“What do you want to do?” Mike asked the older of the two detectives.
“I’m going back to the office. My partner can hang out in the hotel room. See when Mr. Rouget hoofs it on back here. Frankly, Mike, I don’t think it’s any big deal. He’s probably just sick of us. I’ve been hung out to dry by more important people than him.”
“Have you checked—?”
“Been there, Ms. Cooper. All his luggage is in the room, along with his passport and plane ticket. Could be he’d had enough of us for one week. I wouldn’t twist myself up in knots over this.”
“Has he called or e-mailed you, Coop?” Mike asked.
I took my phone out of my pocket and looked at it, but there were no new messages of any kind.
I scrolled down to Luc’s name and speed-dialed his cell number. It rang once and went immediately to voice mail.
I took a few steps away from the three men and lowered my voice, trying to sound as relaxed as I’d felt at midnight. “
Bonjour
,
Luc. Ça va?
I’m still hoping we can have lunch this afternoon. I’m going to go to my Saturday morning ballet class to stretch for a bit, but call me.
Grosses bises.
” Big kisses, I’d said to him, anxious and curious about his well-being.
The younger of the two detectives went into the hotel, while the older one said good-bye to us and started walking off to his car.
Mike was leaning against my dark blue SUV, rubbing the toe of one of his loafers against the leg of his jeans to get some dirt off it.
“Want me to apologize to you again?” I said.
“Not if you have to ask.”
“I am most sincerely sorry. Really I am. You’ve been such a great friend to me all week,” I said. “What do you think we should do about this?”
“It’s probably nothing. Go take your ballet lesson. Give me a buzz if Luc calls. And if you’ve got a Ulysses, let’s give it to the snitch.”
“Fifty bucks?”
“Yeah, let’s put that dead president right in the mitt of this doorman.”
“Why?”
“’Cause he gave me the make and model of the car Luc left in, as well as a partial plate.”
“Then what are you standing here for?”
“No need for those guys from Brooklyn to get in my way. I’d rather find Luc before they do.”
Mike was on the phone with Lieutenant Ray Peterson at Manhattan North, the longtime commander of the Homicide Squad.
“Run it six ways to Sunday, Loo. That’s what I want. The guy isn’t sure of the numerals on the plate. It’s a silver Lexus SUV from the GX series, 2011 or 2010. Connecticut plates. It may start with the letter K, or that’s one of the first three letters, and it ends with the numbers two-two.”
When Mike came on the job, at roughly the same time I was a rookie prosecutor, the infancy of computer searches was still tedious and slow. My weekend exercise routine was the last thing on my mind. It would take the NYPD system less than ten minutes to search for a license if any of the partial information Mike had given the lieutenant was correct.
We walked to Madison Avenue and bought ourselves a cup of coffee and a piece of Danish. By the time we were back on the sidewalk, Peterson had called.
Mike listened to him, took a pen out of his back pocket, and jotted down the information on the side of the brown paper bag.
“Thanks, Loo. No APB yet. Let’s see if I can figure out what’s going on.”
“Way to go,” I said.
“Peterson says the make and model are right. We’re looking for RK7-622. It’s registered to a woman in Old Greenwich named Mulroy,” Mike said, then repeated the name a second and third time.
“Jim Mulroy. The guy who buys wine for all the big restaurants.”
“That’s the name that came up in Luc’s interview two days ago, of course. The wine maven who also wants a piece of the business. Do you know where he lives?”
“No idea.”
Mike called Peterson back. “Would you do a people-finder on the Mulroy woman and that address in Greenwich? See if she’s married to a guy named Jim? And I’ll take you up on your other offer. See if any departments spot the car on the road. No interception, ’cause we’ve got no reason to think anything’s wrong. Just what direction they’re headed.”
“They’ve got an hour jump on us, wherever they’re going,” I said. “Where’s your car?”
“I don’t have a department car this weekend. I’m off duty. Remember?”
“Mine’s better anyway. The GPS actually works, it’s got shocks—unlike any Crown Vic I’ve ever been in—and it’s full of gas.”
“You mind? I’ll have it back to you by the end of the day.”
“I’m riding with you.”
“And there I was, sure you’d be acting out your tortured soul all day, doing your best black swan for the rest of the girls in the class.”
I handed Mike the car keys and walked to the passenger side. “I’d rather keep my tortured soul close to you.”
