The Kills

by Linda Fairstein

  "No thanks. Speak to you soon."

  I trudged back to police headquarters through the mounds of damp sand. It was several hours until the island came to life again, as power was restored and the pavement cleared. When Chip Streeter got word that the Menemsha Crossroads had opened up, he offered to drive me home so that I could assess the damage and change my clothes.

  The sunny fall day had everyone out picking up the debris around their houses. Several utility poles were still down and there were branches scattered everywhere. We pulled off State Road into my driveway, and as we came over the rise, things didn't look as bad as I had feared.

  I got out of the car and kneeled to examine the tread marks that the intruder had left in the mud. An expert could easily match the marks to a shoe brand, which was likely to be all too common to be significant.

  "Yup," Streeter said, "the state troopers took photos and measurements, and some kind of cast of the prints. Dusted around inside, too."

  This wasn't the first time my home had been a crime scene. I knew that it wasn't going to be pretty. We went in and looked over the mess that had been tracked through. Once again, I felt shocked and unsettled at the sight of my belongings in such disarray. There was still no electricity or water, so the cleanup would be a job for my caretaker, when he returned to the island.

  "Wanna see if anything's missing?"

  "Sure," I said, walking from room to room, checking the obvious places and opening drawers and closets. Nothing seemed out of place. In the bedroom, I looked into my sail bag and purse. "Missing some cash. About a hundred and fifty dollars."

  "See? Probably just an ordinary break-in, somebody looking for a quick score."

  There was no point telling him about Spike Logan. I'd let Mike and Mercer work that angle, and allow Streeter to keep thinking this was just a petty theft. The island was so small, such an insular community, that there was no way of knowing who was connected to whom. In my book, taking the money was just a convenient way for my visitor to show me that he had been there, that he might come again.

  "I figured I'd wait for you to change and drop you at the airport."

  "That's too much trouble. I can get myself-"

  "I got to go down-island to Shirley's Hardware to pick up some tools for repairs at the station. I'd rather not leave you here alone."

  I was glad about that. "It will just take me a minute." I closed the bedroom door, pulled out a pair of jeans and a sweater from my closet, and folded the borrowed chinos and shirt for Streeter to return.

  We drove to the airport, twisting our way around the assortment of storm-tossed things in the roadway. I thanked him when I got out of the car and joined the short line of impatient city folk waiting at the counter for word about air service to New York.

  It looked like a special direct flight would leave for La Guardia at 6P.M.

  The day was a wash. My cell phone, uncharged for more than twenty-four hours, was dead. The telephone kiosks, which afforded no privacy, were in steady use by anxious travelers trying to find alternate ways to get to Providence, Boston, Hartford, and points west. I spun the paperback rack in the gift shop and found only the good books I had read in hardcover months earlier. There was a British thriller by a writer I'd never tried before, so I settled in a corner window seat and killed the time with crime fiction.

  Somewhere in the northeast corridor, the airline had come up with a DC-3 to lug us home. It rolled to a stop outside the terminal, looking as if it had just come over the hump from Burma in a World War II flick. We boarded quickly, climbing up the sloping aisle to get into our seats. The normally short flight took almost ninety minutes, and it was close to 8P.M. when I walked out of the New York terminal to hail a taxi.

  Hot running water. I stripped down and turned on the shower full force. Mud was still caked between my toes and under each nail. I must have been a sight to all of the evening's air travelers. My matted hair looked several shades darker than before the storm, and I scrubbed for minutes until I could even get a lather going.

  Dried off and snug in a long nightshirt, I sat on the bed and played back the eleven messages on the machine, hoping to hear one voice. I deleted Nina's news about her son's admission to a Beverly Hills pre-k; my mother's concern about the damage caused by the hurricane; three routine messages from Mike, who wasn't really sure where to find me; an assortment of nonurgent friendly calls; and found Jake on the ninth try.

  "Hey, guess you decided to stay on after all." His voice sounded cool and clipped, and I had missed him by less than half an hour. "I'm off for supper with a friend. Be home for the weekend." Too much silence. "We need to talk, Alex."

