The Kills (52 page)

"That
Polaroid photo of Queenie and Dulles that Mrs. Gatts gave me today, Alex,"
Mercer asked. "Did Hoyt talk about that?"

I smiled
at him. "Me and my big mouth. Hoyt overheard me talking to you about
Fabian and the picture. That's what almost bought me a piece of muddy real
estate at the bottom of the Kills."

Mike
hadn't heard Mercer's news yet.

"Get
somebody good to sit down with Dulles, as soon as possible. I think whenever
Hoyt had a visitation period with him, they were keeping a little secret
between themselves. Hoyt was taking the boy to visit McQueen Ransome."

"But
why?"

"She
was a sucker for kids. We know that from the neighborhood. Here comes Hoyt,
pretending to be a great admirer of her career, full of stories he knew about
Farouk, ready to dignify her glory days by funding an exhibit at the Schomburg.
And he brings along a fair-haired boy-the exact age of her son when he
died-with a sad story to go with the kid. Who does Queenie have to leave her
few belongings to? Why not this deserving child, who had no mother?"

"Something
misfired, though."

"Yeah,
I think Queenie was every bit as smart as Graham Hoyt, and even tougher. I
don't think she liked the smell of his offer. She probably realized that what
he wanted from her had more value than he was telling her."

I could
barely hear Mike when he spoke. "So he killed the old lady."

"And
was ready to let Kevin Bessemer take the weight. After all, who's going to
believe a convicted felon-and a crackhead to boot-that Queenie was already dead
when he got there?"

"He
even controlled all the legal proceedings, all the players."

"That's
it."

"Why
does anybody with his kind of dough need another seven million?" Mercer
asked.

"Because
he really didn't have the money you think he did," I said.

"The
art collection, the yacht, the country house-"

"Graham
Hoyt had been stealing from his law firm for years. He has an addiction every
bit as pathological as Bessemer's addiction to cocaine. He needed to own, to
possess, to collect, like all the men he idolized. It was a sickness with
him."

"None
of it fit on a lawyer's salary. You said that when he first showed up in the
case."

"He's
been stealing money from his law partners for years, claiming he was writing
checks to his favorite charities and getting the firm to reimburse him. Only,
those checks went right into his own pocket, right into the gas for his yacht
and the art on his walls."

"So
get the Double Eagle, get the sheet of paper that makes it legal, and with one
auction, he'd make a seven-million-dollar score that would get him out of hock
and keep him afloat for a lot longer. Phony little prick."

"Think
about what else he was telling me. Hoyt was really anxious for Tripping to take
the guilty plea. That way, Andrew would be in jail and out of the chase for the
golden bird."

Mercer
also remembered what I was talking about. "It was Hoyt who stopped by your
office late one evening and made a point of telling you that Robelon was dirty,
that Robelon was a target of an investigation in the DA's office?"

"True,
he delighted in diverting me by painting a tinge of guilt on each of the other
players. And I fell for it."

"We
all fell for it," Mike said.

Another
knock on the door and the ranger came in. "We're losing the daylight, Mr.
Wallace. You've gotta get that helicopter out before the sun sets. We aren't
equipped for flying after dark."

Mike got
to his feet. "What do you say, Coop? We got our own wings right outside.
Take you anywhere you want to go."

I leaned
my head back and tried to clear my mind of its deadly whirling images of the
past week. Dark shadows in the hurricane, Hoyt's sneer as he reached for the
wrench in the cockpit of his boat, the sailor's knot that was probably looped
around Paige Vallis's neck.

"Fly
you to the moon?"

I ignored
Mike's chatter. "Where's the boy? What's going to happen to Dulles?"

Mercer
took me by the hand and helped me up. "Ms. Taggart and the folks at child
welfare have been looking into that for weeks. They never much cared for Hoyt
or his wife. Seems Mrs. Hoyt was always too worried about Tripping's
involvement and probably afraid of her husband, too."

"I can't
bear to think of what becomes of the child in all this."

"Could
be good news. Tripping's second wife-the one who left him because he beat her?
She always had a good relationship with Dulles. She's married now, living in
Connecticut with her husband and two kids. Says if Andrew is ready to do the
right thing and let go for good, she'd be willing to adopt Dulles."

Mike
wouldn't stop. "See, there's nobody to worry about anymore except you.
Forget these sandwiches. They're already stale. We'll pack a picnic basket and
fly-um, can we make it to Paris in this buggy? Anybody know?"

"The
coin, Mercer, is anybody looking for the coin?" I asked. "Hoyt must
have taken it from the apartment the day he killed Queenie."

Mercer
hooked his elbow in mine, as we walked out of the building toward the
blue-and-white helicopter with the NYPD logos on it. "Teams have blocked
off Hoyt's apartment, his office, and the yacht till they can get warrants for
all that and his bank vaults. We'll find it."

Mike took
my other arm and guided me down the path as the pilot started the engine and
the rotors began to spin. "It's going to be a perfect night. The moon is
waxing to full; we can set this baby down in the middle of Times Square and
dance till dawn."

