The Kills (20 page)

Graham
Hoyt cocked his head and thought for a moment. For too long to make me
comfortable. Why was it the prosecutor was so often the last to know?

"I've
got a four-thirty appointment across town," I said. "I think we both
agree there's nothing more important than Dulles's mental health. For that,
I'll make almost any deal you want. But we've got to find him quickly or
there's no point negotiating."

"Finding
him, and finding him safe, is our first concern, of course."

We talked
for a few minutes more about the police efforts and the fact that there had
been no bad news as of yet. "It actually helps me to hear how optimistic
you are about Dulles," I said, smiling as I stood up to leave.

"I
have to be. Jenna is set on doing the right thing for this boy. It's broken her
heart to be childless, and this seems like such a chance to solve both sets of
problems," Hoyt said. His somber expression passed in seconds. "Want
to have a look around before you go? J. P. Morgan's folly."

Maybe I
could do some reconnaissance for Paul Battaglia on his future political
opponent. It would behoove me to be sociable for fifteen minutes, especially if
I could bring home some information about Peter Robelon, follow up on the hint
Hoyt had dropped last evening. It never hurt to have some professional gossip
for the Boss. "Sure. I didn't realize Morgan was responsible for this
place."

"Not
for the club, initially. That was started in 1844, on a yacht anchored in New
York Harbor. But he was responsible for the acquisition of this great building.
That's his portrait over the stairwell. And those are some of his yachts."

The
painting of the Commodore was of minor interest compared with the models of his
boats. "The
Corsair II,
" Graham said. "Two hundred forty-one feet."

"That's
not a yacht," I said, "that's a-"

"A
behemoth. Precisely. Do you know that when the Spanish-American War broke out,
the government asked Morgan to turn over the
Corsair
to be converted into a gunboat, to blockade the Spanish at
Santiago Harbor?"

I might
not only get some scoops for Battaglia, but some trivia for Chapman. "Did
he get the yacht back?"

"No,
he simply built a bigger one.
Corsair III.
Three hundred and four feet. Faster and stronger, more than six hundred tons
and twenty-five hundred horsepower. 'You can do business with anyone,' Morgan
liked to say, 'but you can only sail with a gentleman.' I look at what's
happened in boardrooms across the country these last few years, and I have to
admit that he wasn't wrong. Do you enjoy sailing, Alex?"

"I
like anything on the water. I've got a house on the Vineyard," I said,
remembering Hoyt's reference to nearby Nantucket. I thought of Adam Nyman, and
how, when we were engaged, he loved to take me out on his sloop. "I used
to sail quite a bit."

"When
this is all behind us," Hoyt said, talking about the trial, "I'll
make it a point for Jenna to put a date together with you, on the islands.
There are a few hurricanes kicking around in the Caribbean, so let's hope they
blow past northeast without any damage."

"Well,
this is the season for them. Is there a model of your boat in here?"

Hoyt
walked me to a point on the far wall, below an ornate balcony, and pointed at a
black-hulled vessel that looked as though it would have put him back a couple
of million.

"The
Pirate
?" I asked. Not a very
original name, but an exact translation of
corsair.

"J.
P. Morgan's my personal hero."

"A
robber baron as role model. Is that the part of him you admire?" I asked,
with a smile.

"No,
no. The greatest collector of all times. That's what I love about the man. One
of those passions you either have or you don't understand."

"I've
got a similar taste for rare books-just a different budget." The Pierpont
Morgan Library housed one of the most exquisite collections in the world.

"He
had brilliant accumulations of paintings and sculptures, manuscripts, Steinway
pianos, Limoges enamels, Chinese porcelains, snuffboxes, Gothic ivories.
Imagine being able to indulge every one of your fantasies."

"And
yours?" I asked. "What do you like to collect?"

"Several
things. Pretty eclectic. Contemporary art, watches, medieval prints, stamps.
Nothing out of my range. I imagine, when you're ready to leave the district
attorney's office, that half the law firms in the city will be clamoring to
take you on board, and pay you what you deserve to be earning. How
do
you manage to keep up a house on the
Vineyard on a prosecutor's salary?"

"I get
a lot of help from my family," I said. His question put me in my place. I
hated being asked that kind of thing, and knew what great good fortune it was
that my father's invention had provided me with such extraordinary rewards. I
had been on the verge of questioning Graham Hoyt about how he'd amassed the
money for such high living from a couple of lucky investments and the ordinary
practice of law, but now-on the defensive-I thought better of it.

"Well,
I don't know how Battaglia continues to attract the best and the brightest. My
father used to say, 'Pay people peanuts, you get monkeys to work for
you.'"

I
swallowed the urge to respond to his backhanded compliment. The young lawyers
with whom I worked shoulder to shoulder every day had chosen public service as
a career path, as I had, out of a desire to give back to society. Their
starting salaries were less than one-quarter of the money that associates going
to corporate law firms were paid, and the only bonus they received was the
psychic satisfaction of their work. They didn't need yachts or art collections
to make them happy.

I stopped
beneath the oil painting of a tall black-skinned man in a loincloth, carrying a
long staff with the flag of the New York Yacht Club aloft. I doubted he was a
member.