  The one thing I needed less than root canal was to talk. Whatever happened to action?

  Good old action. Talk was going to expose every layer of difference between us, every nitpicking reason we weren't good for each other. His walking in the door and taking me in his arms and making me feel sexy and safe and adored was what I wanted more than anything at this very moment. Talk was as overrated as renewing marriage vows on top of a Hawaiian volcano to assuage a cheating husband's guilt.

  No answer at Mike's place. I put on some music and sat at my desk, rereading the case files on Paige Vallis-the rape and the homicide-to see whether I could make sense of the directions things had taken in her life. No sense, no nothing. I moved to the mountain of bills growing beside me and took out my checkbook.

  I crawled into bed before ten, hit with the exhaustion that follows shock and stress. Sleep helped, and I was up by 8A.M. on Saturday, ready for a better day.

  The first call was from Mercer Wallace. "Any trouble getting back into town?"

  "The only easy thing that's happened in days. Look, I've got to-"

  He and I were speaking over each other. I heard him say "I have news for-" but he stopped and asked me to finish what I had started.

  "I've got to tell you what happened to me during the storm." I described the way my predator had circled the house trying to get in, and how I had escaped him. Unlike Chip Streeter, Mercer understood that this was no amateur, no coincidence, no joke.

  "I'll get on the Spike Logan angle. Check out his car, his uncle. Make sure Hoyt was really in Nantucket on the boat. Speak to the troopers and see what they came up with."

  "I'm sorry I jumped in over you. You had something to tell me?" I asked.

  "Plate came back yesterday on that car you thought you saw Robelon driving when you chased the guy with the gun out of Federal Plaza. It's a rental."

  "To Robelon?"

  "Nope. Ever heard of a Lionel Webster?"

  "No. Who is he?"

  "I think he's the guy who's pretending to be Harry Strait. My lieutenant ran Webster last night and there's all kinds of info flooding back in this morning. He's ordered us to work overtime on it all weekend. Best I can tell, Webster is some kind of soldier of fortune. A mercenary. Services go to the highest bidder. Knows the caves of Tora Bora as well as he does Paris."

  "Armed services?" I thought of Andrew Tripping and his fascination with all things military.

  "West Point grad. Taught there for a while until he was kicked out. Stripped of his commission-"

  "For?"

  "You're thinking faster than I can read. I'm not sure it gives a reason in these papers. We'll get him checked out ASAP."

  "Can you fax over a picture?"

  "Hold your horses, Ms. Cooper. You might have to make an ID, you know. You're not getting any advance look at my mug shots."

  "The buzz cut fits with the military background, Mercer. I wish we knew if the U.S. armed services had anything to do with King Farouk." The pieces of the puzzle were twisting in my mind.

  "Only thing I know about is the Agency and its involvement in Cairo. Not the army. Although that lovely lady at Treasury we met with before you went to the country called me back with a nice little nugget of information."

  "Lori Alvino? Don't hold out on me, Mercer."

  "I don't know whether our
military had anything to do with Farouk, but it did touch the wings of the Double Eagle."

  "The coin? Are you talking about the coin?" Mercer knew his mention of new information was a teaser.

  "Yes, ma'am, I am. That bird is mighty lucky she didn't have her wings clipped."

  "What do you know?"

  "Alvino had gotten us all as far as the Secret Service intercepting Farouk's coin when it was brought back into the U.S. in ninety-six."

  "I was with you in her office. I heard that."

  "She has tracked down its whereabouts after the ninety-six arrival here, and before the auction in 2002. Wanted to confirm it for us."

  "Nice. And?"

  "It was actually stored and safeguarded in the Treasury Department vaults during the legal battles about who owned it."

  "You mean Fort Knox?"

  "Closer to home. For five years, the Double Eagle lived in a vault in the basement of the World Trade Center. Seven World Trade Center, to be exact."

  I thought again of how often I had looked out my office window at those towers before September 11. So many lives lost in an instant of evil. The property losses mattered to me not at all.

