“I don’t know. I was getting older. I stayed home in Charlottesville more. School and stuff. I’m not sure I even noticed at first, because she was always a quiet kid. I didn’t even know she had a boyfriend. Then my father, you know . . . I didn’t see the Lombards after that. I got arrested about three months after.” Gibson threw down his fork and sat staring at the pie. “I’ve got a question. What do you know about the Phillies cap? From the Breezewood tape.”

“The cap? Not a lot. Nothing special about it as far as I know. Neither of her parents identified it as something she owned. She hated baseball with a passion, so the assumption is she bought it on the road.”

“Who said she hated baseball?”

“Her parents. It’s in the FBI interview transcripts.”

“Really? That’s weird.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just something bothers me about that cap. Probably nothing.”

“Probably,” she agreed. “But you have to respect a hunch. Talk me through it.”

“Well, you’re right about Bear not being into sports. At least that’s how I remember it. But Duke and Lombard talked a lot of baseball. They were both huge Orioles fans. I think I’d remember if it got under her skin. She was kind of a heart-on-her-sleeve kind of kid, you know?”

“Well, like you said, you hadn’t seen her in a while.”

“Yeah,” Gibson agreed without sounding terribly convinced.

At the counter, Fred Tinsley stirred cream into his coffee and looked over the menu. He wasn’t hungry, but when in Rome. He couldn’t hear what the two men and the woman were saying, but it made no difference. He wasn’t here to eavesdrop. He just wanted a little look-see.

The little man was an ex-cop in Los Angeles, but he didn’t look like much. Still, Dan Hendricks had probably been underestimated all his life. Tinsley wouldn’t make that error. The other man, Vaughn, looked physically capable and had a military background, but as a computer tech of some sort. Since when did marines use keyboards? It was sad what the world was becoming.

Charles was the only one of the three with quality. She had taken lives in combat. Tinsley would appreciate killing her the most. He sipped his coffee and wondered how he would do it if actually called upon to kill them. It all depended on whether they were successful. Their lives depended on their being incompetent. It struck Tinsley as rather funny.

It really was a most unusual assignment. He would be paid in either event, so he could watch the drama unfold without a stake in the outcome. The novelty of it appealed to him, and he was curious to see how it played out. In the meantime, all he had to do was wait and watch. He was good at both those things.