FORTY-FOUR
Igot squat from Jimmy Dylan,' Mike said. 'What the hell were you doing out in the rain? 'Chatting up one of his daughters.'
Mike made a U-turn and headed back to the Belt Parkway. 'I know it's a bad simile in light of poor Wilson Rasheed's demise, but I practically fell on my sword in there to get some help from Dylan.'
'Metaphor.'
'Whatever. The girl know anything?'
'I keep going back to your interrogation of Kiernan. If Troy murdered all three women, why did Kiernan admit packing up Amber Bristol's belongings? And why did we find them in Rasheed's house? 'You think they're a team, Kiernan and Troy? 'I can't imagine that. But the girl says there was a big blow-up when Kiernan came home after his arraignment.'
'About?'
'He accused his father of killing Amber Bristol. Look at it from Kiernan's perspective.'
'Good job, Alex,' Mercer said, thinking it through slowly. 'Suppose Amber came to Ruffles, maybe after her Friday night session with Herb Ackerman, at his office. She'd been fighting with Jimmy for weeks 'cause he was trying to break things up.'
'And he'd booted her out of the Brazen Head,' Mike said. 'We need to get to Kiernan as soon as possible,' Mercer said. 'I've got his sister working on it-well, thinking about it, at least.'
'If Amber was a nuisance to Kiernan, he might have put her right in the hands of a deadly predator hungry for his first kill. What if he told the bouncer to get rid of her,' Mike said. 'Figuratively speaking- or is that a metaphor for something, too?'
'Could have done that without even knowing the guy was a freak,' I said. 'And Shauna Dylan also told me Troy was using his father's name. He goes by Wilson.'
Mercer reached his arm over the seat back and high-fived me. 'She going to call her brother?'
'No promises. I told her it had to happen before morning if it's to be of any use. She's got my cell number.'
'Where's your car, Mercer?' Mike asked.
'Seems like a few days ago, but I have a vague memory of parking down at the courthouse this morning. Alex, you mind if I use your dining room table for a few hours?'
'I don't need-'
'I know you don't. I just don't feel like taking the extra time to drive all the way home and back into Manhattan at the crack of dawn. Wake Vickee up just to aggravate her and not even get to see the baby. Might as well start going through the files Nelly Kallin gave us till my eyes give out.'
Mike's apartment, not far from my own, was too small for even a sofa. Mercer had crashed at my place many times over the years, and this way he would get a jump on reading the information that Commissioner Scully-and Battaglia-would want by midday.
Mike dropped us in front of the door and we each carried a bundle of folders to the elevator.
'I can't even begin to help you tonight,' I said to Mercer. 'I've got to get a few hours of sleep. The guest room is all made up, when you're ready.'
'I don't like the fact that he's out there, Alex. We're losing this race.'
'I'll see you in the morning,' I said, closing the door to my bedroom after spreading out the files on the long formal table where Mercer liked to work.
I took a steaming hot shower, slipped on a nightgown, and got into bed. As exhausted as I was, Mike was right. When I closed my eyes, I watched either a replay of Kerry Hastings being dragged along the street when the taxicab was rear-ended or saw the body of Wilson Rasheed pinned to the floor of his cabin.
I tossed and turned until shortly after six thirty, when I was sure I heard voices in my living room. I got up, wrapped a robe around me, and went out to look.
Mike was standing over Mercer's shoulder, and both were drinking coffee.
'How did you get in here? Did I sleep through the bell?'
'I called Mercer on his cell. He opened the door.'
'What's wrong?'
'There's another girl gone missing, Coop. A twenty-year-old named Pam Lear.'
'Twenty,' I said, cringing at the thought of another victim in the hands of this monster. 'What do you know?'
'It happened sometime between Sunday evening and yesterday morning. Her roommate on Long Island reported her missing when she didn't come home again last night. The Suffolk County cops are on their way in with the roommate now. We were just waiting for you to wake up so we can have a go at her.'
'Where was Pam last seen?'
'At her job, Coop. On Sunday,' Mike said, hitching his thumb on his belt. 'She was a summer intern, a guide with the National Park Service.'
'Does that mean a uniform?'
'Light brown shirt and dark brown trousers. Smokey Bear hat.'
'What park?' I asked. 'Where?'
'Fort Tilden. An abandoned army post.'
'Not quite as dramatic as Governors Island,' Mercer said, 'but another military ghost town.'
'Where is it?' I asked, turning back to the bedroom to throw on some clothes.
'You were a stone's throw from it last night, when we were in Queens,' Mike said. 'The kids in Breezy use the place like it was a playground, Coop. It's less than a mile from the Dylans' house.
FORTY-FIVE
It's as dark now as it was in the middle of the night,' I said, looking at the clouds overhead as I climbed the steps of Joe Galiano's Bell 412 shortly after 7:00 a.m. for the short chopper ride to Fort Tilden.
The rain had let up for the moment, but the sky was threatening. 'Good to see you again, Alex. Yeah, they've got storm warnings posted for the whole region. The damn thing is moving up the coast awfully fast. We're trying to evacuate folks from Beach Channel Drive before it hits,' Galiano said. 'Air is the only way to go.'
Mercer and Mike came in behind me and belted themselves in as the pilot readied for liftoff. This time, as he hovered before thrusting out over the river, the heavy machine lurched when caught by a fierce gust of wind.
Galiano cleared the Manhattan Bridge and then set a course straight through the middle of Brooklyn. There was no point trying to talk to Mike. The turbulence had him braced in his seat, silently staring down at the apartment rooftops for the ten-minute ride to Queens. 'Where can you put her down?' Mercer asked. The ocean was churning below us, and the small islands that still dotted Jamaica Bay- pinheads among the swells-looked likely to meet the fate of their one-time neighbor Ruffle Bar.
'You don't know Tilden?'
Mercer shook his head. 'I've only seen it on a map.' Mike mumbled without picking up his head. 'During the cold war in the 1950s, Fort Tilden was the first place in New York City to house a Nike missile base, to defend against nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.'
'Nike missiles, in the Rockaways?' Mercer asked.
'Makes a sweet little landing strip for me, now that the base has been mothballed,' Galiano said. 'Those Nike Hercules that were deployed at Tilden were forty feet long, with nuclear warheads that could destroy an entire formation of bombers.'
He circled over the area again and found his target, swinging in the wind as he aimed for a cracked stretch of cement in the middle of the deserted beach.
Two park rangers came running in our direction from beyond a fence that seemed to cordon off the old