  Mercer went on. "A few months before the attacks, the coin was moved. Just a coincidence."

  "To?"

  "The bullion depository of the United States Mint."

  "Where's that?"

  "It's up at West Point, Ms. Cooper. You can't get any more militarily connected than that. The Double Eagle wound up quartered at the Point, in its bullion depository, overlooking the Hudson River."

  "You put that upstate tour on the agenda for this week?"

  "Mike wants to wait till the Army-Navy game next month to make that trip," he joked. "Anyway, he's going to pick you up in half an hour, if that's okay with you. I'm meeting you both at Peter Robelon's office. I reached him at home just now and told him it was urgent we see him this morning. We'll try to confront him about that encounter you had with Harry Strait."

  "See you later."

  The phone rang again as soon as I hung up. "Hello, Alex? You make it back all right?"

  It was Chip Streeter, the Vineyard cop, checking on me. "Just fine. I appreciate all the time you gave me. Not to mention a dry place to sleep. I've got to run, but thanks for calling."

  "I actually need your help for a minute. You know a guy on the island named Logan? Spike Logan?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, I know who he is." Strange that Streeter should be asking about him.

  "Was he up your way the other day?"

  "No. But-why?"

  "Found his car pulled off the road down by the Stonewall Bridge, coming from the direction of your house to Beetlebung Corner. Looks like it flooded out during the storm. Kinda abandoned."

  "Anything in it? Any weapons, any-"

  "Just a pair of boots, Alex. Fit the imprints in the mud around your house. Same size, same tread design, same maker logo. State troopers confirmed that for me."

  "And Logan? Have you looked for him?" I asked more frantically than I meant to. "Have you been to the house he stays in? Have you asked-?"

  "Made a lot of calls and visits last evening and stopped by again this morning. Just wanted to know whether he was an acquaintance of yours," Chip said. "Just wanted you to know that he's out there somewhere. Pretty sure he's gone off-island."

  36

  I was waiting inside the lobby of my apartment building when Mike's car drove up in front. "Yo, blondie," Mike shouted. "Let's hit the road."

  Mercer had called to tell him about my Vineyard experience, and he was furious with me. "You lied to me, Coop. You let me think Jake was going to be there with you."

  "It was true when I first told you that."

  "He wimped out? Why doesn't that surprise me?"

  "No, he didn't. The flights weren't going and I didn't want him to drive up. Adam," I said quietly. "You know."

  "So you and Bigfoot played hide-and-seek instead, huh?"

  "And now the police just called because they think my visitor might have been Spike Logan." I told Mike what Streeter had said about the washed-out car and the boots that were in it.

  "Or his passenger. Coulda had somebody with him. Sounds too obvious to me to leave his car right where it was bound to be found. Maybe it's a setup," Mike said. He looked over at me as we headed uptown. "That won't stop you from scanning the horizon for the Spikester, right?"

  I was staring off at the boats churning up water in the East River. "Tell me something good, then. Take my mind off mindless things. How's Val?"

  He drew in breath before he answered. "That's a heartbreaker. She doesn't want me to tell anyone, but you gotta know. The docs found some more nodes. More-what do they call it?-involvement."

  I looked over at him but he kept his focus straight ahead. "They doing chemo?"

  "First surgery and then chemo. She's the toughest fighter I've ever met."

  I reached over and put my hand on Mike's wrist, but when he made a left turn onto the Drive, his arm moved and I wasn't holding anything.

  He continued to ask questions about the storm most of the way, and to cross-examine me about what had happened at the house. We parked around the corner and met Mercer in the lobby of the large commercial complex that housed Robelon's office.

  Robelon was expecting us. "What's the posse here for?" he said, looking at me but pointing to the men on either side of me.

  "This time I'm just the witness, not the prosecutor. They've got some questions for you."

  "Like what?"

  "Like who's your buddy?" Mike asked. "The guy who enjoys pretending he's the late great Strait."

  "What?"

  "The dude who sat in the back of the courtroom when Paige Vallis testified?"

