The Kills

41

I only had to say my name and the cops on harbor patrol knew what to do with me. Mercer had called headquarters when Hoyt cut off my cell phone, which started a search of the waterfront. Then he'd spoken with the Pirate 's captain, who mentioned the Statue of Liberty as a possible destination. Mercer and Mike had met up at the East Thirty-fourth Street heliport and been choppered to Liberty Island to set up a command post there.

When we docked at the small pier on the southwest side of the statue, Mercer was waiting for me. He lifted me down from the rear of the boat, embraced me, and held me close against him. I couldn't control my shivering as I rested my head against his chest.

"Let's get her inside," he said, passing through a group of other cops and security agents who wanted to be helpful. "You," he said, pointing at a National Parks Service officer, "get into the gift shop and-"

"It's closed for the day, sir."

"Get in it. Bring me a sweatshirt and anything else that's dry and clean. I don't care if you have to break in."

One of the cops had covered me with his own windbreaker. It hardly mattered. Cold, wet, and numb were feelings I was getting accustomed to this week.

We walked into the entrance of Fort Wood, the War of 1812 garrison that formed the statue's base, and Mercer guided me to an office door down a long corridor.

"What happened?" Mike asked, hanging up the phone and flashing me one of his priceless grins. "Hairdresser couldn't take you today? Look like that, it's no wonder you can't hold on to a man."

There were six other cops in the room, working phones and computers, now calling off the search and alerting the patrol boats that I was safe.

"Tried my best to hook a guy just half an hour ago," I said, knowing that if I didn't keep up the banter, I was likely to dissolve into tears. "Did he get away, too?"

"Glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor entirely, blondie. Nope. Mr. Hoyt is in an ambulance on his way to the hospital. Mild concussion and a couple of holes in his hands. The Port Authority cops picked him up on the Jersey side."

"C'mon next door," Mercer said. "There's an empty office."

"Figures," Mike said. "Coop's the only little girl I ever knew who preferred Captain Hook to TinkerBell."

The parks service guard returned with a large fleece shirt, a huge logo of Liberty's torch on the front. I went inside first and changed into the dry top before opening the door for Mercer and Mike. They wanted to know what had gone on this afternoon with Graham Hoyt and how I had handled it. I gave them a clinical version. The prospect of what could have happened on the river was overwhelming.

"You've got to call security at Hogan Place," I said. "The DA's squad has a skeleton crew on Saturday. Get some of the guys to go down to my office. The key to the file cabinet is in Laura's desk. Tell them to examine the Yankees jacket that's behind the Tripping file in the first cabinet, second drawer-check the pockets or, more likely, cut the seams open and look inside the lining."

"Why?"

"Because I'll bet that's where Paige Vallis hid the piece of paper that her father had been holding on to for fifty years, thinking it might someday be his passport to a fortune, if he could ever match it up with the gold coin it would legitimize. The paper Victor Vallis took from King Farouk's palace."

Mercer got on the phone while I settled in and warmed up.

"But you'd told Graham Hoyt about the kid's baseball jacket, hadn't you? I remember you telling him that you were going to give it back to Dulles. Why didn't he figure it out?"

I shook my head. "No, I told him the kid left the jacket at the hospital. It was logical for him to think it was vouchered there that same day as police property, as something that came out of the crime scene, maybe had the kid's blood on it. I never mentioned that it was Paige who took it home from Bellevue with her and held on to it for all those months."

"And Paige put the document in your hands because she knew that her life might be in danger."

"Probably so."

Mercer flipped his phone closed. "They're on their way down to your office. They'll call me back as soon as they've checked the jacket."

Another ranger knocked on the door and came in with a tray of hot coffee and sandwiches left over in the cafeteria at the end of the tourist day.

Mike stood behind me, massaging my shoulders and neck, trying to calm me while we talked. "You got this all figured out? You sitting in that rowboat with Hoyt and all of a sudden get one of those 'Holy shit!' moments?"

"I think I've got a good idea of what was going on, don't you?"

"I guess it all got into high gear in the summer of 2002. Sotheby's holds the auction of the only valid Double Eagle known to exist and sells it for seven million dollars."

"And that," I said, "probably revived old rumors that had swirled around expatriate types after World War Two about the most famous coin in history. The myth of a second Double Eagle. The possibility that Farouk's delegation had gotten two of the fabled birds out of the U.S. at the same time."

"You mean, that had been gossiped about in 1944?" Mercer asked.

