Linda Fairstein - The Kills

I could see the majestic statue of Lady Liberty straight ahead of us, green copper skin glinting in the sunlight, her torch raised high as she appeared to be striding forward. She loomed over the harbor, welcoming the tired, poor, and huddled masses, her "mild eyes," as Lazarus described them, blind to my dilemma.

I thought of the image of Liberty on the face of the Double Eagle. Was I going to die because of a useless twenty-dollar piece of gold?

Hoyt was clear of some of the traffic and ready to talk again.

"All this for what?" I asked. "You and Peter Robelon are both chasing after the same thing, aren't you?"

"Don't spend too much of your time thinking, Alex. You should be admiring the view."

"I can figure out Tiffany's role in this. Tiffany and Kevin Bessemer. Who's Spike Logan working for? Which of you sent that bastard after me?"

"Watch how you speak of the dead."

I looked up at Hoyt.

"The sea is a treacherous place, Alex. I told Spike I'd pick him up in the tender, from Stonewall Beach, the morning after the storm. He seemed to have lost his footing on the swim platform when he tried to get on board. I went to save him with the grappling hook, but-well, I missed the mark."

That must have been just shortly before I saw Hoyt on the Pirate yesterday, gassing up in Menemsha. "You killed him because he didn't bring back what you sent him for?" I was rolling the words slowly off my tongue, trying to understand what had been going on around me. "You killed him because his mission was to get from me whatever it is you think I have?"

"Paige set you up, Alex. Right before she died. I know you've got it."

I could see the seven points in Liberty's diadem, one for each of the world's seas and continents. "That's not true, Graham. She didn't send me anything. She-"

He kicked my side again with the bottom of his shoe. "It's ugly when you dissemble. Think about it. Paige didn't want to die, Alex. She really didn't. She pleaded with me, on her knees, on the cold cement of the basement floor. I gave her one chance, and she told me she sent it to you. Help me, Alex," Hoyt said, patting me on top of my head. "Help yourself."

"What is it, Graham?" I pleaded. "How the hell can I tell you when I don't know what you're looking for?"

We were almost in front of Bedloe's Island now, circling the star-shaped foundation of Fort Wood, on which the great lady stood. I could see the broken shackles at Liberty's feet, and envied her escape from tyranny, when all that held me was a length of rope.

I tried again. "The coin. Is it the Double Eagle you're looking for?"

"Not anymore, Alex."

I put my head in my hands and tried to shake the image that had appeared. I was thinking of the photograph of Queenie and the Tripping boy, taken just before her death. "You took Dulles with you when you killed McQueen Ransome? That's how you-"

Liberty was behind us now, and Hoyt was going full throttle into Upper New York Bay, with Staten Island straight ahead. If he veered left, under the Verrazano to the ocean, I would be running out of shoreline as fast as I was running out of ideas.

"Don't be stupid, Alex. You know how I feel about kids. He just came in for a bit of a tease, to warm the old lady up, remind her of her lost little boy. See if she'd part with her precious gold treasure, which was worthless to her anyway. That's what she'd promised me, as long as I'd bring the kid by every now and then to visit her. Pay some of her expenses. Find her a nicer place to live. Dulles performed like an angel. Then I sent him out to the car, and-"

"And Queenie changed her mind, didn't she?"

"Tough old bird. She struck a hard bargain, then tried to welsh on it. She knew something was up."

"So Kevin and Tiffany were just the fall guys. You sent them to break in later on, and if caught, they'd take the weight for what you had stolen-or who you had killed."

"Every plan needs a backup, Alex. I never intended to hurt Queenie. Why should I? She was playing into my hands. I made a big contribution to the Schomburg just to mount a permanent exhibit of her photographs."

Contributions to child refugee organizations, contributions to inner-city art museums. Hoyt was the desperate lawyer Justin Feldman had been telling me about as we talked on the plane on the way to the Vineyard. The guy so far in over his head that he was now killing people to support his lifestyle, to make the one big score that would save his own neck.

"So you have the Double Eagle," I said, "and the only thing you need is some way to make it legitimate, some way to make it worth seven or eight million dollars."

"Go to the head of the class."

"And you think that I have that? You're wrong, Graham. Paige never gave me-"

I was twisting, trying to roll onto my knees so I could wrestle with Hoyt for the steering wheel and turn the boat back toward the city.

Of course Paige had given me something, I realized, as I fell sideways and cracked my head against the handle of a fishing rod stowed under the gunwale of the boat. She never mailed me anything-didn't send it to me that last night of her life-which is what both Hoyt and Robelon were assuming. But she'd brought something to my office earlier that same day, something that was sitting in a drawer of my file cabinet. Maybe that concealed whatever it was that this man would kill to obtain.

I struggled back to my knees, trying to loosen the rope on my feet while Hoyt steered the boat. "I have an idea, Graham. Tell me what it is you're looking for and maybe I can figure out where it might be."

Hoyt looked down at me and laughed. A second later, he swerved the wheel to the right, turning and turning as furiously as he could, sending me lurching backward again.

"Why don't you start, Alex? Paige obviously gave you something-that's where you ended your last thought, midsentence. Hurry up, Alex. Tell me what she gave you. We're almost there."

I picked my head up, relieved to see that the turn had taken us away from the direction of the Verrazano. Instead of going to the ocean, he had steered to the right, to the body of water that separated Staten Island from New Jersey.

There was land on both sides of us rather than endless fathoms of water, and I was unrealistically euphoric at that thought. Then I made the mistake of asking where he was taking me.

"The Kills, Alex. Don't you know your geography? We're going to the Kills."

What a fitting place to meet a violent end. The Kills. Much smarter of Hoyt than heading out to the Atlantic, which had been my greatest fear. He probably figured that Mercer Wallace would have marshaled every coast guard boat and NYPD harbor launch in that direction. So vast and far too obvious. I had to give Hoyt credit for his quick thinking.

The green sign posted at the entrance to the waterway saidKILL VAN KULL. I knew there once were "kills" all over Lower Manhattan, a vestige from the Dutch colonization that meant "channels" or "creeks." This one was obviously a viaduct to the shipyards along the Jersey shore, so busy with traffic that no one would give special notice to an innocuous little Whaler weaving among the mix of commercial and sport vessels.

"Why don't you anchor somewhere?" I asked, my voice trembling. "I can call my office and someone can search for whatever it is you want."

"You're not going back, Alex. You know that. And I'm not looking for a plea bargain here. It's very simple. You tell me what I need to know, or you don't. And if you don't, more people will have to die, don't you think?"

He was talking about Mercer and Mike. Hoyt had to kill me, whether I told him what he wanted or not. I knew too much about what he had done. He could still hope the others hadn't figured everything out.