clear that she wasn’t authorized to do anything with the account.”
“Yes,” Ivanovich said, pointing to the screen. “And this letter seems to be the bank officially telling her that the account is now empty, so no more payments will be forthcoming.”
“Right. If this account did belong to Dani Gana, then it looks as though Raisa may have effectively sold her daughter to Gana for a monthly stipend. If that theory holds, then Raisa might not have been too pleased when the money ran out. Suppose she threatened to tell the girl the truth?”
Ivanovich slapped his palm down on the desk. “He killed her to keep Viktoriya from learning his filthy secret. Now we must find her, to make sure she knows why her mother let this animal marry her.”
“We?”
“You have got to find them,” Ivanovich said, his fists clenched and shaking with rage. “Find her and get her to safety. Then I will take care of Dani Gana myself.”
“Look, I do think she needs to know the truth, but…”
“I am not trying to blackmail you,” Ivanovich said, palms forward and brows raised. “Please, let me hire you. I will pay you. In fact, I had planned to pay you anyway when our business was over. I have a good deal of money saved up, money I hoped one day to use to give Viktoriya a good life.”
Hannibal read the documents on his screen more closely to avoid Ivanovich’s eyes. “Look, Aleksandr, I’m worried about the girl too, and I will help you find her and Gana if I can find any leads to their whereabouts. But I won’t set up a guy for you to take him out. We clear?”
After a deep, heavy sigh, Ivanovich said, “I understand. The important thing is to save Viktoriya from this monster.”
“It looks like she was getting about five grand a month until last month,” Hannibal said. “Nice pay for doing nothing, but not exactly wealth untold. Hard to believe a woman with old-school values would give up her only child for this.”
“Who knows how badly she needed the money,” Ivanovich said, resting a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder. “I didn’t know this man Tolstaya, but I know that Nikita gambled with him. Constantly. He may have been in a great deal of debt to the man.”
“Enough to kill him for?”
“Maybe,” Ivanovich said, “but dead men don’t pay up. More likely Nikita killed himself, but to a man like Tolstaya that would not make the debt go away. He would take away everything the surviving wife had and if that did not pay off the debt, he would demand more.”
Hannibal sat back, resting his elbow on the arm of his chair and his chin in his hand. “Sure would like to question that guy. But I’ve got no idea where he is. And I don’t know if anybody knows where Dani Gana took off to with his new bride.”
The ring of the desk phone surprised them both. Hannibal glanced at his watch, confirming that it was awfully late for someone to be calling. After eleven, he would normally let the machine take it. But right then, he wanted to know who had something important enough to call him about at that hour. When he answered the phone, the speaker was surprised to hear him.
“Hannibal?” Rissik asked. “What are you doing in your office at this time of night? I intended to just leave a message.”
“You can’t have a break in the murder already,” Hannibal said. “Besides, it isn’t even your case.”
“Not about the murder. Your other matter.”
Hannibal had to think a moment. “Oh, the car. They found the car?”
“Yeah, I just got the call,” Rissik said. “They found the car, kind of smashed up. And they found the owner. He’s kind of smashed up too. They took him to Georgetown University Hospital and I guess they decided to keep him.”
19
Like writers and artists, detectives often do their most important work when they appear to be doing nothing. Hannibal knew he looked idle, sitting there in the morning sun, staring down at his desk. His desk was almost covered by pictures taken from Ivanovich’s album. The photo featuring Boris Tolstaya was front and center, with other pictures taken in the Russia House surrounding it. All the pretty ladies were in their evening gowns and the men in suits or, in Dani Gana’s case, a tuxedo. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, and he knew that the answer lay someplace in those photographs.
Ivanovich sat a steaming mug of coffee beside the photos. The aroma told Hannibal that his houseguest had found the Hawaiian kona beans. After a sip, he let the nutty, woody flavor linger on his tongue before swallowing.
“Do you intend to visit Cochran in the hospital?” Ivanovich asked. He had slept on the guest bed in the room beyond the office again. Both men seemed to know they were in this together until it was finished, one way or another.
“It was too late to go up there last night,” Hannibal said, “but yeah, I’ll go talk to him today when I’m sure he’s awake.”
“You do realize that Gana did this.”
Hannibal sighed and looked up from the photos. “Yes, Aleksandr, that is my current theory. I think Gana must have caught Cochran spying on him and beat his face in. Then he probably loaded the man into his own trunk, bound and gagged, and drove the car over to that side street. He probably knew that if it sat there for any length of time, unlocked, someone would steal it. They did. But it didn’t go to a chop shop as he likely expected. Some joy- riding kid took the car, smacked it into a tree, and left it there. Cochran was lucky they found him back there.”
“Is there no evidence of all this?”
“Only my stupid eyes.” When Ivanovich gave him a quizzical look, Hannibal said, “When I went to the house, I heard the girl scream and rushed in. I saw Gana with blood on one hand, and there was blood on the back doorsill. I figure he had just returned.”
“And Viktoriya screamed when she saw him with blood on his hand,” Ivanovich said, finishing the thought. “You were so close but could not know.”
“Yeah, just like with this,” Hannibal said, turning back to the pictures. Ivanovich nodded, pushed the visitor’s chair over by the big front windows, and sat with his coffee. A minute of silence passed before Ivanovich spoke again.
“You know my people were watching your woman very closely.”
“Yes,” Hannibal said, not wanting to explore that subject.
“They saw you watching her that day.”
“I had to see her, Aleksandr,” Hannibal said. “I know you understand that.”
“Yes, I do. Who is the man?”
“What man?” Hannibal asked, trying to keep his focus on the pictures.
“The man she went into that house with. You saw him.”
“Oh. He’s nobody. Just the real estate agent.”
“Really?” Ivanovich asked, sipping his coffee and crossing his legs. “I didn’t think real estate agents took their clients to dinner.”
“Look, that’s just a courtesy.” Hannibal’s head snapped up toward Ivanovich, his eyes blazing. “I’m telling you there’s nothing between them. He’s just the hired help.” He opened his mouth to say more but other thoughts arrested his attention. He turned back to the photos and slapped his palm down on the table.
“Of course,” he said, almost shouting. “They all but told me when I was there. Sit tight, Aleksandr. I’ve got to run to the Russia House. It turns out you were right all along. Dani Gana is nowhere near who he says he is.”
The same man answered the door when Hannibal arrived this time, so getting into the Russia House was no problem. He was surprised to learn that this fellow was called Billy. Before Hannibal could ask, Billy told him that