"The feds can tell us that. It was such a great embarrassment to the government that a group of the gold pieces had survived the presidential order to have them destroyed, no one could put an exact count on how many there actually were."

"So who was aware of the second Double Eagle?" he asked again.

Mike answered him. "Graham Hoyt must have known. He made a practice of examining the lives of the world's greatest collectors, so he certainly knew all about Farouk."

"I got another piece of the puzzle today. It was Spike Logan who came to my house on the Vineyard. He was working for Hoyt."

Mike let go of my neck and came around to sit in front of me, waiting while I inhaled some of the coffee. "What?"

"Figure it out. Hoyt gave money to the Schomburg. You think it was an accident that Spike Logan was interviewing Queenie Ransome? Graham Hoyt knew exactly who she was, from his interest in Farouk. He hires Logan to get inside, to gain the poor old dame's trust. He hires Logan mainly to learn whether that precious piece of gold was actually one of the things she spirited out of the palace."

"Will Logan talk to us, you think?" Mike asked.

I looked over at Mercer. "Call Chip Streeter. When Logan showed up empty-handed after ransacking my house during the hurricane, Hoyt realized he already knew too much. Tell Streeter to expect what's left of Logan to wash up on South Beach, near Stonewall, any day now."

"You think Hoyt sent Logan to spook you during the storm?"

"Worse than that. It was Hoyt who set me up all week, telling me how bad the hurricane was going to be, why I needed to get to the house. You see," I said, "I think he really believes I knew what Paige gave me. He thinks she confided in me-since she had been so candid in telling me about accidentally killing the man in her father's house. Hoyt's sure I had this priceless piece of paper from the Treasury Department, and that once Paige was dead, I would have kept it with me for safekeeping, even if I wasn't entirely sure what it was."

"He sent Logan to the house to get the document, and get rid of you," Mercer said.

"So then there's Hoyt's competition," I said.

Mike was gnawing on one of the sandwiches. "That would be Peter Robelon. He knew about the coin because his father was top dog in the British Secret Service, attached to Farouk's group when the king was living in exile. Lionel Webster-the guy who pretended to be Harry Strait-he's a mercenary who was hired by Robelon."

"So you had two professional teams working against poor, whacky Andrew Tripping, who knew the whole story from his own Agency experience but just couldn't put together a plan that worked," Mercer said. "You think his effort to meet and date Paige Vallis was a setup?"

"From the get-go. Same with Lionel's 'Harry Strait' character." I was certain that was no chance meeting.

"And Paige?" Mike asked. "You think she knew the whole story?"

"I can't imagine she did. I'll give you some more homework, guys. You remember the burglar who died in the struggle, the one she confronted when she got home after her father's funeral?"

"Yeah."

"Get phone records and bank records and anything else that left a paper trail. Bet you almost anything that guy was hired by Graham Hoyt. Smart enough to pick an Arab to do the dirty work. That way, if the plan failed, it would look like the break-in was related to the consulting job on terrorism that Mr. Vallis was involved in when he died."

"You think he went in to steal the document that made the Double Eagle a legal coin?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then you also think…" Mike was mulling my theory over as he chewed.

"I'll bet that Paige found the paper on the burglar's body-maybe they even fought over it when she interrupted him."

"She realized what it was?"

"I'm not sure that she knew its value or meaning, but she was smart enough to figure out it was so important that someone might kill for it. Who knows, maybe her father had explained its significance, figuring the stolen coin that it referred to would eventually surface somewhere in the world. And that he-and then Paige-was the only person who held the key to turning twenty dollars' worth of gold into seven or eight million."

"Assuming we find the document in Dulles's jacket, why do you think Paige gave it to you, Alex?" Mercer asked.

I shrugged. "I don't think she had anyone else in her life she could trust at that point. The evening before she testified, she got a phone call from Harry Strait. So the morning she came to my office, she was scared enough to tell me something about him. But she didn't give me the baseball jacket then."

"Wasn't Strait in the courtroom, too?"

"Yeah. She gets on the stand and not only is she facing Andrew Tripping, who was way too interested in her father and his career for it to be coincidental, and there's Strait again."

"That ratchets up her fear factor," Mike said.

"So then we went back to my office, and before she left, she made her decision to pull out the Yankees jacket from her bag and give it to me."

"But didn't even give you a hint that she's hidden something in it."

"She was frightened, Mike, but I don't think most people cope with the fact that their lives might actually be in imminent peril. She had been flirting with this particular danger for months."

"Besides," Mercer added, "she was never too direct with Alex unless she was pressed to be. She let everything come out piece by piece, when she was ready to tell it. Right up to the minute she testified."

