Potter Changes the World

Standing near the door in a crowded bookstore at midnight I came to a startling revelation. I might need to break down and read this series of young adult British dark fantasy novels in order to communicate with my woman and the youngster I’m mentoring.

Watching people from six to 60 bum-rushing the counter I saw that this Harry Potter thing is not just a triumph of 21st Century marketing. It is a genuine social phenomenon.

Teen street hustler Monte and crusading business lawyer Cindy have bonded over these books and these characters in a way I never could with either of them. I haven’t read any of the books, and I haven’t paid much attention when I’ve taken them to see the movies. But you don’t have to get into the books to get the most important part. The stories aren’t so much adventures as they are morality tales. It’s about the ongoing battle between good and evil, halfway between the pure fantasy of the Lord of the Rings and the reality-based fantasy of James Bond. Like the fantasies I grew up on - Bond, Tarzan, Batman or my old role models Lew Archer and Travis McGee, people read this stuff for fun. They hardly seem to notice the moralizing, and that makes it all the more effective.

Naturally I love anything that gets Monte to sit down with a book, but the real shaker for me is that Cindy likes the books just as much. I hardly ever read fiction myself, except mysteries to test myself against the puzzle, but I’ve gotten dragged into the debates between Cindy and Monte about the plot twists.

The night after the “midnight party” we went to the IMAX and I actually watched the latest Harry Potter movie. At my place afterward I provided the popcorn and sodas and we talked... actually talked... until Monte nodded off on the sofa. Cindy leaned her head on my shoulder.

“We’re boring you to tears, aren’t we?” she asked.

“You kidding? Maybe you don’t get just how hard it is to have a meaningful discussion with a young teenager. And it’s good for him to hear stuff like the fact that this hot shit lawyer was crying when she finished a book. Listening him bitch about who died or who turned on their friends I really get to see the core of the boy. He gets the... um... I guess he gets the character of the characters. Do you get what I mean?”

Cindy said, “Reading can be a very solitary activity, but I guess we need to thank J.K. Rowling for giving us the one thing every good book ought to gives you - not just a good read, but a good reason for conversation.”

Charged with Murder

It took me a while to find a place to park that Friday evening in Northwest DC. The streets are generous and wide out in the Spring Valley neighborhood, but too many official vehicles were crowding me out of the driveway and the rest of the cul-de-sac. When I finally hiked up to the house, my girl Cindy was standing out front with her client.

“Hannibal I’m so glad you’re here,” she said as I came within earshot. “Mr. Nolton here has had a terrible shock and I hoped you could help us straighten things out.”

The tall, well-dressed fellow beside her stuck his hand out. “You’re Hannibal Jones? The Troubleshooter and private eye I’ve heard so much about? Good. Maybe the cops will believe you, and I can start taking care of the ugly details.”

I returned the firm shake. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Nolton,” I said. “But sorry it has to be under these circumstances. Want to give me a quick rundown of what you know?”

His lips quivered a little and he ran a hand through his nicely styled red hair. “I know it’s my fault because she found out last week that I was having an affair. But she said we’d talk about it when I got back from my business trip. I get back after three days away and I find her in the garage. In the Lexis. She was so still. Her skin was...”

When Nolton broke down Cindy picked up the story. “She was dead behind the wheel, Hannibal, in the closed garage. Mr. Nolton wisely called his attorney immediately. None of the partners is in town right now so I rushed right over. The coroner’s in there now but his quick assessment is carbon monoxide poisoning and she looks to be about three days gone.”

Then she said a word or two to Nolton and took my arm to guide me toward the garage. Once he couldn’t hear us, she said, “He’d really like for you to reassure the police, as an outside consultant, that his wife’s death is an obvious suicide. It might shorten their investigation and speed up any settlement.”

I said, “Yeah, he’s a brand new widower but you’re my woman. What do YOU want?”

We stopped at the open garage door and Cindy said, “I knew Mrs. Nolton and I just can’t see her killing herself. Just see if you can get a feel for whether my client is a victim or a potential defendant.”

I nodded and stepped into the garage. The crime scene fellow recognized me and didn’t give me any grief. I tightened my gloves on my hands and just looked over his shoulder when he opened the driver’s door. They’d hauled the body away, but the stench of three-day-old corpse had stayed behind. He started dusting for prints, but we both knew that if he found them from both Noltons it wouldn’t mean anything. There was an empty CD case on the passenger seat. It wasn’t labeled, and curiosity prompted me to lean over the tech and poke the stereo’s power button with a gloved fingertip. Dolly Parton’s voice poured out, claiming in strained tones that she would always love me. I liked it better by Whitney Houston.

“Music to die by, eh?” the tech said, continuing his work. I shut it off and walked back out on the driveway where Cindy stood waiting.

“You couldn’t have seen anything that fast,” she said.

“Enough,” I said. I looked at Nolton over in front of the door. A plainclothes detective was taking a statement from him right then, so I waved a uniform over. “Don’t let Mr. Nolton wander off, kid,” I said. “And when your lead detective is done with him, you’ll be a hero if you remind him to check Mr. Nolton’s actual whereabouts every minute of the day and night since he left on his trip.”

“Okay,” Cindy said. “You think he came back here three days ago and killed her. So do I, but what makes you think so?”

“The CD,” I said.

“Yeah, a pretty depressing choice, but how is that a clue?”

I grinned. “Think it through, babe. A woman gets in a car, shuts the garage door, starts the car, starts the tear-jerking music, and sits there until she’s dead. Does she turn it off?”

Cindy shook her head. “Of course not. But it’s reasonable to assume the husband came home, found her in the garage and once he was sure she was dead, he turned off the stereo and I guess the car.”

“Not likely,” I said, watching Nolton in front of the house. “Not three days later. The car would have run out of gas. But the ignition would have still been on and the stereo too. So…”

She jumped in. “So the battery should be dead. But you just turned the stereo on and it played.”

“Uh huh. Somebody shut off the car not too long after the woman was dead. Maybe somebody who didn’t want CO2 seeping into the house the last couple of days. Now I’ve got no proof as to who that might have been, but I think we can pretty much rule out suicide, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Cindy said, “and if we don’t find a third person’s fingerprints inside the car, I’m afraid my client is going to be a defendant after all. Since the battery was still charged, I think he will be too.”