Collateral Damage (18 page)

Among the last to enter the cool but brightly lit cavern was a lone woman carrying a single suitcase. Florescent lights gave her hair a bluish tint. Her slightly bent posture and slow shuffling gait made her appear older than Hannibal thought she must be. But something in her soft, warm features told him this had to be Oscar's mother.

“Mrs. Peters?” he asked to be sure. When she nodded with a numb smile he took her suitcase.

“Thank you, young man,” Mrs. Peters said. Her makeup had almost worn away during the long flight. “And thank you so much for meeting me like this. I haven't been in my own country for almost twenty years. I've been moving for more than thirteen hours and I'm just about all in. You work with, I mean, you work for the company my Oscar…”

“No ma'am,” Hannibal said, not wanting to make her finish the sentence. “I'm Hannibal Jones and I'm involved in the investigation. The people your son worked for asked me to meet you and get you to your hotel. I had no idea your trip was so long.”

Mrs. Peters shuffled along sticking close to Hannibal as they headed out into the parking lot. “Oh my, yes. Crossing the Atlantic was more than a ten-hour flight because from Frankfurt they don't fly into New York, but rather go straight to Atlanta. Then you sit there for a couple of hours before the final hour and a half flight here, and then there's the customs nonsense, like I was some kind of foreigner. Although after twenty years, maybe I am.”

“I flew out of Templehof when I left Germany for the last time,” Hannibal said as he pushed her suitcase into his trunk. “We lived up in Berlin.” The night sky was unusually clear and a mass of stars crowded together to comfort one another over the river. It appeared that there was no one to comfort Mrs. Peters. She seemed very alone, but then she looked as if she was used to it. Hannibal thought his charge should be in her mid-sixties at most, but everything about her seemed from the previous generation. Hannibal waited until he had his passenger settled in his car and belted in place before he broached a new subject.

“Tired, ma'am?”

Emma Peters looked at her watch, a diamond studded lady's Waltham that might have been there for the whole twenty years abroad. “A bit. I guess my body thinks it's about three a.m.”

“I was surprised to learn you were traveling alone.” Hannibal said while she reset her watch. “Your husband is ill?”

“Yes, but that's not why he didn't come. My husband hasn't spoken to Oscar since our son ran away from home. He couldn't face this.”

Hannibal guided his car down the darkened tunnel that was the tree-lined George Washington Parkway into Alexandria. “Must have been some disagreement to last these years. I'm sorry.” He decided not to pry further.

“Oscar's father was an MP, Mister Jones. You know what that is?”

Hannibal smiled. “Yes ma'am. My dad was military police as well.”

“Really?” Emma seemed to look at him with new eyes. “Well, Foster is a conservative man as you can imagine. Very proud of his position, his duties. When Oscar accused him of covering up a murder, well, that was the end of it for the two of them. I tried, but I could never bring them together again.”

There was that word again, and Hannibal's resolve quickly evaporated. Another murder? He did not believe in coincidences. “Oscar had information about a murder?”

“Oh, no,” Emma said with a wave of a withered hand. “But he certainly thought he did. The truth is, poor Carla's death was accidental. But my Oscar was only sixteen, and he had such a crush on her, he could never accept that, well, that God could be so cruel I guess.”

“Carla?” Hannibal asked as he turned onto Route 1 toward the towering hotels of the Crystal City district. “Someone you knew, then?”

Emma nodded, and leaned back, as if reviewing slides being shown on the Volvo's ceiling. “Oh, yes, the whole family did. Her husband, Gil Donner, was the Provost
Marshall at the time. Sort of Foster's boss, really, but we socialized from time to time. I think it was hard for poor Oscar sometimes, since Carla was one of his teachers. Freshman social studies, I believe. I remember that one organization day. A big picnic and we and the Donners…”

Hannibal parked in front of the Hyatt Regency hotel and popped his trunk. In the light from the lobby he could see the recollection had brought a tear to her eye. Perhaps this one happy memory of her son was lonely in there. He grabbed her suitcase from the bellhop, handing him a tip anyway, and got Emma checked in. Then he followed her to her room door. Exhaustion hung across her shoulders like a shawl, and he figured she would be asleep as soon as she found her bed. But as he opened the door she stopped and more of the story bubbled up out of her.

“They fought after poor Carla died. He was at that age, raging hormones and rebellion, you know. I remember he called Foster a commie, said it was all a plot. Oh, flew into such a rage that day. How he hated communists. It was the worst thing Oscar could have said, if he wanted to hurt his father.”

Hannibal carried her suitcase into the room, watching her face. Emma did not look sad, but rather warmed as if she clung to these memories for company. He considered that maybe any memory of her husband and son together was valuable after all these years. She settled onto the bed but seemed unaware that Hannibal was about to leave.

“Funny, a freshman in high school and he thought he knew everything,” she said. “He was a, well today they'd call Oscar a conspiracy theorist I think.”

“Ma'am I have to get going now.”

“He even said he knew a witness, an eyewitness to Carla's death. Actually, assassination was the word he used.”

Hannibal's hand rested on the doorknob, but he could not quite bring himself to turn it. “Really? Did he say who?”

“Oh of course not,” she said, shaking her head. “He withdrew into his fantasy world of conspiracies. Pulled away. And then, that summer, he left. Ran away to America.”

“You mean he disappeared?”

“Oh no, not to me, just to his father.” Emma was drifting, sleep pulling on her. “He wrote to me. When he lived in New York with some people he met. Then he was in Chicago. Wandering. He found out he had a flair for computers, even back then. I sent money. He took courses in California. Even when he was staying in that sinful place Las Vegas two years ago, he wrote to me. I think he fell in with a bad crowd there. But he wrote. He was never a bad boy.”

