Mr. Mercedes: A Novel (41 page)

“Not to me,” Jerome says. “I feel the same way about my sister. Especially when she plays her damn boy-band CDs.”

“When they were gone and the house was quiet, I got an idea. I went back down to Olivia’s computer and looked at her email.”

Jerome slaps his forehead. “Shit! I never even thought of checking her mail.”

“Don’t worry, there wasn’t any. She had three accounts—Mac Mail, Gmail, and AO-Hell—but all three folders were empty. Maybe she deleted them herself, but I don’t think so because—”

“Because her desktop and hard drive were full of stuff,” Jerome says.

“That’s right. She has
The Bridge on the River Kwai
in her iTunes. I’ve never seen that. I might check it out if I get a chance.”

Hodges glances toward Discount Electronix. With the sun glaring on the windows it’s impossible to tell if anyone’s watching them. He feels exposed out here, like a bug on a rock. “Let’s take a little stroll,” he says, and leads them toward Savoy Shoes, Barnes & Noble, and Whitey’s Happy Frogurt Shoppe.

Jerome says, “Come on, Holly, give. You’re drivin me crazy here.”

That makes her smile, which makes her look older. More her age. And once they’re away from the big Discount Electronix show windows, Hodges feels better. It’s obvious to him that Jerome is delighted with her, and he feels the same (more or less in spite of himself), but it’s humbling to find he’s been scooped by a Lexapro-dependent neurotic.

“He forgot to take off his SPOOK program, so I thought maybe he forgot to empty her junk mail as well, and I was right. She had like four dozen emails from Discount Electronix. Some of them were sales notices—like the one they’re having now, although I bet the only DVDs they have left aren’t much good, they’re probably Korean or something—and some of them were coupons for twenty percent off. She also had coupons for thirty percent off. The thirty percent coupons were for her next Cyber Patrol out-call.” She shrugs. “And here I am.”

Jerome stares at her. “That’s all it took? Just a peek into her junk mail folder?”

“Don’t be so surprised,” Hodges says. “All it took to catch the Son of Sam was a parking ticket.”

“I walked around back while I was waiting for you,” Holly says. “Their Web page says there are only three I-Ts in the Cyber Patrol, and there are three of those green Beetles back there. So I guess the guy is working today. Are you going to arrest him, Mr. Hodges?” She’s biting her lips again. “What if he fights? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Hodges is thinking hard. Three computer techs in the Cyber Patrol: Frobisher, Hartsfield, and Linklatter, the skinny blond woman. He’s almost positive it will turn out to be Frobisher or Hartsfield, and whichever one it is won’t be prepared to see
kermitfrog19
walking through the door. Even if Mr. Mercedes doesn’t run, he won’t be able to hide the initial shock of recognition.

“I’m going in. You two are staying here.”

“Going in with no backup?” Jerome asks. “Gee, Bill, I don’t think that’s very sma—”

“I’ll be all right, I’ve got the element of surprise going for me, but if I’m not back out in ten minutes, call nine-one-one. Got it?”

“Yes.”

Hodges points at Holly. “You stay close to Jerome. No more lone-wolf investigations.” I should talk, he thinks.

She nods humbly, and Hodges walks away before they can engage him in further discussion. As he approaches the doors of Discount Electronix, he unbuttons his sportcoat. The weight of his father’s gun against his ribcage is comforting.

7

As they watch Hodges enter the electronics store, a question occurs to Jerome. “Holly, how did you get here? Taxi?”

She shakes her head and points into the parking lot. There, parked three rows back from Jerome’s Wrangler, is a gray Mercedes sedan. “It was in the garage.” She notes Jerome’s slack-jawed amazement and immediately becomes defensive. “I
can
drive, you know. I have a valid driver’s license. I’ve never had an accident, and I have Safe Driver’s Insurance. From Allstate. Do you know that the man who does the Allstate ads on TV used to be the president on
24
?”

“That’s the car . . .”

She frowns, puzzled. “What’s the big deal, Jerome? It was in the garage and the keys were in a basket in the front hall. So what’s the big fat deal?”

The dents are gone, he notes. The headlights and windshield have been replaced. It looks as good as new. You’d never know it was used to kill people.

“Jerome? Do you think Olivia would mind?”

“No,” he says. “Probably not.” He is imagining that grille covered with blood. Pieces of shredded cloth dangling from it.

