The Kills

31

"What the Romans needed, Mike, was a good homicide cop," Lori said. "They rolled over on this one, big-time."

He was standing at the window, looking at the traffic going eastbound over the Brooklyn Bridge. I knew what he was thinking, because I was trying to make the same kinds of connections. What was it that linked the unnatural death of an Egyptian king in Rome back in 1965 to the murders in New York City, in the last few days, of a Harlem dancer and the daughter of a former CIA operative? "How'd it happen?" Mike asked.

"Most of what you know from history books and old newspaper stories is true. The man weighed almost four hundred pounds. He smoked like a fiend, and took medication for high blood pressure. Went out for dinner at a fancy restaurant, in full view of a big crowd."

"Something on the menu he wasn't expecting?"

"Let me remember," she said. "I think he had a dozen oysters, a nice rich lobster Newburg, followed by roast baby lamb, with about six side dishes, and flaming crêpe suzettes for dessert. He lit up his Havana, and in front of a roomful of spectators, his head fell onto the table and he dropped dead."

"Cause of death at autopsy?"

"What autopsy?" Lori Alvino asked. "That's the whole point. Nobody ordered an autopsy. The king died of excess, they said at the time. A cerebral hemorrhage. It seemed so obvious that people didn't question it."

"But in fact?" Mercer asked.

Lori Alvino rested her chin in her hands, propped up by her elbows, telling us what she knew was in the official files. "There's a poison called alacontin. Ever hear of it?"

None of us had.

"Tasteless, odorless. Causes cardiac arrest immediately, but wouldn't show up in an autopsy."

"Why not?"

"Ask your docs how the drug works. I just read the reports, I don't do the forensics."

"No, I mean why no autopsy?" I asked.

"On the orders of the Italian Secret Service."

"There's an Italian Secret Service?" Mike asked. "That's got to be as effective as the Swiss navy."

"Easy, Detective," Lori said. "I've got paisans over there."

"Now we're talking 1965," Mercer said. "Who wanted Farouk dead at that point? He'd been in exile for more than ten years by then."

"Pick your leaders. Some say the poisoner was working for the Egyptians. In a decade, Nasser had gone from being a dashing rebel to a socialist dictator. Loyal Egyptians talked of restoring the monarchy, bringing home the exiled leader. Farouk's death would have been a gift to Nasser from his supporters."

"Who else?"

"The Americans, of course. And the English," Lori said. I reminded myself that Peter Robelon's father had also been a British agent in Europe during that period.

"Why them? Why us?"

"Because things had not gone as planned with Nasser. Our CIA and the British intelligence agency thought, quite wrongly, that the young general was going to be more malleable than Farouk had been. But he wasn't."

"Then why would we hurt Farouk?"

"A lot of government people thought, at the time, that Nasser would be ousted and the Egyptian monarchy would be restored. The Brits wanted their old outpost again in Cairo."

"So why not put a king back on the throne, and control him?" I asked.

"You got it. But Farouk hadn't worked the first time around. Now he was older, still very undisciplined, and totally unacceptable to the Western leaders. His son, however, was the perfect candidate."

Of course, I remembered. After Farouk had lost interest in Queenie, he had sired a son with his young second wife.

"The boy was only a teenager, so he would need guidance from the British and American delegations, they figured. And he'd be very appealing to the Egyptian masses as a return of the last ruling dynasty. The U.S. could prop him up on the throne and we'd all be back in business."

"So Farouk's death could have been a first step in our Allied plan to regain control of the territory, rather than a gift to Nasser from his own followers?"

"It works either way," Lori said.

"So now, Farouk is killed, in Rome," Mercer said. "And what became of all the treasures he had taken there?"

Lori Alvino didn't answer.

"C'mon, Lori, too late to stop talking to us now," Mike said. "The CIA?"

"Or the British Secret Service. Or even the Italian Secret Service. There were enough slices of Farouk's pie for everyone to get a handful."

"I'm thinking," Mike said, "about how that Double Eagle got to Egypt in the first place."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"In a diplomatic pouch. What could be a more foolproof way to move something valuable around the continent, or between continents? Who would know what's inside the little bag? What if the Double Eagle also left Italy in a government pouch?"

"I hate to remind you two," Mercer said. "But the coin that Mr. Stark sold in 2002 was the only one left like it in the entire world."

