The Kills

19

"How many times have you heard that one before? 'I was counting on killing Queenie, but she was already dead when I got there,'" Mike said, mocking the girl.

I didn't dismiss Tiffany Gatts's denial as easily as he did. "It's one thing when you get that kind of statement thrown at you from somebody who's been through the system a few times. This kid's just flailing around like she's been hung out to dry. Maybe it's the truth."

"Don't go all soft on me, blondie."

"No danger of that. But she must have convinced Helena in just those ten minutes in the conference room that there was nothing to worry about on a murder charge. Helena didn't even try to cut a deal or offer to flip the kid."

"So maybe Tiffany waited outside on the stoop while Kevin Bessemer went into the apartment and killed Queenie. That still fits with the old lady already being dead when she got inside. She's playing with you, Coop."

Laura opened the door. "Were you expecting anyone from the FBI?"

"No."

"Two agents here. Say they need to interview you."

I waved them in. An attractive young woman in a smart gray pinstriped suit was accompanied by an older man. He looked like a central casting hire for a federal agent, while she looked like she had stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine.

"Claire Chesnutt," she said, extending a hand to each of us and palming her identification for us to examine. "This is my partner, Art Bandor."

Chesnutt explained that they were assigned to try to identify the man impersonating the late Harry Strait, and needed to interview me about him.

"I don't know very much."

"We understand that. If you don't mind, it would be important if we separate you two for this conversation. You saw him, too, didn't you?" she said to Chapman.

"Let's go into the conference room," I said to her. "Mike can use my phone while he's waiting his turn."

I walked Chesnutt and her silent partner back across the hall and told them everything I could remember about my conversation with Paige Vallis.

"Did she tell you how she met the man who called himself Strait?"

"No."

"Did he ever show her any ID?"

"I have no idea. Not that she mentioned to me."

"Why did she believe he was CIA?"

"I'm sorry," I said to Chesnutt. "I never had the opportunity to explore these questions with her."

What the agent wanted most was a physical description. I closed my eyes to try to re-create the visual of the man I had seen in the rear of the courtroom. I was giving a description of the generic white male of average height and build. "Again, I apologize. Somehow it's always so embarrassing to be on the reverse side of this process."

Chesnutt had a nice manner. "I know you didn't have much of an opportunity to make an observation. You don't need to explain."

"How much of a problem is this identify-theft stuff?"

"It's becoming a bigger and bigger issue for us, since the Internet has made it so much easier to do, but it's been around forever. Used to be, people checked cemetery headstones for birth and death information, then created documents to go with the name of someone who was dead and buried. Now we get guys hacking into files or accounts on-line, getting everything from social security numbers to credit card information. They don't even have to leave home to do it."

"Why Harry Strait?" I asked. "What kind of work did he do for the CIA?"

Chesnutt smiled at me. "Frankly, I don't know."

Even if she did, she certainly would not have told me.

"Has someone tried to impersonate him before this?"

"Unfortunately, Ms. Cooper, I'm here to ask questions. Not answer them."

I took her card, in case I remembered any other details, and switched places with Mike Chapman.

"Don't get comfortable," Laura said. "Battaglia wants you." Scooping up the phone messages from her desk, I kept on walking, into the executive wing. Rose Malone signaled me straight in to the Boss.

"Sit down," he said, removing the cigar from his mouth. "First thing I want to know is how you're handling this. The girl's death, I mean."

Battaglia's exterior was ironclad. It was rare he engaged in a conversation about emotions, but he was keenly aware of the personal toll this job could take when a tragedy hit close to home. Occasionally, when I needed it most, he responded with a question or piece of advice that suggested he knew exactly the depth of my own turmoil.

"Maybe I'll stop second-guessing myself in a couple of weeks. Right now it's tearing my guts out. Paige Vallis's death, the prospects of the boy's future-it's all ugly. You get anything for me?"

"Promise me you'll watch out for yourself, Alex. When this is resolved in a week or two, take some real time off and-"

"I've just had a two-week vacation, Paul."

"Hardly. Prepping for trial. Why don't you and Jake get out of town for a while?"

I nodded my head. Battaglia had such a sixth sense about people, and now I knew he was fishing to see whether our relationship had stabilized, to check on whether I was getting the appropriate support on the home front. "Good idea, boss. You hear back from the DA in Virginia?"

