth after somebody winds up dead.”

  “They knew Victor Vallis was an expert on Middle Eastern affairs,” Squeeks said. “They paid him to be a CIA consultant, right up to the end. He knew all the players, what caves they were cribbing in, how the money moved around the region.”

  “Was Paige aware of it?” I asked. “I swear she never mentioned anything about this to me.”

  “I have no idea whether the old man told her he was still involved.”

  “This Ibrahim guy get anything from the Vallis house? I mean, was there an accomplice waiting outside?” Mike asked.

  “He seemed to be there on his own. Chief says there was nothing much in the place to take, and he must have only got started minutes before the girl came home. Like Alex says, Mr. Vallis died of natural causes, so that didn’t seem to be related to the breakin, either.”

  “Can we talk about the murder, Squeeks?” I asked. “Mike says you wouldn’t even answer his questions when you called. Isn’t it time we get some of the details?”

  Squeekist leaned against the desk and scratched his ear.

  “Did you guys find anything at the scene that’s got you going in a direction related to what happened at her father’s house?”

  He shook his head.

  “Because I gotta tell you, it seems insane to me to overlook the obvious. She’s the only witness against my defendant, Andrew Tripping. Anybody figure out yet where he was when she got killed? He was keenly interested in her Egyptian connections, too. He’s also got some kind of Middle Eastern expertise and experience. Supposedly worked there briefly in his CIA days.”

  “Calm down, Coop. C’mon, Squeeks. Give us what you got. I don’t even know when and how she died,” Mike said.

  Squeekist was reluctant to let us into his investigation, but knew we had information that might ultimately be useful. “This probably happened sometime during last night, going into Saturday morning. In her building.”

  “You know about her call to Mercer Wallace? You know about the boy?”

  Squeeks said he did not, and asked me to explain. “Mercer said she left that message in his office at around ten. And her records might tell us where the kid was calling from.”

  Mike was making a list of things that needed to get done.

  “Forced entry?”

  “No. It wasn’t actually inside her apartment. Happened on the stairwell from the first floor, going down to the laundry room in the basement.”

  “Doorman?” Mike asked.

  “No. The building doesn’t have one,” I said. “Just a buzzer and intercom system.”

  “No security camera?”

  “Nope.”

  “How’d she die?” I asked.

  “Strangled. Marks and discoloration on her neck,” Squeeks said.

  “Manual?”

  “No. Some kind of ligature. I’m expecting the ME will tell us it’s a piece of rope. Thin, like a laundry cord. There were a few of ‘em hanging in the basement.”

  “Was she down there doing laundry in the middle of the night?” Mike asked.

  “No sign of that.”

  “You think-”

  “We’ve got guys over there now, canvassing the neighbors. Maybe she buzzed in someone she knew, maybe she got followed in from the street, maybe-”

  “Maybe it was a random push-in,” Mike suggested.

  “She couldn’t be that coincidentally unlucky,” I said.

  “So tell me about your case.” Squeeks had his notepad out and was ready to get more information from me.

  We sat for almost two hours, as I tried to recall everything that Paige Vallis had told me about herself, and everything I could think of that might be important about Andrew Tripping. I had no appetite for the doughnuts and cupcakes that were serving as dinner for the other detectives, but I went through three cups of coffee and let the caffeine get to work on my already jangled nerves.

  “Don’t forget to tell him about Harry Strait,” Mike reminded me.

  “Who’s he?” Squeeks said, jotting down the name.

  “CIA agent. Paige had a relationship with him. Not a very long one. Tried to break up but he didn’t take it very well. I don’t know whether he was actually stalking her or not.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” the detective asked me.

  “Look, she never mentioned him to me at all until yesterday. I didn’t know he existed until he walked into the courtroom.”

  “You didn’t even ask her about him?” Squeeks was looking me in the eye, shaking his head back and forth.

  “How the hell can I ask about someone before I know he exists?”

  “Cut her a break, Squeeks. She’s a head taller than you and her balls make yours look like marbles.”

  “She was hiding things from me, that’s for sure. Just the usual stuff-at least, that’s what I thought. Embarrassment about a relationship, that kind of thing. It was only yesterday morning that she confided in me that this guy Strait had called her the night before to convince her not to testify.”

  “He threatened her?” Squeeks asked.

  “She denied that. Just told me he scared her because he used to be so demanding when they were dating.” “Scared her to death” were the exact words Paige had used. “She had promised to tell me more about it, but I wasn’t allowed to talk to her after she got off the witness stand. That’s why she called Mercer to tell him something about trying to find Dulles, Tripping’s son. She wasn’t supposed to call me.”

  “Tell him about the glut of lawyers, Coop.”

  I let out a sigh. “I suppose you should know about everybody involved. There’s a guy called Graham Hoyt,” I said, spelling his name for Squeeks. “He’s the boy’s legal representative. Claims to be very interested in adopting Dulles. Says he and his wife, Jenna Hoyt, have a relationship with the kid, and thinks he’ll be the one to win his confidence.

