they would have their stories lined up very carefully. Besides he had a lever, the marital secret, to apply whenever he needed more from her.
“Is that it?” Joan asked. “You just wanted to know my connection to this Fancy?”
“Just like to have all the details straight,” Hannibal said. “Thank you for your time.”
As he turned to leave, Joan called, “And just how did you find me here?”
He turned to watch her breathe out a gray stream, adding to the translucent cloud now hanging above her head. “I’m a detective.”
Outside, a hot dusty wind was blowing in out of the desert from the south. Hannibal’s three friends met him across the street from The Orleans. They stood between a juggler entertaining for fun and a folk singer working the street for handouts.
“I take it you confirmed when her last visit to this burg was.” Sarge asked. “We ready to head for the airport?”
“I think I found out what I went up there for,” Hannibal said. “But I think I want to change the plan. Just me and Virgil fly out tonight, if it’s okay with you and Quaker.”
“I’m game,” Quaker said. “But for what?”
“Well now that I know when she was here, I’d like you two to stick around long enough to find out exactly why.”
22
Monday
Hannibal breathed easily, taking in the scent left behind on Cindy’s pillow, his eyes closed against the morning sunlight bursting in through his bedroom window. The silence was broken only by the sound of her flesh moving against his own. She was naked, straddling his body, their skin tones almost a perfect match. Her knees felt hard pressed into Hannibal’s waist, and her fingers pressed hard into his back as she kneaded the muscles on either side of his neck. He had to admit, the girl gave great back rub, but he was most aware of the heat coming down from her body on his behind as she straddled him. Or was he just imagining that?
Hannibal had dragged himself home just before dawn, bringing with him the deep confusion he often felt in the middle of a case he saw no end to. But after a short nap he had awakened with an unfamiliar intuition. An odd excitement he could hardly describe to himself, let alone explain. The sense that it would all come down today, one way or another. A peculiar thrill that had nothing to do with the wonders of joy Cindy had shown him earlier in the morning.
“I got a funny feeling baby,” he mumbled into his pillow. “Like everything is going to come to a head today.”
“God I hope not,” Cindy said, kneeling up straight. “You haven’t had enough sleep to face any real trouble.”
“Slept on the plane.” Hannibal turned over and pulled his woman down into a hug. “Did I seem under rested when I woke you up when I got home?”
Cindy moaned softly through a smile. “No, you seemed to have had enough energy at the time. Made me wish I was with you in Vegas instead of stuck here. And all for no good reason.”
Hannibal ran a hand through Cindy’s hair and kissed her face at random, enjoying her weight on him. “You mean Mrs. Peters didn’t appreciate your being there?”
“Well, not like she was alone or anything. She had a gentleman there to comfort her.” Cindy squeezed Hannibal tight before forcing herself to stand up. “We really need to get out to the hospital, lover. Bea’s going to be waiting for us.”
Hannibal sat up and filled his lungs with life. “A man? Not her husband I assume. Well, maybe she had a lover here in the states, a man from her past?”
“Sure didn’t look like it,” Cindy said over her shoulder on her way to the shower. “I mean I didn’t see any signs of intimacy. And this far from home, why would she hide it?”
Dean Edwards’ quarters at Charter looked more like a motel room than a hospital room. There was none of the usual antiseptic smell Hannibal always expected. If it was ever there the vase full of fresh flowers on the round table drowned it out. Bea sat in a chair on Dean’s left, holding his hand. Doctor Roberts, standing beside her, occasionally jotted a cryptic note on a clipboard. Cindy stood with her hands braced on the foot of the bed. Hannibal chose a chair on Dean’s right so he could watch Bea’s face and Roberts. The windows at Hannibal’s back flooded the room with brightness, but his Oakleys cast a slightly blue light on the scene.
“He has largely withdrawn into himself,” Roberts said, scratching at his substantial gray beard. He turned to face Hannibal, his thick glasses magnifying his eyes into huge brown marbles. “I think perhaps his mind is working overtime trying to process all these sordid events.”
“Yeah?” Hannibal’s face twisted into a bitter scowl. “Well I think it’s from people talking about him like he’s not in the room.” Hannibal leaned forward to tug on Dean’s cotton pajama sleeve. “Hey Dean! I talked to your mom a few days ago. I could probably find her again if you wanted to talk to her.”
Dean answered Hannibal with a stony silence, but did not speak.
“Look, my friend,” Hannibal continued, “if you won’t tell us what happened when you went to Oscar Peters’ house, some very bad people are likely to come in here and take you to prison.”
“This is unacceptable!” Roberts said. “I want you out of here immediately.”
Those words, coming from Roberts’ round teddy bear form brought a smile to Hannibal’s lips, but he stayed focused on Dean. “The doctor can’t protect you forever. The police are just not going to believe all the strange connections in this case are coincidences.” Then the weight of those coincidences pushed one of the puzzle pieces into an unfamiliar slot in Hannibal’s mind and he spoke almost before he realized it.
“When you were in Las Vegas last year, I’ll bet you hung out with Oscar’s friend Fancy.”
“Joan’s friend,” Dean said, correcting Hannibal as if by reflex. The room lapsed into silence and even Dean’s face showed surprise. Bea squeezed his hand staring at Dean as if his just speaking was a miracle.
“Old friends?” Hannibal asked after a moment.
Dean turned to him, squinting into the sun behind him. “Actually, Fancy worked for Joan, at the very beginning of the company.”
“Did Joan tell you that?”
“Well, I guess they both did,” Dean said. “It just kind of came up in conversation one night.”
Hannibal leaned back in his chair. “What an odd thing to lie about.”
The soft purr of Hannibal’s telephone was like an electric current arcing around the room, jolting everyone there. Hannibal recovered first and pulled the device out of his suit coat’s inside pocket. When he heard Ray’s voice, he stepped back toward the windows. Cindy followed, as if to give Bea some privacy. Bea had leaned forward to wrap her arms around Dean, and he was more responsive than he had been since Oscar’s death. Hannibal watched his clients while he asked Ray what prompted his call.
“Just earning my pay, Hannibal,” Ray said. “Got the kid with me, and we watching Ruth Peters.”
“Wait a minute. Monty’s not in school?”
“He said you cleared it with his grandmother,” Ray said. “Didn’t you?”
Hannibal snorted. “We can talk about it later.”
“Well, anyway, Ruth just had a nice long breakfast in the hotel restaurant and now she’s leaving. There was a man with her, but they’re splitting up now.”
“A man?” Hannibal could hear traffic sounds from Ray’s end of the telephone connection. He would be in his cab, ready to move. That meant Hannibal needed to think quickly. He pulled his mind away from the puzzle of Joan’s past and centered it on the grieving widow.
“Describe the man, Ray. Maybe her husband came over after all.”
“I rather doubt that,” Cindy whispered. “Bet it’s her new friend.”
Hannibal held up a hand to quiet Cindy, and then began to repeat Ray’s words. “Okay. Around her age. Yeah?