Mercer
made a signal of some kind over my head, probably telling Mike to cut it out.

"It's
okay," I said. Mike Chapman knew me every bit as well as I knew myself. I
didn't want to go home just yet. I didn't want to spend the night alone.

I ducked
under the blades and climbed up on the pontoons, into the seat behind the
pilot. I had been in a similar chopper scores of times, riding with the DA's
office photographer to take aerial photos of crime scenes. Someone would return
tomorrow to do that over the river and bay, down to the Kills.

After
Mike and Mercer got in, the pilot lifted the helicopter in the air, hovering
behind the great green lady. He swooped down and to his left, circling from
behind her enormous arm holding the torch aloft, past her strong face,
illumined at dusk by the lights in her crown.

"Lady
Liberty, Coop. She watched over you today. Quite a beauty."

My head
rested against the window and I stared back at her, saluting her silently in
gratitude.

"Personally,"
Mike went on, "the Liberty on the gold piece is a bit sexier, in my book.
This one's got her hair all tied up neat in a bun. The one on the Double Eagle?
Hers is all loose and wild, kinda like yours looks right now."

The sun
was setting behind us, west of the Hudson, and straight ahead the elegant
Manhattan skyline was showing off its stunning array of lights.

We were
over the river, then above the Chelsea Piers, passing close to the Empire State
Building and the Art Deco spire of the Chrysler Building, coming in for an easy
landing along the East River, in sight of the old deadhouse at the tip of
Roosevelt Island.

A phalanx
of detectives was waiting at the heliport to brainstorm with Mike and Mercer,
and to hear my story of the day's events.

"The
commissioner wants to see Ms. Cooper before he goes home tonight," one of
them told Chapman as he brushed them out of the way.

"Give
me an hour. I gotta buy her a new pair of shoes. Then we'll have her down to
headquarters." He spotted a friend in the crowd. "Joey-get us uptown
fast as you can, lights and sirens. The broad needs a bath bad. She got too
close to Jersey today-smells like Secaucus."

We were
at my front door fifteen minutes later. I unlocked it and the three of us went
inside. "Clean yourself up, blondie. Go heavy on the perfume."

"Do
I really have to go to headquarters tonight? I'm drained," I said, opening
the bedroom door and pausing there while Mike and Mercer headed for the ice
cubes and the bar glasses respectively.

"You
bet your sweet ass you do. The commish had all of Manhattan South scouring the
town for you-air, sea, scuba-every hand on deck. And after you're done thanking
him, you've got the two of us to deal with."

I called
back out to Mike, "What do you mean by that?"

Mercer
answered. "It's payday. We're going to keep you out all night. Dancing,
wining and dining, hanging out with your friends."

"And
when we deliver you back here at daybreak, you'll be so exhausted you won't be
able to give me any orders for at least a month. You'll sleep like a
baby," Mike said.

"I'm
not sure I can keep up with-"

"Unless
you'd rather we go on ahead and you just take your shower, pull the covers up
over your head, and stay here feeling sorry for yourself. Sulking, pouting-your
usual MO."

"Give
me half an hour," I said. "Don't leave without me."

I went
into my bedroom and stripped off the sweatshirt and damp pants. The message
light was flashing on the answering machine, and I could see there were seven
calls. I pressed the erase button and held it down until every one of them was
deleted. Whoever had been looking for me today could try again tomorrow.

The rare
and magnificent object that captured my imagination-"such stuff," the
Bard once said, "as dreams are made on"-first came to my attention in
an article in
The New York Times.
Other helpful sources included William Stadiem's
Too Rich-The High Life and Tragic Death of King Farouk
;
the Sotheby's/Stack's catalog of the July 30, 2002, auction of the 1933 Double
Eagle; John Rousmaniere's history of the New York Yacht Club; and Seitz and
Miller's
The Other Islands of New York City.

I am
grateful to Susanne Kirk and all my friends at Scribner and Pocket Books who
have made my transition from the prosecutor's office to my writing room such a
delightful step.

Esther
Newberg is the best friend any writer could hope to have.

My
friends and family give me more joy than I can express. And although Justin
Feldman is only a cameo in the world of Alexandra Cooper, he is everything to
me.

Linda
Fairstein, America's foremost expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic
violence, led the Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney's Office in
Manhattan for twenty-five years, leaving in 2002 to write and lecture
full-time. A fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, she is a graduate
of Vassar College and the University of Virginia School of Law. Her first
novel,
Final Jeopardy,
which
introduced the character Alexandra Cooper, was published in 1996 to critical
and commercial acclaim and was made into an ABC Movie of the Week starring Dana
Delany.
Likely to Die, Cold Hit, The
Deadhouse,
and her most recent novel,
The Bone Vault,
also achieved international-bestseller
status. Her nonfiction book,
Sexual
Violence,
was a
New York Times
Notable Book in 1994. She lives with her husband in Manhattan and on Martha's
Vineyard.