Pyramid Deception (11 page)

“I still miss hanging with Wash, though,” Kevin said. “He was like family to me. If somebody really did hurt Irene, I sure hope you find them and make them pay.”

Dinner was a lot noisier than lunch had been, but Orson Rissik looked a good deal happier. Cindy at least didn't complain out loud. Hannibal just wanted to eat and move on. He had more in mind to get done before the night ended.

Seating was close in Ruby Tuesday on a Friday night. It was a little too warm for the suit and tie Hannibal still wore, and he could smell the fried food at the next table. But despite the volume of diners they didn't wait nearly as long to be served as they had at lunch. He pulled one of the wings out of their shared appetizer sampler and turned to Rissik.

“So tell us, oh connection to mainstream law enforcement, what did Fairfax County's finest learn today?”

“It will come as no surprise to you that the investigation developed nothing new today,” Rissik said, biting into a spring roll. “But before I go into how my afternoon went, I think we should let the lady speak.”

“Why thank you, kind sir,” Cindy replied as a waitress placed a plate in front of her. “It's nice to dine with gentlemen. Even here.”

“And yet,” Hannibal said, “you managed to snatch up the last piece of fried mozzarella before the entrees arrived. So, you spoke with your contacts in those big government agencies in charge of keeping me from having any money. What did they have to say?” He popped the last bit of wing into mouth. They were labeled fire wings, but weren't nearly hot enough for his tastes.

“The SEC was a bust,” Cindy said. “If they have a file open on George Washington Monroe, nobody knows about it.”

“They're wimps. What about the IRS?”

Cindy leaned in close to the table. “None of this is for public release, but I was able to confirm that the IRS is building a case against Monroe. The way it was explained to me, they think it's pretty obvious that something shady's going on, but the situation is so convoluted that it will take them some time to unravel the ball of yarn we call Monroes fiscal picture. . Hmmm. This grilled salmon is surprisingly good.”

“So if the wife had the kind of evidence that could save the feds months of work, that might have given Monroe a motive,” Hannibal said, “Or even the dropped partner, Hernandez.” He shook some hot sauce on his ribs and took another bite. That was better.

“I don't know,” Rissik said, sipping his iced tea. “Hernandez might be off the hook. My guy at the Bureau says they definitely had a sit down with him. They don't want to talk about what they got out of him but if he was interviewed by the FBI you got to figure they cut some kind of a deal or he'd be in jail right now, which he ain't.”

“Have they talked to anybody else?” Cindy asked.

“He wouldn't give me that much, but I was able to confirm that they did not talk to the wife.” Rissik sat behind a sirloin accompanied by broccoli and a baked potato—again.

Cindy stared down into her food, pulling another small bite off with her fork. “If they indict him on fraud charges, or any kind of business irregularities they'll freeze his assets.”

Rissik looked at Hannibal who tried hard not to react at all. It seemed an inappropriate remark when the two men were focused on the murder, and Hannibal figured she thought so too. That was the reason she never looked up after saying it.

Hannibal quickly reported on his interview with the Larsons. The rest of the meal passed quietly. After a brief tug-of-war over the bill, which Hannibal won, Rissik headed home and Hannibal walked Cindy back to their hotel room.

The hotel was barely a block away. An autumn breeze was pushing out of the parks on their left as they began their stroll down Presidents Street. Fallen leaves rustled around their feet. On the way they passed a trail into the park that Hannibal thought would be a good starting point for a morning run. As they crossed Market Street, halfway to the Hyatt Regency, Cindy took Hannibal's arm. It felt a little forced, but her spirits really did seem brighter, as if the fog she had been lost in was lifting. Right then he wished the hotel was a little farther away.

They went up to their room in what felt like a purposeful silence. Cindy slipped off her shoes as soon as she was inside, stripped to her bra and panties, and sat on the bed. Hannibal turned the television to News Channel 8 and stretched out beside her. Cindy slowly leaned over so that her head rested on his chest.

“You are so sweet, Hannibal. I think you hate being with a news junkie.”

