Killer Heat (13 page)

“How can you even think of food now?”

“It's against my religion to skip a meal, Alexandra. You've got
to get used to that. What will you have?”

“Whatever you order.” I went into the bathroom, wrapping myself
in a thick white terrycloth robe.

“Suppose I give you a choice. Two things easy for the chef in
the middle of the night. They don't have to do much to get some
caviar up here. Or you might indulge one of my favorite childhood
memories.”

“What's that?” There were bottles of sparkling water on the desk
in the living room. I opened one and curled up in an armchair.

“A peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” he said, kissing the crown
of my head as he walked to the phone to dial room service. “I can't
get peanut butter in Mougins. I usually come to the States with an
empty suitcase and take home jars of it. That and Oreos and English
muffins.”

“Hold the caviar. I'd much rather have a sandwich.” Luc's
sophistication was irresistible, but so was his lack of
pretension.

In the morning, the previous night's driver was standing beside
his car at the curb in front of the hotel. “We'll drop you on our
way to La Guardia,” Luc said.

“I feel like I'm walking on air. I'll just stroll up Park Avenue
and be home in no time. Just kiss me once more and tell me when
you're returning.”

The driver was discreet enough to turn around while we said our
good-byes, and Luc rode off with a wave, promising to call when he
reached home the next afternoon.

It was another sultry day, but I cheerfully greeted dog walkers
and people out to get their newspaper and coffee. I said hello to
all the white-gloved doormen I passed and stopped for the men
unloading furniture for the ongoing renovation at the massive brick
structure of the Seventh Regiment Armory.

This would be the second week in a row that I missed my Saturday
morning ballet class, but I was too tired and had no desire to
concentrate on the drill of barre and floor exercises.

I was digging for my key chain in my small jeweled handbag as I
heard a wolf whistle from behind me.

“You're either way too early for streetwalking or you're late
for Cinderella's pumpkin.” A car door slammed and Mike Chapman's
voice turned the heads of two of my elderly neighbors, gossiping on
the sidewalk.

“I-uh-I'm just getting-I didn't-obviously, I've been out all
night,” I stammered, suddenly embarrassed, with no idea how long
Mike had been waiting for me.

“Sequins and sandals. I didn't know breakfast was going to be
formal or I would have put on socks. What happened, the guy didn't
think you were worth the cab fare home?”

“Look, I'm sorry I wasn't here if you needed me. Is something
wrong?”

“There's another girl dead,” Mike said, running his fingers
through his hair. "You've got to help me, Coop. We've got a maniac
on the loose.

Forty-two minutes later, having traded in my
evening clothes for sneakers, jeans, and a cotton sweater, I was
waiting with Mike for Mercer at the Thirty-fourth Street
heliport.

There were clouds moving in over the East River, and Mike kept
glancing up at them. He was a nervous flier, especially in small
planes and choppers

Fifty-five miles north of here,“ Mike said to Joe Galiano, one
of the Aviation Unit's crack pilots. ”How long is that going to
take, Sarge? "I should have you down in twenty minutes. The craft
was a brand-new Bell 412-one of seven for which the NYPD paid ten
million dollars each. In the aftermath of 9/11, the faster, more
powerful equipment had been purchased to enable hightech
surveillance and serve as effective counterterrorism tools.

Today, it would be the fastest way to get up the Hudson to the
place where the twenty-year-old victim's body had been discovered
the previous afternoon

It's an island, Sarge. It's a piece of rock in the middle of
the river.

How the hell are you going to land?"

“I got six acres to work with, Chapman. And the local cops are
try ing to clear the weeds to give me a pad right now,” Galiano
said, patting the side of his blue and white flying machine. “I've
put cops on project rooftops with this baby. Worse that happens is
that I hover low and drop you three out.”

Mike was biting his lip. “The weather going to hold?” Aviation
was an elite unit founded in 1929 as the world's first airborne
division in law enforcement. Its officers, with good reason, had
more than the usual cop swagger.

“I'd expect a little chop. But these things are more stable than
fixed wing, so don't let your knuckles get too white,” Galiano
said. “Here's Wallace. Let's get her up.”

“What's the name of this place?” I asked.

“Pollepel Island.”

“I've never heard of it.”

“You've seen it.”

“What do you know that I don't?”

“When's the last time you took the train to Albany?” Mike asked,
as Mercer shook hands with Galiano.

“In May.” There were frequent legislative meetings in the state
capital, and Battaglia had appointed me to serve in his place on
the review committee for sex crimes and domestic violence.

"Just beyond Cold Spring, there's a castle that sits out in the
river.

