Linda Fairstein
Hell Gate
Book 12 in the Alex Cooper series, 2010
To the women and men of the special victims units of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the NYPD-past and present-who have always worked on the side of the angels…
with respect and gratitude
Resignedly beneath the sky
the melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
death looks gigantically down.
– EDGAR ALLAN POE, “The City in the Sea”
ONE
“How many bodies?”
“Six, Ms. Cooper. So far we got six dead. But there’s a mean rip and a swift current out there. Anybody’s guess what’s going to wash up by the end of the day.”
I was walking toward the ocean behind a cop sent to escort me from my car, following him on the path that had been formed in the dunes by the first responders who had tracked across it two hours earlier, at daybreak.