The Kills (25 page)

"Don't
go all soft on me, blondie."

"No
danger of that. But she must have convinced Helena in just those ten minutes in
the conference room that there was nothing to worry about on a murder charge.
Helena didn't even try to cut a deal or offer to flip the kid."

"So
maybe Tiffany waited outside on the stoop while Kevin Bessemer went into the
apartment and killed Queenie. That still fits with the old lady already being
dead when she got inside. She's playing with you, Coop."

Laura
opened the door. "Were you expecting anyone from the FBI?"

"No."

"Two
agents here. Say they need to interview you."

I waved
them in. An attractive young woman in a smart gray pinstriped suit was
accompanied by an older man. He looked like a central casting hire for a
federal agent, while she looked like she had stepped out of the pages of a
fashion magazine.

"Claire
Chesnutt," she said, extending a hand to each of us and palming her
identification for us to examine. "This is my partner, Art Bandor."

Chesnutt
explained that they were assigned to try to identify the man impersonating the
late Harry Strait, and needed to interview me about him.

"I
don't know very much."

"We
understand that. If you don't mind, it would be important if we separate you
two for this conversation. You saw him, too, didn't you?" she said to
Chapman.

"Let's
go into the conference room," I said to her. "Mike can use my phone
while he's waiting his turn."

I walked
Chesnutt and her silent partner back across the hall and told them everything I
could remember about my conversation with Paige Vallis.

"Did
she tell you how she met the man who called himself Strait?"

"No."

"Did
he ever show her any ID?"

"I
have no idea. Not that she mentioned to me."

"Why
did she believe he was CIA?"

"I'm
sorry," I said to Chesnutt. "I never had the opportunity to explore
these questions with her."

What the
agent wanted most was a physical description. I closed my eyes to try to
re-create the visual of the man I had seen in the rear of the courtroom. I was
giving a description of the generic white male of average height and build.
"Again, I apologize. Somehow it's always so embarrassing to be on the
reverse side of this process."

Chesnutt
had a nice manner. "I know you didn't have much of an opportunity to make
an observation. You don't need to explain."

"How
much of a problem is this identify-theft stuff?"

"It's
becoming a bigger and bigger issue for us, since the Internet has made it so
much easier to do, but it's been around forever. Used to be, people checked
cemetery headstones for birth and death information, then created documents to
go with the name of someone who was dead and buried. Now we get guys hacking
into files or accounts on-line, getting everything from social security numbers
to credit card information. They don't even have to leave home to do it."

"Why
Harry Strait?" I asked. "What kind of work did he do for the
CIA?"

Chesnutt
smiled at me. "Frankly, I don't know."

Even if
she did, she certainly would not have told me.

"Has
someone tried to impersonate him before this?"

"Unfortunately,
Ms. Cooper, I'm here to ask questions. Not answer them."

I took
her card, in case I remembered any other details, and switched places with Mike
Chapman.

"Don't
get comfortable," Laura said. "Battaglia wants you." Scooping up
the phone messages from her desk, I kept on walking, into the executive wing.
Rose Malone signaled me straight in to the Boss.

"Sit
down," he said, removing the cigar from his mouth. "First thing I
want to know is how you're handling this. The girl's death, I mean."

Battaglia's
exterior was ironclad. It was rare he engaged in a conversation about emotions,
but he was keenly aware of the personal toll this job could take when a tragedy
hit close to home. Occasionally, when I needed it most, he responded with a
question or piece of advice that suggested he knew exactly the depth of my own
turmoil.

"Maybe
I'll stop second-guessing myself in a couple of weeks. Right now it's tearing
my guts out. Paige Vallis's death, the prospects of the boy's future-it's all
ugly. You get anything for me?"

"Promise
me you'll watch out for yourself, Alex. When this is resolved in a week or two,
take some real time off and-"

"I've
just had a two-week vacation, Paul."

"Hardly.
Prepping for trial. Why don't you and Jake get out of town for a while?"

I nodded
my head. Battaglia had such a sixth sense about people, and now I knew he was
fishing to see whether our relationship had stabilized, to check on whether I
was getting the appropriate support on the home front. "Good idea, boss.
You hear back from the DA in Virginia?"

The cigar
was wedged back in place, and the conversation was carried on out of the other
side of Battaglia's mouth. "No question that case file his assistant sent
you was whitewashed. National security and all that bullshit. You wonder how
some of these guys get elected in the first place."

He looked
down at notes he had scribbled during a telephone conversation with the
prosecutor about the burglary case during which Paige Vallis had confronted the
intruder in her father's house.