The cigar was wedged back in place, and the conversation was carried on out of the other side of Battaglia's mouth. "No question that case file his assistant sent you was whitewashed. National security and all that bullshit. You wonder how some of these guys get elected in the first place."

He looked down at notes he had scribbled during a telephone conversation with the prosecutor about the burglary case during which Paige Vallis had confronted the intruder in her father's house.

"Let's see," he went on. "The man who was killed was named Ibrahim Nassan."

"The cops told me that Saturday night."

"Egyptian-born. Twenty-eight years old. Been in the States less than two years."

"Was he really al Qaeda?"

"He spent some time in one of the training camps. Only way they know is that they searched his apartment after his death. Rented a single room in a boardinghouse in Washington. Pretty bare, except for a computer. Found some e-mails that connected him to some other known terrorists, but nothing to indicate active involvement in any trouble here in the States."

"Any family?"

"No," Battaglia said. "One of those kids who came from an upper-class background. Parents were merchants, father was educated at Oxford. Rebelled somewhere along the way, for no obvious reason."

"So, this intrusion into Paige's father's house is really linked to the work Mr. Vallis was doing for the CIA?"

"Well, they never established that, either. An educated guess. You know nothing was taken during the burglary, right?"

"Yeah, 'cause the perp never got out of the house," I said. "Do they know what he was looking for?"

"They claim not to have any idea." Battaglia shuffled his notes and kept reading. "Victor Vallis. Career Foreign Service. Sounds like he'd been posted all over Europe and the Middle East."

"He was in Cairo, right? I know Paige had talked about that."

"Yes. Twice, actually."

"Any connection to the CIA?" I asked.

"They haven't made any so far."

"When was Vallis there? In Egypt, I mean."

"Where's Chapman? His military history might come in handy for this," Battaglia said, referring to his papers.

"I'll be sure to tell him you said so. He's in my office."

"The second time Victor Vallis was in Cairo was from 1950 to 1954. That covers the period of the coup, when the king was deposed and General Nasser took control of the Egyptian government."

"The king?"

"Farouk. The last king of Egypt."

"What was Vallis's position at the time?" I asked.

"Political advisor to the American delegation. Still pretty junior."

"How about the first time he was stationed there?"

"In the mid 1930s. Probably his entry-level job after college," Battaglia said. "But he wasn't working for the government then."

"What did he do?"

"He was a tutor. The royal tutor. You're too young to know anything about Farouk," the district attorney told me. "He was the playboy pasha-a spoiled prince who grew up to be a corrupt monarch and a Nazi sympathizer. I hated his politics."

"And Victor Vallis taught him?"

"For almost three years, when young Farouk was living in the palace in Alexandria, and later in Cairo; Vallis made his home with the family and taught the prince all his studies. Foreign languages, world history, geography."

"So did the district attorney ever get any closer to figuring out what the feds thought this burglary was about?" I asked. "Foreign intrigue? Terrorism?"

"He says the file was still an open case. Nobody knows. They looked for connections between Victor Vallis and the Nassan family, but if the CIA knew of any, they sure didn't tell the local prosecutor."

"Thanks for making the call," I said, as he handed me his notes of the conversation. "I'll have Laura type these up."

I headed back across the main corridor to my office, where Chapman was talking with my assistant, Sarah Brenner. "Are the FBI agents gone?"

"Yeah," Mike answered.

"Talk about feeling stupid. Were you able to give Ms. Chesnutt a 'scrip of Harry Strait?"

"Not a very good one," he said, repeating it to me.

"Doesn't sound any better than mine."

Sarah had a different perspective. "Sounded to me like you were describing Peter Robelon."

"Or the defendant, Andrew Tripping," I said. "Totally fungible white men. They're not going to get very far on what I told them."

"Well, forget about Harry Strait for the moment and come on down to my office. I was just telling Mike that uniformed cops brought in an acquaintance of Queenie Ransome's you need to talk to."

"Kevin Bessemer?" I asked.

"Not quite so lucky as that. But I think you'll want to question this guy."

"Where'd they find him?"

"Inside Ransome's apartment earlier today."

"A break-in?" Mike asked.

"No. That's what makes it so interesting. He let himself in with a key."