Her motor seemed to have run down. She sat staring at the floor. Hannibal took her shoulders and helped her lie back on the bed. Her eyes closed, her breathing slowed, and her speech slurred a bit. “And now,” she murmured, “and now I have to bury my son alone, because his father hasn't the strength.”

Hannibal waited until her breathing deepened fully before he turned off the light and quietly slipped out the door.

Hannibal's eyes opened when the key slid into the lock. The gray outside his window was a lighter shade, and the street lamps were out, but the sun was not quite up. By the time his feet touched the carpet he could smell fresh coffee brewing. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants he had left on the floor and headed toward the other end of the apartment. She was starting his day with a smile, as she so often did.

“Morning, lover,” Hannibal said stepping into the kitchen. Cindy looked up, caught in the act, putting cream cheese and marmalade on the tray with the bagels. Her smile, warm and radiant as the summer sun, held his attention before he noticed the other surprises. Instead of business attire Cindy stood before him in her own sweat suit. Her face, usually so carefully made up, was scrubbed clean. He spotted a small overnight case on a kitchen chair, which, he assumed, contained her day's clothing.

“I missed you last night,” she said. “Got to thinking about breakfast in bed. And then I decided, why not?”

Snuggled under Hannibal's comforter they chewed raisin cinnamon bagels and Hannibal watched the sun make its debut over Cindy's shoulder. The coffee was hot and strong, the way he liked it, with just enough cinnamon added. Hannibal loved the time he spent with his arm around his woman, just relaxing. Once again he considered asking Cindy if she'd like to wake up together every day. And again he
wondered what this independent professional woman's answer would be.

“How would you feel about going away together for a day or two?” he asked.

“Away?” Cindy asked, pushing a last bit of a bagel into her mouth. “Away where?”

“Out of town. Actually, Oscar Peters' hometown. Frankfurt.”

She turned to face him, her nipples brushing his chest. “Frankfurt? You mean as in Germany? Wait a minute. Aren't you on a case, lover? How will Bea feel if we just take off?”

“Oscar's mother tells me he may have known something about a murder, back when he was in high school,” Hannibal said, his eyes dropping from Cindy's face. “If what he told her is true, the culprit was never caught. It's another motive for his murder if it's true. I think I should follow it up.”

“Follow up?” Cindy asked, her brow crinkling. “Oscar's probably fifteen years out of high school. You think you can solve a murder that's been sitting so long? And what about the guy running from the scene of the crime?” she asked, her brow crinkling.

“If I'm right he's driving back to Vegas, which is a good four day ride. He'll keep. Come on.”

Cindy considered his words, her mouth bunched to one side. Hannibal leaned back against a pillow and sipped his coffee. When Cindy was pondering this way, it was best to leave her alone. Besides, the warmth of her thigh against his was pleasant enough without any further activity.

“Let me see if I have this straight,” she finally said, sitting up straight. The comforter fell away from her ample bosom, further distracting Hannibal. “You want to interview people and check out the scene of the crime, right? So we fly to Europe for you to do that, spend a day there, and jet back? That's crazy. You really think there can be any kind of connection between this possible murder Oscar was talking about and his death?”

“I've got to follow my instincts,” Hannibal said tangling his fingers in the soft curls flowing in waves about her
shoulders. “A man is murdered. The accused killer saw his father murdered. Now I find out the dead man claimed to have knowledge of yet another murder. Can I just accept all that as coincidence?”

Cindy shook her head slowly. “And why drag me along?”

Hannibal slowly ran his fingertips softly down her spine to finally cup her bottom against the mattress. “I guess I just figured we needed some time away together. And there's something over there I'd like to show you.”

A voice filtered through Hannibal's sleep-fogged brain telling him to bring his seat to the upright position and fasten his seat belt. His watch told him it was five minutes after five in the morning. A flight attendant announced that the local time was eleven-oh-five. Cindy's head lifted from his shoulders.

“Why don't you reset your watch, Cin? I'll stay on Eastern time.”

Cindy smiled into his face as their Boeing 737's tires skidded, then rolled onto the runway. “I liked the way yesterday started a lot better.”

Hannibal agreed, although after their leisurely lovemaking it had turned out to be a busy day. They had gone together to explain their plan to Bea. She was surprisingly agreeable to any straw clutching Hannibal might have in mind as long as she knew Dean would be hospitalized. Cindy had gone alone to explain the situation to Dan Balor, senior partner in her law firm. He had agreed to let her arrange for tickets and hotel accommodations through the firm. Hannibal had visited Mrs. Peters again to get her home address and phone number. She thought he might convince her husband to attend his son's funeral. He made no effort to persuade her either way. And at seven p.m. their plane lifted off from Dulles Airport and they settled down for the first airline dinner of the trip.

Hannibal tucked into his seat and went to sleep almost immediately after the meal. They were diving into the early morning sun over London before he learned that Cindy had sat awake almost two hours longer then he did. Seven in the
morning was two o'clock to their bodies. Cindy had no interest in breakfast so they spent the hour and a half in Heathrow Airport watching other planes come in. Cindy dozed a bit while Hannibal drank British coffee, which is a transitional step between American blends and the stronger European grinds and a good explanation of why British citizens still drink a lot more tea then coffee.

The hop to Germany was barely as long as the London layover, but they passed into another time zone to further confuse their systems. Hannibal's first stop was a vending machine that turned his American cash into German Marks. Then they stopped at one of the numerous stands in the Frankfurt Main for breakfast. It was close to noon, so breakfast consisted of a fat sausage Hannibal recommended. They ate on their way to the Avis booth to pick up their car, each carrying an overnight bag. Cindy babbled, something Hannibal only knew her to do when she was over tired.