Collateral damage hj-2

by Austin S. Camacho

  At Cindy’s townhouse, Hannibal took a quick shower and changed clothes. Of course he pulled on another black suit, indicating he was still at work. Then he left her to make phone calls while he drove to the Hyatt Regency. After a short elevator ride, he tapped on the door softly, almost hoping he had made the trip for nothing. But it was only seconds before he heard Ruth Peters’ soft steps approach the door. When she opened the door he saw the expectant look lift from her face like a mist when the sun hits the land. She nodded twice, flashing a wistful smile.

  “Well Mister Jones,” she said. “Good afternoon. What brings you here this afternoon?”

  He had simply wanted to end her suspense. Now he wanted to ease her loneliness. “Well I rather suspected you were sitting up here in your room. I thought you might want to go downstairs and have a cup of tea or something.”

  In the elevator, Hannibal learned that Ruth had not bothered to eat lunch that day, so once they were seated in the hotel restaurant he ordered a small salad and a cup of soup for each of them. Only three other people sat in the room with them, two older couples dressed as tourists and a woman who may have been working the hotel but doing it quietly. Ruth looked at each of them closely. She seemed to look at everyone closely.

  “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.”

  20

  Sunday

  It was more of a light mist than actual rain, but it would still ruin Cindy’s hair. She stepped out of her taxi and straightened the skirt of her black suit, the one she only wore on occasions like this one. She stepped up the path toward Oscar Peters’ final resting place, balancing carefully on her heels which sank hazardously into the immaculately cared for turf. She had to admit there was no more beautiful or more solemn place for a burial than Arlington National Cemetery.

  Oscar, of course, had no military experience. But she knew that being the son of a retired soldier he was entitled to a space in a national military cemetery. Someday his parents would certainly join him in that hallowed space. Still, she knew the schedule here was cramped, and remaining spaces few. Retired Sergeant Major Peters must have made at least one influential friend to get his son buried here, and to make it happen in so little time.

  Traffic on the George Washington Parkway had been heavy for a Sunday morning and Cindy was barely on time. She would not reach the chairs beside the grave much before the pallbearers who were stepping slowly from the other direction, carrying their load with easy and palpable dignity. The Old Guard was the ultimate burial honor, ramrod straight soldiers of the same height in their dress blues and white gloves, glittering shoes and grim expressions. Their precision always took Cindy’s breath away.

  Two women stood at the graveside as she approached and for a moment she was unsure which was in mourning. Hannibal had described Mrs. Ruth Peters well: bluish tinted hair, slightly bent posture, soft, warm features. The other woman was taller with a cloud of white hair and thick glasses. She would be one of the Arlington Ladies, a little known group of veterans’ widows with a most charitable mission. One of these women attends every funeral at Arlington, to make sure no service member is ever buried there without someone on hand to mourn him. When a widow is present, they are there to comfort her.

  Cindy stopped at the edge of the rows of chairs, observing the ceremony from behind the two women. She had not expected the man. He and Mrs. Peters were of the same generation and at first Cindy thought her husband must have come to his senses at the last minute. But this was not the man she met in Germany. They stood closely enough to make it clear that he was familiar. An old family friend perhaps, who hurried to her side when he learned she would attend her son’s funeral unescorted.

  Well, she could not simply stand back and observe. Cindy shook herself into action and moved forward to introduce herself to Mrs. Peters before the chaplain began his service.

  On the outskirts of Las Vegas, Hannibal stared at his twenty-fourth license plate of the day, sighed, and checked the number off on his list. All of the numbers on the list were similar, and one of them could well match the license plate on the car he saw only in the dark in Virginia. The plate he was looking at was number twenty-four on his long list of possibilities, but he was sure the gleaming new Lincoln Town Car attached to it was not the vehicle that nearly ran over him back home. There was no need to knock on the door looking for the tall, dark-haired driver.

  Pale yellow sunbeams reached over the edge of the earth and poked in around the frames of his sunglasses as he returned to his rented Ford Taurus and consulted the map spread open on the passenger seat. He had hoped his quest would not continue beyond dinnertime, but here he was, still crisscrossing Las Vegas’ dusty streets. This kind of legwork was boring, even in a nice town.

  After living in Berlin, New York and Washington, Hannibal found Las Vegas unexpectedly stale. Berlin was an ancient city, dating back to the thirteenth century. New York had three hundred years of history. Even Washington, the planned community that was young compared to most national capitols, went back a couple of hundred years. They all had their run down areas, their aging quarters. But they all had grown and aged through a normal life span, if cities can be said to have such things.

