The Kills

5

"Be careful what you wish for," I said to Mercer as I dropped an armload of case files onto my desk.

"What now?" He vacated my chair and opened a paper bag with our sandwiches and two bottles of water.

"I pushed and pushed to get the kid. Looks like it's going to happen now, but he's clearly been sanitized. You think I'm better off without trying to use him at trial?"

Mercer's judgment and insights were sound. "What's to lose talking to him? Keep fighting for the interview. We always knew this case was a crapshoot. You're good with kids. Maybe he'll surprise you and respond to some warmth in his life."

"The judge wants us to go on with jury selection this afternoon and do our opening statements tomorrow. How the hell do I open when I'm not sure what my witness list looks like?"

He bit into the baguette full of roast beef and all the trimmings. "Nothing you haven't done before, Ms. Cooper. Understate what you're gonna give 'em the first time you talk to them. Robelon gets up next and reinforces that you got zilch. Then out of the bag, you pull a surprise witness. He's smart, sympathetic, sincere-puts you over the top. Bingo. Tripping's dead meat."

"And best of all is that we can try to get Dulles into a better situation as soon as it's over. Place him in a stable, loving foster home and keep him out of reach of his crazy father until he's college age. That would be the real blessing of a conviction in this case."

"Slow down and eat something."

I sat at my desk and picked at the wilted greens from the deli on Broadway. "You should see the courtroom. Five lawyers in the mix, not counting me. Everybody's got a piece of the pie and I'm sure we haven't seen the end of it. Then there's these two suits-came in and sat in the back today. Never saw them before and can't quite figure out why they're here, but they sure look like stereotypes of government agents."

"You want me to-?"

"No, no. You can't be the one to talk to them. You're going to testify next week. I'll get someone from the DA's squad to sniff them out if they show up again."

"You think the CIA still has an interest in him?" Mercer asked.

I had subpoenaed Tripping's records from the Agency, but as I expected, those had been purged. It was clear he had worked there for several years, and had some Middle Eastern assignment that followed the 1993 car bombing of the World Trade Center. Then came the allegation that he had participated in conversations about some harebrained plot to kill the president that was exposed before any overt steps were taken, and the CIA seemed to have misplaced their files on the entire matter.

"I suppose it's possible. They didn't let on that they were the least bit interested in the evidence you found in his apartment after he was in custody, did they?"

"That's so typical. We put it under their nose, and they act nonchalant so they don't have to give you anything in return."

The day Tripping was arrested, and based on the information Paige Vallis had given me when I interviewed her at the hospital with Mercer, I had drafted a search warrant.

Mercer had executed it that evening.

Tripping's apartment was more like a military outpost than a family home. His bedroom had only a mattress on the floor, while Dulles slept on a cot in an alcove off the kitchen. The walls were hung with a variety of scimitars and scythes, primitive weapons that looked capable of beheading an enemy with a single swipe. There was a bayonet and casing on the floor beside the mattress, and several bowie knives on tables throughout the warren of small rooms.

Vallis claimed Tripping had threatened her by holding a cold metallic object against her head, telling her it was a gun. She never saw it. Dulles led Mercer to a closet in the bedroom, from which he recovered an air pistol, with its pellets and case. None of these things was illegal to own, and only chargeable if the defendant had actually used them against another person.

There had been books and papers everywhere. Beside a lamp in the living room, under a black-sheathed stiletto, was a leather-bound copy of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the private edition published in 1926 and signed by T. E. Lawrence. Mercer had vouchered all the scraps, receipts, and correspondence, and we had spent days trying to find anything of significance among the writings that were in our safekeeping.

"A guy just can't get any luckier than this," Mike Chapman said, walking into my office. "Here we are, less than one hundred shopping days until Christmas, and Ms. Cooper's gift just falls into my lap. Now, Mercer, I suspect you want to give a tired guy like me who's been up all night keeping the city safe half of that fat sandwich you're filling up on."