“What if the day doesn’t have a happy ending?” Mike said, striking a more serious tone.
“I need to know that once and for all. What’s the big deal if they’re just going to Greenwich for the morning? Luc could still be back in time for lunch with me.”
We sipped our coffee and waited for Peterson to call back. Fifteen minutes later, he did.
Mike put him on speakerphone and held a finger over his mouth, reminding me to keep quiet. “I got that vehicle going through the toll booth E-ZPass lane on the Triboro Bridge at eight-twenty this morning, Mike. Any help to you?”
“Could be, Loo. That’s the way I’ll roll.”
“You moving on this? You’re not even signed in.”
“Just a favor for a friend, Loo. No worries.”
“Last time you told me that, I practically had the Vatican coming down on my head. Stay in touch, Mike.”
“Will do,” he said, disconnecting the call.
“We can go to my apartment and wait, you know. It’s not like they’re up to anything nefarious. I bet Luc just wanted to get out of the city for the morning. At least we can be comfortable.”
“What? And watch Saturday morning cartoons?” Half the Danish was in Mike’s mouth, as he washed it down with a slug of coffee. “I’m fine right here.”
I hadn’t expected another call from Peterson quite so quickly, but about eight minutes later Mike’s phone rang. The car’s motor was running, and he was hands free, so that I could hear the lieutenant, too.
“Did you tell me you thought this car was on its way back to Greenwich?” Peterson asked.
“Best guess.”
“Then it should have gone north on I-95, or over to the Hutchinson River Parkway. But instead it rung up another E-ZPass on the New York State Thruway, in Ardsley. What does that tell you?”
“He’s going north,” Mike said. “Not to Greenwich at all. Thanks, Loo.”
He put his coffee in the cup holder and pulled out of the parking space. “You got a map in this car?”
“I haven’t seen a road map since GPSes were invented. Why
didn’t you ask Peterson whether they went over the Tappan Zee Bridge?”
“Because there’s no toll booth on the northbound side of the highway on that bridge. You only pay on your way south,” Mike said. “So they could be going up toward Albany, or up Route 684 toward western Connecticut. Think, Coop. Do you know anything else about this Mulroy guy?”
“Not really. He came to dinner at the restaurant in Mougins, but it was the same night that Lisette’s body had been found. And Captain Belgarde broke up our conversation, so Jim didn’t even stay that long. He seemed like a very nice guy to me—and Luc trusts him, at least in regard to business—but I don’t know anything else about him.”
“There’s a gas station on 96th Street and First Avenue, right before we get on the drive. Run in and buy some maps, kid, and double-down on the java. Then we’ll hit the road.”
“You’re worried about Luc now, aren’t you?” I asked.
“I’m not worried about anything yet.”
I was trying to call up the things we’d been talking about while Luc and I sat with Jim Mulroy in
le zinc
at Le Relais last Sunday night.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Something else reminded me of that guy this week. Something you said, or something I heard on TV.”
“What was it?”
I was trying to make word associations, but they weren’t coming fast enough. “It wasn’t the baseball player named Chapman, and it wasn’t the Komodo dragon. I’m thinking Peanut Island and Nantucket and bomb shelters from the 1960s.”
“And Mulroy?”
“Exactly. That’s exactly it,” I said, snapping my fingers. “He was trying to sell Luc on the perfect place to store wine. It’s actually a converted bomb shelter, and it’s in some remote part of Connecticut.”
“Way to go, babe. I want more. You gotta remember more than that.”
“There isn’t much else he talked about.”
“What’s the name of the place?”
“It’s a horse farm. A really fancy horse farm. That’s part of the name.”
We were on 96th Street. I took out cash for the road maps and large coffees as Mike pulled in past the gas pumps. He braked and I ran out to the small office, returning with supplies for the ride.
Mike got back onto 96th Street, under the FDR overpass, and then to the Drive itself.
“Like Derby winners? Like Secretariat or Sea Hero or Barbaro?”
“No, no. More generic. Like Horse Tail Lane or Colt’s Neck—wait, wait. I think it’s Stallion Ridge. Stallion Ridge Cellars. I’m pretty sure that’s right.”
“Where, Coop? Where is it?”
“I don’t think he said. I just remember the bit about it being ideal for storing wines. Cheap prices, because it’s out of the city. It’s kept at a steady temperature of fifty-five degrees. No vibrations. Dark, subterranean, and secure.”