“It wouldn’t start at first, the battery was dead, but she had one of those portable jump-stations, and I knew how to use it because my father had one. Jerome, if Mr. Hodges doesn’t make an arrest, could we walk down to the frogurt place?”

He barely hears her. He’s still staring at the Mercedes. They returned it to her, he thinks. Well, of course they did. It was her property, after all. She even got the damage repaired. But he’d be willing to bet she never drove it again. If there were spooks—real ones—they’d be in there. Probably screaming.

“Jerome? Earth to Jerome.”

“Huh?”

“If everything turns out okay, let’s get frogurt. I was sitting in the sun and waiting for you guys and I’m awfully hot. I’ll treat. I’d really like ice cream, but . . .”

He doesn’t hear the rest. He’s thinking Ice cream.

The click in his head is so loud he actually winces, and all at once he knows why one of the Cyber Patrol faces on Hodges’s computer looked familiar to him. The strength goes out of his legs and he leans against one of the walkway support posts to keep from falling.

“Oh my God,” he says.

“What’s wrong?” She shakes his arm, chewing her lips frantically. “What’s
wrong
? Are you sick, Jerome?”

But at first he can only say it again: “Oh my God.”

8

Hodges thinks that the Birch Hill Mall Discount Electronix looks like an enterprise with about three months to live. Many of the shelves are empty, and the stock that’s left has a disconsolate, neglected look. Almost all of the browsers are in the Home Entertainment department, where fluorescent pink signs proclaim WOW! DVD BLOWOUT! ALL DISCS 50% OFF! EVEN BLU-RAY! Although there are ten checkout lines, only three are open, staffed by women in blue dusters with the yellow DE logo on them. Two of these women are looking out the window; the third is reading
Twilight
. A couple of other employees are wandering the aisles, doing a lot of nothing much.

Hodges doesn’t want any of them, but he sees two of the three he
does
want. Anthony Frobisher, he of the John Lennon specs, is talking to a customer who has a shopping basket full of discounted DVDs in one hand and a clutch of coupons in the other. Frobisher’s tie suggests that he might be the store manager as well as a Cyber Patrolman. The narrow-faced girl with the dirty-blond hair is at the back of the store, seated at a computer. There’s a cigarette parked behind one ear.

Hodges strolls up the center aisle of the DVD BLOWOUT. Frobisher looks at him and raises a finger to say
Be with you soon
. Hodges smiles and gives him a little
I’m okay
wave. Frobisher returns to the customer with the coupons. No recognition there. Hodges walks on to the back of the store.

The dirty blond looks up at him, then back at the screen of the computer she’s using. No recognition from her, either. She’s not wearing a Discount Electronix shirt; hers says WHEN I WANT MY OPINION, I’LL GIVE IT TO YOU. He sees she’s playing an updated version of Pitfall!, a cruder version of which fascinated his daughter Alison a quarter of a century before. Everything that goes around comes around, Hodges thinks. A Zen concept for sure.

“Unless you’ve got a computer question, talk to Tones,” she says. “I only do crunchers.”

“Tones would be Anthony Frobisher?”

“Yeah. Mr. Spiffy in the tie.”

“You’d be Freddi Linklatter. Of the Cyber Patrol.”

“Yeah.” She pauses Pitfall Harry in mid-jump over a coiled snake in order to give him a closer inspection. What she sees is Hodges’s police ID, with his thumb strategically placed to hide its year of expiration.

“Oooh,” she says, and holds out her hands with the twig-thin wrists together. “I’m a bad, bad girl and handcuffs are what I deserve. Whip me, beat me, make me write bad checks.”

Hodges gives a brief smile and tucks his ID away. “Isn’t Brady Hartsfield the third member of your happy band? I don’t see him.”

“Out with the flu.
He
says. Want my best guess?”

“Hit me.”

“I think maybe he finally had to put dear old Mom in rehab. He says she drinks and he has to take care of her most of the time. Which is probably why he’s never had a gee-eff. You know what that is, right?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

She examines him with bright and mordant interest. “Is Brady in trouble? I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s a little on the, you know, peekee-
yoolier
side.”

“I just need to speak to him.”

Anthony Frobisher—Tones—joins them. “May I help you, sir?”

“It’s five-oh,” Freddi says. She gives Frobisher a wide smile that exposes small teeth badly in need of cleaning. “He found out about the meth lab in the back.”

“Can it, Freddi.”

