Anita’s eyes focused out the window and dampened. Hannibal was prepared to wait, but after a full minute of silence he began to worry that she might not be able to pull herself back if she was gone too long in the past. He asked, “Are you all right?” in a gentle tone.
Anita shook herself. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I could use some… would you like some more coffee?”
Without waiting for a reply, Anita picked up Hannibal’s almost-empty cup. She crossed the wide kitchen and started fussing with a complex looking espresso machine. She kept her back to him while she worked.
“I’ll make cappuccino,” she said. “You’ll love it. Anyway, um, see, Daddy was home when I got back. He didn’t look happy any more. He said that there had been an accident. He hit a man who was on the side of the road up on 270 on his way in. He shouldn’t have left the scene, you know, but he had to make it home first.”
The machine made its screaming hissing noise loud enough that if Anita had sobbed, Hannibal might have missed it. She wiped her face once or twice while she worked with cups and heated the milk, but when she returned to the table her face was dry. She even mustered a small smile as she sat down, hands wrapped around her cup.
“Daddy and I had our special dinner anyway,” she said. “As it turned out, it was our farewell dinner. Then he called the police and told them what happened. They came and took him away, but he promised me that he had left something in the house that would make us rich when he came back.”
“He didn’t say what? Or where?”
“He said it was safer if I didn’t know,” she replied after a sip from her cup. “The long and the short of it was, he was tried and convicted. Not of murder, but the other thing, you know…”
“Manslaughter,” Hannibal filled in. “Probably involuntary under the circumstances. And this is very good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, seeming to draw energy from the small compliment. “Anyway, Daddy had never been in trouble before. So he was supposed to do three to five years, right down there in Greenville.”
“Cold Springs Correctional,” Hannibal said. “Two and a half, three hours south of here. But not a bad place, as such places go. Minimum security.”
“They figured if he behaved he’d be out in two years. But in the meantime, there was no money. I left school and got a job with a house cleaning company, but I knew it wouldn’t be that long.”
The espresso was hot and strong and flavored with just enough cinnamon. Hannibal guessed it was brewed from medium roast Arabica beans. He let it play across his tongue as he listened. “And is your dad still away?”
“Daddy,” Anita clenched her eyes together for just a moment. “Daddy died in prison last year. They said it was a heart attack. Sudden. Unexpected.”
In that instant, Hannibal’s coffee became as bitter as ashes. No, he realized, it was this young woman’s life that had turned to ashes in a matter of months.
“I’m so sorry. What did you do? Was there insurance?”
“He had it at work,” Anita said, “but it lapsed while he was away. He had left some savings, but with keeping the house going and the, you know.”
Hannibal nodded. “The final arrangements. I understand. So you kept working. And I assume you looked for the gift that your father left behind.”
“I never found anything that looked valuable in the house,” Anita replied. Her fists were clenched tight as she spoke. “Of course, I didn’t know what I was looking for. Jewelry? Stocks? An account number? No idea. Anyway, after enough time passed I began to even wonder if there was a hidden treasure. Maybe he just told me that to keep my courage up while he was in prison. But I kept on with life, you know, cleaning and saving up to get back to college. And then Rod came.”
“Rod is the boyfriend?” Hannibal asked.
Anita’s lips pressed tightly together. “Could you please take off your glasses, Mr. Jones?”
Hannibal slid his Oakley’s off his face. Anita stared for only a moment. Maybe it didn’t seem as odd to her as it had to some others.
“Are they blue?”
“Sometimes,” Hannibal said. “Technically I guess you’d say hazel.”
“Men don’t have hazel eyes. For sure Black men don’t. You are unusual.”
“I don’t mean to be,” Hannibal said. “Now, Rod? The boyfriend?”
Anita locked eyes with Hannibal as if preparing for some reaction. “Rod was my lover, Mr. Jones. He showed up at the house about a month after daddy passed. He said he had known my father in prison, and daddy would have wanted him to take care of me. He had no place to go. I was lonely. So, I let him stay with me.”
Hannibal knew she was steeled against disapproval, but it was not his place to judge her. For him, these were just facts in a case. Every case eventually grew out of people doing wrong and if he tried to sort the good people from the bad he’d never have a client. He sipped his coffee. It had grown cold, but bringing the cup to his lips gave his hands something to do.
“I take it your father told you about this fellow?”
“He had mentioned him,” Anita said. “And he showed up at the right time. None of my father’s other friends from work or anywhere ever bothered to check on me after the funeral. All my friends were up at school. I was alone, starting to drift, wandering aimlessly. Do you understand that, Mr. Jones? I needed someone to guide me, to help me get through it all. Rod was a strong man, and he just captivated me.”
Hannibal hated him already. Of course, Hannibal had a prejudice against guys named Rod. Or Dick. Or Peter for that matter. What were they trying to prove? “So you were comfortable with this guy?”
“I fell in love with him, Mr. Jones,” Anita said, fixing him with a defiant stare. “I needed him, and I felt like he needed me. And he asked about Daddy all the time. He spent a lot of time in Daddy’s study, almost as if he was trying to make it his own.”
“No doubt,” Hannibal said. “And at what point did he become uncomfortable there?” Anita looked down. Hannibal’s words had been dry. He knew all of this must be embarrassing to share with a stranger.
“It came as a total surprise, Mr. Jones. Six months ago, I came home from work and he was gone. And Daddy’s study was a mess. Books tossed here and there, papers just strewn about. I realized while I was cleaning up that he must have been searching for something. Daddy’s notebooks were very orderly and organized and I made sure they were all in place before I was done. At first I thought nothing was missing. Then I noticed that a whole box of spare computer discs was gone. I had never thought that Daddy’s hidden treasure might be information, Mr. Jones. I think Rod took something out of the computer.”
Hannibal had gotten there ahead of her, but this wasn’t a real answer. Were they talking about directions to hidden money, the account number of a secret bank account, or a stock brokerage account? It could just as easily be information about a coworker to be used for blackmail. The possibilities were endless, and everything he thought of was intangible. Lost diamonds could be recovered, but stolen information was probably worthless after being used by the thief.
“Right. So he disappeared six months ago, and you haven’t seen him since.”
“Oh, no,” Anita said, leaning forward with her palms on the table. “I saw him last week.”
Hannibal also leaned forward, startled the way we so often are when the ending of a story isn’t what we expect. “Where?”
Anita’s hands locked in an odd way, palms facing with the fingers of one hand curled to hook into the fingers of the other. “I had just finished cleaning Mrs. LaPage’s house. I was getting into my car when he pulled up in front of hers. God, it made my heart hurt to see him. I was so flustered I almost caused an accident pulling away. My mind was just spinning. I didn’t know what to do. That’s why Tonya dragged me out to the club that night. And that’s when I saw you.”