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
