sir, I haven’t been able to turn up anything. I was hoping you could give me some more information that might help.”
“Yes, yes. Anything.” Langford waved Hannibal down into the couch and lowered himself into the one opposite. They faced each other over the top of a wide glass-topped coffee table. Track lighting softened the older man’s face, but not enough to make Hannibal’s job any easier.
“Sir, I don’t know if Joan is in trouble or not. But if you haven’t heard from her in all this time she might be. And if she is, I think it could be some trouble returning from her past. Specifically, trouble being caused by her ex- husband.” Not a lie exactly, Hannibal thought. In fact, it could well turn out to be one interpretation of the truth. He watched Langford’s face, following his white bushy eyebrows as they rose and lowered.
“I told you, Mr. Jones, Joanie has never been married.”
Hannibal sighed. “Yes sir, you did tell me that. But now I know that was a lie. And I was hoping, with her safety in question, you might be willing to now tell me the truth. I think it must have been when she was very young, and I think he must have been a military man.”
It happened almost too quickly to follow. The color drained out of Langford’s face, then rushed back up into it. He turned away, and his eyes focused on some imaginary spot in the distance. A grandfather clock ticked somewhere in the house, and Hannibal imagined the sound was connected to Langford’s mind grinding away. Hannibal reminded himself that Joan Kitteridge had probably learned her calculating ways at this old man’s knee. But when Langford turned back to Hannibal, his face was clear and relaxed again. His eyes were hooded, but Hannibal knew that shame could cause that in men old enough to still occasionally feel it.
“She was barely eighteen,” Langford said softly. “Had no interest in listening to the old man. Just took off to be with this fellow. I still don’t know what the attraction was. For her, anyway. Anybody could see the attraction for him, eh? But it didn’t last long. He treated her poorly and she soon understood her mistake.”
Hannibal tried to buoy the mood with a small smile. “Young people make mistakes. But sometimes the mistakes don’t go away as quickly or as permanently as we think. What can you tell me about the boy?”
“Nothing really,” Langford said. “I never cared to know anything about him. Except as you say, he was a soldier.”
“All right,” Hannibal said. “I guess that’s no surprise. How about a description? Can you tell me what he looked like?”
“Back then?” Langford’s eyes turned up as he called his memory into play. “Well, let’s see. I seem to recall a handsome man, a tall man, on the slim side but well muscled, as a soldier would be. Dark brown hair and eyes. High cheekbones. Not a dark complexion but well tanned I’d say.”
“You’ve a good memory, Mr. Kitteridge,” Hannibal said. “It almost sounds like someone I know.”
The address was neither hard to find nor a surprise.
Standing on the roof of Mark Norton’s condominium complex Hannibal could have thrown a football with a reasonable expectation of hitting the building Mark worked in before the ball hit the ground. He parked his Volvo in the only unmarked space he could find. Almost as an afterthought he grabbed Oscar’s yearbook, thinking it might make a useful prop when questioning Mark. Once inside, Hannibal called for an elevator. Mark lived on the 11th floor and just as Hannibal touched that button in the elevator his telephone hummed at him.
“Hannibal? It’s Cindy.”
Even on the worst of days, it brightened his heart to hear her voice. “I know who it is sweetheart. Have you talked to Francis? What did she think of Dean’s theory?”
“Well she was sure glad to know her son doesn’t think she’s a murderer,” Cindy said. “But his basic idea is all wrong. She says she didn’t know that Joan was married and never met or talked to her husband. She couldn’t have told him about her husband’s affair with his wife, and she says she wouldn’t have told him anyway.”
“So Dean’s out of the guilt trip area,” Hannibal said as the elevator smoothly raised him into vertical space. “No way he can be responsible for either of the killings, even by proxy.”
“Yes, but where does that leave you for a suspect?”
“I still like the ex-husband,” Hannibal said in front of Mark’s door. “And I have to say Joan’s tastes seem to be consistent. The description of her husband sounds an awful lot like the guy behind this door I’m knocking on right now. Better talk to you later, babe.”