"That's the one I'm talking about, too," Mike said. "The one Farouk had since 1944-the one in Stark's auction in 2002. What are our choices? The king left it in Egypt when he was deposed, then someone found it and sold it to the British dealer. Lori here says that's not likely."

He looked to her for a sign of agreement and he got it.

"An American CIA agent sat on the nest in Cairo, after the fat man fled," Mike went on. "Someone who knew where to locate the coin, someone who had access to the palace. Other people forgot about the little piece of gold over time, because of all the turmoil in the region, and eventually our guy brought it out on the black market."

Lori picked up on the possibilities. "Maybe the Italian authorities who cleaned out his apartment in Rome found the coin. Maybe even the British agents, who continued to keep a close watch on him all his life. Lots of people have theories about the whereabouts of the precious little object for the fifty years it was missing, but the fact is that no one knows for sure."

I glanced at my watch, as the sky darkened over the East River. "I'm sorry to break this up. It's been most useful for us. I'm afraid I'm taking a couple of days off, and I've got a flight to catch out of La Guardia. "

"Let me know what you need, Alex," Lori said. "Nobody's going to open those CIA files of Farouk's anytime soon. There was too much backstabbing and betrayal in play. None of the officials looks good, in hindsight."

We thanked her for the time and information, and I called a car service to meet me outside the building and drive me to the airport.

The three of us were talking over each other as we stepped into the elevator. Fortunately for us, no one else was aboard.

"McQueen Ransome, Paige Vallis, Andrew Tripping," I said, listing off some of the cast of characters. "They're all tied up with Farouk or the Middle East."

"You got Paige's father, Robelon's father, some nutcase calling himself Harry Strait," Mike added. " Bam.More Farouk."

I went on. "Graham Hoyt fancies himself a collector, on a smaller scale than Farouk, but with obvious delusions of grandeur. Spike Logan gained the confidence of Queenie-enough to wind up with a few expensive gifts that he knew came from Farouk, and a penchant to go hunting for more after she died."

"Nobody," I said softly, "nobody can really tell us how many Double Eagles were stolen. Ten? That's only the best guess. That's only the ones that were identified and recovered."

"You're dreaming big, blondie. And you're missing the point. Even so, even if you found a dozen of them on the floor of Queenie's closet, they were never monetized. Worthless. They're not legal. You heard Bernard Stark. You can't even get twenty bucks for them. Only the one that was auctioned in 2002 was monetized for Farouk."

"But the killer might not know that," I said.

"Yeah, but-"

"Just suppose, Mike. If I heard that a Double Eagle sold for seven million dollars, and I knew where to find another piece that was identical to it, it would never occur to me that it wasn't a legitimate coin. Maybe I'd still move heaven and earth to get my greedy little hands on one."

The car service driver was outside the building, flashers blinking, with the company name and car number displayed on a plate in the windshield.

"Why'd you call for this? I would have driven you to the airport," Mike said.

"I took you away from Val long enough last night. You don't need to chauffeur me around. Call me if anything breaks, guys, okay? I'll be home by the weekend."

I got in the car, slammed the door, and sat back for the slow trip over the bridge and out the BQE to La Guardia.

"U.S. Airways terminal, please."

"What time's your flight, lady?"

"Six-fifteen."

"You live dangerously. Cutting it mighty close. I'll do my best."

When I reached the check-in counter it was almost six o'clock. I showed my photo ID and e-ticket. "We've had some weather delays, ma'am. Your aircraft is coming in from Pittsburgh a bit late. We won't be boarding for another hour."

"How does it look on the Vineyard end?"

The small airfield on the Vineyard gets socked in regularly, subject to all the weather variables of an island surrounded by both cold ocean waters and warmer bays. You couldn't be a Vineyarder if you were unable to cope with the likelihood of getting stranded at an airport because of summer fog or winter storms.

"They've got a minimum ceiling now," she said. "If the visibility holds, you'll get in fine. Stick around the boarding area. They'll try to turn the plane around pretty quickly."

I went through security and down the concourse to the departure gate. There were only three other passengers waiting for the nineteen-seat Beechcraft. I looked for a quiet place from which to make a call and settled into a corner with my cell phone.

I checked my office for messages, and my home machine as well. Jake had called both places, trying to find out whether I was holding to my plan of flying to the country. Assistants had phoned in updates of the cases on which they were working, and friends had left snippets of social gossip to lighten my spirits. The last voice mail, only fifteen minutes earlier, was from Will Nedim. He had finished his first interview with Tiffany Gatts.

