"Did you get any rest?" I asked him.
"Yup. I delivered Kiernan to Central Booking and went home for the afternoon. You miss me?"
"I just want to make sure you don't lose your edge. It's those constant jabs in my back that keep my spine so straight. Anything new?"
"Nope. Unless you count the phone calls. The tip line is ringing off the hook."
"Nothing useful?"
The cigarette dangled from Peterson's lips as he looked at a list on top of his in-box. "Fifty-three calls and three confessions. One from a guy in San Francisco who says he time travels to kill women. So far, the fruitcakes are in the lead."
Every one of these would be followed up in some fashion. It was rare that any of them proved to be of help, but the risk of ignoring them was too great for the department to take.
"I got a long shot for you, Loo," Mercer said.
"Throw it on the table."
"Tomorrow morning is the sentencing for Floyd Warren, the coldcase conviction that Alex got last week."
"Yeah, I saw the clips on that."
"I'm just thinking out loud-Alex, don't jump all over me, okay? Maybe we ask the judge to put that off a few days, so I can talk to Warren. Maybe make a deal to take some time off the top, if he cooperates."
"Now what do you possibly hope to get from Floyd Warren?"
"It's just coming to me. Hear me out. All that talk yesterday about serial killers? They really are rare-compared to the guys Ned and Alan and I lock up every month. Here you got a serial rapist responsible for more than fifty crimes."
"Exactly. He should never see daylight again."
"But he never escalated to murder, did he?" Mercer continued. "He had that opportunity, over and over again. Vulnerable women, alone in their homes or cars-some of them, like Kerry Hastings, who struggled with him. He was armed with a weapon every single time. And yet he never killed one of them. No evidence was ever found to connect him to a homicide."
"Way to go," Mike said. "Ask him why. Work it from this end, Alex. What's the piece that's missing? What are we looking for in our guy that separates the thousands of violent sex offenders from the ones that move on to rape, and to torture, and then to murder their victims."
"Why not let me go forward with the sentence? Talk to him an hour later," I said. "You know you won't get anything from him. He's so hard-boiled."
Mercer leaned forward and put his hand on my knee. "Alex, there's nothing to lose. Suppose he's got a nugget to give us? Even the smallest hint of a reason? That's more than we have right now. I'm not talking about letting him walk. The real deal is that the man's going to be in jail for the rest of his life. Change the numbers a bit, shave off a few months, give him the illusion of a bargain."
I shook my head from side to side. "You think I'm going to suggest that to Kerry, after all she's been through for thirty-five years?"
"I'll deal with Kerry. I bet she'll understand it better than you do."
I looked from Ned to Alan, who spoke for both of them. "Give it a crack. The old guy was a pro. Mercer's right."
"If it's what you all think we should do, then I'm certainly not going to be stubborn."
"Bottle that for me, will you, guys?" Mike said. "I've known mules that were easier to coax than Coop."
"I'm picking up Kerry at her hotel in the morning, bringing her down by taxi," I said to Mercer. "Will you meet us at my office? Talk to her?"
The door opened as Mercer told me that he would. Dickie Draper entered sideways and tried to wedge himself behind Mercer's chair.
"Sorry I'm late, Loo. Got the beep while I was at the movies. Wasn't a breeze in the house, so I took the wife. Air-conditioning and Sharon Stone. Hard to beat."
"Hope you took a pass on the buttered popcorn," Mike said.
"Figured you'd have this all cleaned up by now, Chapman." Draper wiped the sweat off his jowls with his handkerchief.
"We've made a little progress, Dickie," Peterson said. "Tell him about your night at Ruffle Bar."
"Ruffle Bar? You should have called me. Now you're back in my territory."
Mike scratched his head. "You knew about it?"
"Sure."
"You didn't say anything? You didn't make the connection?"
"What connection?"
"Kiernan Dylan. Jimmy Dylan. Ruffle Bar. To your case, Dickie," Mike said, snapping his fingers in the fat detective's face. "Elise Huff."
"Jimmy Dylan? The barkeep? The Brazen Head?" Dickie said, referring to the information he'd been given in the meeting at One Police Plaza yesterday. "What's the clue I'm missing?"
There were puzzled expressions all around the room.
"Tell him what you did, Mike," Peterson said again.
"So, late last night we get a call from the First. Mercer, Coop, and I headed to the bar around midnight."
Draper laughed and interrupted Mike's narrative. "Somebody pulling your leg? It's been deserted for years."
"It's actually only been there a few months." Mike's annoyance was growing. He ran his fingers through his hair and frowned at Dickie. "Are we talking about the same thing?"
Dickie held out both hands, palms up, and slowly repeated the words, exaggerating the pronunciation. "Did you hear me good, Chapman? You said Ruffle Bar, am I right?"
"Yeah."
"You're asking me why I didn't tell you anything that I knew, and I'm just as stumped about why you didn't call me. You thinking someone was trying to get Huff's body to Ruffle Bar?" Dickie laughed again.
"She never got there."
"Well, of course she never got there. But thanks a lot if you can prove any link to the case. Sorry, Loo, but maybe I should have stayed for the second feature. You call me in for this?"
The lieutenant took over. "Jimmy Dylan's joint is uptown. Now he's opened one for his kid downtown. And to put this right in your territory, the Dylans own a house in Breezy Point. Dylan's son Kiernan- turns out he knew the Huff girl."
"She was trying to hook up with him the night she went missing," Mike said.
Draper paused for a moment. "I know Breezy Point real good. I'm thinking-"
"Let's get a sample of sand from the beach at Breezy," Peterson said. "Compare it to the sample you got from the blanket Huff was wrapped in. There must be a geologist at the Museum of Natural History who'll do that."
"The feebs have guys at Quantico who can analyze it-all the mineral deposits and stuff. They're good at that, Loo."
"Screw the feebs, Dickie. We'll get it done right in New York."
"I'm thinking what kind of screwball we got here," Draper said. "After all, maybe if he used a boat to get to Bannerman Island with that cadet's body-I mean, maybe he really was trying to take Elise Huff to Ruffle Bar. Maybe he's got a fishing boat on the water he was planning to use to get there. It's dead in the middle, between Breezy Point and where her body was found."
"What's in the middle?" Mike asked.
"Who's on first, Chapman?" Draper said, holding his forefinger in the air and moving it back and forth in front of his eyes. "Am I thinking too fast for you? I'm talking about Ruffle Bar."
"Dickie, it's in Manhattan. We were there last night."
"Then you oughta take a look out from Brooklyn with me, to Jamaica Bay."
"What have you got to show us?"
"Ruffle Bar, Chapman. You can see it from the bridge that connects the Belt Parkway over to Breezy Point. It's an abandoned island, not far from where Elise Huff got dumped.
THIRTY-TWO
So you think Kiernan Dylan's Ruffles might actually be named for this spit of sand out in the bay?" Peterson asked. "That would put the noose a little tighter around the kid's neck."
"You'd have to have roots in the Rockaways-like the Dylans do- to even be aware the island existed, I guess," Draper said. "None of you knew what I was talking about, did you?