"Maybe he had an accomplice on the first kill," Mike said. "Then he spun out on his own."
"The other vics didn't live alone," Mercer said. "Could have been his only chance to get in one of their homes."
"I'm telling you," Dickie said. "You can't go serial too early."
"What the hell do we tell Scully?" Mike said.
"Assurances. People like assurances." Dickie started to count off traits on his fingers. "The guy is young, okay? Eighteen to thirty-five, tops. Takes a lot of energy to do this shit."
I thought again about Floyd Warren, who seemed to have aged out of his serial rapist pastime.
"White," he said, holding his left forefinger with his right hand.
"Kee and Jones were black."
"Yeah, but that's unusual, Mercer. Mostly a white boy's game. Besides, gets the commish into all that ugly racial profiling stuff. Safer to say white till you know different."
He was on the third trait, double chins jiggling as he said, "And they're never Jewish. Safe bet on that, too. Not your people, Ms. Cooper."
"Berkowitz," Mike said. "Rifkin."
"Do your homework, Mikey. Berkowitz was adopted. Born Falco. Got it? Rifkin's adopted, too."
Guido Lentini opened the door and lifted his glasses to the top of his head. "Chapman, the commissioner wants to know more about the Amber Bristol scene. The old Battery Maritime Building."
Mike took his feet off the table and sat up. "What does he need?"
"Wants to know about the ferry slip. When the boats run. Where they go."
"To Governors Island."
"That's the only place, right?"
"Right. And only during the day. They don't run at night," Mike said.
"They used to go from that terminal to some piers in Brooklyn, didn't they?"
"Yeah, but not in my lifetime."
"Governors Island. It was a military post, right?"
"For two hundred years, yeah."
"What's it named for, Chapman? Governor who? They're likely to ask that, too."
"When the British took New Amsterdam from the Dutch," Mike said, "they used the island as a retreat for the royal governors. Should have stayed in school, Guido."
"You did a search over there, didn't you?"
Mike frowned and brushed his hair off his forehead. "Did I? Like personally?"
"Yes, you-Mike Chapman. The homicide squad. Somebody the commissioner can rely on."
"Bristol's body was found on this side of the water, Guido. Detectives from Night Watch went over to the island to check it out. The killer never got her there, trust me. The fire department took them all around the place."
"Scully won't like that," Guido said.
The schism between New York's Bravest, the NYFD, and New York's Finest, the NYPD, had widened after their heroic actions on 9/11. The tension between the two commissioners had intensified in the aftermath, as operative responses were more carefully defined for each of the services.
"The frigging place hasn't been inhabited since the coast guard gave it up in '96. Even an amateur would know if someone had been on the island. People work there during the day-groundskeepers and the ferry crew. But the only two guys who live on the island-I mean overnight-are firemen, for the protection of the historic buildings."
"This is going to be ugly," Guido said.
"What now?" I asked.
"You know who owns Governors Island?"
I shook my head from side to side.
"The city and the state. They've both got jurisdiction. The governor will have the place swarming with troopers by morning, and the mayor'll get to announce that the NYPD hasn't really investigated there yet," Guido said.
Mike started pacing behind my seat. "Just to add to your agita, Guido. The feds will jump in, too. The old fortress is still their property. It's a national monument."
"Then if I were you, Chapman," Guido said, checking his watch. "I'd get your ass over there on the next boat. Make the commissioner an honest man when he goes on the air at five o'clock to tell them his department is doing a thorough investigation. There's got to be something to that idea of a military nexus to the murders."
"We're moving," Mike said, looking down to meet my eyes when he spoke. "I know what's over there, Guido. It's another ghost island.
TWENTY-FOUR
An RMP with lights and sirens made our trip from Police Plaza to the old terminal building in less than two minutes.
We left Dickie Draper behind at headquarters, to help Guido triage the data in the police reports that would be the subject of media scrutiny.
Mike got out and handed the driver a slip of paper with a Brooklyn address on it. "Eunice Chapman, she's expecting you. Bay Ridge. She's going to give you a box full of old catalogs. Take them to-your apartment okay, Coop? Drop them with Ms. Cooper's doorman," he said, adding my address to the note.
Mercer walked to the entrance of the northernmost ferry slip. It was the place through which Mike and I had entered to climb up to the grim room in which Amber Bristol's body had been found. Now, a twelve-foot wire mesh fence blocked the way, with a sign that warned: ACTIVE DRIVEWAY-NO PARKING. And in smaller letters below: "Watch for vehicles entering or leaving the site. "Yo. Anybody home?" Mercer shouted.
Mike came up behind him and called again. "Would have been nice if someone actually had been looking for vehicles leaving the site the night Amber was dumped. A man in a blue jumpsuit came from behind the interior building. "Yeah? Whaddaya want? Mercer flashed his badge. "Police. We need a lift to Governors Island."
"Next service run is at four o'clock. You make arrangements with anyone?"
The Lt. Samuel L. Coursen was berthed at the dock, just thirty feet ahead of us. It was three fifteen and Mike was impatient. "The captain's expecting me."
"He is? He didn't say nothin' to me."
"Hurry up. We're trying to beat the rain."
The man looked confused but unlocked the gate, and before he could close it again Mike was leading us to the ramp of the old motor vessel.
"That's where Amber's body was," he said to Mercer, pointing up behind us to the landing at the top of the building's rust-encrusted staircase.
"Good place to leave it. Looks pretty uninviting to me."
There was bright red lettering on the door that said: DANGER-HIGH VOLTAGE. Everything around the space was so filthy and dilapidated that it didn't seem surprising that no one had ventured in to find the missing woman until the stench became overwhelming.
Mike stepped over the railing that separated the aft platform of the ferry from the landing bay and held out his hand to help me over.
Two men came running down the staircase from the bridge of the boat. Mike explained to them why we needed to cross as quickly as possible.
"C'mon. You can drop us off and be back here in twenty minutes."
They reluctantly led us up to the wheelhouse, called over to tell the crew on Governors Island to expect them, and fired up the engine.
"Any of you ever been over here before?" the captain asked.
Only Mike answered. "Yes. Twenty years ago, when it was the largest coast guard base in the world."
"I thought you said it was an army post," I said.
"That's why it was built in 1776, when George Washington sent the first garrison there. By 1966, it was turned over to the coast guard."
I covered my ears as the copilot blasted the ferry horn to announce our departure to the boats around us on the river.
"How long's the ride?" Mercer asked.
"Six minutes. It's just eight hundred yards from Manhattan."
"Ferries are open to the public?"
The captain answered with a firm "No."
"But that's all about to change," Mike said. "This is the year they announce a plan for the island's future, isn't it?"
We pulled out into the swirling gray water. Landing off to our right, dwarfing us, was one of the Staten Island ferries, and ahead on the river was a lively mix of pleasure craft, small yachts, water taxis, sailboats, and Circle Line tour ships.