Pyramid Deception

by Austin S. Camacho

  “Good morning,” he said in an accent-free voice. “Is Mr. Monroe expecting you?”

  “Probably. Tell him Hannibal Jones is here to discuss his wife’s disappearance.”

  The stranger ushered him into the foyer and marched off through the house. Standing alone in the two story reception area he had time to notice the gleaming hardwood floors, crown molding, and the fact that the house seemed to smell of vanilla. The carpeted stairway to the second floor looked like a workout for any resident. He counted sixteen steps. When he looked down from the second level, the man who had greeted him at the door was standing beside him.

  “Mr. Monroe requests that you join him in the sun room, where he is taking his morning coffee.”

  Hannibal followed his unnamed guide, who opened a door for Hannibal to enter. He walked across the white tile floor to stand beside a table almost covered by sections of the Washington Post, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Seated at the table, in suit and tie, Monroe looked up from behind a piece of a newspaper. He looked at Hannibal for a moment as if deciding how to react to this guest. His sudden smile startled Hannibal when it flared up.

  “Mr. Jones. Thank you for coming so early. I wasn’t sure you had gotten my message.”

  “Excuse me?” Hannibal said. The doorman/personal assistant returned with a tray of sliced fruit and cheese and a pot of coffee. He filled mugs for the two men, and pulled Hannibal’s chair out. The assistant left. Hannibal remained standing.

  “I called your office and left a message but when you didn’t call back I was concerned.”

  “I’m afraid I never did collect my messages,” Hannibal said. “Are you saying you wanted to see me?”

  “Of course,” Monroe said, laying down the newspaper and sipping his coffee. “Please, have a seat.”

  Hannibal settled into his chair, tasted his own coffee and took a moment to enjoy the expansive view of Monroe’s private garden in the early sunlight. He needed the moment to change his strategy. Monroe’s obvious willingness to speak with him called for a shift in his approach. He decided to be direct.

  “Mr. Monroe, I think you can understand my confusion here. You challenged me when we met at the police station. In fact you called me a liar to my face, and even accused me of having something to do with your wife’s disappearance. Why did you want to see me?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? You’re a detective, right? Well, I want to hire you.”

  Hannibal closed his eyes and sipped slowly. He needed to consider his next move very carefully. At that moment he was pursuing an investigation without an actual client, a dicey thing for a private detective to do. He had no justification to give the police for any digging he did, unless he was going to air Cindy’s dirty laundry in public. Taking George Washington Monroe on as a client would make prying easier, and his local influence might make everything easier.

  On the other hand, there were requirements that went along with a client-contractor relationship that could get messy if the client turned out to be a suspect. Well, one sticky item at a time.

  “Your wife is dead, Mr. Monroe,” Hannibal said over the edge of his cup. “Are you saying that you want her killer brought to justice?”

  Monroe cupped his hands and dragged his face across his palms. When he looked up Hannibal wondered if any man could fake the kind of frustration mixed with grief that showed on Monroe’s face.

  “I know,” Monroe said with a sarcastic sigh. “She looks like a trophy wife. Just the right accessory for a black man on the move, to ease his way into well-to-do white Southern society. I knew it looked that way when we married. Hell, she knew it, knew it from day one. I remember her saying to me that she would be a valuable asset, even if all she did was hold my arm and look cute. We laughed about it sometimes. But you need to know that wasn’t the reason I married her. I loved Irene, Jones, but I know the husband is always the obvious suspect. The cops rarely move past the obvious. That makes you the most likely person to prove I didn’t do it.”

  “So, you’re telling me you’re innocent,” Hannibal said. Monroe responded with a warm, perfect smile, the kind that makes people like you whether they want to or not.

  “No, I’m telling you I didn’t kill Irene.”

  “I see. Do you know why I was meeting your wife in a lonely place at night?”

  “As long as you were both dressed I don’t really care,” Monroe said.

