The Kills

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 café 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 they 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.

"Do you think you know everything there is to know?"

"I don't believe that ever happens," I answered. "Subconsciously or not, we always filter what we tell other people."

"Always?"

I looked up at him. "Most of the time. And certainly to those with whom we're not intimate. People like Paige wanted me to think better of her, not be judgmental, not second-guess her choices."

"So what do the cops make of this Harry Strait character?"

"A classic case of identity theft. The real Strait died of a heart attack while sitting at his desk at Langley. No controversy, no scandal, no crime. Someone plucked his date of birth and death out of the records or off his tombstone, no doubt forged a set of documents to accompany the name, and is walking around pretending to be Strait."

"Any idea why?"

"Not a clue. And if he throws the stuff in a garbage pail tomorrow and decides to be somebody else, they may never figure out who he is. They'll go through everything in Paige's apartment and office pretty carefully. Maybe he left some contact information or something else that will reveal him to us."

We walked back to the apartment and spent a few quiet hours together before Jake left for the airport. Everything about being with him soothed me and made me happy, if I kept it in the present tense. It was only when I thought about our future, and the barriers that had presented themselves in the past, that I made myself anxious.

I closed the door behind him and settled down on the sofa for the evening with Thomas Hardy and the D'Urbervilles. The bleak Dorset landscape and the workings of the malevolent forces of the universe suited me beautifully.

Monday morning, I left the house early for the dreaded trip to my office, to prepare for the fallout when news of Vallis's death spread, and to go before Judge Moffett.

I kept my door closed until I went to the courtroom, researching the law on-line. I didn't find what I needed. When I got upstairs, the scene was not what I expected. Tripping, Robelon, and Frith were again seated at counsel table. They all looked relaxed and calm. Behind them was Graham Hoyt, and next to him were the lawyers for the hospital and child welfare agency.

Now, however, the two rows behind them were filled with courthouse reporters. I knew that the tabloids had connected the TriBeCa murder with the fact that Paige Vallis had been on the witness stand in the case, but my guess was that Robelon had invited them to come and watch him secure a dismissal of the charges against his client. I had hoped to put this matter to rest out of the glare of press coverage.

Judge Moffett was the last to arrive. The media had always been fair to him, and he would play with them to get himself some favorable ink. He took the bench and began by making a statement in open court about Paige Vallis's murder and the great coincidence that she had spent her last day testifying before him.

"Do you have an application, Mr. Robelon?" Moffett asked.

"Yes, Your Honor. At this time, on behalf of my client, I move to dismiss all the charges against him. We are, obviously, entitled to a mistrial. I had been looking forward to the now-impossible opportunity of cross-examining Ms. Vallis. Not only do we mourn her death, but we regret that this deprives Mr. Tripping of the chance to completely exonerate himself."

Robelon's grandstanding went on for ten minutes. The judge asked me to respond. I rambled more than I intended, talking about the rape charge first, disagreeing-most respectfully-with the court's conclusion that Vallis's death was coincidental to the trial, and making the point that she was not the sole victim in this matter. There were still counts in the indictment-assault and endangerment-that referred to the missing boy.

"What's the solution, Ms. Cooper?" Moffett asked facetiously. "I'm supposed to move to strike an entire direct exam? Just ask the jury to forget what they heard and move on to your other witnesses? You got law on it?"

"No, sir. I haven't been able to find a single case on point. I'd like some time to-"

"You don't need time. You need a miracle," Moffett said, looking to see how many of the reporters were taking down his repartee.

"We had open issues on the table. Dulles Tripping is still missing-"

Robelon stood and interrupted me. "Mr. Hoyt and I can give you an update on that. The boy is fine. He's upstate with friends. We're happy to arrange a meeting with Ms. Cooper so she can speak with him herself as soon as we get him back here."

Graham Hoyt was standing behind Robelon and winked at me, as though to confirm he had brokered that deal for me to see Dulles.

"May I have a few hours to consult with the head of our Appeals Bureau?" I asked. The most brilliant legal scholar in our office was John Bryer. Whenever our shoot-from-the-hip trial dogs got into trouble in court, the fastest solution was to call Bryer. If anyone could fashion a creative solution to keep my case alive, it would be he. "I might want to submit papers-to write on this, Your Honor."

"Write, schmite. Knock yourself out, Ms. Cooper. I'll give you two days. We'll be back here Wednesday morning. Call my clerk if there's any law on your side. Bring the jury in, Mac."

The court officer opened the door and the jurors straggled in. From the way most of them glanced at me, I knew they had heard the news about Paige. I couldn't fault them, despite the court's instructions. Several were holding folded newspapers. One of the tabloid headlines was written in bold-faced type above a photograph of the earnest young woman from the Dibingham Partners annual report:WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION-SLAIN.

The judge apologized to the panel for the inconvenience, reminded them of the now ridiculous admonition not to read press accounts involving the case and its witnesses, and excused them until Wednesday morning. I looked straight ahead to avoid making eye contact with any of them as they filed out of the room.

Mike Chapman was sitting in my chair, feet up on my desk, gnawing on a bagel, when I dragged back downstairs to my office.

"Good morning, sunshine. You look like you're in need of a turn in your luck. Ah, the wonders of the automated fingerprint identification system," he said.

"Fingerprints? Where?"

"Queenie's apartment. The lifts we got off the plastic toilet seat. This one'll please you."

"Just give me his name. I'm too whipped to guess."

"Little Miss Sweet Sixteen. Your snitch Kevin Bessemer's child bride, carrying her old mink coat."

"What?"

"Tiffany Gatts herself was inside Queenie Ransome's apartment."