She makes an extravagant lip-zipping gesture, finishing with the twist of an invisible key, but doesn’t go back to her game.

In Hodges’s pocket, his cell phone rings. He silences it with his thumb.

“I’m Detective Bill Hodges, Mr. Frobisher. I have a few questions for Brady Hartsfield.”

“He’s out with the flu. What did he do?”

“Tones is a poet and don’t know it,” Freddi Linklatter observes. “Although his feet show it, because they’re Longfel—”

“Shut up, Freddi. For the last time.”

“Can I have his address, please?”

“Of course. I’ll get it for you.”

“Can I un-shut for a minute?” Freddi asks.

Hodges nods. She punches a key on her computer. Pitfall Harry is replaced by a spread-sheet headed STORE PERSONNEL.

“Presto,” she says. “Forty-nine Elm Street. That’s on the—”

“North Side, yeah,” Hodges says. “Thank you both. You’ve been very helpful.”

As he leaves, Freddi Linklatter calls after him, “It’s something with his mom, betcha anything. He’s freaky about her.”

9

Hodges has no more than stepped out into the bright sunshine when Jerome almost tackles him. Holly lurks just behind. She’s stopped biting her lips and gone to her fingernails, which look badly abused. “I called you,” Jerome says. “Why didn’t you pick up?”

“I was asking questions. What’s got you all white-eyed?”

“Is Hartsfield in there?”

Hodges is too surprised to reply.

“Oh, it’s him,” Jerome says. “Got to be. You were right about him watching you, and I know how. It’s like that Hawthorne story about the purloined letter. Hide in plain sight.”

Holly stops munching her fingernails long enough to say, “Poe wrote that story. Don’t they teach you kids anything?”

Hodges says, “Slow down, Jerome.”

Jerome takes a deep breath. “He’s got two jobs, Bill.
Two
. He must only work here until mid-afternoon or something. After that he works for Loeb’s.”

“Loeb’s? Is that the—”

“Yeah, the ice cream company. He drives the Mr. Tastey truck. The one with the bells. I’ve bought stuff from him, my sister has, too. All the kids do. He’s on our side of town a lot.
Brady Hartsfield is the ice cream man!
”

Hodges realizes he’s heard those cheerful, tinkling bells more than a lot lately. In the spring of his depression, crashed out in his La-Z-Boy, watching afternoon TV (and sometimes playing with the gun now riding against his ribs), it seems he heard them every day. Heard them and ignored them, because only kids pay actual attention to the ice cream man. Except some deeper part of his mind didn’t
completely
ignore them. It was the deep part that kept coming back to Bowfinger, and his satiric comment about Mrs. Melbourne.

She thinks they walk among us,
Mr. Bowfinger said, but it hadn’t been space aliens Mrs. Melbourne had been concerned about on the day Hodges had done his canvass; it had been black SUVs, and chiropractors, and the people on Hanover Street who played loud music late at night.

Also, the Mr. Tastey man.

That one looks suspicious,
she had said.

This spring it seems like he’s
always
around,
she had said.

A terrible question surfaces in his mind, like one of the snakes always lying in wait for Pitfall Harry: if he had paid attention to Mrs. Melbourne instead of dismissing her as a harmless crank (the way he and Pete dismissed Olivia Trelawney), would Janey still be alive? He doesn’t think so, but he’s never going to know for sure, and he has an idea that the question will haunt a great many sleepless nights in the weeks and months to come.

Maybe the years.

He looks out at the parking lot . . . and there he sees a ghost. A
gray
one.

He turns back to Jerome and Holly, now standing side by side, and doesn’t even have to ask.

“Yeah,” Jerome says. “Holly drove it here.”

“The registration and the sticker decal on the license plate are both a tiny bit expired,” Holly says. “Please don’t be mad at me, okay? I had to come. I wanted to help, but I knew if I just called you, you’d say no.”

“I’m not mad,” Hodges says. In fact, he doesn’t know
what
he is. He feels like he’s entered a dreamworld where all the clocks run backward.

“What do we do now?” Jerome asks. “Call the cops?”

But Hodges is still not ready to let go. The young man in the picture may have a cauldron of crazy boiling away behind his bland face, but Hodges has met his share of psychopaths and knows that when they’re taken by surprise, most collapse like puffballs. They’re only dangerous to the unarmed and unsuspecting, like the broke folks waiting to apply for jobs on that April morning in 2009.