  “She was going to tell me about a business deal,” Hannibal said, setting his coffee down. “A deal in which a very dear friend of mine lost a great deal of money. Are you going to plead innocent to that as well?”

  Monroe’s smile never wavered, but his eyes narrowed a little and his hands spread flat atop the bed of newspapers. “Perhaps I misunderstood you, Mr. Jones. Are you recording? Or are you being listened to? What crime are you investigating?”

  “Not recording,” Hannibal said, leaning back with his arms crossed. “Not wired, no mikes, no surveillance of any kind. And right now I’m only investigating the murder of a woman who trusted me. Anything else can wait.”

  Hannibal was surprised to hear himself say that. Of course a murder was more important than a swindle. A woman’s life was more important than any amount of money. But not until he said it out loud did he realize that he had just put Cindy’s problems behind the fate of a total stranger.

  He only had a few seconds to consider his comment before Monroe snapped to his feet. “Let’s take a walk in the garden.”

  Monroe led the way through French doors into what felt like a huge room with no ceiling, tastefully furnished with sculpted hedges and shrubs. A winding flagstone path led them past brown patches that Hannibal knew would be flowerbeds in a few months. Hannibal preferred the crisp, clean air of autumn to the flowery spring scents that always seemed to be trying to cover something up.

  Their brief walk ended at a gazebo beside a stone fountain that was Hannibal’s height. Hannibal thought this must be a most peaceful place to think, listening to the placid gurgling of the clear water splashing down out of the fountain. But he knew that the placid water sounds served a secondary purpose that morning. They gave George Monroe confidence that he was not being monitored.

  “You want to frisk me too?”

  Monroe leaned against the gazebo and turned on that same thousand watt smile. “Let’s be real, okay? We’re both hustlers. Different games, but both hustlers. We don’t trust each other. Doesn’t matter much to you, but I need you, so I’m trying to create a situation where we can maybe ease that a bit. It’s easier if I know I’m only talking to you. So what can I do to make you trust me a little more?”

  Hannibal could have asked Monroe a dozen questions about his finances, his relationship with his wife or his whereabouts on the night of the murder. But none of them would have fostered trust between them, and Hannibal had to admit to himself that if he was to find the truth, he needed Monroe’s cooperation as much as Monroe needed him. Besides, it was more important to learn about the man than the facts of the case.

  “Tell me how you met Irene.”

  Monroe stared for a moment, then nodded as if he understood Hannibal’s motives. “We met at my alma mater, the University of Virginia, if you must know. They have asked me back a few times to speak to the students. I suppose I represent some sort of success picture for them.”

  “The kid who started with nothing and hit the big time,” Hannibal said. “But that’s not Irene’s story, is it?”

  “Oh, no,” Monroe said, his eyes drifting off into the past. “Not at all. She was a trust fund baby. I went to UVA on a scholarship. She was studying art history. I had come through the School of Commerce. Finance was my area of concentration.”

  “I don’t imagine you had too much in common.”

  “She was introduced to me at a little informal mixer after a talk I gave in the president’s house,” Monroe said, dropping onto the bench in the gazebo. “She had on this flowered sundress and her hair was halfway down
her back. I told her I was knocked out by that Alabama accent. My people are from Tennessee.”

  “And yet you don’t have any accent at all.”

  “That’s right. I don’t,” Monroe said, staring into Hannibal’s eyes. “And where are your people from, Jones?”

  “Here and there. So she was a have and you were a have not, you were a bit older too, and there is the color thing. I’m sure she had an army of more suitable suitors. How did you manage to steal her away from them?”

  Monroe placed his fingertips together and released a sigh from the back of his throat that sounded almost like a snake hissing. “She could see that I was truly and deeply in love with her. And I may have been a have not when I attended UVA but I sure wasn’t when I returned. You see, I developed a talent early in life, Mr. Jones. A talent for turning a little money into a lot of money.”

  Hannibal could see that Monroe didn’t like to be pushed. So he pushed just a little harder. “A valuable talent. Of course, first you have to get the little bit of money.”

