“A warrior doesn’t ever give up, soldier,” Langford said.
Another familiar voice said, “Drop the knife.” Langford looked up to see Stan Thompson staring at him behind the front sights of his Glock automatic. “Put it down, old man.”
Only then did Hannibal see the fear behind the warrior in Langford’s eyes. It was that fear, the fear of aging, the fear of losing his edge that was the seed of this man’s obsession for a girl barely out of junior high school, an obsession that had only grown as they both had aged. He had to own her, but in a very real way she owned him as well. And he had carried that obsession for all these years not even realizing how it was eating him alive from the inside out. The weight of that obsession was all Hannibal could see now, pressing the old man down on him. That was what he saw when he repeated Thompson’s words, but quietly, for only the two of them to hear.
“General Kitteridge. Put it down.”
The fight seemed to drain out of Langford’s body and Hannibal heard the knife hit the pavement by his ear, point first, and clatter to the ground. Then the weight was lifted off Hannibal as two uniformed men took Langford’s arms and raised him to his feet. While Thompson put his gun away, Hannibal stood up and dusted himself off. Only then did he notice the video camera fifty yards away. He smiled at Kate, standing beside the cameraman. Her crew had captured it all, and she had the story she deserved. Another debt paid, he thought. Despite the minor wounds he was more relaxed at that minute than he had been in a week. A long nightmare, reaching back a dozen years, seemed to finally be ending.
“You’re probably wondering what’s going on here.” Hannibal said.
“We got enough out of that Donner guy back in the hotel to put a lot of it together. Can I take it you’ve got the rest of the story figured out?”
“I think so,” Hannibal said. “You just need to get…” He stopped mid-sentence, looking around. He zoomed in on the red Corvette just as it was backing out of its parking space. A new burst of adrenaline flooded his system, shoving him across the parking lot. “Stop that car!” He shouted. “She’s in there and she can’t get away.”
Behind Hannibal, Thompson made subtle hand signals, and another car pulled forward, blocking the Corvette’s motion. When Hannibal reached the car he yanked the driver’s door open, grabbed Joan Kitteridge’s arm and snatched her out of the car. To her credit, she maintained her protective covering of anger and fear.
“Are you crazy?” Joan said. “You’ve just taken my uncle away, after he tried to kill my husband. Don’t I deserve some peace?”
Mark got out of the other side of the car but stayed on that side. It told Hannibal all he needed to know about this shaky alliance.
“I see,” Hannibal said. “You’re going to play innocent. Did you think I forgot all about poor Oscar?”
“Are you accusing me of a crime?” Joan asked. “Do you think I killed him?”
Thompson stood behind Hannibal now, examining the girl with new suspicion. “I thought we only had one murderer here.”
“Oh, she didn’t kill Oscar Peters, but she sure set him up,” Hannibal said. “Of course that was after she used him to cover her trip to Las Vegas for a divorce.” Hannibal raised his eyes to Mark across the car’s roof. “She fooled you both by sending her new employee, Oscar Peters, to Australia. He sent cards to you both, while she kept in touch by e-mail.”
“He was my friend,” Joan said. “He did me a favor.”
Hannibal almost laughed. “Let’s be real, Joan. Oscar wasn’t the nice guy everybody thought he was. He did it because it was one more thing he had on you.”
“Blackmail?” Thompson asked.
“That’s why his friend Fancy was digging through the company records,” Hannibal said. “And that’s why Fancy got fired. You see, Joan here gave Oscar a job because of what he knew about the first murder, but he couldn’t really prove anything and besides, he thought the killer, her husband, was dead. So he kept quiet at first. Then he got to be friends with Dean. They talked about the fact that they both had known her before their present jobs.”
Mark walked slowly around the car, but instead of reaching for Joan he stood beside Hannibal, who now addressed Joan. “Poor Dean. If he described his father’s killing, Oscar surely figured out that there was a connection between you and the two murders. The one in Dean’s past and the one in his own.”
“Sure,” Thompson said, “And the second killing told him this husband of hers was still alive.”
“Right,” Hannibal said, closing on Joan. “And Oscar used that knowledge to get money out of you, didn’t he?”
Joan’s protective coating was proving to be a thin veneer. As it cracked, her face seemed to fall, melting like a wax mask “He took advantage of me. I’m the victim here.”
“Uh-huh,” Hannibal said. “Poor abused Joan. That’s why you aimed Uncle Langford at him, just like a loaded gun. Too bad it took him so long to realize he was in danger. But he did. That’s why he called Fancy and even tried to get me to protect him. I should have listened.”
“Wait a minute,” Mark said. “You mean the old man found out she was being blackmailed?”
“Nope,” Hannibal said. “But she went to Oscar’s house a few times to try to pay him, to threaten him, maybe to just talk him out of taking her dough. Maybe she even tried to seduce him.”
“No chance with that swish,” Joan muttered. Her fear was slowly transforming into anger.
“Anyway, you worked hard to make your meetings public knowledge. To old Langford and most of your employees, it looked like you were going out with him. Poor Oscar, unable to resist the ego boost, even told people the two of you were dating. That didn’t bother you, did it? You were counting on Langford to do what he always did when you showed serious interest in a man. And he didn’t let you down.”
Mark nodded. “I see now why you kept our relationship secret. You were protecting me from him.”
“Well that does fall together well,” Thompson said. “It would be a snap for the old man to hide the knife in Dean Edward’s apartment. But that makes the motive for the actual murder jealousy. Oscar wasn’t really killed for what he knew at all. Dean Edwards really had nothing whatever to do with that killing.”
Hannibal shook his head. “Nope. Except that he was an awfully convenient scapegoat. An acceptable sacrifice neither of them was concerned with. Not the target, just collateral damage.”
34
Sunday
Oronoco Park, on the shores of the Potomac River in Alexandria, was a world away from Hannibal’s backyard in the District. Trees lined the rocky shoreline but not so close together that they obscured his view of the deep blue river or the speedboats bouncing across its mirror surface. Fortunately, their foliage was enough to mute the grating snarl of the boat engines. It was a perfect autumn day, the sun bright enough to warm his bare arms below his golf shirt sleeves, the breeze just strong enough to keep him from reaching the point of perspiration. The breeze also carried the aroma of sizzling barbecue sauce from the bank of portable grills. Hannibal’s mouth began to water in anticipation.
Hannibal had attended any number of backyard picnics, park side picnics and company picnics at past jobs. However, this was his first catered picnic, and he was enjoying watching the cooks in their aprons and tall white chef’s hats, the scurrying servers and hustling cleanup crew, happy to be left out of the labor force. He was amazed at what Bea Collins had been able to pull together in just five days. He sat on one of the wooden picnic tables standing outside the huge tent-like covering the crew had erected that morning. From his perch, he could see everyone who had attended his own backyard cookout a few days earlier, plus several more folks, all in a party mood. Bea and Dean Edwards sat at the table, hand in hand. A few feet away, Francis Edwards and Harry Irons sat side by side in folding chairs. Harry squeezed Francis’ hand and spoke around a cigarette.