Mark Norton answered the door in jeans, tee shirt and white socks. One small lick of his hair stuck up in defiance from the back and he hadn’t shaved. He clearly was not on his way anywhere that day. Hannibal smiled his small menacing smile and stepped past him into the great room, which reminded Hannibal of Walt Young’s place.
“Okay Mark, let’s not dance around. Where’s Joan?”
Mark didn’t bother with bravado. He closed the door and headed for the kitchen area as if Hannibal was an invited guest. “She’s not here. Look around if you like. Drink?”
“No thanks,” Hannibal said, “but you go ahead.” He waited for Mark to gulp down half a bloody mary so that he could have his attention again. “She seems to take off quite a bit, unannounced. You should keep better tabs on your wife.”
Mark’s answer was a slight surprise. “Joan isn’t the type of cat you put a bell on, Mr. Jones.”
“So I’ve learned,” Hannibal said. “She’s been really hard for her uncle to keep track of. He hasn’t seen her in days. And he has no idea she’s married you know. How’d you manage to keep such a secret over so many months? And why?”
“So many what? Boy are you confused. We’ve only been married for two weeks. How about some fruit juice?”
This time Hannibal nodded and moved over to take a seat on one of the stools in front of the counter, keenly aware that his position was now the reverse of what it was when he chatted with Francis Edwards in Walt Young’s condo. He decided that he didn’t need to play hardball to get answers here. It was obvious that Mark wanted to keep this friendly, and that was fine with Hannibal.
“So, you weren’t married when you spent the summer together in Vegas?”
Mark handed over a glass of chilled apple juice. “Now you’re fishing, buddy. I’ve never been to Las Vegas before the day you saw me in the hotel room, and Joanie spent the summer in Australia.”
Hannibal sipped his juice and watched Mark’s face closely. Leaning on the counter he was quite relaxed, his mind not really centered on the conversation. If he was lying, he was a pro. On the other hand, he might just feel safe standing behind the truth. That would make him just about the only innocent in this case.
“Yeah, that’s what her uncle thought too. Now don’t tell me. She e-mailed you every day, right?”
Mark adopted a smug smile and pulled open a kitchen drawer. “Yeah, she did, as a matter of fact. But of course, e-mails can come from anyplace. You’ll be more interested in these postmarks.”
With the flourish of a stage magician, Mark flipped his wrist and laid a fan of post cards on the counter in front of Hannibal. And like the mark at a carnival, Hannibal spread the postcards out with one hand, pictures toward himself, considering which one to pick out. Except this time he knew it was the magician who had been fooled. There was no longer an ounce of doubt in his mind that Mark had been dodged as easily as Langford Kitteridge had.
Hannibal soon found the card he wanted. Its glossy cover featured a picture of the Sydney Opera House. “Ah, this one’s from August 12th,” he said blandly. Mark’s brows knit as Hannibal raised the card and held it at arm’s length with the picture toward himself. He looked over the edge of the card at Mark’s now startled face “Didn’t stay for an opera today,” Hannibal said, as if reading right through the card, “but it was well worth stopping just to see this place. Love you always, your Joanie. Right?”
Mark snatched the postcard out of Hannibal’s hand. “How the hell did you do that?” “Sorry, pal,” Hannibal said. “She sent the same card to her uncle. On the same day. With the exact same message. But none of that changes the fact that court records show she was in Las Vegas at the time getting a divorce.”
“Divorce?” Mark built another bloody mary while he talked. “How can that be? I mean, Joan wasn’t married before.”
Hannibal enjoyed the sweet aroma of his apple juice before draining the glass. “Don’t feel bad. Her uncle missed her getting married twice. I figure she got somebody to send her the postcards from Australia, filled them all out, and sent them back.”
Mark swallowed most of his new drink and walked around to the couch. He stood for a while, as if he wasn’t
