"She had no trouble smuggling these things out of Egypt?"
"Farouk had turned his sights to a younger girl, the war was over, and everyone around the king was delighted to get Queenie out of the palace. She put her finest prizes right in her handbag, took her chances with what she'd concealed in the luggage, and got on the next plane to Portugal, then home."
"What became of all the other valuables?" I asked.
"She spent some of the money she raised by selling them. But after Fabian's death, and because Farouk had never responded to the boy's photographs, she went into a profound depression. Spent five years institutionalized in a private sanitarium-mental hospital in Connecticut. That chewed up most of what she was able to hock."
"And the rest?"
"She didn't have legitimate title to these things, so she found herself selling to some pretty shady characters. There was no way to prove-what do you call it?"
"Provenance," I said.
"Yeah. She had some rare stamps that don't go for much on the open market. And some foreign coins that might have been worth something as part of a larger collection, but she never got more than face value. And then she just ran out of juice, Ms. Cooper."
Why, I wondered, did Spike Logan ask us about what had become of McQueen Ransome's possessions? Why had he let himself into the empty apartment, and had he been looking for anything in particular when the police arrived?
"Do you think, Spike, that she still had any of Farouk's valuables that she kept in the apartment? Objects she had mentioned to you? Or possibly something that she didn't even know had current worth?"
He stretched his legs again and crossed his arms. "I think she would have told me. Queenie trusted me, Ms. Cooper. I think this watch was about all she had left to give."
She may have trusted him, but could we?
"Did you ever see a fur coat?" I asked.
He shook his head. "In her crib? Nope. But I never had reason to look in her closets, and we never went outside together in the winter. We could look through the old photographs and I'm sure they would tell the story. It wouldn't surprise me at all. Queenie would have liked a nice fur coat in her prime."
Mike Chapman came back into the room with lunch for Spike Logan. "Would you excuse us for a few minutes?" I said, walking out with Mike before going upstairs to my office.
I filled Mike in on what Logan had told me. "The uniformed guys give you any sense of what Logan was doing in the apartment when they arrived?" I asked, opening the lid and sipping the hot coffee Mike had brought me.
"Sniffing around pretty good. You believe he didn't know Queenie was dead when he got there?"
"All I have to go on is what he says. We'll see if phone records tell a different story."
"You gonna honor your word?" Mike asked. "Let him go home?"
"All we got is a trespass. No judge is going to hold him on that. Might as well get the goodwill by showing we trust him."
"You got enough Vineyard contacts to get the local police to keep an eye on him."
"I'm not as worried about Logan as I am about getting my hands on the tapes that he's got stored in the bank before he does anything to them. Queenie may have said things that would have no significance to him, but would give us some direction. I gotta get started on that. Would you be sure to get all his contact information before you let him go? And the key to the apartment."
"You wanna hold on to that gold watch from the Duke of Windsor, too?"
"Absolutely," I said.
Sarah Brenner offered to work on the interstate subpoena, since she would be handling the grand jury investigation of the Ransome homicide. I went to my desk to phone the Oak Bluffs Police Department, to give them a heads-up on Spike Logan.
As I hung up the phone, I noticed Laura standing at the doorway between her desk and the hall. A man was speaking to her, and she was keeping him out of my way until she determined whether I wanted to see him, guiding him to the conference room.
"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?"