He laid out a full-length fur coat across my papers and files.

"Not that Tiffany Gatts has agreed I can have this yet, but it would look mighty snappy on you, come the first frost."

"What'd she say?" I asked.

"Her exact words were a bit too crude to use in this refined company, but it was something like, 'I don't have to be talking to you, do I? Get me a lawyer.'"

"You mean you didn't get a thing out of her? Nothing about Kevin Bessemer? Nothing about where the coat came from?"

"All she kept saying about the fur was, 'It's mines. ' Over and over. I asked where she got it, whether she had a sales slip for it, whether Kevin gave it to her. No use. Then when I started asking her about Kevin, she clammed up completely."

"The coat's stolen, right?"

"Trying to find that out. Lieutenant Peterson's got guys working the phones, checking to see if anything like this has been reported missing lately. Precincts around the city, Major Case Squad, Robbery Squad. Brought it for you to look at. See what you think. I only know about one kind of fur and it isn't this."

"Keep that thought to yourself," I said, picking up the heavy garment and examining the pelts.

The deep mahogany skins had rich color and fine long hair. They seemed dry to the touch, but they were clearly of good quality and fine styling. I spread the coat out on my desktop to look inside at the lining and label.

"Ever hear of that furrier?"

I shook my head from side to side. "Matignon et Fils. Rue Faubourg, Paris. That's a pretty pricey neighborhood."

I picked up my phone and dialed a number in Washington.

"You calling Interpol?"

I laughed. "No. Joan Stafford." My girlfriend knew more about shopping on the Faubourg-St. Honoré than all the flics in France.

She answered on the first ring.

"You kept me up way too late last night reading the novel, which I adored. Your favorite detectives want to know if you'll help us solve a little caper this afternoon, since I'm so worn-out."

Joan was living in D.C., engaged to a foreign affairs columnist for a major newspaper. She was one of my closest friends.

"Will Chapman give me his gold shield if I do?"

"At least that. Think fur. Think France." I told her the name of the maker.

"You're out of luck to get a bargain, if that's what you're in the market for," she said. "Gregoire Matignon closed his doors in the 1960s."

"Was he a big deal?"

"Just the biggest, Alex. One of those old families that started out in Russia, dressing the czars and czarinas. Then moved to Paris to service the royal families of Europe. The Duchess of Windsor, Grace Kelly-you know that classic photo of her when she started dating Rainier, wearing a golden sable, stepping out of an old Bentley in front of the Grimaldi Palace? That kind of clientele. As the monarchies became threatened with extinction, the minks thrived and Matignon went out of business."

I ran my fingers over the faded red stitching on the old label. "That's a help. I'll call you later."

"What'd she say?"

"That it sure wasn't made for Tiffany Gatts. You find a monogram?"

"Where?" Mike asked.

I folded back the lapels of the broad collar and scanned the lining. "It's pretty traditional to sew the client's initials into the lining."

"Jeez. And to think my mother used to mark my labels with a felt-tip pen, so the other kids at school didn't make off with my leather jackets. This winter I'll get her to try embroidery."

"See?" Near the bottom of the left front of the coat, in a deep chocolate shade of thick silk thread, was an elegant script monogram. I read the letters aloud. "R du R."

"That should narrow my search."

"I'd say you concentrate on the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Precincts," Mercer said, smiling. "High-rent districts on the Upper East Side. Lots of European diplomats. Some Eurotrash with delusions of nobility. Maybe Westchester. Maybe Great Neck."

Mike grabbed the telephone directory off my bookshelf. "These guys listed under the D 's or the R 's? We haven't got a lot of them in Ireland."

"Start with D. "

"DuBock. DuBose." He ran his forefinger down a long list of names. "DuQuade. Now we're getting close. DuRaine, DuReese, DuRoque…"

"I don't want to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but something as old as this," I said, fingering the worn cuff of the once-glamorous coat, "you've got to figure that since the furrier closed so long ago, and with all the PC attitudes towards animal skins lately, this may have been through thrift shops or secondhand-clothing places."

