“Do you really know how to drive this thing?” Mercer asked, coming around behind the windshield to stand beside me.
“We’ll soon find out,” I said. “Kind of think it’s like riding a bike. It’ll come back to me.”
“Why didn’t you tell Peterson the truth?”
“About our outing?”
The wind picked up once I powered the engines to fifteen knots. My hair was blowing and the cool air lifted my wilting shirt, which had felt as though it was glued to my body.
“Yeah.”
“Then he’d feel obliged to take it up the chain of command and we’d be called down to Scully’s office and I’d be trying to make sense to those guys about the way these clues and the geography of the boat basin and Liberty Island feel right in my solar plexus,” I said. “And by then it’d be close to midnight and we’d have lost the whole day to bureaucratic bullshit. You worried about hanging with me? You want me out here alone?”
“I have one worry, Mike. Just like you,” Mercer said. “I want to find Alex.”
The channel was full of activity-everyone taking advantage of being out on the Hudson on this spectacular day. I pulled back a bit on the throttle, happy to let others maneuver around me.
The buildings on the New Jersey side of the riverbank were a mix of new condos, old warehouses, and a variety of large and small boat moorings.
We went past West New York and Union City off to my right, slowing even more so that Mercer could scour the shoreline action. Jimmy had his binoculars focused on the Manhattan side of the water as we passed through the West Sixties and Fifties.
There was a large marina above Weehawken Cove, just opposite the Hudson Rail Yards in Chelsea. “It’s bustling in there,” Mercer said, asking for Jimmy to hand him the binoculars. “Can you do a slow turnaround?”
“Fingers crossed,” I said, waiting for a water taxi to pass before I veered left and made a lazy circle with the boat.
“You know the ways those guys-if those are the guys,” Jimmy said, pointing at the crowded marina, “you know the way they passed off license plates and then one of them ditched the SUV in Queens and the others probably got on some small boat, I’m guessing? Could be these guys had another boat waiting, right? Could have off-loaded their cargo anywhere along here, couldn’t they?”
“Everything’s possible,” Mercer said. “Let’s take each opportunity as she comes.”
“On our way?” I asked.
“Yeah. We can check out Chelsea Piers on the return, if we come up empty.”
“Okay.”
I was familiar with all the landmarks on the Manhattan side, but it was fascinating to see them from an entirely different perspective. There were new parks between the highway and the river just south of the Meatpacking District, which had once been such a rough part of town. The growth of tall buildings in Tribeca was a dramatic change, and the spectacular design of Battery Park City-ninety-three acres of land reclaimed from the Hudson River when the original World Trade Center was constructed for a mix of residential homes, commercial use, and parkland-never ceased to overwhelm me. That was especially true, I think, because it was the brainchild of Coop’s brilliant uncle, a renowned architect and city planner-the Alexander Cooper for whom she was named.
All roads led me back to Alexandra Cooper.
We were closing in on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, where the original colonial settlement had given way to the financial center surrounding Wall Street.
Off to the right was the enormous Colgate Clock, first erected in 1906 and now refurbished-fifty feet tall. The factory it had been built to advertise was long gone, but the bright, bold face of the timepiece reminded me that it was two fifteen in the afternoon.
An armada of container ships seemed to be navigating the harbor in the Upper Bay. Some would make their way past us toward Albany, others were headed to the East River, and still more were on their way to the ocean and points all around the world.
How easy it was to hide a body in a container bound for a third world country. I had seen that movie dozens of times.
I steadied my hand on the throttle, steering the sturdy Intrepid closer to Ellis Island, my back to the sweeping vista of Governors Island, which had so haunted Coop after our encounter there with a crazed killer.
We didn’t have far to go now.
We were off the tip of Ellis Island when I noticed a roadway. There was actually a paved bridge connecting Ellis, through which twelve million immigrants had come to this country, to the New Jersey mainland. Cars and trucks could access the island, which wasn’t the case with Liberty.
“Can you see anything over there with the binoculars, Jimmy?” I asked.
“I don’t remember knowing about any bridge to these islands,” Mercer said.
“Only Ellis.”
“A few cars and some delivery vans crossing back to Jersey,” Jimmy said. “And it looks like there’s a bunch more cars parked at the rear of the island.”
“We ought to put that on our list for the way back, too,” I said.
“Yeah,” Mercer said. “Much easier access with a car.”
“The SUV was abandoned, guys,” I said. “And it appears that three of the four people that were in it when Officer Stern saw it got out of it at or near the boat basin. I’m betting they used a boat to leave Manhattan, and I’m feeling lucky.”
“It’s the great green Lady,” Mercer said, staring up at the gigantic monument as I eased up even more on the throttle and motored into the shadow of Liberty.
“I’m going to circle the island once,” I said, “to see if there are any small craft tied up.”
“Why is she green, anyway?” Jimmy asked.
“When she was set here on Bedloe Island in 1886,” I said, “Lady Liberty was the color of a copper penny.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No joke. But green film verdigris forms naturally on copper from long exposure. It took about twenty years to turn her this color, but that’s what protects her from corrosion.”
I was practically next to the dock that extended out into the Upper Bay to receive tourist ferries. I was crawling along on top of the water, surprised to see that there were no boats anywhere on its long arm.
I picked up speed and stayed close to the shoreline. The magnificent statue towered directly above us, the tip of the torch reaching more than three hundred feet overhead.
“Can you see any workmen?” I asked.
“Negative,” Jimmy said.
I had made it past five of the points of Fort Wood that faced the waterfront and was circling to the south. There was an area of greenery, like a small park, directly behind Fort Wood and the pedestal of Liberty.
Then came a house, a two-story redbrick building, adjacent to a row of smaller units that looked like work sheds. Next there was the only other dockage, a long one that appeared to be commercial.
There were two gray-hulled boats tied up at the commercial dock. Fewer than I had expected. I ignored them for the moment and continued around the rear of the island, where there were several more work sheds and parkland. Then the remaining stars of the fort, the rear side, came into view.
“How about I try to dock this thing and we go ashore?” I asked.
“Sure,” Jimmy said. “There must be somebody who patrols this place, right?”
“Rangers,” I said. “National park rangers.”
“Federal jurisdiction?” he asked.
“Yeah. Feds.”
“How are you going to get past those guys?”
“Surely you’ve witnessed the Chapman charm,” Mercer said.
Jimmy laughed. “Not so much,” he said. “Not lately.”
“Mike’s got blarney for every occasion.”
“Each of you guys, pay attention,” I said. “Grab one of those bumpers-those navy-blue rubber things-and throw them over the side.”
I watched as they did as I asked.
“Now grab the ropes-you in front, Mercer, and Jimmy in the back. I’m gonna try to slide up nice and easy and one of you can climb onto the dock and tie us up to the cleats.”