  ‘Yeah, well I developed a talent for that too. Besides, I was a bit more mature than my Irene was. Like myself, she had already lost her parents. She needed guidance, she needed direction, and I supplied those things.”

  “Yes, you gave her direction and she provided you with a perfect entree into the society you wanted to be part of, in exchange for a very comfortable lifestyle, of course.” Hannibal said, looking around at the private garden and impressive house. When he looked back Monroe was smiling again, fingers laced around one knee.

  “Hannibal, do you know the expression, ‘Git in where ya fit in?’ Well I also have a talent for fitting in wherever I want to get in. Look around. You seen anybody out here looks like us? The population of Great Falls is about 9,000 but I doubt there are more than a hundred African Americans and most of them are maids, butlers or yard workers. It wasn’t easy to get here, to get all this. I’m proud of what I’ve made of my life, but it don’t mean much without my Irene. I need to know what happened to her, and why.”

  “And you figure if I work for you I’ll be able to answer those questions for you.”

  “I know you will,” Monroe said. “I did my homework, Mr. Jones. You don’t quit, and if the mayor or some high level mobster or the President is the one responsible for Irene’s death you’ll bring him in. You’re going to learn things, and I want to know what you know when you know it.”

  Hannibal stepped up into the gazebo and stared down at Monroe. “Okay, let me tell you what I know. I met your wife while on a case for a woman who is very special to me. That woman lost a great deal of money, her entire savings, in an investment scheme and your wife was going to tell me the details of that scheme. That gave whoever was running that scheme a damned good motive for killing her.”

  “And do you know that person was me?” Monroe asked, not wavering from Hannibal’s fierce eye contact.

  “I know that after you were married to her you raided Irene’s trust fund and pretty much drained it dry. I know she found out. I know she hired people to investigate what happened to her money. I know you scared off a lawyer, chased off an accountant and bought off a private investigator to protect your secrets.”

  Monroe got to his feet, standing close enough for Hannibal to smash him to the ground but offering no defense. He somehow managed to look helpless and noble at the same time. “No denials from me. I ain’t saying I’m a good man but I swear to God I didn’t kill her, or have anything to do with her death. So help me.”

  The double meaning of those last three words threw Hannibal. After a moment he turned his eyes away. He was too close. He needed to get some distance, to see the case more broadly. He took a couple of steps up the path and turned back.

  “My client wasn’t the only person hurt in this scheme. There’s no telling how many people have lost their savings. If one of them found out, they might have killed Irene to get at you.”

  Monroe took a deep breath and his smile returned. His Teflon shields were back up. “Look, I ain’t saying I had anything to do with your client’s tragic loss. But if you’ll help me I’ll replace all…however much money she may have lost in a bad investment.”

  So there it was. The devil’s bargain was spelled out in black and white for him. Hannibal could recover Cindy’s loss by simply taking a client and solving a murder. A very attractive trap indeed.

  “I also know somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it look like she ran off with her boyfriend,” Hannibal said, nibbling at the verbal bait. “He’s also missing now and presumed dead. More motive for you. You admitted you knew all about them, and Irene told me you were having her followed.”

  Monroe took a few halting steps toward Hannibal. “Look at me. You can see that isn’t my style. Besides, based on what you already say you know, wouldn’t I try to chase him off or scare him off or buy him off first?”

  When Hannibal grudgingly nodded, Monroe reached inside his guard and rested a hand on his shoulder. “If you’re going to work for me there’s no reason for me to lie, right? There’s some sort of privilege, like with a lawyer. So if I was having my own wife followed, I could tell you. And there’s no crime in that anyway. But I’m telling you now that I never did. Listen, do you like crème brule? I got some inside and it’s so good with that Jamaica Blue coffee.”

  “I don’t think Irene was just paranoid,” Hannibal said. “I’m pretty sure the eyes she felt on her were real. So if you didn’t have people watching her, is it possible these guys were really following you?” At that Washington shrugged, so Hannibal continued. “She told me they questioned Kevin Larson too. I understand he was your personal assistant for a while.”

