The Kills (22 page)

Squeekist
leaned against the desk and scratched his ear.

"Did
you guys find anything at the scene that's got you going in a direction related
to what happened at her father's house?"

He shook
his head.

"Because
I gotta tell you, it seems insane to me to overlook the obvious. She's the only
witness against my defendant, Andrew Tripping. Anybody figure out yet where he
was when she got killed? He was keenly interested in her Egyptian connections,
too. He's also got some kind of Middle Eastern expertise and experience.
Supposedly worked there briefly in his CIA days."

"Calm
down, Coop. C'mon, Squeeks. Give us what you got. I don't even know when and
how she died," Mike said.

Squeekist
was reluctant to let us into his investigation, but knew we had information
that might ultimately be useful. "This probably happened sometime during
last night, going into Saturday morning. In her building."

"You
know about her call to Mercer Wallace? You know about the boy?"

Squeeks
said he did not, and asked me to explain. "Mercer said she left that
message in his office at around ten. And her records might tell us where the
kid was calling from."

Mike was
making a list of things that needed to get done.

"Forced
entry?"

"No.
It wasn't actually inside her apartment. Happened on the stairwell from the
first floor, going down to the laundry room in the basement."

"Doorman?"
Mike asked.

"No.
The building doesn't have one," I said. "Just a buzzer and intercom
system."

"No
security camera?"

"Nope."

"How'd
she die?" I asked.

"Strangled.
Marks and discoloration on her neck," Squeeks said.

"Manual?"

"No.
Some kind of ligature. I'm expecting the ME will tell us it's a piece of rope.
Thin, like a laundry cord. There were a few of 'em hanging in the
basement."

"Was
she down there doing laundry in the middle of the night?" Mike asked.

"No
sign of that."

"You
think-"

"We've
got guys over there now, canvassing the neighbors. Maybe she buzzed in someone
she knew, maybe she got followed in from the street, maybe-"

"Maybe
it was a random push-in," Mike suggested.

"She
couldn't be that coincidentally unlucky," I said.

"So
tell me about your case." Squeeks had his notepad out and was ready to get
more information from me.

We sat
for almost two hours, as I tried to recall everything that Paige Vallis had
told me about herself, and everything I could think of that might be important
about Andrew Tripping. I had no appetite for the doughnuts and cupcakes that
were serving as dinner for the other detectives, but I went through three cups
of coffee and let the caffeine get to work on my already jangled nerves.

"Don't
forget to tell him about Harry Strait," Mike reminded me.

"Who's
he?" Squeeks said, jotting down the name.

"CIA
agent. Paige had a relationship with him. Not a very long one. Tried to break
up but he didn't take it very well. I don't know whether he was actually
stalking her or not."

"What
do you mean you don't know?" the detective asked me.

"Look,
she never mentioned him to me at all until yesterday. I didn't know he existed
until he walked into the courtroom."

"You
didn't even ask her about him?" Squeeks was looking me in the eye, shaking
his head back and forth.

"How
the hell can I ask about someone before I know he exists?"

"Cut
her a break, Squeeks. She's a head taller than you and her balls make yours
look like marbles."

"She
was hiding things from me, that's for sure. Just the usual stuff-at least,
that's what I thought. Embarrassment about a relationship, that kind of thing.
It was only yesterday morning that she confided in me that this guy Strait had
called her the night before to convince her not to testify."

"He
threatened her?" Squeeks asked.

"She
denied that. Just told me he scared her because he used to be so demanding when
they were dating." "Scared her to death" were the exact words
Paige had used. "She had promised to tell me more about it, but I wasn't
allowed to talk to her after she got off the witness stand. That's why she
called Mercer to tell him something about trying to find Dulles, Tripping's
son. She wasn't supposed to call me."

"Tell
him about the glut of lawyers, Coop."

I let out
a sigh. "I suppose you should know about everybody involved. There's a guy
called Graham Hoyt," I said, spelling his name for Squeeks. "He's the
boy's legal representative. Claims to be very interested in adopting Dulles.
Says he and his wife, Jenna Hoyt, have a relationship with the kid, and thinks
he'll be the one to win his confidence.

"And
he's helping one of my colleagues at the DA's office with an investigation into
a deal that the defense attorney for Tripping is caught up in. Robelon. Peter
Robelon." I gave him the name of the firm at which he worked. "Hoyt
claims Robelon's got his hands dirty in some kind of securities fraud."

"You
got more on that?"

"Check
with Jack Kliger in the investigations division." I paused. "There
are several other lawyers, too. One from the foundling hospital and another
from the child welfare bureau. Their names and numbers are in my files."

"And
the snitch. Don't forget about the snitch."

"Mike's
right," I said. "Seems like it happened so long ago it must have been
another trial. I was thinking of using an informant on my case. His name's
Bessemer."