"Will? It's Alex. I'm calling from the airport, on my cell. Can you hear me?"

"So far, so good."

"Everything go as planned with Tiffany? You run into any problems?"

"She's a piece of work, Alex. But I guess you knew that."

"Happy to leave her in your lap. I've got all the aggravation I need right now. Did you get anything from her?"

"I think she's ready to roll over and give up the boyfriend, Kevin Bessemer."

"That's a huge step. How'd you get her there?" I asked.

"Don't give me any of the credit. She hates being in the slammer. She's only sixteen, remember? It doesn't exactly seem fair to her that it was Kevin's idea to go break into Queenie's apartment, and now he's running around free, while she's locked up behind bars."

"Does she know where Kevin is?"

"She's not sure. He hasn't signed up for visiting hours yet, so except for her mama's hand-holding, it's lonely in the jailhouse. There's a piece of Tiffany that wants to Tammy Wynette him," Will said. "Stand by her man and all that. But her resolve is definitely weakening, and it isn't helped any by the fact that two of the other prisoners beat the crap out of her the other day because she wanted to watch Oprah while they were tuned in to Judge Judy."

"How about specifics, Will? Did you try to squeeze her on what she and Kevin did to Queenie, and why they killed her?"

"I've seen you interrogate teenage girls, Alex, and maybe I'm just not as tough on them as you can be. But I'm leaning toward believing her."

"About what?" I asked.

"Tiffany is absolutely adamant that McQueen Ransome was already dead when they got to the apartment. I couldn't budge her from that story no matter which way I came at her. She describes exactly how the old lady looked when they went in, how the drawers were pulled out of the dressers and cabinets, with her belongings all messed up."

I didn't speak.

"Don't be pissed off at me, Alex. Doesn't what the kid says mean anything?"

"That's certainly the way Queenie's body-and the apartment-looked when Tiffany left it. Whether that's what she walked into, I guess time will tell. Did she admit stealing anything?"

"Well, the fur coat."

Good job, Will. It would be hard to lose that larceny count at a trial. "Anything else?"

"She said Kevin found some things on the floor that were silver and had initials on them. Like cigarette lighters and tie clips. There were a lot of old snapshots-Tiffany said they were 'pictures of naked ladies.' Kevin helped himself to those."

So much for the pornographic photos. "But she didn't pick anything up?"

"Said she scooped up some coins from the closet floor, but they all had foreign writing on them that she couldn't understand, so she just dropped them back on the floor where they had been. Didn't think she could spend them on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. And one other photograph she said that must have fallen off the night table, right next to Queenie's body."

"What did she do with that?" I asked.

"Tiffany thought she had it in her pocketbook when she got locked up. Thinks the police gave the bag to her mother when she came to the station house after the arrest."

"Does it sound like a photo of anything we need?"

"Nah. She can't even explain why she took it. It's the deceased-McQueen Ransome-and a young boy. Like an adolescent. Tiffany called him 'a little white boy.' She thought he looked real pretty."

"Could be Queenie and her son, Fabian. She had lots of pictures of him in the apartment. Guess we ought to get it if we can, to corroborate her story. And to make sure we didn't miss anything else in the handbag. Give Helena Lisi a call and ask her to have Mrs. Gatts bring it in," I said.

"I forgot to tell you yesterday. You know, when I was talking to you while Mr. Battaglia was in your office? I could tell you were trying to get me off the phone," Will said with a nervous giggle. "Helena Lisi doesn't represent Tiffany anymore."

"Well, lucky you. That should make your life easier. Who's her new lawyer?"

"Josh Braydon."

"Big step up. Maybe you'll get some real cooperation now. Did Lisi put up a fight when the family fired her?" I asked. "Hope she got her money up front. Mrs. Gatts is in for quite a struggle if she thinks Helena Lisi won't kick back and scream for her retainer."

"Helena's not exactly out of it yet, Alex."

"What do you mean?"

"I hope you don't mind what I did. I didn't want to get in a hassle with you while Battaglia was sitting in your office, so I just went ahead and used my judgment."

"To do what, Will?"

"When Tiffany Gatts called and asked to talk to me, I could tell she was really frightened. She thinks her life is in danger. Her mother's, too. She begged me not to tell Helena Lisi."

"So how'd you get to Josh Braydon?" I asked. "How'd he get into the case?"

"I had the court appoint him, Alex. I know you're not going to like this. Josh Braydon? He's shadow counsel."