"Let's
see," he went on. "The man who was killed was named Ibrahim
Nassan."

"The
cops told me that Saturday night."

"Egyptian-born.
Twenty-eight years old. Been in the States less than two years."

"Was
he really al Qaeda?"

"He
spent some time in one of the training camps. Only way they know is that they
searched his apartment after his death. Rented a single room in a boardinghouse
in Washington. Pretty bare, except for a computer. Found some e-mails that
connected him to some other known terrorists, but nothing to indicate active
involvement in any trouble here in the States."

"Any
family?"

"No,"
Battaglia said. "One of those kids who came from an upper-class
background. Parents were merchants, father was educated at Oxford. Rebelled
somewhere along the way, for no obvious reason."

"So,
this intrusion into Paige's father's house is really linked to the work Mr.
Vallis was doing for the CIA?"

"Well,
they never established that, either. An educated guess. You know nothing was taken
during the burglary, right?"

"Yeah,
'cause the perp never got out of the house," I said. "Do they know
what he was looking for?"

"They
claim not to have any idea." Battaglia shuffled his notes and kept
reading. "Victor Vallis. Career Foreign Service. Sounds like he'd been
posted all over Europe and the Middle East."

"He
was in Cairo, right? I know Paige had talked about that."

"Yes.
Twice, actually."

"Any
connection to the CIA?" I asked.

"They
haven't made any so far."

"When
was Vallis there? In Egypt, I mean."

"Where's
Chapman? His military history might come in handy for this," Battaglia
said, referring to his papers.

"I'll
be sure to tell him you said so. He's in my office."

"The
second time Victor Vallis was in Cairo was from 1950 to 1954. That covers the
period of the coup, when the king was deposed and General Nasser took control
of the Egyptian government."

"The
king?"

"Farouk.
The last king of Egypt."

"What
was Vallis's position at the time?" I asked.

"Political
advisor to the American delegation. Still pretty junior."

"How
about the first time he was stationed there?"

"In
the mid 1930s. Probably his entry-level job after college," Battaglia
said. "But he wasn't working for the government then."

"What
did he do?"

"He
was a tutor. The royal tutor. You're too young to know anything about
Farouk," the district attorney told me. "He was the playboy pasha-a
spoiled prince who grew up to be a corrupt monarch and a Nazi sympathizer. I
hated his politics."

"And
Victor Vallis taught him?"

"For
almost three years, when young Farouk was living in the palace in Alexandria,
and later in Cairo; Vallis made his home with the family and taught the prince
all his studies. Foreign languages, world history, geography."

"So
did the district attorney ever get any closer to figuring out what the feds
thought this burglary was about?" I asked. "Foreign intrigue?
Terrorism?"

"He
says the file was still an open case. Nobody knows. They looked for connections
between Victor Vallis and the Nassan family, but if the CIA knew of any, they
sure didn't tell the local prosecutor."

"Thanks
for making the call," I said, as he handed me his notes of the
conversation. "I'll have Laura type these up."

I headed
back across the main corridor to my office, where Chapman was talking with my
assistant, Sarah Brenner. "Are the FBI agents gone?"

"Yeah,"
Mike answered.

"Talk
about feeling stupid. Were you able to give Ms. Chesnutt a 'scrip of Harry
Strait?"

"Not
a very good one," he said, repeating it to me.

"Doesn't
sound any better than mine."

Sarah had
a different perspective. "Sounded to me like you were describing Peter
Robelon."

"Or
the defendant, Andrew Tripping," I said. "Totally fungible white men.
They're not going to get very far on what I told them."

"Well,
forget about Harry Strait for the moment and come on down to my office. I was
just telling Mike that uniformed cops brought in an acquaintance of Queenie
Ransome's you need to talk to."

"Kevin
Bessemer?" I asked.

"Not
quite so lucky as that. But I think you'll want to question this guy."

"Where'd
they find him?"

"Inside
Ransome's apartment earlier today."

"A
break-in?" Mike asked.

"No.
That's what makes it so interesting. He let himself in with a key."

"Is
he under arrest?" I asked the cop who was standing outside the door of
Sarah's office, guarding the wiry young man who sat inside.

"Not
exactly. We didn't know what to charge him with."

"Burglary?"

"He's
got a key, ma'am. Says he knows the tenant."

"The
tenant's dead."

"Yeah,
but he claims she gave him permission to be in the apartment."

"Not
lately, I don't imagine," I said.

"That's
why we brought him down here. You guys can decide whether or not to charge
him."