“I wanted to thank you, young man,” she said after their food arrived. “Thank you for coming in person to tell me what I already knew would happen. What did Foster actually tell you?”
“Ma’am?”
“His reason,” she pressed, pouring vinaigrette on her salad. “What reason did he give you for not coming to his own son’s funeral?”
Hannibal looked down into his clam chowder. “He kind of said it was too late. I think maybe he doesn’t want to deal with the loss.”
“Oh no,” she said, chewing each bit of lettuce slowly but completely. “He can’t face it. He’s been waiting for an apology for fifteen years and now he knows Oscar was as proud and stubborn as he is, and he’ll never be back to say he’s sorry.”
It could have been a hard statement, but Ruth’s grief was so heavy it would not even let her anger push out from under it.
“Whatever his other feeling, he misses his son,” Hannibal said. “While I was there he was leafing through Oscar’s high school yearbook.” He almost mentioned that he had it now, but thought it might be hurtful to her to know he parted with it so easily. “Mrs. Peters, could Oscar’s attacks on your husband have been part of a cry for attention?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Ruth said. “Oscar was a real conspiracy theorist, even at his young age. He started to hate the American government, to think everything it did was wrong. And his father symbolized all of that to him.”
Hannibal took a thoughtful sip of his coffee. “Not so unusual. But most kids don’t believe strongly enough to run away from home.”
“I think maybe he fell in with a bad crowd,” Ruth said. Then she started rummaging around in her purse. “He ended up in Las Vegas for a while, and oddly enough, that seemed to straighten him up some. Maybe coming face to face with all that sin did something. Anyway, he met a girl out there. Here, take a look.”
Ruth produced a photograph that looked as if it had been riding in her purse for longer than a mere year. Hannibal indulged her by looking at it, but in seconds his face dropped. It featured Oscar standing in a park with a woman beside him, half her face cut off by the sloppy photographer. On Oscar’s left, a young man was reaching around Oscar to slap playfully at the woman. Pulling out of range of that slap would be the reason she was mostly out of the picture.
The young man beside Oscar was tall and thin with long, dark, stringy hair, and dressed in dark clothes. Something about him, the shape of his head, the angle of his shoulders, was too familiar for comfort. Hannibal guessed this man was a hell of a fast runner and drove a dark, four-door sedan.
Sliding wooden doors whose top halves contained a dozen small windows separated Hannibal’s office from the next room. By pushing the doors back into the walls he had effectively doubled his office space.
Hannibal stood leaning back against the wall behind his desk. His seven guests sat around the room, mostly in folding chairs brought in for them. All held cups of coffee or tea, except Monty whose coffee Cindy had snatched away, replacing it with cocoa before sitting beside Hannibal. It was a lot of people for the room to hold, including one who had only been there once before.
“I guess before we start, some introductions are in order,” Hannibal said. “If you watch the news on Channel 8 you might recognize the redhead on my far right as Kate Andrews. She’s involved in the case I’ve asked you all to help me with. I’ve promised her an exclusive on the story. In exchange, she’s agreed not to mention any of you without your express permission.”
He turned to the four men seated in a group on his left. “These guys are my neighbors in the building here, and they sometimes help me on cases. That’s Virgil,” Hannibal said, indicating the tall black man with yellowed eyes. “The white guy is Quaker, Sarge is the big guy with the Marine Corps tattoo on his arm, and the little baldheaded troublemaker is Cindy’s father, Ray.”
“Hey,” Ray said, “Watch your mouth. I ain’t quite bald.”
Everyone chuckled and Hannibal continued. “The twelve year old who thinks he’s grown is Gabriel Washington, but he’ll only answer to Monty, as in three card. He’s a little hustler, so watch yourself.”
“So this is the part,” Monty said, “where you say ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I called you all here,’ right?”
“I guess it is,” Hannibal said, hands in pockets. “By now I think everybody knows about this Dean Edwards case I’m working on. He’s the likely suspect in the murder of a guy called Oscar Peters. I was at the scene of that murder soon after it, and spotted a real suspect. He got away from me, but he was driving his own car, and I’ve traced it to Las Vegas. The fact that he drove all the way from there implies he didn’t want to make it easy for anyone to trace his visit here through airline records. I’ve got a partial license plate to go on, and I want to find this guy in a bad way.”
Watching the faces aimed at him, Hannibal figured he was the only one who noticed Kate pushing the record button on a palm-sized tape recorder. He cleared his throat, hoping he could construct decent sentences in case he was to be quoted later in the press.
“When I spoke with Oscar’s mother Kate today, she showed me a photograph of her son with a friend who could well be the man I chased. So I just might recognize him when we see him.”
“When we see him?” Sarge repeated.
“That’s right, Sarge,” Hannibal said. “I’m going to ask you, Virgil and Quaker to fly to Vegas with me. We can split up a list of possible license plates and the addresses they’re registered to, and hunt this guy down.”
“Do the police have the partial plate?” Kate asked.
“They have no interest in leads when they’ve already got their suspect,” Hannibal said.
“Las Vegas!” Monty said, the way most people his age might be expected to refer to Disney World or the Superbowl. “I really think you’ll need more help out there, Hannibal. I can scout cars real good.”
“Appreciate the offer, Monty,” Hannibal said, holding a palm toward his young friend, “but I need you here for another important job. See, I think there might be a conspiracy going on here involving something Oscar knew about a previous crime, maybe about a couple of previous crimes. Something somebody didn’t want him to know. And whatever he knew, his mother might also know. So I’m going to ask you and Ray to keep an eye on Ruth Peters while I’m gone. Between you, you can be inconspicuous. Even alert people often don’t notice kids, or taxis.”
“You’ll call me if you find this guy?” Kate asked.
“Of course, but I hope you won’t be just sitting and waiting to hear from me,” Hannibal said. “I figure you can help figure this whole thing out.”
“And just how do you expect me to do that?”
“Well, I’m not sure I’ve got a handle on this entire mystery,” Hannibal said, “but I’ve got a feeling Joan Kitteridge is very much in the middle of it. The day after we discovered Oscar’s body she left town. Headed for Las Vegas, coincidentally enough. If you believe in coincidences.”
“Really?” Kate looked up, her piercing blue eyes widening as her mind raced. “She strikes me as a cold one, capable of anything. I understand she had been to Oscar’s house before. And she did turn up rather suddenly, right after we got to Dean Edwards’ place. Where was she right before that, while Oscar was being murdered?”
“You’re the reporter pursuing this story,” Hannibal said with a smile. “I figure you can find that out more easily than anyone else.”
“Sounds like tomorrow’s going to be a busy day,” Cindy said. “Sure wish I could join you on the scavenger hunt in Nevada. But I’m behind at work. Plus, I better hang here to protect Dean from the police.”
“Yes,” Hannibal said, turning his smile to Cindy. “And there’s one other important thing you could do, sweetheart if you can make the time. I sure wish you’d go to Oscar’s funeral. It’s likely to be a pretty thin turnout.”