huge arms in slow motion and enfolded Janet in them. Then, at last he said the right thing.
“Oh, God, baby, I am so sorry.” Then his eyes filled with tears and he joined his wife in pouring out all the bad.
Sitting on the floor, Hannibal suddenly saw something too. Something obvious that he had missed. He turned to Cindy, sudden excitement brushing away his fatigue.
“Did you see that? Old Doc Roberts was right. Francis didn’t kill Dean’s father. Or Oscar. Our murderer’s a man.”
29
Tuesday
Isaac Ingersoll looked up from his plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs and said, “I owe you, Hannibal. Don’t think I don’t know that.”
The aroma of fried bacon still hung in the air and Hannibal suspected it helped everyone’s appetite. Janet and Cindy had whipped up quite a feast out of simple ingredients. Hannibal pushed more eggs up on his fork with a slice of toast.
“If you really feel that way, you know how you can pay me back,” Hannibal said. “Accept the counseling we talked about and get serious about overcoming your problem.”
“I swear I’m turning over a new leaf,” Isaac said. “Guess I never realized how much I was making my Janet hate me. I can’t stand to think I could lose her forever.” As he spoke, he covered her hand and most of her forearm with his palm.
Hannibal had to admit that Janet looked cute in Cindy’s robe. The four of them sat around Hannibal’s kitchen table enjoying some quiet time. Janet had slept on Hannibal’s sofa while her husband stayed across the hall in Hannibal’s office. Last night’s action seemed to have made an impression on him, and he was docile now.
“I’ll be going in to the office a little late,” Cindy said. “If you guys will work with me here I’ll get on the phone and set up some counseling sessions for you through an agency that won’t charge you much. You’ll have to live apart for a while, but I think if you can be honest with yourselves and make an effort, the professionals can make your relationship work again.”
“Okay, honey why don’t you work with these folks in here?” Hannibal said, pushing away from the table. “I want to take a closer look at those pictures you brought me.”
“They’re out in the living room,” Cindy said, already reaching for the wall phone. Hannibal picked up his coffee and a table knife before shuffling off to the front room. Warm and comfortable in his sweat suit he wanted to do some relaxed thinking away from the Ingersolls’ problems. Besides, he was expecting company.
Plopping down on the sofa, Hannibal clicked on the television and tuned in CNN. Then he slid a set of 8” X 10” photographs out of the manila envelope Cindy had left on the coffee table. Early sunlight over his shoulder spotlighted the pictures of two men who had never met but were inextricably linked in death. One of those links was the focus of the pictures. Each man had received a single vertical knife wound, just above his collarbone. Forensic scientists had studied these pictures too and told their bosses that they were the same width, the same length and almost certainly the same depth. Made with the same or extremely similar knives. It would not be hard to convict the same person of both murders.
Thinking of his own violence-filled life, Hannibal realized he was glad his mother would never be presented with this view of her son. Considering his violent life, Hannibal fully expected his last photo to be posed by a police forensics scientist examining a knife or gunshot wound. By leaving ahead of him, Hannibal’s mother was safe from this shock. It reminded him of a couple of small debts he owed to two mothers he had spoken to in the last week. Francis Edwards, now Irons, had trusted him and was now in jail for that trust. He owed it to her to prove her innocence. And he owed Ruth Peters two things. First, the identity of her son’s killer. Also, he must return Oscar’s high school yearbook to her. He was foolish not to give it to her right away. It might be her last, most valuable keepsake of her lost son.
This time when a knock came at the door Hannibal just called, “Come in. Coffee’s in the kitchen.” Sarge stepped in and passed Hannibal, who had already gone back to examining the photos. When Sarge returned to the room with a big mug, he was crunching on a piece of bacon.
“That’s a big boy you got back there,” Sarge said. “Now what’s up? You want a fuller report of our Vegas vacation?”
“Just glad you got back safe and sound,” Hannibal said. “Want you to take a look at these two pictures.”
Sarge accepted them as Hannibal stood up. “Nasty business. But effective, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah,” Hannibal said, “and the best clue we have to the murder. Now I’ve been thinking I had the murderer in my sights, a woman, but what happened here last night changed my mind. That little petite blonde in there went after the big guy with a knife.”
“You’re kidding?” Sarge grinned big. “Bet he was surprised as hell. Guys like that never expect the worm to turn.”
“Yeah, it changed his world view, all right,” Hannibal said. “But check this out. When she went at him, she held the knife wide, like this, and swung in on him to slash him.” Hannibal mimed her actions with the table knife.
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve seen as a bouncer,” Sarge said, nodding. “When women get mad they swing at you like that, or backhand, the same way, to get more force.” He glanced quickly toward the kitchen to make sure no female ears were tuned to him. Then with his voice lowered he said, “When a woman hates you, she doesn’t want to kill you. She wants to hurt you. There’s a big difference.”
Hannibal nodded, smiling. “Right. That’s what I figured. So I thought, got to be a man. But men I’ve seen in fights generally go for the gut. I mean, who stabs at the throat? You’ve seen a lot more knife fights than I have in bars and such. How do you get a wound like that?”
Sarge held out a hand and Hannibal surrendered the little knife. Sarge stood facing him and tried a couple of tentative moves toward Hannibal. Then he stopped to think. “Do I have to be facing you?”
That raised one of Hannibal’s eyebrows. “Hm. I guess not.”
Sarge stepped quickly toward Hannibal but to his right. Sarge’s left arm looped quickly around Hannibal’s throat as Sarge stepped around him. The knife in his right fist moved to a position just an inch away from Hannibal’s throat. Then he froze and loosened his grip enough for Hannibal to look down.
“Yow,” Hannibal said, bent backward by the shorter man’s grip. “Yep, that would do it all right.”
“That’s the way they taught me to take out a sentry in the corps,” Sarge said, relaxing and releasing his friend.
Hannibal rolled his shoulders forward. “Sure. Should have been obvious to everyone. Not just a man, but a man who’s had military training. He stepped in silently after the argument, but before Francis came in. One quick strike and out. Maybe Dean wasn’t so far off after all.”
“I’m not sure what all that means,” Sarge said, “except I’m pretty sure it means a busy day for you.”
“You got that right,” Hannibal said, sliding the police photos back into their envelope. “I need to see the man who might be able to tell me where Joan Kitteridge ran off to. I have to return an item to the most recent murder victim’s mother. And I guess I need to know a lot more about Joan’s ex-husband. I can think of two people who might be able to tell me about him. I’ll question one, and I think I can get Cindy to talk to the other.”
Each time Hannibal pulled into the Kitteridge driveway, his tension level was a little bit higher. This time he arrived intending to be downright confrontational, and that did not feel good to him. Langford Kitteridge was certainly spry and energetic, but he was still a lonely old man, whose only family was missing and presumed in hiding.
Again Hannibal rang the doorbell in his working suit and tie, glasses and gloves. This time when the door to the big colonial swung open, Langford looked at Hannibal with both familiarity and hopefulness. His face seemed even more deeply lined than before, worry pulling the skin of his face downward.
“Mr. Jones! Please come in. Do you have word of my niece?”
Hannibal stepped inside, but stopped in the cavernous living room in front of the long black leather sofa. “No
