The Kills Read online

  “Peter comes by it naturally,” Hoyt said. “I think that’s what attracted Andrew to him in college.”

  “My father’s English,” Robelon said. “Worked abroad for the government.”

  “In Egypt?”

  “No, no. In Rome, actually.”

  “What does that have to do with King Farouk?” I asked.

  “That’s where Farouk died, in exile, in 1965,” Robelon said.

  “Let’s put this case to bed. Then I’ll buy the first round of drinks, Alex. Maybe we can get the truth out of my classmate here. Peter claims his father was just an attach�� at the embassy. But Andrew swears Robelon senior was the most important British spook in Europe.”

  23

  “Where has this day gone?” I asked Mike, who had settled in behind my desk. It was after six-thirty and the corridors were quiet and dark.

  “Fill me in over dinner.”

  “Another time. I’ll give it to you quickly. But I’m running downtown. There’s a seven-fifteen service for Paige Vallis.”

  “I thought she’s from Virginia?”

  “Her body’s being shipped down tomorrow for burial. But her boss organized a memorial for her tonight, at a little church on the Battery, and he invited me to be there. Did you speak to Squeeks? Anything new on the death investigation?”

  “All quiet. You want a ride?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “It’s wet out there.”

  “I won’t melt. Mercer’s invited, too. He said he was going to be late getting there, but he’ll take me home.”

  I closed up my office, telling Mike about my conversations with Peter Robelon and Graham Hoyt before again walking to the elevator. “So all these connections to Farouk and people who worked in the Foreign Service; do you make anything of it?”

  “Conspiracy or coincidence, huh? You’re always seeing some dark intrigue behind things like this. Me? I’m a coincidence man. Odd things just happen sometimes. Ingrid Bergman happens to walk into Humphrey Bogart’s Casablanca gin joint. Farley Granger happens to share a train compartment with a stranger who agrees to murder someone for him. Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet happen to bump into Sam Spade while they’re looking for-”

  “Those aren’t coincidences, Mike. They’re plot devices. You’re talking fiction and I’m talking real life.”

  “Hey, how many people do you need to have in a room to guarantee the chance that at least two of them would have the same birthday?”

  “I don’t know. Three hundred sixty-four.”

  “Ha! Twenty-three. At least two out of every twenty-three people will have exactly the same birthday. Statistical odds. A lot of life is coincidence.”

  We walked out the door and I turned right to go to Centre Street. “Wait a minute, blondie. I got a brolly in the car.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “Don’t be stubborn.”

  I turned my collar up and crossed the street with Mike, waiting while he fished out his car keys and shuffled through the heavy assortment of police equipment that filled the trunk.

  “So I’ll give you a substitute Jeopardy! question, since you’re standing me up tonight,” he said. “Military history.”

  “I lose before we get started.”

  “The answer is from army basic training. Three things a soldier in uniform is instructed not to do,” Mike said, finding an old black golf umbrella and trying to extricate it from beneath a fingerprint-dusting kit and orange jumper cables. “I’ll spare you. Push a baby carriage, wear rubbers, and use an umbrella.”

  He pulled it out and opened it, straightening two of the bent metal spokes. “Ever go to an Army-Navy game on a rainy fall day?” he asked. “Sailors sit under their umbrellas, soldiers get soaked. Napoleon laughed at the British troops carrying umbrellas at Waterloo in 1815. Guess who won?”

  I twirled it for him a few times and got back on course. “See you in the morning. Say hi to Valerie for me.”

  Office workers unprepared for the change in weather were scurrying toward the entrance to the subway station in Foley Square. I passed it by, cutting across City Hall Park to walk south on Broadway, which was better lighted than the less-trafficked and twisted side streets of the city’s financial district.

  The gaping hole behind the Trinity Church graveyard that has become known to the world as Ground Zero still took my breath away and turned my stomach whenever I thought about it or, as now, skirted its perimeter. I kept my head down, dodging pedestrians who moved northward as I sidestepped puddles to try to keep my feet moderately dry.