  "How would I know who was sitting behind me? I was looking at the witness."

  "Let me-what do you say, Coop?-let me refresh your recollection, Counselor. The uptight guy who looks like he had his hair cut by Sergeant Bilko. The one whose rental car you were tooling around town in last week," Mike said.

  Robelon pushed back from his desk and played with a pencil, tapping it against his left thumb. "I've got no idea what you mean. I thought you had something urgent to discuss, Mr. Wallace? Try not to act like you've picked up all your techniques on television, Detective." He raised his right leg and rested it on a desk drawer. His disdain for Chapman was palpable.

  "Shit, you're probably right. I woulda been a bartender if it wasn't for Law and Order. Wouldn't have to put up with empty suits like you. There's the lovely Miss Cooper, running down the street last week in those ridiculous high heels she favors, trying to hail a cab, and you didn't even stop for her. Downright rude."

  "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Alex? Cab?"

  "Thomas Street," I said, "you were-"

  "Keep a lid on it, Coop. Think back to Wednesday, Counselor. A black sedan with rental plates. Parked on Thomas Street. Maybe it was a stranger who screamed at you to open the door and jumped inside holding a gun, is that it?"

  Robelon kicked the desk drawer shut and crossed his legs. He yelled to his secretary, "Mrs. Kaye, you want to show these people the way out?"

  She hadn't heard him clearly and came to the door of his office to look inside and ask him to repeat what he said.

  "Lionel Webster, also known as Harry Strait. You got a second job as his limo driver?" Mike asked.

  Mrs. Kaye looked confused. "Did you want me to get Mr. Webster on the phone?"

  Robelon was fuming. He held up his hand and spun it around, motioning the secretary to back out of the room. Sorry, no doubt, he had made her come in for the impromptu weekend meeting.

  Mike was on his feet, lifting the lid on the humidor and helping himself to a cigar.

  "I'm so glad you weren't about to give me that 'I don't know any Lionel what-did-you-say-his-name-is?' Give that broad a raise. She saved your ass just now."

  "Yeah, and I'd like to tell you what to stick up yours if there wasn't a lady p
resent."

  "Who, her?" Mike said, pointing the cigar at me. "That's no lady. Help yourself. She's just a louche broad masquerading behind a Wellesley degree and a fine pair of pins. Nothing you can say to me she hasn't said herself. So about Lionel Webster, what can you tell us?"

  "Haven't seen him in a dog's age."

  "Why don't you just talk to me about him? Everything you know."

  "Whatever happened to attorney-client privilege, or don't you believe in that either?"

  "Oh, so now he's your client, not your employee? Wasn't he working for you, trying to spook Paige Vallis?"

  "This interview is over," Robelon said. "And Alex, don't ever try to sandbag me again, okay? You want me to answer questions, there's a proper way to do that. I didn't see Webster on Wednesday and if he had anything to do with you and some kind of chase, I can promise you I don't have the first clue about it."

  Mercer's pager went off and he reached into his pocket to shut it down. The loud beeps seemed to signal the meeting's end.

  Peter Robelon was holding the door open for us. It was probably the wrong time to ask another question but I gave it a shot.

  "Do you know where Andrew Tripping is?"

  He looked down at his right foot as he pawed at the carpeting. "You guys don't get it, do you? I represent him, Alex, remember?"

  "No, no, no. I'm not going to do an end run. I mean, can we get to the courtroom in a couple of weeks and put this whole thing to bed?" I asked.

  Peter seemed surprised by my offer, debating whether to talk with me. "There's a-there's a meeting this morning. Andrew and the child welfare agency lawyers-they're getting him together with his son. It's all supervised. Planned for today so he wouldn't miss another school day. Don't worry, Dulles won't be alone with him. Give me a call later on."

  The elevator doors opened and the three of us got on.

  "What do you think?" Mike asked. He lighted the cigar as we hit the sidewalk.

  Mercer retrieved the number on his pager as I answered. "That we can't trust him. He's the target in an investigation pending with my office, remember that? I just don't think you can believe what he says. Who's the beep from?"