  “And he’s helping one of my colleagues at the DA’s office with an investigation into a deal that the defense attorney for Tripping is caught up in. Robelon. Peter Robelon.” I gave him the name of the firm at which he worked. “Hoyt claims Robelon’s got his hands dirty in some kind of securities fraud.”

  “You got more on that?”

  “Check with Jack Kliger in the investigations division.” I paused. “There are several other lawyers, too. One from the foundling hospital and another from the child welfare bureau. Their names and numbers are in my files.”

  “And the snitch. Don’t forget about the snitch.”

  “Mike’s right,” I said. “Seems like it happened so long ago it must have been another trial. I was thinking of using an informant on my case. His name’s Bessemer.”

  “Heard about him,” Squeeks said, smiling for the first time since we arrived at the station house. “Guess some guys got flopped for that one. He was in this mess, too?”

  “I hadn’t met with him yet. He was being brought in to talk to me when he skipped. He had been Tripping’s cellmate in Rikers.”

  “You think Bessemer knows anything about Paige Vallis?” Squeeks asked.

  “Only what Tripping might have told him. No sign that he ever had any contact with my witness. But he’s on the loose and I have no idea what his agenda is.”

  Detectives had come and gone all through the hours between midnight and two, as we talked about Paige V
allis and these other characters. It had been quiet for quite a while, and the ringing phone on the front desk jarred all of us.

  Mike walked over to answer it. “First PDU,” he said, expecting the call to be for an officer in the First Precinct detective unit. “Yeah, Mr. B. She’s still here. We got her in the hot seat.” He listened to a message then hung up the phone to relay it to me.

  “That was Battaglia. Got through to Langley and they called him back with the information you wanted,” Mike said to me. “Harry Strait? He’s ex-CIA. No longer with the Agency. Here’s the contact guy who’ll give you his background facts.”

  “He must get a pension check or some kind of retirement benefit. They still have to have some way to find him,” I said, taking the paper from Mike’s hand.

  “Hard to do, blondie. Even for a crackerjack operation like the CIA. Harry Strait died almost twenty years ago.”

  17

  I crawled into bed next to Jake at about four o’clock in the morning. He didn’t move when I slipped in beside him, and I couldn’t tell whether he was feigning sleep in order not to engage me in a self-pitying dialogue about my victim’s death. I ran my finger down the length of his spine and kissed the small of his back, but got no response.

  When I opened my eyes at seven, the other half of the bed was empty. I picked Jake’s shirt up from the back of the chair, where he had draped it when he’d undressed last night, and put it on.

  I found him in the den with a cup of coffee, reading the first section of the Sunday Times. I stood in the doorway, waiting for him to look up from the paper. “Good morning,” I said. “Sorry about last night.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “How was dinner?”

  “I wasn’t in the mood to go with them. I just came back here when the show ended. Did you get anything to eat?”

  “My stomach was too roiled up,” I said. “I’m going to pour myself a cup of coffee. Want some more?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  I walked into the kitchen and filled a mug. I was starving, and put an English muffin in the toaster oven. While it was cooking, I went back into the den. Now he was fixed on the Style section. “Those weddings must be riveting.”

  “Some sweet stories, actually,” Jake said.

  “The bride majored in classics at Columbia and is writing her doctoral thesis on sexual mores in ancient Rome. The groom is getting an on-line degree from the University of Paducah. They both like beagles, hang gliding, and pepperoni pizza,” I said, mocking what had become of the marriage announcements in the Old Gray Lady. “The bride, who is Catholic, and the groom, who is Jewish, were married on the beach in Southampton by a Buddhist priest. More than I need to know.”

  “I’m just trying to see what obstacles some of these couples overcome on their way to the altar. Maybe it’ll inspire me.”

  “I didn’t know you were short on inspiration.”

  Jake put the paper down and looked at me. “Most of the time I’m not, Alex. But I’m at a loss right now. I know how devastated you were last night, and I understand why you had to go downtown with Chapman. Now what am I supposed to do to pick up the pieces? I get tired of asking you about a case and being told you don’t want to talk about it. Or worse than that, having your boss tell you not to discuss it with me because I’m a reporter. I’m damned if I don’t and I’m damned if I do.”

  I stood up to go back to the kitchen. “I’ve been very open with you about the Tripping case. Friday night I told you everything that had happened in court. I don’t want to exclude you from anything that’s important to me.”

  I called back to him over my shoulder, “You ready to tell me who Deep Throat is?”

  Jake followed me into the kitchen. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know you’re not about to reveal any of your sources on a big story. Obviously there are times I’m not going to be free to tell you everything I know.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Alex. I want what you keep bottled up inside. I want what you’re thinking and feeling when this stuff is chewing your guts apart and keeping you up at night like you had toothpicks stuck in your eyelids.”

  The muffin had burned to a crisp. I tossed it in the garbage and opened the package for another one. Jake took it from my hand and started the process over.

  “There was a call last night. Right about midnight. Peter Robelon.”

  “Shit,” I said, sitting at the dining room table. The body wasn’t even cold yet and the vultures were beginning to pick at it. “Did he know about Paige?”

  “He said he heard a late news story on one of the local stations. They didn’t give her name, but he recognized the address and Peter said he knew it was a loft building with only a few residential tenants.”