"You need a more positive attitude, Coop. Some folks have still got the first fancy outfit they ever wore to church or work or a funeral parlor. Maybe it's the difference between your relatives and mine."

"Suit yourself. Then don't forget that most women store their furs for the summer. Better check and make sure there wasn't a heist on Seventh Avenue," I suggested, directing Mike to the fur district between Twenty-fifth and Thirty-fourth Streets.

Laura was out on her lunch break, so when my phone rang I answered it myself. It was the security officer in the lobby of the building. "Thanks for letting me know. It's okay, I realize it's not your fault."

I looked up at Mike. "Maybe you could shut my door. There's a screamer on her way upstairs. Tiffany's mother just blasted past the guard's desk when they tried to stop her at the metal detector."

"I had a pet water buffalo once had a better disposition than Mrs. Gatts. He was smaller than she is, too." Mike walked toward the door but he was a few seconds too late.

All 280 pounds of Etta Gatts blocked the doorway of my office.

"Where do I find Alexander Cooper? Where is he?"

The three of us spoke at once. As I identified myself to her and corrected my name, Mike was saying that he wasn't here just now, and Mercer was doing his best to step between the woman and me to diffuse the situation, telling her to calm down and back off.

"Where you got my baby at?" She was breathing fire.

I hadn't even asked Mike that question. I assumed they had the sixteen-year-old in custody, but I didn't know for what.

"Take it easy, Mrs. Gatts," Mercer said, towering over the large woman. He explained to her how important it was to stay quiet so she didn't get thrown out of the building.

While he tried to soothe her I talked to Mike. "I've got a case to try. What the hell is going on here? Where's the girl?"

"Downstairs, in the holding pens."

"Charged with?"

"Criminal possession of stolen prop-"

I interrupted him before he could finish. "You can't make out felony value with this old thing," I said, pointing to the fur coat. "It's not worth twenty-five hundred dollars at this point."

"And aiding a fugitive-"

"Better."

"And felony-weight possession of crack cocaine. A white patent leather bag full of little vials."

I turned back to Mrs. Gatts. "I think the best place to wait for your daughter would be downstairs, inside the entrance to One Hundred Centre Street, where the judge will see her later this evening and set some bail."

"What you mean 'this evening'? It's not even two o'clock yet. What you mean 'bail'? Tiffany's just a baby. You got no right to hold her where I can't see her."

Mercer reached out his hand to steady Mrs. Gatts's flailing arms. She took a step back and kicked at my door with all her considerable might.

I tried to follow Mercer's lead and be diplomatic. I took a step toward the woman but Mike blocked me with an outstretched arm. "You could make things much easier for Tiffany, ma'am. We just need her to help us. She's been keeping some dangerous company."

"Like who?"

"Kevin Bessemer."

"Bessie? That man in jail. He old enough to be her father. What she doing with him?" Etta Gatts clucked her tongue in disbelief, and I let Mercer try to explain why Tiffany was in trouble.

"Don't mean a damn thing. The lieutenant told me my baby was too young to have sex with a thirty-two-year-old man. That it's rape. Well, in this state she too young to vote and too young to drink. That makes her too young to go to jail."

"Three out of four ain't bad, Mrs. Gatts. Sixteen years old and she gets treated like an adult in criminal court. You oughta do like Ms. Cooper says and have a serious talk with Tiffany. She's the only one," Mike said, pointing at me, "who can give your daughter a break."

"I don't want no break from you," the woman said, kicking the metal door again. Mercer reached for her elbow but she raised her voice a few decibels as she twisted loose and kept hollering.

"Take it easy."

"Don't touch me," she screamed at Mercer. "And you, you skinny-ass bitch, you watch yourself. My hand to the heavens, my people ain't through with you yet."