  At Bowling Green, I took the fork to my left and trotted the last three blocks down Whitehall, as the showers fell more steadily.

  I was at the very toe of Manhattan-the Battery-named for the row of guns that had once guarded this vulnerable tip of the early colonial settlement. The address Paige Vallis’s boss had given to me, 7 State Street, was about the southernmost building on the entire island, but for the fortress of Castle Clinton.

  It was hard to see numbers because of the dim street lighting, and I looked in vain for something that resembled a Catholic church. People raced by me on their way to the Staten Island ferry terminal and the express bus stop that would speed them to their homes in the outer boroughs. I doubled back to find a coffee shop and asked for more specific directions to the Rectory of the Shrine of St. Elizabeth Seton.

  I climbed the staircase, fooled by the appearance of the original facade. The small chapel had been an early Federal mansion-a private home-built at the end of the eighteenth century. The slender Ionic columns and delicate interior detailing had survived two hundred years of commercial development all around it, and was now a small sanctuary named for America’s first saint.

  The service was already under way. I walked to the far side of the room and sat on a bench below a wrought-iron balcony, shaded by its overhang, and out of sight of the others who had come to pay their respects.

  There were prayers and musical offerings, and a succession of Paige’s business associates extolled her virtues and mourned her untimely and unnatural death. There were more men than women, all dressed in Wall Street blues and grays. Most of the older women dabbed at their eyes with handkerchiefs.

  I didn’t know who, besides her boss and two coworkers, had known of Paige’s involvement in the criminal case. No one mentioned it in his or her remarks. I scanned the room for the man who had told Paige that he was Harry Strait, but saw no one resembling him here.

  The last hymn was “Now the Day Is Over.” Everyone rose to sing and remained standing as the organist played the recessional. By the time the crowd was filing out, most of them were talking about how the market had performed today and whether the Federal Reserve was likely to raise the interest rate in response to recent signs of economic recovery. Several of them were planning to gather to carry on their reminiscences of Paige over a few martinis at the nearest watering hole.

  I stepped away from the group and sat in one of the last pews for a few minutes of quiet reflection. I had not seen Mercer enter the rectory, and I assumed it had been impossible for him to park in this crowded warren of narrow streets.

  I closed my eyes and thought about the Paige Vallis I had known, about the parts of her life that she had let me enter, about the terrible distress she had been in during the days and hours before her death. I didn’t have to be reminded that life isn’t fair. That was something I encountered every day I went to work.

  Shortly before nine o’clock, the janitor came into the room with a large broom. He asked if I would mind leaving, and I told him I was sorry to have stayed so long. I said another prayer for Paige, and picked the umbrella up from the seat next to me.

  There was no sign of Mercer Wallace. I ducked under the stairwell of the old building for shelter from the rain, scanning the street in both directions to look for his car. I took out my cell phone and turned it on.

  “You have one unheard voice mail,“the recording said. “Message one. E
ight-twelve P.M. ‘Hey, Alex. I’m stuck in the Thirty-fourth Street tunnel. Bad accident. I’ll get there as fast as I can.’”

  A tall figure in a hooded parka, umbrella over his head, ducked in beside me. He smelled of alcohol and was mumbling to himself. I didn’t wait to get a look at him, but stepped forward again onto the quiet sidewalk.

  The man followed me, and I glanced around in hopes of spotting a uniformed police officer. Traffic was still moderately heavy, cars going both to the northbound entrance of the FDR Drive and west to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. I jogged across State Street to stand on the open median that divided the roadway, trying in vain to hail a cab.

  The man loped after me. I could hear my own breathing now, as I tried to assure myself he was just a bum, hoping to get close enough to snatch my bag. I saw a break in the traffic and bolted back to the sidewalk, heading over to Broad Street.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw the man still coming behind me. The umbrella blocked any view of his face, and the visor of the black rain jacket was pulled low over his forehead. Where were all the yuppies who worked late in the skyscrapers of these canyons below Wall Street? The driving rain seemed to have kept everyone indoors.

