Linda Fairstein - The Kills

There were six other cops in the room, working phones and computers, now calling off the search and alerting the patrol boats that I was safe.

"Tried my best to hook a guy just half an hour ago," I said, knowing that if I didn't keep up the banter, I was likely to dissolve into tears. "Did he get away, too?"

"Glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor entirely, blondie. Nope. Mr. Hoyt is in an ambulance on his way to the hospital. Mild concussion and a couple of holes in his hands. The Port Authority cops picked him up on the Jersey side."

"C'mon next door," Mercer said. "There's an empty office."

"Figures," Mike said. "Coop's the only little girl I ever knew who preferred Captain Hook to TinkerBell."

The parks service guard returned with a large fleece shirt, a huge logo of Liberty's torch on the front. I went inside first and changed into the dry top before opening the door for Mercer and Mike. They wanted to know what had gone on this afternoon with Graham Hoyt and how I had handled it. I gave them a clinical version. The prospect of what could have happened on the river was overwhelming.

"You've got to call security at Hogan Place," I said. "The DA's squad has a skeleton crew on Saturday. Get some of the guys to go down to my office. The key to the file cabinet is in Laura's desk. Tell them to examine the Yankees jacket that's behind the Tripping file in the first cabinet, second drawer-check the pockets or, more likely, cut the seams open and look inside the lining."

"Why?"

"Because I'll bet that's where Paige Vallis hid the piece of paper that her father had been holding on to for fifty years, thinking it might someday be his passport to a fortune, if he could ever match it up with the gold coin it would legitimize. The paper Victor Vallis took from King Farouk's palace."

Mercer got on the phone while I settled in and warmed up.

"But you'd told Graham Hoyt about the kid's baseball jacket, hadn't you? I remember you telling him that you were going to give it back to Dulles. Why didn't he figure it out?"

I shook my head. "No, I told him the kid left the jacket at the hospital. It was logical for him to think it was vouchered there that same day as police property, as something that came out of the crime scene, maybe had the kid's blood on it. I never mentioned that it was Paige who took it home from Bellevue with her and held on to it for all those months."

"And Paige put the document in your hands because she knew that her life might be in danger."

"Probably so."

Mercer flipped his phone closed. "They're on their way down to your office. They'll call me back as soon as they've checked the jacket."

Another ranger knocked on the door and came in with a tray of hot coffee and sandwiches left over in the cafeteria at the end of the tourist day.

Mike stood behind me, massaging my shoulders and neck, trying to calm me while we talked. "You got this all figured out? You sitting in that rowboat with Hoyt and all of a sudden get one of those 'Holy shit!' moments?"

"I think I've got a good idea of what was going on, don't you?"

"I guess it all got into high gear in the summer of 2002. Sotheby's holds the auction of the only valid Double Eagle known to exist and sells it for seven million dollars."

"And that," I said, "probably revived old rumors that had swirled around expatriate types after World War Two about the most famous coin in history. The myth of a second Double Eagle. The possibility that Farouk's delegation had gotten two of the fabled birds out of the U.S. at the same time."

"You mean, that had been gossiped about in 1944?" Mercer asked.

"The feds can tell us that. It was such a great embarrassment to the government that a group of the gold pieces had survived the presidential order to have them destroyed, no one could put an exact count on how many there actually were."

"So who was aware of the second Double Eagle?" he asked again.

Mike answered him. "Graham Hoyt must have known. He made a practice of examining the lives of the world's greatest collectors, so he certainly knew all about Farouk."

"I got another piece of the puzzle today. It was Spike Logan who came to my house on the Vineyard. He was working for Hoyt."

Mike let go of my neck and came around to sit in front of me, waiting while I inhaled some of the coffee. "What?"

"Figure it out. Hoyt gave money to the Schomburg. You think it was an accident that Spike Logan was interviewing Queenie Ransome? Graham Hoyt knew exactly who she was, from his interest in Farouk. He hires Logan to get inside, to gain the poor old dame's trust. He hires Logan mainly to learn whether that precious piece of gold was actually one of the things she spirited out of the palace."

"Will Logan talk to us, you think?" Mike asked.

I looked over at Mercer. "Call Chip Streeter. When Logan showed up empty-handed after ransacking my house during the hurricane, Hoyt realized he already knew too much. Tell Streeter to expect what's left of Logan to wash up on South Beach, near Stonewall, any day now."

"You think Hoyt sent Logan to spook you during the storm?"

"Worse than that. It was Hoyt who set me up all week, telling me how bad the hurricane was going to be, why I needed to get to the house. You see," I said, "I think he really believes I knew what Paige gave me. He thinks she confided in me-since she had been so candid in telling me about accidentally killing the man in her father's house. Hoyt's sure I had this priceless piece of paper from the Treasury Department, and that once Paige was dead, I would have kept it with me for safekeeping, even if I wasn't entirely sure what it was."

"He sent Logan to the house to get the document, and get rid of you," Mercer said.

"So then there's Hoyt's competition," I said.

Mike was gnawing on one of the sandwiches. "That would be Peter Robelon. He knew about the coin because his father was top dog in the British Secret Service, attached to Farouk's group when the king was living in exile. Lionel Webster-the guy who pretended to be Harry Strait-he's a mercenary who was hired by Robelon."

"So you had two professional teams working against poor, whacky Andrew Tripping, who knew the whole story from his own Agency experience but just couldn't put together a plan that worked," Mercer said. "You think his effort to meet and date Paige Vallis was a setup?"

"From the get-go. Same with Lionel's 'Harry Strait' character." I was certain that was no chance meeting.

"And Paige?" Mike asked. "You think she knew the whole story?"

"I can't imagine she did. I'll give you some more homework, guys. You remember the burglar who died in the struggle, the one she confronted when she got home after her father's funeral?"

"Yeah."

"Get phone records and bank records and anything else that left a paper trail. Bet you almost anything that guy was hired by Graham Hoyt. Smart enough to pick an Arab to do the dirty work. That way, if the plan failed, it would look like the break-in was related to the consulting job on terrorism that Mr. Vallis was involved in when he died."

"You think he went in to steal the document that made the Double Eagle a legal coin?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then you also think…" Mike was mulling my theory over as he chewed.

"I'll bet that Paige found the paper on the burglar's body-maybe they even fought over it when she interrupted him."

"She realized what it was?"

"I'm not sure that she knew its value or meaning, but she was smart enough to figure out it was so important that someone might kill for it. Who knows, maybe her father had explained its significance, figuring the stolen coin that it referred to would eventually surface somewhere in the world. And that he-and then Paige-was the only person who held the key to turning twenty dollars' worth of gold into seven or eight million."