But by then I was already one step ahead of him. I had read the article in Electronics Engineering Journal, and I had a pretty good idea that a “defense analyst” named Thomas Dortman had been one of Anthony Cosgrove’s coworkers at Boeing in the late seventies and early eighties. All I had to do was track him down.
“So what are you going to do now?” Donnie asked. “Will you go talk to him?”
For a moment I thought Donnie was asking if I was going to talk to Dortman. Then I realized he was actually referring to his erstwhile father-in-law—stepfather-in-law—Jack Lawrence.
“I’m sure I will eventually,” I assured him. “But not until after I check out a few things first.”
“And you’ll let us know what you find out?” Donnie asked. “I mean, you’ll let DeAnn know?”
“Believe me,” I told him, “I’ll let you both know.”
Call-waiting buzzed just then. I ended the call with Donnie Cosgrove.
“Mr. Hatcher to see you,” the doorman announced when I switched to the other line.
“Good,” I said. “Send him up.”
I’ll confess right now to having had certain preconceived notions about our visiting economist—none of them very flattering. I had envisioned someone with a fairly wide-load build, horn-rimmed glasses, and a mop of long greasy hair. Todd Hatcher failed to meet those specifications—on every count.
For one thing, he was tall and lanky—scrawny, in fact. And he looked like a cowboy just in off the range in boots and Levi’s and wearing a dripping Stetson and a soggy leather jacket. In one hand he carried a bulging backpack that was just as damp as he was.
“Mr. Beaumont?” he asked as I opened the door.
I nodded. “Welcome. Come on in,” I said. “Make yourself at home.”
Removing his hat, he banged some of the excess water off it out in the hallway before stepping into the apartment. His blond hair was cut in a short but not quite military buzz cut. Without even shedding his jacket, Hatcher, like every other visitor to the penthouse, was immediately drawn to the windows on the far side of the living room.
“Wow,” he exclaimed, looking out on the gray expanse of water that was Elliott Bay and Puget Sound. “What an amazing view!”
“It’s even more amazing when it isn’t raining,” I told him. “Can I take your coat?”
He peeled it off and handed it over, revealing the unapologetic pearl-buttoned Western shirt underneath. As I walked away with the jacket I noticed that the only part that wasn’t wet was the part that had been under the backpack. Rather than putting the wet jacket in the closet, I draped it over the back of one of the kitchen bar stools in hopes of letting it dry.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Todd replied, “coffee would be great. Black, please.”
By the time I returned to the living room he had abandoned the view in favor of sitting in the window seat and examining the room itself. “Growing up in Benson, I never could have imagined a place like this.”
“Benson?” I asked.
“Benson, Arizona.”
“I think I’ve been there,” I said, handing him his coffee. “Isn’t Benson just down the road from Bisbee?”
He grinned. “You’ve actually heard of it? Most people never have. Benson is actually down the road if you’re in Tucson and up the road if you’re in Bisbee, and relative elevations have nothing to do with it.”
I went back to the kitchen and poured a second cup of coffee for me. First impressions are important. The fact that he looked like a hick just off the farm—or ranch, as the case may be—didn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence, but we needed to know something about him. I took my coffee and returned to my recliner.
“What brought you to Washington?” I asked.
“An Ingmar Hanson Fellowship in economics,” he said. “I came here to finish my Ph.D.”
I didn’t know Ingmar Hanson from a hole in the wall, but clearly Todd Hatcher was a hell of a lot smarter than he looked.
“It’s done now,” he said. “My degree was awarded last June. I had a couple of offers to teach, but I wanted to do this first.” He glanced down at the sodden backpack.
“By ‘this’ you mean the study for Ross Connors?”
He nodded. “I had hoped to be able to use it for my dissertation. That would have broken new ground—a dissertation about something useful, for a change—but my adviser wasn’t having any of it. He told me no one’s interested in analyzing the need for geriatric prison beds, which, of course, is patently stupid, since prisons are still one of this country’s growth industries, and the prison population is aging everywhere.”
I tried to picture Todd Hatcher in his cowboy boots and Stetson sauntering across the U. Dub’s beloved Red Square. Talk about out of place! It came as no surprise to me that Todd and one or more of his professors wouldn’t have seen eye to eye.
“Presumably you are interested, though,” I said. “Mind if I ask why?”
Hatcher uncrossed his legs and gave me a speculative look. “I mind,” he said, “but since we’re going to be working together, I could just as well tell you.”