The Kills

16

I couldn't grasp the fact that Paige Vallis was dead. And I couldn't stop thinking that Andrew Tripping had the best reason to kill her.

Mike led me up the two flights of stairs to the squad room. I assumed from the somber-faced team of detectives who greeted me that they knew how personally shattered I would be by the death of my own witness.

Over and over again, I played in my mind the words that Judge Moffett had said at the start of Andrew Tripping's trial: "Murder. You should have charged the defendant with murder."

He hasn't killed anyone, I had thought. Not that I could prove.

The questions I had thrown at Mike on the long ride down to the southernmost station house on the island of Manhattan, none of which he could answer, were the things we started with now.

"Do we have a time of death on this?" I asked, after saying hello to some of the guys I recognized and had worked with before. No one answered.

"Who's in charge here?" Mike asked.

We were out of his territory now, on the turf of the Manhattan South Homicide Squad. There wasn't a man in the room who took pleasure in being second-guessed by a colleague from the north, or a prosecutor in a black couture dress and peau-de-soie shoes with three-inch heels.

"Yo, Squeeks. You the man?" Mike said, pointing to a guy who was hanging up a phone on a desk in the rear of the room.

Will Squeekist had been a detective in Narcotics for five years before a recent promotion to Homicide. The nickname that Mike had given him when they were in the academy years earlier had stuck, and fit the small-framed man with a high-pitched voice.

"Come on back here. Let's get started," Squeeks called out to us. "Hey, Alex, how you been?"

"Doing fine until this news."

"Sit down," he said, stepping away from his desk chair and turning it over to me. Space was at a premium in the outdated old squad rooms of most precincts.

"No, thanks. Stay where you are," I said, refusing the offer.

"I need to have my back to the guys while I say a couple of things to you. Get something off my chest. Do me a favor and sit down."

Squeeks went around the desk so that he could talk directly into my face. "Sorry about the frigid greeting, Alex. A couple of them have a problem with this."

"With what?" What I had thought was empathy was something else altogether.

"We understand the deceased was a witness of yours. Paige Vallis. That right?"

"Yes. What's the problem?"

Squeeks paused. "I mean, they want to know why she didn't have any kind of protection, any-"

Mike jumped to my defense. "What are you, nuts? This broad's a complaining witness in a garden-variety sexual assault case. She was-"

I was steamed, too. "There's no such thing as a 'garden-variety' rape, Mike. Let me handle this myself. What do you guys think this is-Hollywood? When's the last time you know a witness who's been guarded during a trial in Manhattan Supreme Court? We've got forty felony cases going every day, and witnesses walk in and out of the place like it's an ordinary office building. This isn't a mob case, there's no drug cartel connection, Tripping wasn't a gunrunner or a Mafia kingpin. Who's the asshole who's blaming me for this murder?" I stood up. "Let's clear the air about this right now."

I came around from behind the desk and started for the group of detectives huddled between the coffee machine and the door to the lieutenant's office. Mike grabbed me by the arm and tried to hold me in place, but I shook loose.

"She feels like shit already, Squeeks," Mike said. "The broad is dead. What was Coop supposed to do different?"

"Could have let the Terrorist Task Force know what was going on," he answered.

I stopped in my tracks and turned back. "What?"

"A couple of the guys are just saying you could have told the task force your witness was at risk because of her background," Squeeks said.

"Well, I'd have to know about it first in order to tell them, wouldn't I? The defendant claimed a lot of things that turned out not to be true. There's no middle ground with you guys. I ask you to go to the mats in order to get me evidence for my cases and you tell me there's no manpower to do it, or that no one will authorize the overtime. Now you're accusing me of not seeing conspiracies where I don't believe they exist-like the task force would have taken this schizophrenic wanna-be spy seriously if I had thought to call them? That's a load of crap."

"Not Andrew Tripping. I don't mean him."

"Exactly who do you mean, Squeeks? I'm running clean out of guesses."

"The terrorist. The guy she killed down in Virginia."

Mike was sitting on the edge of the desk. "Who'd she kill?"

"Let's back up a few steps," I said. "I know she accidentally killed a man, and I thought she had told me everything I needed to know. You obviously know more about that incident than I do."

"That's unusual, Alex. The guys who've worked with you," Squeeks said, cocking his thumb over his shoulder to point behind him, "they say you know more about your victims than they know about themselves. Say you don't go to trial until you've pulled every last ounce of information out of them."