  “Of course he knew exactly what the setup was. He’d hired a private investigator to snoop around the neighbors looking for dirt on Vallis. Don’t tell me he was unctuous enough to be calling with his condolences?”

  “He sounded perfectly appropriate. Thought it was tragic, wanted to make sure you knew about it-that kind of thing.”

  “You make it sound like a pleasant conversation.”

  “It was, actually. I guess he knew we’re a couple. Said he recognized my voice from the tube. We talked for a couple of minutes. Did the six-degrees-of-separation thing. Friends of mine who are friends of his.”

  I didn’t say what I was thinking.

  “Whoops, did I screw up again? You’ve got that Cooper pout on your face. Peter Robelon isn’t your enemy, even if his client is guilty.”

  “I know he’s not my enemy. You want to chat with him, do it from your office. I don’t trust the guy for a minute. You shouldn’t either.”

  “So I’ll cancel my lunch date with him.”

  “Keep it. Fine. Don’t let me interfere with your endless efforts at intelligence gathering. When he gets indicted by one of my colleagues, Jake, I sure as hell don’t want fifteen-minute phone calls showing up on the records from my place to his and vice versa.”

  “What do you mean, indicted?” he called after me as I headed into the bathroom to shower and dress.

  “He’s a sleaze,” I said, closing the door behind me.

  When I got back to the kitchen twenty minutes later, Jake had eaten the muffin and returned to the den. I fixed myself a bowl of cereal instead, and ate it alone at the table.

  “What are you going to do today?” I asked when I finished eating.

  “Read the paper. Go to the gym. Find someone who wants to have brunch at a charming sidewalk caf�� like Swifty’s and enjoy this beautiful day. Any takers?”

  “If you can hold off brunch until two and let me go down to the precinct for a few hours to see what they’ve got, I promise to come back in a better mood.”

  “I don’t care if your disposition is better or worse, as long as you explain it to me. Help me understand it.”

  “And you’ll make an early-morning shuttle to D.C. tomorrow?” I asked.

  “No. I’ll go back on the six tonight. There’s a White House briefing at nine and I can’t take the chance of missing it.”

  It was a subtle way of pressuring me. No chance for a bedtime reconciliation, so I had better get back uptown in time for brunch. I was disappointed, but also relieved. It was easier to have Jake out of town while all this mayhem was swirling around me. That, in itself, told me something about our relationship that I had been slow to acknowledge.

  Nothing had developed at the First Precinct in the few hours since I left the squad room. Squeeks and his partner had slept on cots in the locker room and were already back at the crime scene, scouring for clues and tips.

  I drafted a bunch of subpoenas for telephone records, even though no results would be available until the business offices opened again on Monday. I used numbers Paige had given me that were in my trial folder to call several of her coworkers at the investment bank-her supervisor and two friends-to notify them about the murder before t
hey read about it in the newspapers. Mostly, I sat at a desk feeling useless and unhappy.

  At one-thirty I went downstairs and hailed a cab, calling Jake to tell him I would meet him on Lexington Avenue, at the restaurant.

  “A bit of good news for you, Alex. Peter Robelon just called again. He said to tell you that both he and Graham Hoyt had calls from Dulles Tripping today. The boy sounded fine. Said he had saved his allowance and taken a bus back upstate to the town he had lived in with his grandmother. Quite a mature ten-year-old. He was going to a friend’s house. And yes, darling, he did have caller ID on the phone. The operator confirms he was calling from a pay phone upstate. I’ll bring the number with me.”

  “Thank God he’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got my cell phone with me. You could have told Robelon to call me.”

  “After you said you didn’t want phone records showing up between the two of you? I was trying to do the right thing, Alex. Sorry if I made another mistake.”

  “No, no, no. You’re right. I’m just so anxious to resolve this with the kid. I don’t want him spinning further out of control when he finds out that Paige was killed.”

  I took a Post-it out of my checkbook. “Read me the number of the pay phone. I’ll call it in to the detectives and they can pinpoint exactly what town it’s in.” I wanted to get the business out of the way before I met him for lunch.

  Jake was seated at a small, round table for two, surrounded by a chic-looking assortment of Upper East Side regulars.

  “Did you take care of that message?”

  “Yes, I did. The cops had actually tried to find the principal of the school in Tonawanda, to get a list of kids’ names and addresses. Can’t be done until tomorrow. The school’s shut down completely for the weekend.”

  I paused while the waiter took my order of a chopped Cobb salad and a Virgin Mary. It wasn’t worth drinking in case we got lucky with a break in the case. Jake got the twinburgers with a vodka and tonic.

  “Shall we start the day over? Aren’t you going to ask me how I feel?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Jake said, smiling. “As long as you want to talk about it.”

  I described how painful it was to learn about Paige’s murder, and how much more it hurt to have some of the detectives think that I had failed to protect her in her final hours. I explained her complexities and how much she had chosen to keep hidden from me, despite my best efforts to elicit her trust. I talked about her willingness to tell me she had accidentally killed the burglar, without any probing, but that she had withheld information about one of her sexual partners.