The Breakneck Ridge station stop on Metro North is right above
it."

“I know exactly where you mean. I've seen it dozens of times.
It looks like an enormous old fortress. Who's the girl? What was
she doing there?” I asked. “And what does this have to do with us?”
Mike looked at his notepad. “Connie Wade. Twenty years old, like I
told you. African-American. She was about to start her third year
at West Point.”

“She must have been a very talented kid. It's fiercely
competitive to get in there.” I knew that candidates were
evaluated not only on academic ability but on leadership potential
and physical attributes.

They needed a nomination from a member of Congress or the
Department of the Army. I could only imagine the qualities and
strengths that had commended Connie Wade for such an honor.

“Yeah. Another heartbreaker. Smart girl and a great athlete.
Originally from Indiana. Had ten days' leave to go home for her
sister's wedding last weekend. Disappeared on Wednesday, on her way
back through the city. Never got to the Point.”

I settled into the backseat of the chopper, next to Mike. Mercer
was in front with Sergeant Galiano. While Galiano checked the
controls, Mike gave us the rest of the facts explaining why he was
called. “The island's deserted. Has been for thirty years. The
castle's decayed and the whole place is supposed to look like an
overgrown jungle. The state owns it now.”

“How would anybody get there?” Mercer asked.

“Boat's the only way. Kayaks, speedboats, canoes. Cops tell me
tree huggers and paddle-pulling exercise nuts like to poke around
out there, even though it's off-limits till the building can be
restored. It's a thousand feet offshore.”

“It's not far from West Point either, then.”

“Spitting distance, upriver,” Mike said, putting his pad away as
he fastened his seat belt. “During the Revolution, soldiers used
Pollepel as a base to try to stop the British from getting any
farther north. They sunk a few hundred logs with iron spikes in
their tips underwater to sabotage enemy ships. It was an old
medieval defense. How's my French, Coop? Chevaux-de-frise.”

I did a double take, wondering if he had any way to know about
Luc.

“So you've been there,” Mercer said.

“Nope. But the island's history is right up my alley. This is
not quite the way I wanted to see it.”

“You're going to have to put your headsets on,” Galiano
said.

“They're miked up, so you'll be able to hear and talk to each
other.” The rotors started to spin and the big bird vibrated as we
prepared to take off.

“Two nature lovers were hiking around late in the day. They were
looking for frigging snakes, if you can believe that. Found Wade's
body, just outside the entrance to the main building, 'cause they
saw one slithering over what turned out to be her foot. That's the
only part of her skin that was visible.”

Mercer leaned forward. “What makes them think-?”

“Blunt force trauma to the face and head. Start there. She was
naked. Left at the scene at least twenty-four hours earlier.
Wrapped in an old olive green blanket, just like Elise Huff,” Mike
said. “And there were handcuffs still on her wrists. They had to
move her right out 'cause there's a lot of wildlife on the
island.”

“Why'd the locals have the good sense to call New York?” I
asked. The helicopter rose off the pad, dipping its nose toward the
water before lifting and turning to the north. Within seconds, we
were directly over Roosevelt Island, about to clear the 59th Street
Bridge, following the outline of Manhattan as it narrowed to
Spuyten Duyvil, where the East River met the Hudson. Mercer
pointed down at the remains of the deadhouse, the old smallpox
hospital that had figured in one of our more challenging
cases.

“They didn't,” Mike said, answering my question. “But the
commandant of the academy had the good sense to want to retrace the
girl's steps. She was in Manhattan the day she went missing. Never
showed up at Port Authority, so far as they could tell, for the
bus ride back to school. Missing Persons routed the call over to
us late last night.”

Mike was clutching the back of Mercer's seat, barely able to
look out the sides of the chopper, which were all glass, as we
continued our noisy ride along the Palisades.

“No clothes at the scene again?”

“Not a shred.”

“Anybody know how she was dressed?” I asked.

“She had to travel in uniform,” Mike said. “Gray cadet jacket,
white pants. Only way to get the military discount.”

I thought of Arthur Huff and his West Point ring.

“You know the ring that Elise Huff was supposed to have been
wearing?” I said, reminding Mike about my conversation with Elise's
father. “That's a strange coincidence. I wonder if this victim had
one of those, too.”

“You know I don't believe in coincidence, Coop,” Mike said.

“They've designated a colonel to be liaison to the
investigation. Spoke to him this morning and asked him whether he
thought there was any significance to Huff's ring. Says they
stopped making them before this Wade kid was born, and she didn't
have any relatives who'd gone to the school. Unlikely she had a
ring like that.”