  I turned the corner and saw the faded lettering on the old wooden sign outside Fraunces Tavern, with its historic plaque noting the spot where General Washington bade farewell to his troops. I pulled at the door handle with all my strength for eight or ten seconds, until I noticed the small block lettering on the window: CLOSED ON MONDAY.

  The cell phone was still clasped in my hand. These streets behind the main thoroughfares were too small and winding to use as a sensible retreat. I dialed 911 and moved through the shadows around the corner onto Coentes Slip. Behind me I heard the crashing sound of a metal garbage bin rolling on the ground. I glanced back and stepped out of the way as it rolled toward me. My pursuer was not in sight, but three enormous rats were scrambling over the remains in the barrel as its lid flew off.

  The operator asked what the emergency was. “There’s a man after me,” I said, breathless from the combination of fear and running.

  “You’ll have to speak more slowly, ma’am. I can’t understand you.”

  “It’s a man-”

  “Did you say asthma, ma’am? I know you’re breathin’ hard. Is this a medical emergency?”

  I could see the figure again, as I approached the intersection of Water and Broad streets. “No, it isn’t. I want a police car.”

  “You say you’re in a police car? I don’t understand your problem, ma’am.”

  I dashed across the street again, splashing in a large puddle that had pooled at the edge of the curb. I had listened to thousands of these 911 tape recordings. Some of the operators had lost their jobs as a result of their responses-telling a rape victim whose lungs had been collapsed by stab wounds in her chest that she damn well better speak up loud enough to be heard and stop that stupid gasping-along with wonderfully compassionate responses that had saved lives with their ingenuity. This communication problem was clearly my own fault.

  I stopped and tried to speak more clearly into the phone. “I’m being followed by a man. I need the police.”

  “What has the man done to you, ma’am?”

  Nothing, I thought to myself. Absolutely nothing.

  “Ma’am?” she asked once more.

  I looked again and watched as he dodged between cars whose windshield wipers were throwing off pints of water. I still couldn’t see his face, so I focused on his lower body. His pants looked like the navy blue of a police officer’s issue, and his shoes were the shiny black brogans that went with that kind of uniform.

  “I-I think he’s trying to attack me.”

  “Where you at?”

  “The intersection of State Street and Whitehall.”

  “Stay on the line with me, okay? I’m gonna get you someone.”

  I ran again, crossing the last section of highway and climbing over the barrier that separated it from the pavement near the entrance to the Staten Island ferry terminal, dropping the umbrella as I slid off the divider to the ground. My long-legged pursuer vaulted the concrete block, his umbrella blown inside out by the biting wind that kicked up off the harbor.

  The boat whistle blasted and caught my attention, buoy bells clanging in the water beyond it and gulls screeching overhead. I had not been on the ferry in more than twenty years. I didn’t know the part of the island at which it docked nor whether its fifty-cent fare had doubled or tripled.

  In the distance, at the mouth of the drab-looking double-ended boat, I could see clusters of drenched commuters gathering past the turnstile, trying to get inside the dry cabin for the ride home. I started to run in that direction.

  Something crashed down on my right shoulder and I dropped onto one knee. Lightning flashes streaked through my eyes and I extended my left hand to push back up to a standing position. The man in the black rain gear lifted the closed umbrella over his head and brought it down toward my back again. I rolled as I saw it coming, swirling in a puddle of cold water.

  I was screaming now, hoping to get the attention of someone on his or her way to the departing ferry. The honking car horns, the foghorns, the far-off sirens of what I hoped was an approaching police cruiser all masked my cries.

  The heavy black shoe swung at me as I got to my feet and started to run directly for the boat. The arms of the giant iron turnstiles stood in front of me. There was not enough room to pass beneath one, so I turned around and hoisted myself atop the stanchion to swivel around and get to the other side. Again he came at me, and this time, before dropping down, I bent my right leg and kicked hard, landing a blow with my foot against his chest. He yelled out and fell back a step or two.

