“Hey, babe. How is your morning looking?”
“Hannibal?” He could hear Cindy’s voice shift into a sweeter mode. “I can’t remember the last time you called me before I left the house for work. What’s up?”
“Well I’m nearing a turning point in this case and I realized that I miss you. Do you realize that we haven’t gotten together in a week?”
“Wow, it has been a week,” she said, sounding surprised. “The caseload has been fairly heavy, and you know I’m still scoping on the perfect house. But there’s always room in my schedule for my honey.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said, lowering his voice to make her press the phone closer to her ear. “What are you doing for lunch today?”
He endured a brief pause while, he assumed, she checked her calendar. “Today? Nothing I couldn’t move.”
“Great,” Hannibal said. “How about I pick you up around noon and we step down to your favorite little Thai place?”
“In the mood for something hot, eh?”
“Yeah,” Hannibal said, “but I’ll settle for lunch with you. Maybe after dinner I can get something hot.”
They spent several minutes teasing their way toward good-bye. As Hannibal finally cut the connection, he saw a familiar silver Honda slide into its parking space. He raised his windows and went to meet Orson Rissik.
“This is a surprise,” Hannibal said, checking his watch. “I always imagined you as an in-by-seven-a.m. kind of guy.”
“No, I’m the in-by-eight-a.m.-but-usually-stuck-there-until-eight-p.m. kind of guy. How are you doing?”
“Not bad, all things considered,” Hannibal said, holding the door open for Rissik and following him inside. “Now, you said you had some new evidence on the two murders?”
“Geez, can’t I even get into my office?” Rissik asked. “Besides, I want to hear what you got yesterday first.”
Both men said good morning to Gert as they passed her desk. Inside Rissik’s office they found a pot of fresh coffee. Rissik poured for both of them, and then sat at his desk.
“Fair enough,” Hannibal said after tasting his coffee. It wasn’t gourmet in any way, just good, solid coffee. “Here’s what I think I know. Chameleon Boy, otherwise known as Dani Gana, was Boris Tolstaya’s courier. Tolstaya was coleader of an investment firm either run by or at the very least doing business with the Russian Mafiya. The firm might have been skimming from the clients, which is a bad idea if they were laundering mob money. Tolstaya was skimming from the firm, an even worse idea. Dani was skimming from Tolstaya, which, as it turns out, was even stupider. I think Tolstaya killed Dani for stealing.”
“That all makes sense, and gives us enough motive for us to get serious looking for Boris Tolstaya,” Rissik said. “And if he can be convinced to turn state’s evidence, we might even get to poke a hole in the Russian mob.”
“I’m glad I could make you so happy, Chief,” Hannibal said. “And nobody in uniform could have gotten that stuff. Now, about your news…”
“Oh yeah,” Rissik said, leaning back with his hands on the back of his head. “The murder weapons.”
“What about them?” Hannibal asked, annoyed that Rissik felt the need to be dramatic.
“Oh. You remember that the bullet that went through Mrs. Petrova was an unusual, small caliber? Well, the bullet that took Dani Gana out was the same. They found it in the vehicle. I had asked the Maryland boys for the report and when I read that, I got on the horn with them to let them know about Raisa’s case.”
“Got to be the same gun,” Hannibal said. “And I can see how Boris might have taken out Mrs. Petrova if she wouldn’t give up her daughter’s lover. But why the tiny gun?”
“I can see it if he’s really a gambler and businessman,” Rissik said. “Easy to conceal, right? And real quiet.”
Hannibal’s nod was more vigorous than usual because his cell phone was vibrating in his jacket pocket. He excused himself and pulled it out.
“Mr. Jones? It is Yakov Sidorov.”
“Yakov?” Hannibal looked up at Rissik. “What’s going on? Is Viktoriya OK?”
“Fine, fine,” Yakov said, “but I need to talk to you.”
Hannibal again looked at Rissik, who said, “Go ahead. We’re done here and I’ve got lots to do now, thanks to you.”
Hannibal smiled, nodded, and headed for his car.
“Yakov, what’s the problem?”
“Do you know a man named Krada? Jamal Krada?”
“Yeah, but how do you know him?” Hannibal asked as he walked across the parking lot.
“He called my cell phone, asking all sorts of questions about Dani Gana. He said he knew you.”
That brought Hannibal up short and he stopped beside his car. “What? How’d he get your number?”
“He said he got it from Gana, who was one of his students. He said he had lost contact with his student and wanted to know if I could put him in touch with him.”
“What did you tell him?” Hannibal asked, getting into his car and yanking the door shut.
“Nothing,” Yakov said. “I just said I did not know what he was talking about. This man I did not know and who was I to tell him his student had been killed?”
“You did the right thing,” Hannibal said, checking his watch. “I have to be in the District for lunch anyway. I think I’ll swing by Krada’s house and tell him in person.”
Krada didn’t look happy when he opened the door, but he also didn’t look as arrogant as he had before. Hannibal judged him to be a private man. He would not like too many people knowing his business, especially if one of them was a private investigator. He looked up at Hannibal like a boy who had been caught peeping in the girls’ dormitory window.
“So this Sidorov person felt the need to drag you into this,” Krada said.
“Actually, he said you mentioned my name to try to get him to talk to you,” Hannibal said. “So the truth is, you dragged me into this. And I’d like to know why you were so concerned.”
Krada offered a noncommittal grunt and walked back into the house. Hannibal followed him to the same seat he had occupied on his first visit. The house carried the faint lemon scent of furniture polish. Had the woman been up cleaning the house this early?
As he sat, Mrs. Krada floated into view wearing a caftan in muted colors and carrying a carafe of coffee. As she poured for the two men, Hannibal rose from his seat and said good morning. She did not respond verbally, but he saw color come to her cheeks as he sat back down. How did a woman come to be so unaccustomed to simple courtesy in twenty-first century America?
“So why were you so concerned?” Hannibal asked Krada as his wife faded into the background.
“Well, Gartee was always taking chances,” Krada said. “I have worried that he would attract too much attention and they’d find him.”
“That would explain his changing his name to Dani Gana,” Hannibal said, not asking whose attention Gana would not want to attract.
“Exactly,” Krada said, sipping his coffee. “He never understood how determined those feds could be.”
Hannibal nodded. “FBI,” he said, sipping and staring out the back door.
“Immigration,” Krada said, correcting him, and then raising his eyes in surprise. “Wait. You didn’t know, did you?”
“So he was in country illegally,” Hannibal said. “And he shared that knowledge with you, along with the phone number of one of the first friends he made in this country.”
“Yes, as have many of my students,” Krada said. His eyes seemed to soften somewhat, and he stared down into his cup. “Sometimes they have no one else to turn to, and they need a fatherly figure. I stay in touch with a few, as I did with Gartee.”
“Yes, I should have seen that right away,” Hannibal said. “It explains how he was able to toss off the answers to all of your quiz questions. You gave them to him before I got there. That was clever.”
“Was I wrong to try to help him keep his secrets?” Krada asked. “If so, I was not alone. Sidorov would tell me nothing. But you said you had some news to share.” He ended the sentence on an up note, like a question. His expectant expression made Hannibal’s next words more difficult to say.