Twelve minutes later, Sergeant Galiano told us to look off to
the left. “The United States Military Academy. Damn impressive
site.” Mike braced himself and looked out at the magnificent campus
below. I knew he had visited the Point countless times, out of his
fascination with American history. Many of his heroes-Grant,
Pershing, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Denman, and Patton-had been
educated here, and occasional trips to its museum of military
treasures added to his storehouse of knowledge.

“George Washington picked the spot himself,” Mike said.
“Considered it one of the most critical positions on the American
continent.”

“Why?” I asked.

The Hudson took a sharp S-shaped curve just above the hilltop
setting of the original fortifications.

“ 'Cause you could control all the river traffic from this
place. South to New York, north to New England, and west to the
Great Lakes. The Brits would have split the colonies in half-right
down there-if Benedict Arnold had succeeded in giving the Point
away, like he tried.”

“Here's your rock,” Galiano said. “Pollepel Island.”

On the right side of the river, not far above West Point, the
turrets of an enormous castle rose above the dense green growth
that covered the ground.

Galiano swooped his bird close in on the south side and started
to circle to the west of the abandoned ruin.

Mike gripped the seat back even tighter. He looked out the
window, and I knew he was trying to see where Galiano would put
down the chopper. “Hey, Sarge,” he said, “I didn't bring the
rosary beads.”

“I'd say it's a little bit like Walt Disney meets Stephen King.
Give me a minute.”

As we hovered at the north end of the island I noted four or
five more buildings, mostly roofless, smaller than the six-story
castle that soared above the gray waters of the Hudson.

“There,” Mercer said, pointing down through the glass bubble of
the helicopter's nose. “Check it out. State police and army craft,
off to the east.”

On the edge of the rocky shore, there was a small cluster of
boats.

Like the NYPD's emergency rescue craft, they had large initials
on their tops and sides, for identification by other agencies
approaching by air or sea.

Several men in windbreakers marked with orange neon sleeve
reflectors were waving their arms at Galiano.

“Got it,” he said. “There's a clearing on the southeast. That'll
do me fine.”

Mike closed his eyes and pulled his seat belt tighter. The
chopper continued around the far side of the structures, banking as
it made the final approach. It hovered again, swaying from side to
side as Galiano took great care to avoid the surrounding trees and
center on the only flat strip of land we had seen.

The big machine hit the ground with a thud, and we waited for
the powerful rotors to come to a stop.

I could see the tops of the ruined castle and the thick tangle
of weeds and vines that had swallowed the buildings' foundations.
“It looks like we've traveled back in time,” I said. “To another
century.”

“To a ghost island, Coop. That's what this place is,” Mike
said.

"Maybe we got some new ghosts now.

A tall, heavyset man a little
older than I held out a hand to guide me down from the chopper.
“Step lively, miss. Snakes, spiders, ticks, and poison sumac.”

“We were with his cousin, poison ivy, yesterday. I'm Mike
Chapman.” He introduced Mercer and me to our official greeter

Bart Hinson. State police. The brush that surrounded our
landing pad was as tall as the trees behind it. Boulders and
branches ringed the clearing that had been hacked out this morning
for our arrival

Any developments?" Mike asked

Just trying to make sense of what we have here. Nothing much
got done overnight. It's not easy terrain to search. Follow me,"
Bart said.

We entered a trail about twenty feet long, ducking beneath
weathered limbs that had been intertwining, it appeared from their
density, for many years. When we emerged, I faced the most unusual
array of huge stone buildings-all with turrets and towers,
elaborate carvings, and coats of arms.

The men waiting for us next to a crumbling entrance to the
building complex were from a mix of agencies. There were six other
troopers-two of whom specialized in crime scene work-four
landscapers who'd been called in with chainsaws to make room for us
to land, and a caretaker who lived on the mainland but supervised
the property for the state.

Bart Hinson was the lead man. “I thought we'd show you where the
girl's body was discovered,” he said. “Tell you a little bit about
this place.”

I craned my neck to look up the side of one of the buildings
that was about a city block long. It was covered in red paint that
had faded over time. Written across it in chipped and mottled gold
lettering were the words BANNERMAN ISLAND ARSENAL

You find the boat yet?“ Mike asked. ”That must be how the
killer got her here."

Bart shook his head. “Well, up this way, everybody and his uncle
has a boat. More docks than you got subway platforms. Fancy
namebrand little yachts, simple outboard motors, fishing boats-just
about every size and shape. Then you got your kayaks and
canoes.”

“I hear you.”

Bart pointed at the caretaker. “He uses an aluminum rowboat to
go back and forth. Wouldn't take much to slip over here and back
even with someone else's boat and nobody ever know.”

