Killer Heat

NINETEEN

A tall, heavyset man a little older than I held out a hand to guide me down from the chopper. "Step lively, miss. Snakes, spiders, ticks, and poison sumac."

"We were with his cousin, poison ivy, yesterday. I'm Mike Chapman." He introduced Mercer and me to our official greeter

Bart Hinson. State police. The brush that surrounded our landing pad was as tall as the trees behind it. Boulders and branches ringed the clearing that had been hacked out this morning for our arrival

Any developments?" Mike asked

Just trying to make sense of what we have here. Nothing much got done overnight. It's not easy terrain to search. Follow me," Bart said.

We entered a trail about twenty feet long, ducking beneath weathered limbs that had been intertwining, it appeared from their density, for many years. When we emerged, I faced the most unusual array of huge stone buildings-all with turrets and towers, elaborate carvings, and coats of arms.

The men waiting for us next to a crumbling entrance to the building complex were from a mix of agencies. There were six other troopers-two of whom specialized in crime scene work-four landscapers who'd been called in with chainsaws to make room for us to land, and a caretaker who lived on the mainland but supervised the property for the state.

Bart Hinson was the lead man. "I thought we'd show you where the girl's body was discovered," he said. "Tell you a little bit about this place."

I craned my neck to look up the side of one of the buildings that was about a city block long. It was covered in red paint that had faded over time. Written across it in chipped and mottled gold lettering were the words BANNERMAN ISLAND ARSENAL

You find the boat yet?" Mike asked. "That must be how the killer got her here."

Bart shook his head. "Well, up this way, everybody and his uncle has a boat. More docks than you got subway platforms. Fancy namebrand little yachts, simple outboard motors, fishing boats-just about every size and shape. Then you got your kayaks and canoes."

"I hear you."

Bart pointed at the caretaker. "He uses an aluminum rowboat to go back and forth. Wouldn't take much to slip over here and back even with someone else's boat and nobody ever know."

"How about the currents?" Mercer asked.

"This part of the Hudson is an estuary, so the tide changes from north to south a couple of times a day," Bart said. "It's been pretty calm this week. A strong rower wouldn't have much trouble if he knew the tides."

"I thought this was called Pollepel Island," I said, pointing up at the writing on the wall. "What's that sign about?"

"Pollepel was its name centuries ago. The Native Americans spun tales that this spot was haunted. Then along came the Dutch sailors, who had good cause to believe it was spooked, too," Bart said. "Thought it was the devil made the ships crash into the rocks and sink with all their goods aboard."

"Was this fortress part of West Point? Did the army build it to defend the Hudson from the east?"

Mike dismissed me. "It has nothing to do with the government."

"But you said the state owns it."

"That's only been the last thirty years," Bart said. He swept his arm around the bizarre vista. "This was all the folly of one man, Alex. A privately owned island, bought in 1900 by a complete eccentric named Frank Bannerman."

"And he built this-this…?"

"It's supposed to look like an ancestral family castle back in Scotland, complete with drawbridges and a moat. But you're right to call it a fortress. The arsenal-that's the second-largest building here-was one of the biggest munitions warehouses in America. Nations went to war a century ago outfitted entirely by Frank Bannerman, from his crazy island outpost."

"You know about this guy, Mike?" Mercer asked.

"My aunt Eunice had a cellar full of Bannerman's catalogs. Probably still does. Uncle Brendan had been collecting them since he was a kid."

Mike's military interests had been fueled by his father's oldest brother, who had landed at Normandy.

"What was Bannerman doing up here?" Mercer asked.

"The family emigrated from Scotland to New York in the 1850s, right after he was born," said Bart. "At the end of the Civil War, young Frank started buying up tons of military goods-surplus equipment- that the government was auctioning off. He purchased everything from scrap metal and bayonets to ships that the navy wanted to unload, figuring he could sell them to whatever government went to war next."

"He had all the weapons and ammunition stored in offices downtown, on Broadway," Mike said.

"Till after the Spanish-American War. Bannerman purchased 90 percent of all the military hardware and black powder when that conflict ended, but it was so dangerously explosive that the city demanded he move it out. In 1900, he bought this island and moved everything up our way," Bart said. "Designed all the buildings himself."

"Did he live here?" I asked.

"That castle," Bart said, pointing at the enormous structure with four rounded towers and crenellated peaks, "was built to be a house for his family. See how there's not a right angle anywhere on it? The guy was a master of detail."

"And people actually bought this stuff from a private individual?"

"He outfitted entire regiments in World War I-turning a handsome profit off our own government" Bart said. "Sold something like a hundred thousand saddles, rifles, uniforms, and about twenty million cartridges to the Russians for their war against Japan a century ago."

"Everybody from Buffalo Bill to the silent film directors bought their gear from Bannerman's," Mike added. "Bayonets and muskets, spurs and torpedoes-all straight out of the catalog. You know the commemorative cannons you see in town squares all over America? I bet more than half of them were sold right off this island."

"There's got to be some kind of connection between Elise Huff, with her West Point ring, and Connie Wade, a cadet whose body was brought out to this arsenal, practically within sight of the academy. How come you and Bart know so much about Frank Bannerman and I never heard of him?"

" 'Cause little girls read Nancy Drew while little boys studied the pictures in these catalogs. They were still being published when I was a teenager."

"Does he have any descendants? Anyone who still has access here?" I asked.

"Nope. End of the line."

Mike was animated now, telling Bart and Mercer about his uncle Brendan's collections. "He used to buy things from Bannerman's that came packed in their original crates, and my aunt Eunice saved them just that way. He had these kepis-"

"Kepis?" I asked.

"Hats. The kind soldiers wore in the Civil War. Paid something like seventy-five cents apiece for them."

"Sounds like an army-navy store," Mercer said.

"The very first one. Bannerman sold relics from Admiral Perry's Arctic expedition and weapons from the Battle of Yorktown. Put your hands on one of those catalogs, Coop, and I'll tell you what else you'll find," Mike said, snapping his finger at me as an idea came to him.

"What?"

"Let's get that label from the olive green blanket that Elise Huff's body was wrapped in. See if there's anything like it on the one that was covering Connie Wade yesterday-or have the lab compare the fibers. Could be from the same stock. Could be our killer's a military buff gone AWOL.