"It's one of those days," she said, coming back to tell me about it. "Doesn't anybody call for an appointment anymore? It's Peter Robelon-and actually, he's with that other lawyer, Mr. Hoyt. They were in the building and wanted to know whether you had a few minutes for them."
I took my coffee down the hallway, curious to know what delaying tactic they had in mind at this point.
They stood up when I walked in the room. "Alex, I'm so sorry about Paige Vallis. We both are."
I was stone-faced. "Let's not put your credibility on the line, guys. I've really been trying to take you seriously up to this point. I take it this isn't a condolence call."
"C'mon, Alex," Graham Hoyt said. "You can't take every one of these cases home with you. Don't blame yourself for-"
"I don't, thank you very much." Stay out of my personal life, I thought, looking daggers at him. "I blame the killer."
"Look, Alex, Graham's been working on me all weekend. I just spent the last couple of hours with Andrew Tripping. I think maybe we ought to revisit our discussion of a plea, especially now that the circumstances have changed so dramatically. Will you sit?"
I pulled out a chair and joined them at the table. "You've been jerking me around since the get-go, Peter. If that's what this is about, forget it. Why would Tripping possibly see the light of day at this point?"
"Because the girl was the sticking point. With all due respect, Alex, he wasn't ever going to jail because he did anything he would admit was wrong to Paige Vallis. She's dead now. Can you understand you've got nothing to go forward with in regard to the charge of rape? You're headed straight to a mistrial."
I hadn't finished the legal research to see whether it was possible to sustain that count if I was lucky enough to get Dulles to testify honestly about the events of the day and evening. The medical evidence and DNA results proved that sexual intercourse had occurred. Maybe Dulles could establish the fact that there had been threats. I knew the chances looked pretty bleak. I didn't answer.
"Suppose I move to dismiss the rape count of the indictment," Robelon said, Hoyt sitting patiently by his side. "I'm not asking you to do that. I'll make the motion-oppose it if you want. You'll be clean on the record, if that makes you feel any better about it, and Moffett will rule on it. My way."
"Guess you've already had that conversation with him. Ex parte." I was certain that out of my presence the judge had given Robelon the go-ahead on his plan.
"You're too emotional about this, Alex. Moffett's got no choice," Robelon said.
"You don't either, if we're talking realistically."
"And the assault charge on Dulles Tripping? Andrew will plead to that?"
"Graham and I think that if we work on him together, we can get you that plea. The misdemeanor-assault in the third degree."
"Jail time?" Just the abuse of his son should have earned him the better part of a year behind bars.
Robelon pursed his lips and stalled for a minute. "We're just starting that part of the discussion. When you were talking rape, he knew he was facing state prison. That was out of the question. This is just city jail. I think we can bend him."
"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."
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 offerin
gs, 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. Eight-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.
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