"Step one was giving me the jacket for safekeeping. Getting it out of her possession and into the hands of the law. Step two would be swearing that she no longer had it to anyone who tried to get it from her over the weekend."

"Not too successfully, obviously," Mike said.

"You know, when Hoyt lured her out of her apartment by telling her she could see Dulles, and then waylaid her in the laundry room," I thought aloud, "I'll bet she pleaded for her life by telling him she had given me-sent me is what he thought-the paper."

"Once she admitted that," Mike went on, "she was as good as dead. He didn't need her anymore."

"I think she figured if someone hassled her over the weekend, she had a chance to unload the whole story to me on Monday. She just didn't know how very dangerous Hoyt was."

Mercer's phone rang and he took the call. It was a short conversation but it confirmed what we had already guessed. Paige Vallis had sewn the mistakenly issued 1944 document that made the second Double Eagle legitimate legal tender into the lining of the pocket of Dulles Tripping's favorite Yankees jacket.

"That Polaroid photo of Queenie and Dulles that Mrs. Gatts gave me today, Alex," Mercer asked. "Did Hoyt talk about that?"

I smiled at him. "Me and my big mouth. Hoyt overheard me talking to you about Fabian and the picture. That's what almost bought me a piece of muddy real estate at the bottom of the Kills."

Mike hadn't heard Mercer's news yet.

"Get somebody good to sit down with Dulles, as soon as possible. I think whenever Hoyt had a visitation period with him, they were keeping a little secret between themselves. Hoyt was taking the boy to visit McQueen Ransome."

"But why?"

"She was a sucker for kids. We know that from the neighborhood. Here comes Hoyt, pretending to be a great admirer of her career, full of stories he knew about Farouk, ready to dignify her glory days by funding an exhibit at the Schomburg. And he brings along a fair-haired boy-the exact age of her son when he died-with a sad story to go with the kid. Who does Queenie have to leave her few belongings to? Why not this deserving child, who had no mother?"

"Something misfired, though."

"Yeah, I think Queenie was every bit as smart as Graham Hoyt, and even tougher. I don't think she liked the smell of his offer. She probably realized that what he wanted from her had more value than he was telling her."

I could barely hear Mike when he spoke. "So he killed the old lady."

"And was ready to let Kevin Bessemer take the weight. After all, who's going to believe a convicted felon-and a crackhead to boot-that Queenie was already dead when he got there?"

"He even controlled all the legal proceedings, all the players."

"That's it."

"Why does anybody with his kind of dough need another seven million?" Mercer asked.

"Because he really didn't have the money you think he did," I said.

"The art collection, the yacht, the country house-"

"Graham Hoyt had been stealing from his law firm for years. He has an addiction every bit as pathological as Bessemer's addiction to cocaine. He needed to own, to possess, to collect, like all the men he idolized. It was a sickness with him."

"None of it fit on a lawyer's salary. You said that when he first showed up in the case."

"He's been stealing money from his law partners for years, claiming he was writing checks to his favorite charities and getting the firm to reimburse him. Only, those checks went right into his own pocket, right into the gas for his yacht and the art on his walls."

"So get the Double Eagle, get the sheet of paper that makes it legal, and with one auction, he'd make a seven-million-dollar score that would get him out of hock and keep him afloat for a lot longer. Phony little prick."

"Think about what else he was telling me. Hoyt was really anxious for Tripping to take the guilty plea. That way, Andrew would be in jail and out of the chase for the golden bird."

Mercer also remembered what I was talking about. "It was Hoyt who stopped by your office late one evening and made a point of telling you that Robelon was dirty, that Robelon was a target of an investigation in the DA's office?"

"True, he delighted in diverting me by painting a tinge of guilt on each of the other players. And I fell for it."

"We all fell for it," Mike said.

Another knock on the door and the ranger came in. "We're losing the daylight, Mr. Wallace. You've gotta get that helicopter out before the sun sets. We aren't equipped for flying after dark."

Mike got to his feet. "What do you say, Coop? We got our own wings right outside. Take you anywhere you want to go."

I leaned my head back and tried to clear my mind of its deadly whirling images of the past week. Dark shadows in the hurricane, Hoyt's sneer as he reached for the wrench in the cockpit of his boat, the sailor's knot that was probably looped around Paige Vallis's neck.

"Fly you to the moon?"

I ignored Mike's chatter. "Where's the boy? What's going to happen to Dulles?"

