بخش 01 - فصل 11

11

Tom Saubers is more than willing to do the favor Hodges has asked of him, even though it means rescheduling a couple of afternoon appointments. He owes Bill Hodges a lot more than a tour through an empty house up in Ridgedale; after all, the ex-cop—with the help of his friends Holly and Jerome—saved the lives of his son and daughter. Possibly his wife’s, as well.

He punches off the alarm in the foyer, reading the numbers from a slip of paper clipped to the folder he carries. As he leads Hodges through the downstairs rooms, their footfalls echoing, Tom can’t help going into his spiel. Yes, it’s quite a long way out from the city center, can’t argue the point, but what that means is you get all the city services—water, plowing, garbage removal, school buses, municipal buses—without all the city noise. “The place is cable-ready, and way above code,” he says.

“Great, but I don’t want to buy it.”

Tom looks at him curiously. “What do you want?”

Hodges sees no reason not to tell him. “To know if anyone has been using it to keep an eye on that house across the street. There was a murder-suicide there this past weekend.”

“In 1601? Jesus, Bill, that’s awful.”

It is, Hodges thinks, and I believe you’re already wondering who you should talk to about becoming the selling agent on that one.

Not that he holds that against the man, who went through his own hell as a result of the City Center Massacre.

“See you’ve left the cane behind,” Hodges comments as they climb to the second floor.

“I sometimes use it at night, especially if the weather is rainy,” Tom says. “The scientists claim that stuff about your joints hurting more in wet weather is bullshit, but I’m here to tell you that’s one old wives’ tale you can take to the bank. Now, this is the master bedroom, and you can see how it’s set up to catch the morning light. The bathroom is nice and big—the shower has pulsing jets—and just down the hall here . . .”

Yes, it’s a fine house, Hodges would expect nothing else here in Ridgedale, but there’s no sign anyone has been in it lately.

“Seen enough?” Tom asks.

“I think so, yes. Did you notice anything out of place?”

“Not a thing. And the alarm is a good one. If someone had broken in—”

“Yeah,” Hodges says. “Sorry to get you out on such a cold day.”

“Nonsense. I had to be out and about anyway. And it’s good to see you.” They step out the kitchen door, which Tom relocks. “Although you’re looking awfully thin.”

“Well, you know what they say—you can’t be too thin or too rich.”

Tom, who in the wake of his City Center injuries was too thin and too poor, gives this oldie an obligatory smile and starts around to the front of the house. Hodges follows a few steps, then stops.

“Could we look in the garage?”

“Sure, but there’s nothing in there.”

“Just a peek.”

“Cross every t and dot every i, huh? Roger that, just let me get the right key.”

Only he doesn’t need the key, because the garage door is standing two inches ajar. The two men look at the splinters around the lock silently. At last Tom says, “Well. How about that.”

“The alarm system doesn’t cover the garage, I take it.”

“You take it right. There’s nothing to protect.”

Hodges steps into a rectangle with bare wood walls and a poured concrete floor. There are boot prints visible on the concrete. Hodges can see his breath, and he can see something else, as well. In front of the left overhead door is a chair. Someone sat here, looking out.

Hodges has been feeling a growing discomfort on the left side of his midsection, one that’s putting out tentacles that curl around to his lower back, but this sort of pain is almost an old friend by now, and it’s temporarily overshadowed by excitement.

Someone sat here looking out at 1601, he thinks. I’d bet the farm on it, if I had a farm.

He walks to the front of the garage and sits where the watcher sat. There are three windows running horizontally across the middle of the door, and the one on the far right has been wiped clean of dust. The view is a straight shot to the big living room window of 1601.

“Hey, Bill,” Tom says. “Something under the chair.”

Hodges bends to look, although doing so turns up the heat in his gut. What he sees is a black disc, maybe three inches across. He picks it up by the edges. Embossed on it in gold is a single word: STEINER.

“Is it from a camera?” Tom asks.

“From a pair of binoculars. Police departments with fat budgets use Steiner binocs.”

With a good pair of Steiners—and as far as Hodges knows, there’s no such thing as a bad pair—the watcher could have put himself right into the Ellerton-Stover living room, assuming the blinds were up . . . and they had been when he and Holly were in that room this morning. Hell, if the women had been watching CNN, the watcher could have read the news crawl at the bottom of the screen.

Hodges doesn’t have an evidence Baggie, but there’s a travel-sized pack of Kleenex in his coat pocket. He takes out two, carefully wraps the lens cap, and slips it into the inside pocket of his coat. He rises from the chair (provoking another twinge; the pain is bad this afternoon), then spies something else. Someone has carved a single letter into the wood upright between the two overhead doors, perhaps using a pocketknife.

It’s the letter Z.