The Kills (29 page)

"Why
the change of heart? Besides Paige Vallis, I mean?"

Graham
Hoyt spoke. "Andrew Tripping knows he's not fit to have custody of his
son. He loves him-or at least he wants to love the boy, but he's totally
unequipped to take care of him. He's not going to say that in open court, Alex,
but I think-are we off the record?"

"Of
course."

"I
think he'll admit that to Peter and me. He's like any other parent-he simply
wants what's best for the boy. Among us, we'll figure out what that is."

"And
the other lawyers," I said, referring to Nancy Taggart and Jesse Irizarry,
from the city child welfare agency and the foundling hospital, "they'll go
along with whatever you propose?"

"We
haven't talked with them yet. Not till you say you're on board," Robelon
said.

"Andrew
Tripping will do a full allocution?" I wanted a complete admission to the
assault on Dulles, no weasel words or excuses.

"We'll
work on that with him."

"On
Wednesday morning, when we report back to Moffett?"

"Yes,
but-" Robelon started to answer.

"Why
doesn't it surprise me that there's a 'but'? Why is it always an angle with you
guys?" I asked. "What's this one?"

"He
pleads guilty on Wednesday morning. He admits to hitting the boy, causing the
injuries. We'll give you everything you want on that. But we put the sentence
off for three weeks. Let him get his affairs in order, see the boy one
more-"

"No
way."

"No,
what? It's a misdemeanor charge. A short adjournment to tie up loose ends,
secure his belongings, make arrangements for his bills to be paid while he's in
jail. Nobody in your office ever objected to that kind of thing."

"It's
the boy, Peter. I don't want him seeing the boy."

"One
time. Supervised. You've read all the reports. You know the kid loves him.
Since when are you some kind of expert on child psychology, Alex? That Dr.
Huang will be present to supervise. Andrew needs to have one face-to-face with
the kid. Apologize to him, explain why it's better that he gets help before he
thinks about asking to raise Dulles by himself. What the hell do
you
know about how this kid's gonna feel
that his father's in jail for a complaint that the child himself made to the
doctors?"

I
couldn't respond to Peter's tirade. If there was a single visit, with close
supervision, I suppose it might be a necessary part of the child's recovery
process. "Let me talk to our shrinks," I said.

Graham
tried to be the diplomat. "Look, Alex. It's late in the day, and we're
hitting you with this by surprise. Think about it overnight, talk to your
people tomorrow, and let's see if we can work this out by Wednesday. I really
believe a plea would resolve this quite reasonably for everyone involved."

"Everyone
except Paige Vallis," I said, thinking of how her death had taken her
interests completely out of the criminal case. "And now I'm supposed to
leave Andrew Tripping out of jail even longer, risking the possibility that
he'll never surrender, but I don't have a clue whether he's responsible for the
Vallis murder."

"Goddamnit,
Alex," Robelon shouted at me. "If you had a scintilla of evidence to
point in his direction, then you and your goons should lock his ass up. Don't
you dare think for a fraction of a second of walking into a courtroom and
making that kind of allegation that you can't support. That's completely
unprofessional."

Robelon
was on his feet, and Hoyt was pressing the palm of his hand against the taller
man's chest.

"We
all need a break," Hoyt said. "Let's wrap it up before the weekend.
Gretchen's on her way. You and I will be out of here."

"Gretchen?"
I asked, completely distracted by his non sequitur.

"Hurricane
Gretchen. She's headed for the Outer Banks tomorrow, and then supposed to roll
up the coast, hitting us hard on the cape and islands. That's what this drizzle
is about," Hoyt said, pointing to the gray clouds outside the window.

"I
didn't even notice. I don't think I've looked out the window since I got here
this morning."

"I've
got to fly up to Nantucket to secure the boat before the weekend. Better check
on your house," he reminded me.

Hoyt was
giving me the chance to small-talk my way back into a conversation with
Robelon. I'd be damned if I'd apologize for my crack about Tripping. His
involvement in Vallis's death certainly hadn't been ruled out by the homicide
detectives.

I tried
to stay in neutral territory. Bouncing off my interview of Spike Logan, I
remembered Hoyt's lively discussion about collectors when we had been at the
New York Yacht Club.

We closed
up the conference room and walked to the elevators. "I've got a question
for you, Graham. You told me on Saturday that you're the maven of great
collectors. Besides J. P. Morgan, who were the other well-known collectors of
the twentieth century?"

Robelon
walked behind us, brooding, as Hoyt answered me. "Nelson Rockefeller,
Armand Hammer, William Randolph Hearst, Malcolm Forbes. Dozens more like them,
just not as well known. You looking for a rich husband, Alex?"

"Skip
the husband. Just a tiara. How about King Farouk? Would he be on that
list?"

"What'd
you say about Farouk?" Robelon asked.

Tell your
client I'm on to him, I thought to myself. "I asked Graham what kind of
collector he was."

"Something
to do with Paige Vallis?" Hoyt wanted to know.

"No,
no. Another matter altogether."

"One
of the most bizarre collectors of all times. I mean," said Hoyt,
"there were the usual high-end things. Famous jewels, postage stamps, rare
coins-"

Robelon
broke in. "Cars. Wasn't he the guy with the red cars?"

Hoyt
nodded. "He had a passion for red cars. Bright, tomato red. Collected
hundreds of them. Passed a law forbidding anyone else in Egypt from owning a
red automobile, so when the soldiers saw a scarlet car speeding through town,
they knew it was the king himself."

"Incredible."

"And
antique weapons. Had a real thing for them."

"Like
Andrew Tripping?" I said. Maybe Farouk was the inspiration for the
scabbards, daggers, and scimitars that decorated his spare apartment.

"A
little finer than Andrew's. And quite a cache. If you're really curious, you
can check the old auction books. I think there were more than a thousand pages
of cataloged items that Sotheby's put together, and those were only the things
that Farouk couldn't get out of the country with him when he fled in
fifty-two."

"Pornography?"
I asked. Was there any sex offender twisted enough to kill for an original
collection of erotic art, part of which Spike Logan thought was still in
Queenie's apartment at the time of her death?

"Loads
of it. But for some reason, that was all removed from the auction offerings
just days before the collection went under the gavel," Hoyt answered.
"The odd thing was that Farouk had piles of junk, too. Paper clips and
labels from ketchup bottles, walking sticks and aspirin bottles. He's not my
model, Alex. I prefer the more discerning pack rats, like Morgan."

"Autographed
pictures of Adolf Hitler," said Robelon from behind me. "The fat old
bastard collected those, too."

"How
come everyone knows about Farouk except me?" I asked.

"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
attaché at the embassy. But Andrew swears Robelon senior was the most
important British spook in Europe."

"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?"