Collateral Damage (20 page)

“True,” Cindy said, and then, as if it was part of the same conversation she added, “It certainly is charming here. And the people are so, I don't know, hospitable. Not like Frankfurt at all. Rather surprising.”

“Why?” Hannibal asked, sipping his wine. “Is Washington like Pittsburgh? Heidelberg is kind of the romantic heart of Germany.”

“Poetic,” Cindy said, digging into her own potato salad. “So are we finished with business here?”

Hannibal sat back and took a big swallow from his glass. He had chosen an alt bier from farther north, thick and dark with a nice malty flavor. “I'm thinking I might like to chat with Donner a bit about his wife's death.”

“Sometimes you're like a terrier with a bone,” Cindy said. “How do you figure to find this Donner character, anyway?”

“Just like back in the States, babe. I'll look in the phone book.”

Hannibal wandered through the bar in his working clothes and glasses, feeling out of place for the first time since he returned to Germany. Gil Donner had insisted Hannibal come alone, and picked a place they could be anonymous.

The place was The Schiwmmbad, and it was more American than Hannibal wanted to believe. First the place was huge. There were two dance floors, a theater, two bars and a stage in the building. And the place was loud. The music was live, and the sort people call alternative these days. To Hannibal it was rock music that just missed the target. But the young crowd, about half American military, seemed into it.

Hannibal hated pushing through crowds. He hated the drunken laughter that surrounded him, mixing with the music. And he hated the stale beer smell that seemed to rise out of the hardwood floors. All in all, he wanted this to be over.

A fellow who looked as if he just stepped out of an Army recruiting poster appeared at Hannibal's side, tapped his
shoulder and pointed. The man at the booth ahead stared at Hannibal with a disappointed half smile. His gray sport coat and open collared white shirt seemed out of place in that bar. His eyes were hard deep blue marbles, which had retained the sharpness of youth while everything around them had fallen to the will of time. Donner's cheeks sagged into a double chin. What hair he retained, around the sides and back of his head, was peppered with gray. His body in general had softened, but Hannibal could see the hard core at the center of him that his eyes betrayed.

When Hannibal reached the booth, his Ranger type escort signaled that he should sit opposite Donner. Hannibal imagined being pinned into his seat by this hard looking kid and shook his head. On second appraisal, the young fellow had to be six foot two, maybe one eighty, and the leather jacket and pants did little to hide his trim muscular frame. His hair was so light a blond that the severely Ranger haircut left him looking almost bald. His brown eyes were as hard as Donner's.

“After you,” Hannibal said, waving a hand toward the booth. The Ranger type grabbed Hannibal's right arm and pushed, looking surprised at the resistance. Hannibal's left fist curled, his arm pulling back.

“It's okay, Cook,” Donner said. The Ranger type stopped pushing, and slowly released Hannibal. Hannibal stepped aside and again pointed to the vinyl-covered seat.

“Sit,” Hannibal said, as if addressing a trained hound. Cook's eyes went from Hannibal to Donner and back, then he slowly slid into the booth. Hannibal settled beside him and turned his attention pointedly to Donner.

“I'm not here looking for trouble,” Hannibal said, lacing his gloved fingers on the table. “I'm just looking for the facts.”

Donner sipped from the only beer on the table. When he spoke he did not raise his voice above the room noise, forcing Hannibal to lean in to hear. “Mister Jones, this is all a mystery to me and I don't like surprises. Carla, rest her soul,

is fifteen years in the grave. Why on earth are you asking about her now?”

“I don't think the truth can hurt you at this point, Mister Donner, but it could save a young man a jail sentence.”

Donner nodded, and sampled his beer again. He stared into the glass like a crystal ball. “You mean the man accused of killing Foster's son, Oscar. You are concerned with the motive, yes? But you spoke with Foster. I believe he told you all there is to know.”

“He didn't tell me who found the body,” Hannibal said, raising his voice as the band blasted louder. “Or where the crime took place.”

Donner stared deeper into the glass, as if reading a script there. “I found the body, Mister Jones. Me. I found her lying in that tub.”

Cook's presence, Donner's attitude, a dozen subtle subconscious clues prodded Hannibal's thinking into a new direction. What was not said suddenly seemed important. “She wasn't home, was she?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you didn't say,” Hannibal said. “And because of Foster. He lied about the investigation back then. Maybe he's still lying. Lying for you. And maybe Oscar did know something that got him killed.”

Cook's hand rested lightly on Hannibal's shoulder. “You don't want to be calling Gil here a liar.”

Hannibal heard a barely detectable click and glanced over at Cook, then down toward his lap where his other hand held a narrow knife blade poised to jab toward Hannibal's ribs. Hannibal returned his attention to Donner, who wore that expression men get when they think they're in control. That, more than the knife, got on his nerves. His own face betrayed none of his feelings.

“We're not going to play it this way,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. Then his left fist snapped up from the table, pivoting on his elbow, smashing into Cook's nose. His right hand darted across his body under the table to grab Cook's right hand and yank it straight out to the right. He didn't think
the shoulder was dislocated, but right then he didn't care much. What mattered was that Cook's elbow was locked out. Hannibal's left forearm pressed forward against Cook's shoulder. Donner jumped when Cook's bloodied nose thumped down into the table.

“He doesn't need that shoulder in his work, does he?” Hannibal asked through clenched teeth. “Now, I don't think I've asked you who killed your wife. What I need to know is how she was killed. That's enough to provide a motive for the murder my client's been accused of.”

Donner saw the fear in Cook's eyes, a young soldier getting his first real-life experience with violence and the kind of real pain one never experiences in a training exercise. His eyes jumped to the side when the knife clattered to the floor.