"The
Nubian?" Hoyt asked.

"It's
a curious sight."

"It
was James Gordon Bennett-you know, the publisher of the
New York Herald
-who paid for one of his
reporters, Henry Stanley, to go to Africa and find the great Dr. Livingstone,
who'd been missing for months. Bennett was our commodore, of course, back then,
in the 1870s. When Stanley rode out of the jungle on the back of a mule, this
fellow emerged first, carrying our club burgee. Quite a crew of intrepid
sportsmen."

"A
lot of history in here," I said, scanning the portraits and plaques
stretching from floor to ceiling. "Thanks for suggesting we meet. Do I
have to worry about Peter Robelon being indicted before I finish my case? The
last thing I need, after all this, is a mistrial because we lost the defense attorney."

"Not
a chance. They're just in the early stages of gathering all the information and
building a case."

"Is
there anything I can offer to Paul Battaglia as an olive branch? He'd love me
to get rid of the Tripping case," I said.

"You
mean something that his own Jack Kliger doesn't know about Peter Robelon
yet?" Hoyt asked.

"That
would be a good place to start."

He put
both hands in his pants pockets and shuffled his coins. I smiled at him and
assured him that anything he told me could only help soften Battaglia to back
me on any decisions that had to be made.

"Remember
what happened with ImClone a few years back? Sam Waksal started dumping the
stock when he got word that the FDA was not going to approve the drug the
company was testing."

"Sure.
Classic insider trading. Even his father and daughter were involved, not to
mention catching up Martha Stewart in the whole thing."

"Tell
your boss that Robelon's been drawn in by the same kind of net. The SEC's
computerized alert system picked up his brother's company on the radar screen.
Small business that normally traded five hundred thousand shares was spiking to
three million a day. Peter's cell phone was more active than the One Hundred
and First Airborne during a shock-and-awe campaign."

"And
Jack Kliger knows…?"

"He's
only aware of the tip of the iceberg, Alex," Hoyt said, cutting me off as
he sensed my instinct to press further. "I'll call you Monday morning,
before you head up to court."

I turned
left on Forty-fourth Street and walked up Fifth Avenue. It was a spectacular
fall afternoon, but despite the clear skies and mild temperature, I made a
mental note to call my Vineyard caretaker and remind him to batten down the
house. If the prediction of approaching hurricanes Hoyt had mentioned was
accurate, I'd be glad I did it.

By
four-thirty I was comfortably settled into the chair at my hair salon, so that
my friend Elsa could refresh my blonde highlights and Nana could give me an
elegant "do" for tonight's theater date.

There
were no messages on the machine when I got home at half past six, no update
from anyone. Jake came in from a late-afternoon run in the park shortly after I
arrived.

"Is
there a plan?" he asked.

"We're
meeting Joan and Jim at the theater, just before eight. Would you be sure to
take the tickets?" I said, pointing to the dresser, as I pulled a black
silk sheath out of my closet and began to dress. "Dinner after the play,
at '21.' Can you hold out?"

"Yeah.
I went into the office to research a story. Grabbed some lunch while I was
there."

We took a
cab to the Barrymore Theater, where our friends were waiting below the marquee.
Ralph Fiennes was starring in
Othello,
and the reviews from London's West End had been smashing. We settled into our
seats, and Joan and I caught up on gossip until the lights dimmed and the
curtain rose. I had turned my beeper to the vibrate mode and put it in my
evening bag on my lap so that I could slip out of my aisle seat in case anyone
tried to communicate with me about Dulles in the next few hours.

At the
intermission after the second act, the four of us stretched our legs and went
to the lobby for a drink. When we reached the bar, I saw Mike Chapman standing
against one of the pillars, cocktail in hand, flipping through the Playbill.

There had
been so much tension with Jake lately that I hoped Mike had only chosen to
interrupt one of our few social evenings for good news about the missing child.
Jake followed me over to where Mike was standing, and I tried not to show my
disappointment at his arrival.

"'To
be, or not to be: that is the question.'"

"Wrong
play," I said. "Look, is there-"

"'There's
the rub-that sleep of death-the shuffling off of this mortal coil,'" Mike
said, doing his Hamlet with a vodka gimlet in one hand. "Hate to do this
to you, Jake, but the next dance is mine. It's the kills again. Always the
kills."

"What?
Make sense for a change, Mike. Stop joking with me," I said.

"There's
been another homicide."

He downed
his drink and stepped to the bar to replace his glass.

"Not
Dulles?" I covered my hand with my mouth, relieved to see Mike shaking his
head as he swallowed.

"This
one's going to hit you hard, Coop. C'mon with me-I'm on my way to the First
Precinct," he said, reaching out and taking me by the hand. "Paige
Vallis has been murdered."

I couldn't
grasp the fact that Paige Vallis was dead. And I couldn't stop thinking that
Andrew Tripping had the best reason to kill her.

Mike led
me up the two flights of stairs to the squad room. I assumed from the
somber-faced team of detectives who greeted me that they knew how personally
shattered I would be by the death of my own witness.