I said those last three words and shivered at the image they now conjured for me.
“Dial Mercer’s number for me. Saturday morning, ten o’clock,” Mike said. “He should be at home with Vickee and the kid.”
The phone rang twice before Mercer picked it up.
“Yo, Detective Wallace,” Mike said. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“Froot Loops everywhere. Vickee’s getting Logan dressed, and I’m doing the dishes. What’s up, Mike? You checked in on Alex yet?”
“Good morning, Mercer,” I said. “I’m doing fine.”
“Your assignment,” Mike said, “if you choose to accept it, is to get on your computer and search for a place called—what is it, Coop?”
“Stallion Ridge Cellars. It should be in Connecticut, Mercer. A horse farm of some sort, with a storage facility for wine.”
“Vickee’s got her iPad hooked up here next to the kitchen counter. Hang with me a minute.”
We were on the Triboro Bridge, taking the turnoff to the Thruway.
“Pops right up, guys. It’s got its own website. State-of-the-art warehouse,” Mercer said. “Whoa. Must be the black hole of the wine business.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Address is top secret. They don’t even give it on the site. Bragging ’cause that’s the kind of security they offer their customers.”
“How do we find it then?” Mike asked.
“I’m working on that. Going back and going back. Most recent article is from
The
Wall Street Journal
. Looks like the property was sold six months ago. It used to be part of some fancy digs called Kenner Stables. The woman who owned some two hundred and twenty-six acres—her name is Patti Kenner—sold off the part with—get this—a bomb shelter. She sold about one hundred acres to a New York corporation.”
“I’m hearin’ you, Mercer. Any chance the buyer is Gineva Imports?”
“You’re on the money, Mike. Is that a good thing, or bad?”
“Not so good for Luc, I’m thinking.”
“Try looking for Kenner Stables,” I said, trying to keep my anxiety in check.
“I’m doing that, Alex. Going back a few years,” Mercer said. “Hold it, hold it. Patti Kenner of Kenner Stables. Local newspaper. She held a fund-raiser for the volunteer firefighters at the horse farm. We’re looking outside the town of Washington Depot in Connecticut. Do you know it?”
“Yes, yes, I do,” I said, turning to Mike. “My friend Cynthia has a place nearby. I’ve been up there dozens of times. It’s magnificent horse country, and great antiquing. Take the Thruway to 684, then onto 84 and up Route 7. We’re less than ninety minutes away.”
“Does it give an address, Mercer?” Mike asked.
“Just says Kenner Stables is off Route 109. There’s a picture showing a few large barns all huddled together, and a large white silo next to a smaller barn at the end, visible from the road.”
“Great help,” Mike said. “Turn left at the white silo. How many of those do you think we’ll see?”
“A ton of them,” I said.
“What are you doing today?” Mike asked Mercer.
“Whatever you need. Vickee promised we’d take Logan to the zoo on the first nice spring day, and here it is. He can’t get enough of the penguins.”
“I’ll tell you what, Mercer,” Mike said. “Fuck the penguins. Tell Logan I’ll buy him one for Christmas. Call in every chit you got to find this Patti Kenner, and if you feel like a ride in the country, meet us at Stallion Ridge.”
“I’m Patti Kenner,” the woman said. She was standing inside the gated entrance to her property, dressed in riding clothes. A tall chestnut mare from which she’d dismounted was beside her.
“This is Alex Cooper. I’m Mike Chapman.” He displayed his shield to Kenner. “Thanks for coming out to talk to us.”
“Happy to do it. The town police chief said your partner had called.”
“Your place is hard to find.”
“That’s the idea, Detective.”
Kenner appeared to be in her late forties. She had beautiful curly black hair with touches of gray around her face and looked especially pretty when her features relaxed into a smile.
“Not even a sign on the road?”
“You’d have to understand my great-uncle to appreciate why. Do you want to come in?”
“I’ll be back for the long version. We’re on our way to Stallion Ridge. The chief told us how to get there,” Mike said. “About three-quarters of the way past your white silo, on the other side of the road. Also an unmarked driveway.”
Kenner pursed her lips and her brow wrinkled automatically.
“This won’t get back to you, Ms. Kenner,” I said. “We can promise you that.”
“Yes, that’s one of the entrances. There’s also a back way in, but it’s a lot harder to find—and impossible to ride on after a rough winter. It’s completely rutted most of the time.”