"That's the truth," Mike said. "Get your hands off your hips, blondie, and lighten up. That's a good thing."

"They figure you're aware of all this, Alex."

I raised both arms in bewilderment and shook my head at Squeeks.

He went on. "After we found the body, we ran her. Just a name check, not even fingerprints. That's routine. Never expected to get anything-and bingo-came back with a homicide arrest down in Fairfax."

"I know that. I spoke to the DA there myself," I said. "He gave me the whole file. There was nothing in it about a terrorist."

"Maybe someone sanitized the file," Mike said. "Can you show them what you've got, Coop?"

"Drive me over to my office and I'll get the whole thing. What I thought I had was a copy of the original court papers. You can see the entire record," I said to Squeeks.

I picked up the phone on the desk and dialed Battaglia's home number. "Paul? Sorry to wake you. I've got some very tough news," I said, telling him about the murder of Paige Vallis, which would certainly be Sunday morning's headlines in a few hours.

"And I need a couple of things from you. Right now, if you can. There's a prosecutor in Virginia who gave me information on an old case. There's a chance his boss made him purge some details from it," I said, asking him to place an emergency call to the district attorney in Fairfax, to grease the wheels to get the real story.

"One more thing. Your contact at the CIA? Would you call and ask them for information on an agent called Harry Strait? He may have something to do with this."

I paused and waited for a response. "I know it's the middle of the night, Paul, but they're not going to give this stuff to anyone else."

Squeeks was waiting for me to get off the phone. "Why don't you tell me what you did know about Vallis's case."

Mike listened as I laid out the facts for both of them.

Paige's eighty-eight-year-old father had died, of natural causes, at his home in Virginia. Paige had gone down there to organize the funeral service and arrange for his personal belongings to be moved or sold.

"The prosecutor told me it was a part of a pattern, a scam that a burglary team was operating," I said. "The obituary listed the date and time of the funeral, as they always do. That's when the burglars check out the address of the deceased, figure that anyone who knew and loved him would be in church at the ceremony, and they break into the house because they figure it will be unattended."

I went on, "Paige said she came home from the cemetery and went in via the back door, surprising the burglar. He lunged at her with a knife, they struggled, and when they fell to the floor, he landed on it."

"Hoist on his own petard," Mike said.

"Exactly. The case went to the grand jury, Paige told her story, and if I remember correctly, the jurors actually stood up and applauded her."

Squeeks opened his case folder and looked at his notes. "You got the guy's name?"

"In my office. I want to say it's something like Nassan. Abraham Nassan."

"Close. It's Ibrahim."

"What's your point?" Mike asked.

"That it's clearly an Arabic name. That Cooper should have known-"

"I'm telling you that the court papers I have say Abraham. I even have a photograph of the guy. What should I have known?"

"They didn't tell you he was part of a cell? An arm of al Qaeda?" Squeeks asked.

"They told me he was Abie the burglar. Abie the second-story man," I said, slamming my hand on the desktop. "A rash of funeral-related thefts. Close this case out, close them all."

"Coop thought he was one of her boys, not Abie the Arab," Mike said.

I fished in my evening bag for my set of keys. "Send one of the guys over to Hogan Place. Here's the key to my office. The folder's in the third cabinet from the bookcase. Bring the whole goddamn case and look at it for yourself. Why the hell is any prosecutor going to purge a file to give to me?"

Squeeks answered me. "The police chief thinks the district attorney in Fairfax had orders from the feds. There was a major investigation in progress, a follow-up to the Pentagon plane crash, and the feds were running a pretty tight ship. They didn't want the public to panic. Figured if one of the terrorists was dead and the death was justifiable, no need to alarm the good citizens of the Commonwealth. Still can't believe they didn't tell you the truth."

"Well, start believing it. And let's send out for some coffee. Black for both of us. We've got lots of other people to talk about," I said.

"You know what Victor Vallis did for a living?" Squeeks asked.

"Paige's father? I know he was in the diplomatic corps."

"Posted in Egypt, actually. Paige testified about that."

Squeeks gave Chapman a look, again suggesting I should have divined a connection to some kind of international intrigue, rather than a simple break-and-enter.

"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 break-in, 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 Vallis 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."