"Don't think J. Edgar didn't keep Queenie's file at home. He probably had a hankering to try on some of her snazzy costumes-satin gowns, harem pants, over-the-elbow gloves," Mike said.
"And King Farouk," I said to Mercer. "You know the government must have kept some kind of dossier on him. There's got to be a way to find a nexis between these two murders."
"What other themes have come up more than once?" Mercer asked.
"Pornography. Queenie had it, Farouk collected it. And antique weapons," I said. "Farouk collected them. So does Andrew Tripping. And rare coins. Both Spike Logan and Graham Hoyt mentioned them."
"What were all those coins that we saw on the floor of Queenie's closet?" Mike asked.
"Just miscellaneous change, I think. I didn't look closely."
"Are they still there?" Mercer asked.
"After Mike and I found the inscribed first-edition Hemingway, we asked them to seal everything so the place could be inventoried."
"Yeah, well, that didn't stop Spike Logan from climbing inside."
"Tell you what," Mercer said. "Mike'll make sure you don't get re-arrested for anything before you get snug in your apartment tonight. I'll pick you up at seven, and we'll make another sweep up at Queenie's to see about those coins and anything else we might have overlooked."
We said good night to Mercer and finished our drinks. Mike's car was parked down the block, closer to my building, so we walked home and into my lobby. There was no point objecting to his plan to make sure I got safely inside and that there were no weird or threatening messages waiting for me on my machine.
I flipped on the lights and we walked in. It was obvious I had come home to an empty nest. "Nightcap?" I asked.
"Nah. You got an early wake-up call and I got somebody keeping the bed warm back at my place. You got any unhappy campers on the line?"
I checked the phone next to the bed and returned to the living room. There had not been a single caller. I dropped onto the sofa and stretched out, hoping Mike would stay and talk to me. Something about the dynamic of our relationship was changing, and I wanted to recapture the friendship that had always been so natural.
"Let me hear you turn that dead bolt when I walk out, Coop," Mike said, kissing the top of my head and walking to the door.
I got up and followed him, locking the door and putting the safety chain across. I took a long bath, then massaged my shoulder with Tiger Balm before climbing into bed, too exhausted to read or even relive the evening's chase.
The next morning Mercer and I rode up to McQueen Ransome's apartment and let ourselves in. It looked pretty much as it had when I was last there. The closet door was still ajar, wire hangers still displayed a few cotton housedresses, and dozens of silver coins were spread out over the floor.
Mercer and I put on rubber gloves. He had a pack of plastic evidence envelopes that he stacked next to us, and we both kneeled to gather the coins.
"Anything unusual about these?" I asked.
"So far, they all look American," he said, examining them front and back before bagging them. "Different denominations, but nothing too unusual, it seems to me."
"I don't know about your pile, but everything I've got is old," I said. "There's nothing here minted after 1930."
"I see what you mean. There's about ten of them here from 1907."
"We'd better take them to an expert, who can give us an idea of their value."
Mercer scooped up a handful and reached back to the floor to retrieve a small white piece of paper that looked like some kind of ticket stub. He examined it before speaking. "I know he had an appointment here with McQueen Ransome, but I hardly think that would have required him to crawl around on her closet floor-especially if it was after he'd found out she'd been killed."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
Mercer held out the piece of paper to me. "Spike Logan said he drove here from Martha's Vineyard, didn't he? Well, he must have dropped his ferry ticket stub when he was in here yesterday. Guess he wasn't too despondent to be searching for something that belonged to Queenie."
25
"Get me Monica Cortellesi on the line," I said to Laura, as I unlocked the door to my office. I had explained to Mercer that she was in charge of our frauds bureau and would know who the best experts were for evaluating any unusual artifacts.
"Who's your contact in the Oak Bluffs Police Department?" he asked.
"What's the point in tipping off Spike Logan that we realize he wasn't entirely candid with us? As long as we know where he is, let's hold the calls until we decide what to do with the information we get."
"Alex," Laura said. "That's Cortellesi on your backup line."
"Monica? Quick question. Who do I want to talk to about rare coins?"
"I can give you the head of the American Numismatic Association. It's in Colorado Springs. They do a lot of-"
"Too far to go. Today. Closer to home."
"How's Fifty-seventh Street?" she asked.
"Perfect."
"Stark's. Probably the preeminent firm in the nation for private dealers."
"Reliable?"
"Like Fort Knox. Family business, started by two brothers in the 1930s. There probably isn't much they can't help you with."
"Thanks, Monica," I said, handing Mercer a piece of paper with the name on it. "Want to call and get us an appointment while I work on those FOIA requests for the CIA?"
Laura came in with a handful of messages. "Call Christine Kiernan. She's been up all night on a new case. The others can wait."
"Would you see if you can book me on a flight to the Vineyard tomorrow?" I asked.
"Don't you have to be in front of Judge Moffett in the morning?"
"Yes. A mercifully short appearance, I hope. Something late in the day. If I can wrap up the Tripping case early, I may take a long weekend."
I sat at the computer working on the requests for the old CIA files while I talked with Christine, the phone propped between my shoulder and ear. "What'd you get?"
"Rape-robbery in Hell's Kitchen. Can I come up?"
"Sure. You got a victim?"
"Nope. She's still at the hospital. Took a bad beating when she resisted the guy."
By the time I had completed the boilerplate applications for the information I wanted and sent Laura to get Battaglia's signature for the cover sheet supporting the urgency of my request, Christine had appeared with her file.
"I got the call at threeA.M.," she said, handing me copies of the detective's scratch sheet.
"This all the paperwork you have?"
"Yeah. The cops haven't had time to type up the police reports yet."
"What's the story?" I asked.
"My complainant is in her twenties. She's a medical student at NYU. Just moved into a renovated brownstone in the west Forties. Dicey block."
Every time a run-down section of Manhattan was gentrified, there was a period of increased violence before the neighborhood reinvented itself. Thirty years earlier, when TriBeCa was transformed from an area of commercial buildings and warehouses to residential lofts, the first tenants were exposed to muggings and assaults on a regular basis. There were no streetlights, no local merchants with familiar faces, no grocery stores to duck into when being followed, and many marginal transients who squatted in abandoned spaces. A similar fate befell the residents of Alphabet Town-Avenues A through D-when they reclaimed their streets from the drug dealers and prostitutes who had made the neighborhood so unsavory for so long.
"Coming home from the hospital?"