“Not at all, babe,” Hannibal said, resting a hand on her hip. “I just want you to relax.”

Cindy snuggled against him. She kissed his chest and started unbuttoning his shirt. Her hair cascaded across his body, hanging down to the bed. His fingertips slowly stroked her naked thigh. Her perfume reached up to him, trying to pull him into the right mood. But she was moving very slowly. Despite her seductive actions, he sensed an underlying tension that would not allow for
a truly romantic mood. She raised her head, still not speaking or looking at him. When she tugged at his belt he squeezed her waist with one hand.

“You don't have to, you know.”

Cindy's head dropped onto his stomach. “I'm sorry. I'm not very convincing, am I?”

Hannibal took her shoulder and eased her back until her face was beside his.

“I'm on a case, baby. You don't need to be the femme fatale tonight.”

Cindy's lips clenched and Hannibal feared she might tear up. “I know. It's just that we so rarely have time together like this, and this place is so nice. I feel like we're wasting the hotel room.”

Hannibal didn't know what to say, and he realized that the feeling was becoming familiar. He held her close, wishing he knew the magic incantation to make his woman's unhappiness float away. Instead they sat quiet, watching the local news go by for a while. As Cindy became more and more relaxed Hannibal focused on shoving his natural impatience to the back of his mind. After her head drooped and snapped back up she looked up to him.

“Honey, I think I want to go to sleep a little early. Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” Hannibal replied, “but my work day isn't over yet. You put this case out of your mind and get some rest and when I get back, we'll see whether or not we'll waste this room.”

Seated on that bench under the stars at the train station, Hannibal's mind was not on Cindy Santiago's seductive form. Nor was it on her missing money, or even the murder he was determined to solve. He was only remotely aware of the sharp breeze that cut through the night every few minutes, or the tumultuous racket generated by an army of crickets on the other
side of the tracks. He wasn't thinking of anything, really. He was just waiting.

Waiting was not something he learned to do during his half-dozen years as a New York City cop. Those years had taught him determination, intimidation, observation and deduction. It was his time with the Secret Service that taught him to wait. Some days he spent hours staring at a crowd in the streets or at an airport or even a train station like that one in Alexandria, waiting for something that he didn't expect. Those times were sort of like shutting himself down without sleeping. His senses were alert while the rest of him slipped into stasis, hibernating until other systems were needed.

People came and went, most of them unaware that Hannibal was even there. He was practically invisible in his black suit, and he removed his sunglasses to be less conspicuous. As midnight approached, so did the last train of the evening. It was his last chance of the day to see what he was looking for. If his quarry wasn't aboard he would go home and return tomorrow.

The platform vibrated as the giant steel machine approached. The vibration increased, the rhythmic pounding of the drive wheels becoming more and more insistent until the train pulled in. Then came the orgasmic squealing as the brakes locked the wheels in place, and the final explosive huff of steam indicating that the behemoth had collapsed, exhausted until the engineer stoked it up again in thirty minutes.

Passengers disembarked and a handful moved to board. Hannibal screened them as they passed, ignoring women, children and men over a certain age. One figure caught his attention. The man wore a suit and carried a black overnight bag. He was tall and gaunt, with light brown or blonde hair. He walked into the station. After a few seconds, Hannibal stood and followed.

The station was almost empty, so Hannibal stayed at the door until his quarry reached the opposite entrance. Even in the well-lit station the stranger could have been mistaken for Jason Moore from across the room. His tan suit was crumpled from being
slept in on the train, but it was expensive enough to belong to a lawyer.

It could have been Jason himself, if not for the half inch of red ink poking up out of his collar.

When the stranger stepped into the night, Hannibal moved quickly across the station. The tall stranger had already crossed the parking lot and was moving down the street as quickly as he could without running. Of course, he was dragging a suitcase. Even walking at his normal aggressive pace Hannibal was slowly closing the gap. The clack of the stranger's oxfords on the cement became an echo of Hannibal's own.

