There was something about that notation that started vague stirrings in my memory, like ripples on placid water. I handed the snapshot to Runquist. “Does this mean anything to you?”
“Nebraska,” he said. “That’s where Hannah lived with her first husband.”
“Oh? Where in Nebraska?”
“Omaha, I think.”
“What was his name, do you know?”
“Adams. I can’t remember his first name. She doesn’t talk about him much; I don’t think their split was very friendly.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, she did mention once that they fought a lot. He was more than twenty years older, like Joe Peterson was; I don’t know why she kept taking up with older men.” He pawed at his face again. “She also said something once about having to sneak away when she finally decided to leave him. He wouldn’t have let her go if she hadn’t, she said.”
“So she was afraid of him?”
“I think she was, yeah.”
Omaha…
I flipped through the rest of the album. There were no other photos of Hannah or anybody else in Nebraska; that had evidently been the batch she’d destroyed. The rest of the photos included several men. I asked Runquist if he’d ever seen a picture of Hannah’s first husband, this Adams.
“No,” he said.
“So you wouldn’t know if any of these guys might be him?”
“No. She never showed me any of these photos.”
Omaha. Omaha, Nebraska…
Then I had it, the connection, and I said, “Jesus Christ!” before I could check myself. Because there was a jolt in it; there was a hell of a jolt in it.
Runquist said, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Just an idea.”
“What sort of idea?”
I couldn’t look at him; he’d have seen it in my expression. I caught up the two albums, took them back to the closet and shut them away. By the time I turned around again, I had my facial muscles under control.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m going to go talk to the neighbors again; there might have been somebody you missed. Suppose you stay here, in case she comes back. Or calls.”
“All right.”
“While you’re waiting you can write me out a list of names and addresses of Mrs. Peterson’s friends in this area. I know you talked to all of them yourself, but I want to check with them again. Will you do that?”
“Sure, whatever you want.”
I got out of there; went over past the fenced pasture where the horses were grazing, toward a big white house on the other side. My mind kept working, putting it all together, making me sweat a little. I did not want to believe it was possible, but there it was.
Hannah Peterson’s first husband hadn’t been anybody called Adams. His name had been Lester Raymond.
She had been married to the man who had murdered her father.
Chapter 19
It had to be that way. Arleen Bradford had told me that Hannah had run off to Nebraska with her first husband; that she’d done it not long after Raymond murdered his wife and her lover and disappeared with all the cash and negotiable securities; and that Raymond was the macho type and used to come over to the Bradford place fairly often. Hannah had only been eighteen at the time, a young and impressionable age, and she’d inherited her father’s love of trains; another train buff like Raymond was just the type to attract her. Add all of that together with the fact Raymond had lived in Omaha himself for thirteen months in 1967 and 1968, and you had too many things that dovetailed too perfectly to be coincidence.
The irony of it was bitter. Raymond had gone berserk when he found out about his wife’s infidelity, but he’d been playing around himself; some macho men were like that, the old double standard. Or, hell, maybe he hadn’t gone berserk after all. Maybe he’d known about the cash and securities, maybe he’d gone out to the architect’s place in Malibu with the intention of stealing the money, maybe the murders had been premeditated. So he could afford to go off with his young girlfriend, Hannah, and start a new life.
In any case, where did Hannah herself fit in? Had she been a party to the killings and the theft? It wasn’t likely, not from what I knew about her. She may have had questionable morals, but she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. Whatever had motivated Raymond that afternoon in Malibu, I doubted if she had found out what he’d done until afterward.
Why had she stayed with him once she did find out? A combination of reasons, probably. Fear; Runquist had said she’d been afraid of the man. Fear of the law, too, of being put in jail as an accessory to homicide. Her youth. Love for Raymond, or at least a strong infatuation. Maybe a sense of adventure and excitement at the idea of living with a fugitive. And the money, of course. Yeah, money would have been a strong mitigating factor in anything Hannah had ever decided to do.
Then why had she finally left him? Again, a combination of reasons. Disillusionment. Raymond was a lot older than she was, he was basically a law-abiding, hard-working citizen; he’d taken most of the money and put it into a house and a business in Omaha. Hannah wasn’t ready to settle down as the wife of a middle-aged man in Nebraska. So they’d fought, and the relationship had deteriorated, and finally she’d got up enough courage to sneak out one night and come running back home to California.
But why home? Well, neither her father nor her sister knew the man she’d run off with was Raymond; they probably hadn’t known she was in Omaha either until she told them. So there was no danger to her there. Still, hadn’t she been afraid Raymond would come after her, for fear that she might expose him to the police? No, it wouldn’t work that way. She couldn’t have exposed Raymond without exposing herself as an accessory; Hannah was no martyr, and Raymond had to have known that as well as anybody. Maybe she’d written him a note, or called him once she was clear of Omaha. If he left her alone she’d never tell anyone about him, all she wanted was her freedom… something like that.
And Raymond hadn’t chased after her. What he’d done instead was to cover himself, just in case Hannah slipped up, by moving out of Nebraska and heading for Denver. That had all been late in 1968. Meanwhile Hannah had taken up with the rock musician and was busily engaged in forgetting about Lester Raymond. Except for those photos in her album, that is. For some reason-narcissism again, maybe-she’d kept four pages of snapshots of her and Raymond and Omaha for her own private viewing.
It was easy enough to figure why she’d burned the photos on Friday night: after all these years Lester Raymond had come back into her life, and in the craziest, most terrifying way possible. No wonder she’d been distraught. It wasn’t just that her father had been murdered; it was that he’d been murdered by her former husband. Rage, or whatever emotion had been governing her at the time, had led her to rip the photos out of the album and destroy them.
And then what?
Sometime between six o‘clock, when Runquist left her, and eight o’clock, when she’d telephoned him, she had had another call. From Raymond? Yeah, it must have been. But why would he have contacted her of all people?
Well, I thought then, why not? He was on the run again, with a fresh murder rap hanging over him; he didn’t have much money this time, he had no transportation; he was desperate. And when the story broke in the papers on Friday, Hannah’s name had been right there-“Hannah Peterson, of Sonoma.” She was the only person he could turn to for help, because he could force her to give it to him; he had her in a box on the accessory thing back in 1967. If she refused to help him-with money, a car, a place to hide, whatever-he’d tell the police all about her involvement.
But that was as far as I could take it on deduction and speculation alone. Where had Raymond called Hannah from on Friday night? Here in Sonoma? It didn’t have to be; he could have holed up anywhere in the vicinity, told her to come pick him up or bring him something. Why had she called me? And where were the two of them now? Had Raymond done something to her? Or was it just that she was on the road somewhere, with or without him, maybe on her way back home?