ALTHOUGH FRIGHTENED, BITTER, AND struggling against despair, Rachel Dalton remained a lovely woman, with lustrous chestnut hair and blue eyes mysterious in their depths.
She was also, in Hazard’s experience, uncommonly considerate. Having agreed by phone to an interview, she had prepared coffee by the time he arrived. She served it in the living room with a plate of miniature muffins and butter cookies.
In the line of duty, homicide detectives were rarely offered refreshments, never with damask napkins. Especially not from the wives of missing men for whom the police had done embarrassingly little.
Maxwell Dalton, as it turned out, had vanished three months earlier. Rachel had reported him missing when he had been four hours late from an afternoon class at the university.
The police, of course, had not been interested in an adult who was missing only four hours, nor had they been intrigued when he’d not shown up in a day, two days, or three.
“Apparently,” Rachel told Hazard, “we’re living in a time when a shocking number of husbands—and wives—go off on drug binges or just suddenly decide to spend a week in Puerto Vallarta with some [460] tart they met at Starbucks ten minutes ago, or walk out on their lives altogether without warning. When I tried to explain Maxwell, they couldn’t believe in him—a husband so reliable. They were sure he would turn up in time, with bloodshot eyes, a sheepish look, and a venereal disease.”
Eventually, when Maxwell Dalton had been gone long enough for even contemporary authorities to consider the length of his absence unusual, the police had allowed the official filing of a missing-persons report. This had led to little or no activity in search of the man, which had frustrated Rachel, for she had wrongly assumed that a missing-persons case triggered an investigation only a degree less vigorous than a homicide.
“Not when it’s an adult,” Hazard said, “and not when there are no indications of violence. If they had found his abandoned car ...”
His car had not been found, however, nor his discarded wallet stripped of cash, nor any item that might have indicated foul play. He had vanished with no more trace than any ship that had sailed into but not out of the Bermuda Triangle.
Hazard said, “I’m sure you’ve been asked already, but did your husband have any enemies?”
“He’s a good man,” Rachel said, as he expected she would. Then she added what he had not expected, “And like all good people in a dark world, of course he has enemies.”
“Who?”
“A gang of thugs at that sewer they call a university. Oh, I shouldn’t be so harsh. Many good people work there. Unfortunately, the English Department is in the hands of scoundrels and lunatics.”
“You think someone in the department might ...”
“Not likely,” Rachel admitted. “They’re all talk, those people, and meaningless talk at that.” She offered more coffee, and when he declined, she said, “What was the name of the man whose death you’re investigating?”
[461] He had told her only enough to get through her door; and he did not intend to elaborate now. He hadn’t even mentioned that already he had chased down and shot Reynerd’s killer. “Rolf Reynerd. He was shot in West Hollywood yesterday.”
“Do you think his case might be related to my husband’s? I mean, by more than the fact that he took Max’s class in literature?”
“It’s possible,” he said. “But unlikely. I wouldn’t ...”
Oddly enough, a sad smile rendered her more lovely. “I won’t, Detective,” she said, responding to what he had been hesitant to say. “I won’t get my hopes up. But damn if I’ll let them fade, either.”
As Hazard rose to leave, the doorbell rang. The caller proved to be an older black woman with white hair and the most elegant hands he had ever seen, slender and long-fingered and as supple as those of a young girl. The piano teacher, come to give a lesson to the Daltons’ ten-year-old daughter.
Drawn by the music of her teacher’s voice, Emily, the girl, came downstairs in time to be introduced to Hazard before he left. She had her mother’s loveliness but not yet as much steel in her spine as her mother did, for her lower lip trembled and her eyes clouded when she said, “You’re going to find my father, aren’t you?”
“We’re going to try hard,” Hazard assured her, speaking for the department, hoping that what he said would not prove to be a lie.
After he crossed the threshold and stepped onto the front porch, he turned............