The stranger crossed the street and continued down the dark sidewalk, not looking left or right. Hannibal walked as if they just happened to be going the same way, enjoying the crisp night air filling his lungs more as the walk stretched into the second block. Once they left King Street there was no one on the street but the two of them. The half-moon shed little light, but presented a lovely sight hanging over the short buildings of the part of the city still called Old Town. These three or four story structures were mostly commercial-residential hybrids, storefronts with apartments above.

Three blocks from the train station, the stranger put the suitcase down and pulled a key out of his pocket. Hannibal kept walking while the stranger unlocked the driver's door of an older, dark sedan. Hannibal was within ten feet of him when he looked up.

“So what I want to know is, did they pay you enough to risk jail time for kidnapping and murder?”

In the dim light the stranger's eyes narrowed, then widened and his mouth dropped open. Hannibal read the entire internal monologue on his face. Who is this guy? What does he want? What is he talking about, kidnapping and murder? Did those guys set me up to be the fall guy for some crime?

The stranger's fingers failed him. The sound of the keys hitting the sidewalk seemed to shock him into action but by the time he turned to run Hannibal already had a hand down the back
of his collar and was swinging him to the side. The stranger grunted as Hannibal smashed him into the side of the car and held him in place with an elbow thrust against his spine.

“I figured they hired local talent for their little game. Didn't you know you were a decoy, sent as evidence that their victim left town?” Hannibal asked while he quickly patted the man down. As expected, he was not armed. He flipped the man's wallet open and scanned his driver's license. “So, Walter, did you think it was some sort of practical joke or something? Did it never occur to you that you were meant as evidence that the guy they killed was still alive somewhere?”

“I don't know nothing,” Walter said, whining and stammering at the same time. “They just told me to get on the train with the girl and ride to the end of the line.”

“Yeah, well you'll have your chance to tell your story to the cops,” Hannibal said. Crouching quickly he scooped up the dropped keys. He tossed them onto the roof of the car, backed up and drew the Sig Sauer P220 from under his right arm. Holding his pistol casually at his side he said, “Get in the car, stupid. I don't want to hurt you, but if you try to run, trust me, you'll just die tired.”

It took Walter a while to unlock the door because of the way his hands were shaking, but once he got it open he slid onto the seat. Hannibal slammed the door shut and walked around to get in the other side. It was a cool night, but that didn't stop the beads from popping out on Walter's forehead.

“Start her up and pull a U-turn,” Hannibal said. “We're going back to the train station. And meanwhile, you can tell me who gave you the suit and told you to get on that train.”

“It was the girl,” Walter said, driving slowly, glancing often at the gun on Hannibal's lap. “Lucinda. We used to hang out sometimes. She brought me the suit and said I could make two hundred dollars just for taking a ride with her. Times have been tough so I figured, why not? Nothing illegal about taking a ride, right?”

“And where is this Lucinda now?” Hannibal asked as they pulled into the train station parking lot.

“Who knows? She got off up in Canada. She wasn't from around here anyway. Me, I hate the cold, so I just turned around and came home. I should have stayed in The City. I got family in Yonkers.”

Hannibal signaled Walter to get out and walked him to the black Volvo. Hannibal's instincts told him that the lead he had waited in the dark for was turning out to be a dead end. Walter was just a hustler. He never even met the killer or whoever set up the fake disappearance. Lucinda with no last name was the person Hannibal needed to talk to, but unlike Walter, she probably had sense enough to lay low for a while. Or maybe she was from Canada and was happy to have somebody else pay her way home. Either way, he had little hope of finding her.

When they reached Hannibal's car Walter stopped, his eyes moving between Hannibal's face and the pistol held in the shadow of his suit coat. He almost looked as if he was going to cry. Hannibal shook his head. What had happened to cheap thugs in the last few decades? The guys in the Shadow paperbacks and Batman comics Hannibal read as a kid were a different breed. Those guys would have kicked this guy out of the union.

“Relax Walter, I'm not taking you for a ride, at least not in the old movie sense. I am going to call a good cop I know who, as I think of it, won't want to be hassled at this time of night with business. I'll leave you in his care for the night. Now that I think of it, him you should be afraid of.”