He was such a nice man, so excited to be in town visiting a new friend.â
Gino cocked an eyebrow at Magozzi. âWallace Luntz?â
She looked up. âYes, he said his friendâs name was Wally. Does he know Chuck is . . . ?â
Gino winced, then explained the explosion, the 911 call from Spencer, and the fact that Wally Luntz had been shot by his intruder before his house had gone up like a rocket. That threw pretty Lydia for another, more significant loopâher face blanched and her eyes fixed on a distant point, like she was looking for answers to some confounding, internal mystery.
âWally was murdered too?â she whispered.
âIt looks that way.â
âOh my God. This is horrible. I donât know what to say.â
âWeâre hoping you can help us fill in some blanks,â Magozzi prompted. âDo you know why Mr. Spencer was in town to visit Wallace Luntz?â
âAll I can tell you is what Chuck told me.â
After twenty minutes, Magozzi was beginning to think that Lydia Ascher was a beautiful distraction, but a dead end in the pertinent information department.
The whole hydrogen bomb thing was interestingâfascinating, actuallyâbut sheâd said it herselfâit was old news, declassified in the eighties. Certainly nothing that would put a bullâs-eye on a couple of second-generation men who were whiling away their retirement researching family footnotes to the Cold War fifty-plus years after the fact. And that was the extent of her knowledge about Spencer. If he and Wally had been laundering money for the mob or running drugs for a Mexican cartel, he hadnât shared that with his seatmate from L.A. to Minneapolis.
Magozzi flipped to a new page in his notebook. âYou mentioned that Mr. Spencer was trying to get in touch with other descendants. Did he?â
Lydia folded her lips together, and her brows tipped down. âHe told me Wally and some others had reached out to him through his website. Itâs called the Sixth Idea dot net. He showed a little of it to me on his laptop after we got off the plane.â
Magozzi made a note of the siteâs name and thought about the notable absence of any electronics on Spencer, in his hotel room, or in his rental car. âSo he did have a laptop computer with him?â
âYes.â
âThank you. I think weâre just about finished here, Ms. Ascher. Youâve been very gracious with your time, we appreciate it.â
âIâm sorry I havenât been much help. And Iâm very sorry for what happened. I hope youâll find whoever is responsible.â
Magozzi gave her a card. âIf you think of anything else, please call.â
âI will.â She stood and began to slip on her coat. Gino was quick to help her, because a happily married man had chivalry down to anart form. Magozzi would have gotten there maybe half a second later. He should have been a half a second earlier.
She shook their hands, then paused. âYou know, thereâs one thing I didnât mention. Itâs probably silly.â
âNothing is silly, every detail can be a crucial one,â Magozzi reassured her, having trouble keeping his eyes off hers.
Good interview technique,
he thought. Yeah, right.
âChuck and I had a cup of coffee after we got off the plane. There was a man in the café who just . . . well, he made me nervous.â
âHow so?â
âJust a feeling. You know how sometimes people watch you, but theyâre pretending not to?â
Magozzi knew very well, because thatâs exactly what he was doing with Lydia Ascher, and probably what the man in the café had been doing, too. It was hard not to stare at a looker like her. âYes. So you think he was watching you.â
Her forehead crinkled. âActually, it seemed more like he was watching Chuck. In quick glances, you know?â
âWhat
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