Staring out her window, Cindy said, “Do some research. It would really help you understand this case better.”
“What do you suggest? Should I look in the library under sicko?”
“Try the internet, darling,” Cindy said. “There’s a whole subculture hanging out in chat rooms, doing in cyber space what they’d be afraid to do in public. Spend some time in a BDSM room. It will really open your eyes.”
“A beady what?”
“BDSM,” she said more slowly. “It stands for bondage, domination, submission and masochism. I think. Actually, I think the D might be for discipline, and the S could stand for sadism. Anyway, the acronym is what you’ll hear most. Either way, lurking in those chat rooms might give you some insight into these girls, and this guy you’re after. And who knows. You might even get turned on.” She gave him that impish grin she used whenever she teased him.
Hannibal turned the wheel a bit more sharply than necessary, shaking Cindy to the other side of the car as he pulled into Marquita’s driveway.
He was halfway to the door when he turned to see Cindy trailing the nails of her left hand along the Tornado’s hood. She looked up and Hannibal wondered if she could tell that he could feel her nails on his spine.
“You know, it’s time for you to get a new car,” she said with a sweet smile. “Something different.” He knew she said it just to annoy him.
Inside, Sarge greeted Hannibal with a handshake and Cindy with a brief hug. Then he steered them into the sitting room. The drapes were pulled back, allowing sunlight to fill the room. The house smelled clean now, not the antiseptic Lysol odor of the process but the freshness that results. The quiet was no long oppressive, and when it was broken Hannibal greeted another change.
“Good morning, Hannibal,” Marquita said, smiling. She was sitting on her sofa in a terrycloth robe and fuzzy slippers, one foot curled beneath her. Her skin, maybe a half tone lighter than Cindy’s, shone like just-polished Brazilian Agate. She had washed and brushed her blonde hair into a gentle wave, revealing a half-inch of light brown roots at her scalp.
“Marquita, you look so much better,” Hannibal said. “Whatever that old doctor’s doing, it’s working.”
“Thank you,” Marquita said with a soft smile, “but really it’s all what my dear Archie is doing. I’m still not myself, but getting there. Now, who is your friend?”
Hannibal took Cindy’s hand and walked her over to Marquita. “Marquita LaPage, this is Cindy Santiago. Cindy is my,” a pause while he stumbled over the right label, “my lady. She’s also a lawyer and a very smart woman.”
Cindy took Marquita’s hand. “I’d like to help if it’s okay with you. I know sometimes when people have troubles, their finances don’t get the attention they should.”
Marquita’s eyes turned away in embarrassment, but came quickly back to Cindy’s. “I’m having a hard time keeping my mind on things these days, and even the tiniest decision seems to be too much for me. In truth, my affairs are a mess right now.”
“Well I specialize in straightening out those messes.”
“You have a kind face,” Marquita said. “For a lawyer, I mean.” Cindy grinned. “Oh no,” Marquita rushed to say, covering her mouth. “I didn’t mean it that way. Oh, mon Deux.”
“It’s okay.” Cindy shook with inner laughter. “I know exactly what you meant, and I take it as a compliment.”
“But you are so kind to offer to help me,” Marquita said. “Just like Hannibal. I am a stranger to you. Why? Hannibal, why are you being so helpful?”
A short silence hung in the room, and Sarge rushed into it. “He’s chasing the guy.”
“Rod?” A visible shiver scampered like a rat down her spine.
“I’m trying to help another of his victims, remember?” Hannibal said. “This other woman, Anita, he moved in on her just like he did you.”
Marquita looked into the carpet. “Dommage. I know what he does to us women. Did he take much of her money too?”
“Actually, he took something much more important to her. I’m not certain but I think it’s medical information of some sort that her father left her. Maybe something she could patent. Could be worth a fortune.”
He was largely talking to himself, still putting it all together, so he was startled when Marquita held her arm out, hand fluttering up and down like a schoolgirl anxious to answer the teacher’s question. “Like a formula?”
“Well, maybe.”
“Then I may have seen this prize.”
The air out on the deck was still and dry. The sun sliced into them like an x-ray and Hannibal worried if Marquita’s pallid skin might burn in minutes. But this was where she wanted to be, so he pulled off his gloves, folded his jacket over the back of his chair, and sipped his iced tea while she stared into the woods beyond her property, and stared into the past. Hannibal, Sarge and Cindy waited in their Adirondack chairs while Marquita traveled back to a worse time.
“Rod had rented a beach house up at Ocean City. He took me there a couple of times. Never alone, you understand. This particular time there were two other men there and three other girls. There were a lot of rooms, and couples would wander off in different combinations from time to time. Rod seemed to like being the ringmaster in that sort of circus. The men they would always try to think of something they hadn’t made you do before. Like they were testing how far they could make us go.”
Hannibal could see the setting in Marquita’s face, as if she really was back in that beach house, reduced to property by the animals in Rod Mantooth’s circus. He felt Cindy squeezing his hand hard, but kept his eyes on Marquita.
“The other girls. Was one of them a sister? Did you hear the name Anita?”
“No,” Marquita said. “Always white girls. I was always the darkest, like the spice added to the recipe. Except for one time. There was this one, Mariah I think her name was. Polynesian, maybe, or Asian in some way. She was real trouble. Always anxious to go off with the men, wanting to push them as far as they pushed us. And too curious. That’s why I remember.”
“What did she do?” Sarge asked. He sat very close to Marquita, leaning in. From time to time his big hand would move toward hers, but he would hesitate as if he feared she might break if he touched her.
“There was this room. No one was allowed in there. He said he kept his money and his important papers in there. But she didn’t listen. So this one time I was in the kitchen getting more beer. I drank a lot that weekend, didn’t I? Anyway, I heard Rod shouting and I ran to see what it was about. The girl, she had gone into his special room. There was a computer, and I guess she liked computers or something. Anyway she was standing with one of the round discs, like a CD in her hand.”
“A CD-Rom,” Hannibal muttered to himself.
“Yes. It was this little golden disc. And he asked her what she was doing, or something like that, and she sort of shrugged her shoulders. He shouted that the disc could be worth ten times what she was worth. And then. Then he slapped her. God, it lifted her right off the floor and that disc spun across the room and slid almost to my feet. I looked down and there was a white label and it said “formulas.” Or maybe it was “formulae,” you know, with an e.”
Hannibal took another long sip from his tea. It was very sweet and so cold it hurt his teeth. “What happened to the girl?”
Marquita looked up. “You don’t really understand how it works, do you? He ordered her to her knees and she knelt. He ordered her to put her face on the cold hardwood floor. She screamed that she was sorry and begged him to forgive her. She was already crying when he pulled off his belt. I didn’t stay around to watch.”
Marquita probably didn’t even notice that she was crying too, but Sarge did. Silent tears left tracks down her fast-drying cheeks, and she seems oblivious to the others. Sarge used a finger to wipe the water from one side of her face. Hannibal stood slowly, eased down the steps to the patio, and began to wander into the yard. When he felt the pressure easing around his chest, he noticed that he was followed.
“It’s hard for you to hear, isn’t it?” Cindy asked, just as they reached the tree line of the narrow wooded area separating them from the next yard.
