بخش 01 - فصل 02

2

Pete’s cell rings twice, and then his old partner is in his ear. “Huntley.”

Hodges says, “Listen to me carefully, because you may be tested on this material later. Yes, I’ll be at the party. Yes, I’ll make a few remarks after the meal, amusing but not raunchy, and I’ll propose the first toast. Yes, I understand both your ex and your current squeeze will be there, but to my knowledge no one has hired a stripper. If anyone has, it would be Hal Corley, who is an idiot, and you’d have to ask hi—”

“Bill, stop. It’s not about the party.”

Hodges stops at once. It’s not just the intertwined babble of voices in the background—police voices, he knows that even though he can’t tell what they’re saying. What stops him dead is that Pete has called him Bill, and that means it’s serious shit. Hodges’s thoughts fly first to Corinne, his own ex-wife, next to his daughter Alison, who lives in San Francisco, and then to Holly. Christ, if something has happened to Holly . . .

“What is it about, Pete?”

“I’m at the scene of what appears to be a murder-suicide. I’d like you to come out and take a look. Bring your sidekick with you, if she’s available and agreeable. I hate to say this, but I think she might actually be a little smarter than you are.”

Not any of his people. Hodges’s stomach muscles, tightened as if to absorb a blow, loosen. Although the steady ache that’s brought him to Stamos is still there. “Of course she is. Because she’s younger. You start to lose brain cells by the millions after you turn sixty, a phenomenon you’ll be able to experience for yourself in another couple of years. Why would you want an old carthorse like me at a murder scene?”

“Because this is probably my last case, because it’s going to blow up big in the papers, and because—don’t swoon—I actually value your input. Gibney’s, too. And in a weird way, you’re both connected. That’s probably a coincidence, but I’m not entirely sure.”

“Connected how?”

“Does the name Martine Stover ring a bell?”

For a moment it doesn’t, then it clicks in. On a foggy morning in 2009, a maniac named Brady Hartsfield drove a stolen Mercedes-Benz into a crowd of job-seekers at City Center, downtown. He killed eight and seriously injured fifteen. In the course of their investigation, Detectives K. William Hodges and Peter Huntley interviewed a great many of those who had been present on that foggy morning, including all the wounded survivors. Martine Stover had been the toughest to talk to, and not only because her disfigured mouth made her all but impossible to understand for anyone except her mother. Stover was paralyzed from the chest down. Later, Hartsfield had written Hodges an anonymous letter. In it he referred to her as “your basic head on a stick.” What made that especially cruel was the radioactive nugget of truth inside the ugly joke.

“I can’t see a quadriplegic as a murderer, Pete . . . outside an episode of Criminal Minds, that is. So I assume—?”

“Yeah, the mother was the doer. First she offed Stover, then herself. Coming?”

Hodges doesn’t hesitate. “I am. I’ll pick up Holly on the way. What’s the address?”

“1601 Hilltop Court. In Ridgedale.”

Ridgedale is a commuter suburb north of the city, not as pricey as Sugar Heights, but still pretty nice.

“I can be there in forty minutes, assuming Holly’s at the office.”

And she will be. She’s almost always at her desk by eight, sometimes as early as seven, and apt to be there until Hodges yells at her to go home, fix herself some supper, and watch a movie on her computer. Holly Gibney is the main reason Finders Keepers is in the black. She’s an organizational genius, she’s a computer wizard, and the job is her life. Well, along with Hodges and the Robinson family, especially Jerome and Barbara. Once, when Jerome and Barbie’s mom called Holly an honorary Robinson, she lit up like the sun on a summer afternoon. It’s a thing Holly does more often than she used to, but still not enough to suit Hodges.

“That’s great, Kerm. Thanks.”

“Have the bodies been transported?”

“Off to the morgue as we speak, but Izzy’s got all the pictures on her iPad.” He’s talking about Isabelle Jaynes, who has been Pete’s partner since Hodges retired.

“Okay. I’ll bring you an éclair.”

“There’s a whole bakery here already. Where are you, by the way?”

“Nowhere important. I’ll get with you as soon as I can.”

Hodges ends the call and hurries down the hall to the elevator.