“How about the currents?” Mercer asked.

“This part of the Hudson is an estuary, so the tide changes from
north to south a couple of times a day,” Bart said. “It's been
pretty calm this week. A strong rower wouldn't have much trouble if
he knew the tides.”

“I thought this was called Pollepel Island,” I said, pointing up
at the writing on the wall. “What's that sign about?”

“Pollepel was its name centuries ago. The Native Americans spun
tales that this spot was haunted. Then along came the Dutch
sailors, who had good cause to believe it was spooked, too,” Bart
said. “Thought it was the devil made the ships crash into the rocks
and sink with all their goods aboard.”

“Was this fortress part of West Point? Did the army build it to
defend the Hudson from the east?”

Mike dismissed me. “It has nothing to do with the
government.”

“But you said the state owns it.”

“That's only been the last thirty years,” Bart said. He swept
his arm around the bizarre vista. “This was all the folly of one
man, Alex. A privately owned island, bought in 1900 by a complete
eccentric named Frank Bannerman.”

“And he built this-this ...?”

“It's supposed to look like an ancestral family castle back in
Scotland, complete with drawbridges and a moat. But you're right to
call it a fortress. The arsenal-that's the second-largest building
here-was one of the biggest munitions warehouses in America.
Nations went to war a century ago outfitted entirely by Frank
Bannerman, from his crazy island outpost.”

“You know about this guy, Mike?” Mercer asked.

“My aunt Eunice had a cellar full of Bannerman's catalogs.
Probably still does. Uncle Brendan had been collecting them since
he was a kid.”

Mike's military interests had been fueled by his father's oldest
brother, who had landed at Normandy.

“What was Bannerman doing up here?” Mercer asked.

“The family emigrated from Scotland to New York in the 1850s,
right after he was born,” said Bart. “At the end of the Civil War,
young Frank started buying up tons of military goods-surplus
equipment- that the government was auctioning off. He purchased
everything from scrap metal and bayonets to ships that the navy
wanted to unload, figuring he could sell them to whatever
government went to war next.”

“He had all the weapons and ammunition stored in offices
downtown, on Broadway,” Mike said.

“Till after the Spanish-American War. Bannerman purchased 90
percent of all the military hardware and black powder when that
conflict ended, but it was so dangerously explosive that the city
demanded he move it out. In 1900, he bought this island and moved
everything up our way,” Bart said. “Designed all the buildings
himself.”

“Did he live here?” I asked.

“That castle,” Bart said, pointing at the enormous structure
with four rounded towers and crenellated peaks, “was built to be a
house for his family. See how there's not a right angle anywhere on
it? The guy was a master of detail.”

“And people actually bought this stuff from a private
individual?”

“He outfitted entire regiments in World War I-turning a handsome
profit off our own government” Bart said. “Sold something like a
hundred thousand saddles, rifles, uniforms, and about twenty
million cartridges to the Russians for their war against Japan a
century ago.”

“Everybody from Buffalo Bill to the silent film directors bought
their gear from Bannerman's,” Mike added. “Bayonets and muskets,
spurs and torpedoes-all straight out of the catalog. You know the
commemorative cannons you see in town squares all over America? I
bet more than half of them were sold right off this island.”

“There's got to be some kind of connection between Elise Huff,
with her West Point ring, and Connie Wade, a cadet whose body was
brought out to this arsenal, practically within sight of the
academy. How come you and Bart know so much about Frank Bannerman
and I never heard of him?”

“ 'Cause little girls read Nancy Drew while little boys studied
the pictures in these catalogs. They were still being published
when I was a teenager.”

“Does he have any descendants? Anyone who still has access
here?” I asked.

“Nope. End of the line.”

Mike was animated now, telling Bart and Mercer about his uncle
Brendan's collections. “He used to buy things from Bannerman's that
came packed in their original crates, and my aunt Eunice saved them
just that way. He had these kepis-”

“Kepis?” I asked.

“Hats. The kind soldiers wore in the Civil War. Paid something
like seventy-five cents apiece for them.”

“Sounds like an army-navy store,” Mercer said.

“The very first one. Bannerman sold relics from Admiral Perry's
Arctic expedition and weapons from the Battle of Yorktown. Put your
hands on one of those catalogs, Coop, and I'll tell you what else
you'll find,” Mike said, snapping his finger at me as an idea came
to him.

“What?”

"Let's get that label from the olive green blanket that Elise
Huff's body was wrapped in. See if there's anything like it on the
one that was covering Connie Wade yesterday-or have the lab compare
the fibers. Could be from the same stock. Could be our killer's a
military buff gone AWOL.