"Heard
about him," Squeeks said, smiling for the first time since we arrived at
the station house. "Guess some guys got flopped for that one. He was in
this mess, too?"

"I
hadn't met with him yet. He was being brought in to talk to me when he skipped.
He had been Tripping's cellmate in Rikers."

"You
think Bessemer knows anything about Paige Vallis?" Squeeks asked.

"Only
what Tripping might have told him. No sign that he ever had any contact with my
witness. But he's on the loose and I have no idea what his agenda is."

Detectives
had come and gone all through the hours between midnight and two, as we talked
about Paige Vallis and these other characters. It had been quiet for quite a
while, and the ringing phone on the front desk jarred all of us.

Mike
walked over to answer it. "First PDU," he said, expecting the call to
be for an officer in the First Precinct detective unit. "Yeah, Mr. B.
She's still here. We got her in the hot seat." He listened to a message
then hung up the phone to relay it to me.

"That
was Battaglia. Got through to Langley and they called him back with the
information you wanted," Mike said to me. "Harry Strait? He's ex-CIA.
No longer with the Agency. Here's the contact guy who'll give you his
background facts."

"He
must get a pension check or some kind of retirement benefit. They still have to
have some way to find him," I said, taking the paper from Mike's hand.

"Hard
to do, blondie. Even for a crackerjack operation like the CIA. Harry Strait
died almost twenty years ago."

I crawled
into bed next to Jake at about four o'clock in the morning. He didn't move when
I slipped in beside him, and I couldn't tell whether he was feigning sleep in
order not to engage me in a self-pitying dialogue about my victim's death. I
ran my finger down the length of his spine and kissed the small of his back,
but got no response.

When I
opened my eyes at seven, the other half of the bed was empty. I picked Jake's
shirt up from the back of the chair, where he had draped it when he'd undressed
last night, and put it on.

I found
him in the den with a cup of coffee, reading the first section of the Sunday
Times.
I stood in the doorway, waiting
for him to look up from the paper. "Good morning," I said.
"Sorry about last night."

"Not
your fault."

"How
was dinner?"

"I
wasn't in the mood to go with them. I just came back here when the show ended.
Did you get anything to eat?"

"My
stomach was too roiled up," I said. "I'm going to pour myself a cup
of coffee. Want some more?"

"No,
thanks. I'm fine."

I walked
into the kitchen and filled a mug. I was starving, and put an English muffin in
the toaster oven. While it was cooking, I went back into the den. Now he was
fixed on the Style section. "Those weddings must be riveting."

"Some
sweet stories, actually," Jake said.

"The
bride majored in classics at Columbia and is writing her doctoral thesis on
sexual mores in ancient Rome. The groom is getting an on-line degree from the
University of Paducah. They both like beagles, hang gliding, and pepperoni
pizza," I said, mocking what had become of the marriage announcements in
the Old Gray Lady. "The bride, who is Catholic, and the groom, who is
Jewish, were married on the beach in Southampton by a Buddhist priest. More
than I need to know."

"I'm
just trying to see what obstacles some of these couples overcome on their way
to the altar. Maybe it'll inspire me."

"I
didn't know you were short on inspiration."

Jake put
the paper down and looked at me. "Most of the time I'm not, Alex. But I'm
at a loss right now. I know how devastated you were last night, and I
understand why you had to go downtown with Chapman. Now what am I supposed to
do to pick up the pieces? I get tired of asking you about a case and being told
you don't want to talk about it. Or worse than that, having your boss tell you
not to discuss it with me because I'm a reporter. I'm damned if I don't and I'm
damned if I do."

I stood
up to go back to the kitchen. "I've been very open with you about the
Tripping case. Friday night I told you everything that had happened in court. I
don't want to exclude you from anything that's important to me."

I called
back to him over my shoulder, "You ready to tell me who Deep Throat
is?"

Jake
followed me into the kitchen. "What are you talking about?"

"You
know you're not about to reveal any of your sources on a big story. Obviously
there are times I'm not going to be free to tell you everything I know."

"That's
not what I mean, Alex. I want what you keep bottled up inside. I want what
you're thinking and feeling when this stuff is chewing your guts apart and
keeping you up at night like you had toothpicks stuck in your eyelids."

The
muffin had burned to a crisp. I tossed it in the garbage and opened the package
for another one. Jake took it from my hand and started the process over.

"There
was a call last night. Right about midnight. Peter Robelon."

"Shit,"
I said, sitting at the dining room table. The body wasn't even cold yet and the
vultures were beginning to pick at it. "Did he know about Paige?"

"He
said he heard a late news story on one of the local stations. They didn't give
her name, but he recognized the address and Peter said he knew it was a loft
building with only a few residential tenants."

"Of
course he knew exactly what the setup was. He'd hired a private investigator to
snoop around the neighbors looking for dirt on Vallis. Don't tell me he was
unctuous enough to be calling with his condolences?"