“Let him go. You'll ruin him.”

“The longer his shoulder stretches like this, the longer it will take him to recover normal range of motion,” Hannibal said. “What are you covering up, Major?”

The mention of his rank seemed to stir something inside Donner. “I retired a full colonel,” he said. “And my wife. Carla. Carla killed herself, you bastard.”

Hannibal released Cook, who sat up quickly, his hand leaping to his injured elbow. Hannibal turned to him and raised the right side of his suit coat, showing the space under his right shoulder. “If we were in the States, there'd be a Sig Sauer automatic sitting there, and I might have decided to use it to put your shoulder out of action for good,” he said. “But then, you might not have learned your lesson so well that way. Now you behave and let the grownups talk.” Then he turned to Donner and said “Details.”

“Details?” Donner repeated. “Details. I pulled the radio out of the tub.”

“Back up. Where was she? Not at home, right? Peters told me she was seeing another man.”

Donner looked at Cook who pointedly looked away. This was information he was not meant to hear. Hannibal nodded and stood, keeping a foot on the dropped knife. Cook slid out
of the booth and walked to the bar, not out of sight but out of earshot. Hannibal sat and stayed quiet, waiting. Donner swallowed the last of his beer. When he began again, it was the opening of floodgates, releasing a torrent too long locked away.

“Carla and I married during the seventies, remember. Times were different. We trusted each other enough to, well, a broader variety of experiences kept the relationship fresh, and…” Donner was fading.

“You're saying you maintained an, er, an open relationship?”

Donner met Hannibal's gaze at last. “Exactly. An open relationship. Of course, the Army frowns on that kind of a lifestyle. It can stop an officer's career cold. So we maintained this little apartment across town in Frankfurt. We had our… other meetings there.”

“And that's where you found her?”

“She was lying in a tub full of water. She had carried a radio into the bathroom. She plugged it in up by the sink where you could plug in a shaver, but she had set it on the edge of the tub. And then she must have just… just….”

Donner's eyes clamped shut so tight they squeezed a few drops of liquid out of his eyes.

Hannibal tried to picture the scene. “She pulls the radio into the water. Teeth clench, body convulses. Head snaps back. Skull trauma. She sinks below the water, lungs keep pumping. Without the radio, you could sell most medical examiners on the accident story. But why? Despondent over her lifestyle, maybe?”

“Who can say?” Donner said. “She never said anything. No note was found. I can only say she seemed depressed and irritable the last few days. If only she'd told me.”

“Look,” Hannibal spoke slowly. “I'm sorry I dredged all this up. I needed to know what happened. I hope you understand.”

Surprisingly, Donner nodded and returned a small smile. “Believe it or not, I do. I was a Provost Marshall remember?
I've done my share of investigations. And, hey, I'm sorry about Cook.”

“Not a problem. He maybe learned an important lessons about the difference between threats and combat. About readiness. Could make him a better soldier in the long run.”

As Hannibal prepared to stand, Donner said, “Can I ask you something?” Hannibal nodded. “What was your father's first name?”

“Charles. Why?”

Donner seemed fully back to present-day reality. “The reason I agreed to meet you at all. Charlie Jones. Common enough name, of course. But I worked with an MP NCO named Charlie Jones back during Nam. He was a whole lot blacker than you, but he married a local national so it could be. He was a hell of a good soldier. Just in case it matters.”

“You know what I think?” Cindy asked as Hannibal pushed their car up the Autobahn “I think you came over here hoping you'd meet someone who knew your dad.”

“Do we have to talk about that now?” Hannibal asked, enjoying the sun in his face, coming in sharply from his right as he drove north. They had enjoyed a wonderfully pleasant night at the hotel, and had gotten out early to start their day. He was working hard to maintain good spirits for his errand today. They had already passed Frankfurt before Cindy mentioned business again.

“Sorry. I just wondered. So, you think this Donner character was telling the truth?”

“Impossible to guess,” Hannibal said, sliding in behind a Mercedes making excellent time. “He sure looked sincere about his loss. I believe he loved his wife. But the rest of the story only hangs together if you don't look too closely. Anyway I know all I need to. There was a cover-up. That means several people had a good reason to go after Oscar.”

“I follow that, but if someone saw Oscar as a threat, why would they wait so long to do anything about it?”

The world became familiar as Hannibal wheeled into the outskirts of Berlin. He saw that a great deal of construction was going on, and that Berliners in general still dressed a couple of years behind Americans, but mostly, it was his childhood home. Except of course he didn't see soldiers and American children everywhere.

“Playing devil's advocate, counselor? Well, from what his mother told me, it could be our theoretical assassin just
couldn't find him. He's been on the move since he came to the States.”

It occurred to Hannibal that Cindy might have been trying to distract herself from the purpose of their trip with her questions. As they rolled slowly through the ivy-covered gate of the small cemetery she hushed entirely. The gate itself had a thin peaked roof, below which hung a white sign with black letters. Hannibal translated Gottesacker der Brüdergemeine as the Bohemian Parish Cemetery. They parked among a haphazard collection of vehicles and Hannibal reached into the back seat for the flowers before he got out.

Lilies. White lilies, he remembered, were her favorites. He stood waiting for Cindy to take his arm before moving off, his shoes crunching on the gravel path between carefully tended monuments. The Germans did care for their dead, he had to give them that. The grounds were meticulously kept, the trees deep green with that flush of health trees in such places always have. Hannibal stopped in front of a row of low white marble stones. The space behind the monuments was covered with ivy, while a carpet of grass lay in front of them.