  “Questioned Kevin?” Monroe started down the path toward the house, then turned and raised a fingertip toward Hannibal. “Those guys might have been the FBI. They are very distrustful of a successful black man who comes from nothing. I know I’ve been a person of interest in some illegal business or other.”

  “Yeah, and your business partner, this Manuel Hernandez, has a pretty shady rep.”

  “Ex-partner,” Monroe said, reaching for the door to the sun room. “He wasn’t too bright. You’ve got to be careful when you’re dealing in securities to stay out of those gray areas. But if a person were to wander into something like that, and if that person were a sharp operator, well, I’m sure that person would arrange things so all the suspicion would fall on somebody who’s not too bright, like poor Manny.” Monroe pulled the door open but Hannibal hesitated at the threshold.

  “Interesting. So you’re saying that if Irene knew anything of interest to the law, Hernandez would have a motive for keeping her quiet. Is that it, Monroe?”

  Monroe turned and winked. “Hey, call me Wash. We’re the partners now.”

  -10-

  The Hyatt Regency had become the unofficial headquarters for the Irene Monroe murder case. Hannibal shared a lunch table in its restaurant with Cindy and Orson Rissik, who stared at his burger for a moment, wondering how to pick it up before deciding to cut it in half first.

  “So what the hell’s an Angus burger anyway? What makes it so special?”

  “You got me,” Hannibal said, picking up a quarter of his sandwich. “What makes a club sandwich worth 14 dollars?”

  “The fact that we’re eating in the wrong place. Now, did you make any progress questioning Monroe?” Rissik asked. “I need to have something solid pretty quick. I’m not getting much support back at headquarters.”

  “Actually, I did get some valuable info from Wash, or at least a few leads worth following up on.”

  “Wash?” Cindy asked. “What, you’re old pals now? Is he no longer a suspect?” Cindy had declared that she needed a healthy meal so she was tackling a seafood salad with small, polite bites. Hannibal wondered if anyone really thought they ate lobster, scallops and shrimp for health reasons.

  “He’s still on the list,” Hannibal said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly. This wa
y I can keep him close, just in case things do point to him in the end.”

  “Besides, he’s an influential citizen around here,” Rissik said between bites. “It’s better to have the nasty camel inside the tent peeing out…”

  “Wash won’t cop to any wrongdoing, but he did tell me his old partner, Manny Hernandez, might have been under investigation by the FBI. If Irene Monroe had something on him that gives him a reason to want her dead.”

  “Unless he already talked to the FBI,” Rissik said. “He might have had sense enough to cut a deal with the feds to drop it all on Monroe.”

  “Maybe you can check that out, Orson,” Hannibal said. His sandwich really was pretty good, the herbs adding a nice tang to the moist grilled chicken breast. But then, he reasoned, there is only so much you can do with chicken, mayonnaise and a BLT. “I want to chase down this Kevin Larson who used to work for Wash. He might be able to give me an objective view of his relationship with Irene, and since he was probably also questioned by the FBI, maybe he can tell us how much Hernandez and Irene really knew.”

  “That sounds promising,” Cindy said. “I’ll join you.”

  Rissik glanced at Hannibal, and then focused on his food. Hannibal wished the lunch crowd was louder and more talkative.

  “Honey, I’m better off doing this one alone.”

  Cindy chewed her salad slowly and thoroughly, allowing several seconds to pass before speaking again. “I can’t just sit up in that room feeling sorry for myself, and I sure as hell can’t go back to work. I have to stay with this. I have to do something.”

  Hannibal was unsure how strong he could be on this point, or how tender his reply needed to be. He was preparing his response when he felt a subtle nudge under the table.

  “Hey, Jones, do you think Monroe is running a scam?” Rissik asked.

  “I know he is,” Cindy said with hatred dripping from her lips. “The man took me for every cent I had, and my poor Jason’s too. Why do you think we’re after him?”