  Now people stopped. I must have looked deranged. My hair was hanging in wet clumps and my clothes were mud-soaked from that last roll on the ground. I had jumped the turnstile and I had kicked a stranger in his gut for no apparent reason.

  I ran past the onlookers. Another man in a brown uniform with a Department of Transportation logo on his jacket reached out a hand to slow me down and collect the fare. I screamed at him to get out of my way, shoved him against a column with both hands, and jumped onto the ferry as the boarding ramp was being pulled out of place. A police car stopped thirty feet away, at the point I had crossed the road in my run to make the boat.

  Another DOT guard clamped his hand on my shoulder and I grimaced in pain.

  “Take it easy, lady. Calm yourself down,” he said to me. “The kicking and shoving is over. You’re under arrest.”

  24

  I was probably the happiest prisoner in history.

  “I’ve got the money to pay the fare,” I told the officer, knowing it was a story he had probably heard every day that he was on duty.

  “It’s a free ride, lady. That’s not the problem.”

  “No, no. I mean I realize that I jumped the-”

  “Guess you haven’t been on board since ninety-seven. The token’s been eliminated. You’re not in trouble for beating the fare.”

  I didn’t even mind that there was no reason for me to be in cuffs, in the safe hands of PO Guido Cappetti.

  “Assault on a peace officer,” he said to me. “I saw you shove that guy right out of the way.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you,” I said. “That’s exactly what I did. But it’s only because I was being chased by a man who attacked me.”

  “I didn’t see nobody doing nothin’ to you.”

  “I kicked the guy after he smacked me with an umbrella. He’d been chasing me up and down Whitehall.”

  Cappetti got on his radio and called ahead for a patrol car. “Possible 730.”

  “You’re gonna psycho me?”

  He was surprised I recognized the designation. “You been before?”

  “No. Actually, I’m a prosecutor. Manhattan DA’s office.”

  “Here we go, sweetheart. And I’m the commissioner.”

  “Do
I get a phone call?”

  “Back at the house.”

  “I was waiting for a New York City detective when I was attacked. I can give you my cell phone. If you call him, he can come meet me. Verify what I’m saying.”

  Cappetti listened to me for a few minutes, took the phone from my pocket, and dialed the number I gave him. “You Mercer Wallace?” he paused, then asked a few more questions, establishing to his satisfaction the fact that Mercer was, in fact, on the job, a real New York City cop. “I’m with Alexandra Cooper. She tells me she’s an assistant DA.” Another pause. “Really?” And then, “Is that right?”

  Mercer told Cappetti to keep me with him when the boat landed at the St. George Terminal on Staten Island. For the next fifteen minutes, I sat side by side with Cappetti, who had liberated me from my restraints, leaving me to stare back at the sweeping vista of the great New York Harbor gleaming through the mist. The burning torch in the outstretched arm of Lady Liberty, the wide mouth of the Hudson River, the office towers of Lower Manhattan, and the spidery, weblike cables of the Brooklyn Bridge occupied my imagination while I kneaded my shoulder and tried to figure out who my assailant had been.

  Together, Cappetti and I waited almost an hour until Mercer made his way out through Bay Ridge and across the Verrazano Bridge.

  Mercer found us in the terminal police station, wrapping me in an embrace.

  “Let go before you get yourself covered in this filth,” I warned him.

  “Your prisoner free to leave, Cappetti?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did I hurt the ferry guy when I shoved him? I’d like to apologize to him.”

  “Nah,” Cappetti answered. “We get loonies all the time. Maybe you had a good reason tonight.”

  “Why don’t you go inside the rest room and wash up?” Mercer said.

  It was stupid of me to be nervous about it, but I had handled too many assaults that had occurred in public bathrooms. He picked up on my hesitation.

  “C’mon. I’ll check it out and stand at the door.”