  By contrast, Las Vegas was an infant, incorporated as a city almost a dozen years into the twentieth century. And while the other cities grew to adulthood in the normal, legitimate way, Las Vegas was corrupted when it was adopted by the criminal mastermind Benjamin Siegal, called Bugsy by the press of the time. So, while the city rose anew out of the desert in nineteen forty-six, it was corrupted by organized crime. Decay had set in early. The city had grown up and grown old in a very short time. It showed all the signs of decay generally found in cities several times older. Like prematurely aging women, Las Vegas wore way too much gaudy makeup. And like many aging women, it was not hard to look past the makeup, to see the damage time was doing underneath.

  Hannibal and his small team had stepped off the plane into intense morning sunshine. His first act after renting cars for them all was to buy several maps. After seeing just how small the town really was, he had divided it between Quaker, Sarge, Virgil and himself. Each had a map rectangle to cover, about fifty miles long and maybe ten miles wide. Within that space, they each had a list of about fifty plates to check out. The job was even bigger than it seemed. Hannibal had prowled the city’s back streets and pocket neighborhoods all day, whittling down his list of possible license plates. Now, the neon fronted gambling houses were just lighting up, like the flying insect traps he had seen hanging in suburban backyards. He saw the night flies hovering at the entrances, not even trying to avoid being drawn in and zapped.

  The guidebook told Hannibal that Las Vegas was a city of barely a quarter of a million people, not counting tourists. The tiny District of Columbia held two and a half times as many people. To Hannibal, Las Vegas looked like a frontier town from a western movie. The Hollywood style main street was a series of gaudy flats. Behind them, you could see the sagebrush between houses. There were no condemned buildings standing in a row, their shoulders pressed together to remain upright the way they were back home. But he was surprised at the number of addresses that turned out to be trailers surrounded by sand. And when the houses really were houses, they seemed too far away for his taste.

  Driving down uncluttered blacktops with the desert receding flat and brown in every direction, he had to admit that his body liked it out there. The air tasted different, sweeter than he was used to. It was warmer, but dry enough to keep his clothes from sticking to him. And every time he stopped his car, the silence fell in on him, as refreshing as a massage. And when people saw him staring at their cars, or at them, they smiled. Dropping back into his seat and pulling the door closed he considered it again. His body really liked it here.

  His mind, however, was restless. It was like some form of sensory deprivation. He realized that some part of him craved clutter, needed the background noise a real functioning city provides. So he breathed easier as the nightlife stirred into wakefulness. And he found himself smiling when his telephone rang.

  “Hey Hannibal!” Quaker’s frantic voice jumped into H
annibal’s ear. “I think we got a pretty good suspect here. Tall guy inside. Big black car outside. Come take a look.”

  Hannibal reached the address Quaker gave him in less than two minutes. The old, rambling house was styled like a Mexican hacienda with stucco walls and a low-pillared porch. There were no other structures within easy walking distance, giving the impression that this one grew up out of the desert sand of its own accord. Frantic music pouring out of the building did not cover the laughter or the sound of dancing feet. Rolling slowly past, Hannibal saw two figures doing a spastic dance on the porch, shadowed by the light behind them. It was evident that they were dancing together, but by form both were clearly male.

  A low wall wrapped its stone arms around the large parking lot just past the house. Quaker sat atop it not far from the entrance. As Hannibal approached, he stood, his gangly arms waving Hannibal in. As he brought the car to a stop, Hannibal powered his window down.

  “This is somebody’s house?”

  Quaker thrust his face forward, wearing a weary grin. “Nope. I was stopped behind this guy at a light and I noticed the plate was like the ones we were looking for. The car kind of looked right, so I followed him. When he parked here I called you. Come on around inside and I’ll lead you to the car. Sure hope it ain’t another false alarm.”

  “Amen to that,” Hannibal said. He had already done this eight times that day, on occasions when Quaker, or Sarge, had found a car that could be right, but could not find the owner to confirm they fit the description.

  As Hannibal turned the wheel to follow Quaker across the hard ground of the parking lot, another Ford slid up behind him. Headlights bounced off his rear bumper, allowed him to see Sarge’s silhouette in his rear view mirror. Seconds later he saw yet another similar vehicle fall into line behind Sarge. Their short convoy bounced along the path through close-parked cars, reminding Hannibal of a trip through a drive-in theater’s grounds. The cars were mostly new and expensive at the beginning of his journey. As they neared the back of the lot they approached a small gathering of older models.