Mercer took me by the hand and helped me up. "Ms. Taggart and the folks at child welfare have been looking into that for weeks. They never much cared for Hoyt or his wife. Seems Mrs. Hoyt was always too worried about Tripping's involvement and probably afraid of her husband, too."

"I can't bear to think of what becomes of the child in all this."

"Could be good news. Tripping's second wife-the one who left him because he beat her? She always had a good relationship with Dulles. She's married now, living in Connecticut with her husband and two kids. Says if Andrew is ready to do the right thing and let go for good, she'd be willing to adopt Dulles."

Mike wouldn't stop. "See, there's nobody to worry about anymore except you. Forget these sandwiches. They're already stale. We'll pack a picnic basket and fly-um, can we make it to Paris in this buggy? Anybody know?"

"The coin, Mercer, is anybody looking for the coin?" I asked. "Hoyt must have taken it from the apartment the day he killed Queenie."

Mercer hooked his elbow in mine, as we walked out of the building toward the blue-and-white helicopter with the NYPD logos on it. "Teams have blocked off Hoyt's apartment, his office, and the yacht till they can get warrants for all that and his bank vaults. We'll find it."

Mike took my other arm and guided me down the path as the pilot started the engine and the rotors began to spin. "It's going to be a perfect night. The moon is waxing to full; we can set this baby down in the middle of Times Square and dance till dawn."

Mercer made a signal of some kind over my head, probably telling Mike to cut it out.

"It's okay," I said. Mike Chapman knew me every bit as well as I knew myself. I didn't want to go home just yet. I didn't want to spend the night alone.

I ducked under the blades and climbed up on the pontoons, into the seat behind the pilot. I had been in a similar chopper scores of times, riding with the DA's office photographer to take aerial photos of crime scenes. Someone would return tomorrow to do that over the river and bay, down to the Kills.

After Mike and Mercer got in, the pilot lifted the helicopter in the air, hovering behind the great green lady. He swooped down and to his left, circling from behind her enormous arm holding the torch aloft, past her strong face, illumined at dusk by the lights in her crown.

"Lady Liberty, Coop. She watched over you today. Quite a beauty."

My head rested against the window and I stared back at her, saluting her silently in gratitude.

"Personally," Mike went on, "the Liberty on the gold piece is a bit sexier, in my book. This one's got her hair all tied up neat in a bun. The one on the Double Eagle? Hers is all loose and wild, kinda like yours looks right now."

The sun was setting behind us, west of the Hudson, and straight ahead the elegant Manhattan skyline was showing off its stunning array of lights.

We were over the river, then above the Chelsea Piers, passing close to the Empire State Building and the Art Deco spire of the Chrysler Building, coming in for an easy landing along the East River, in sight of the old deadhouse at the tip of Roosevelt Island.

A phalanx of detectives was waiting at the heliport to brainstorm with Mike and Mercer, and to hear my story of the day's events.

"The commissioner wants to see Ms. Cooper before he goes home tonight," one of them told Chapman as he brushed them out of the way.

"Give me an hour. I gotta buy her a new pair of shoes. Then we'll have her down to headquarters." He spotted a friend in the crowd. "Joey-get us uptown fast as you can, lights and sirens. The broad needs a bath bad. She got too close to Jersey today-smells like Secaucus."

We were at my front door fifteen minutes later. I unlocked it and the three of us went inside. "Clean yourself up, blondie. Go heavy on the perfume."

"Do I really have to go to headquarters tonight? I'm drained," I said, opening the bedroom door and pausing there while Mike and Mercer headed for the ice cubes and the bar glasses respectively.

"You bet your sweet ass you do. The commish had all of Manhattan South scouring the town for you-air, sea, scuba-every hand on deck. And after you're done thanking him, you've got the two of us to deal with."

I called back out to Mike, "What do you mean by that?"

Mercer answered. "It's payday. We're going to keep you out all night. Dancing, wining and dining, hanging out with your friends."

"And when we deliver you back here at daybreak, you'll be so exhausted you won't be able to give me any orders for at least a month. You'll sleep like a baby," Mike said.

"I'm not sure I can keep up with-"

"Unless you'd rather we go on ahead and you just take your shower, pull the covers up over your head, and stay here feeling sorry for yourself. Sulking, pouting-your usual MO."

"Give me half an hour," I said. "Don't leave without me."

I went into my bedroom and stripped off the sweatshirt and damp pants. The message light was flashing on the answering machine, and I could see there were seven calls. I pressed the erase button and held it down until every one of them was deleted. Whoever had been looking for me today could try again tomorrow.