بخش 03 - فصل 36

36

‘Oough,’ Holly says as they approach the empty service desk in the middle of Andrew Halliday’s narrow shop. ‘What’s that smell?’

‘Blood,’ Hodges replies. It’s also decaying meat, but he doesn’t want to say that. ‘You stay here, both of you.’

‘Are you carrying a weapon?’ Jerome asks.

‘I’ve got the Slapper.’

‘That’s all?’

Hodges shrugs.

‘Then I’m coming with you.’

‘Me, too,’ Holly says, and grabs a substantial book called Wild Plants and Flowering Herbs of North America. She holds it as if she means to swat a stinging bug.

‘No,’ Hodges says patiently, ‘you’re going to stay right here. Both of you. And race to see which one can dial nine-one-one first, if I yell for you to do so.’

‘Bill—’ Jerome begins.

‘Don’t argue with me, Jerome, and don’t waste time. I’ve got an idea time might be rather short.’

‘A hunch?’ Holly asks.

‘Maybe a little more.’

Hodges takes the Happy Slapper from his coat pocket (these days he’s rarely without it, although he seldom carries his old service weapon), and grasps it above the knot. He advances quickly and quietly to the door of what he assumes is Andrew Halliday’s private office. It’s standing slightly ajar. The Slapper’s loaded end swings from his right hand. He stands slightly to one side of the door and knocks with his left. Because this seems to be one of those moments when the strict truth is dispensable, he calls, ‘It’s the police, Mr Halliday.’

There’s no answer. He knocks again, louder, and when there’s still no answer, he pushes the door open. The smell is instantly stronger: blood, decay, and spilled booze. Something else, too. Spent gunpowder, an aroma he knows well. Flies are buzzing somnolently. The lights are on, seeming to spotlight the body on the floor.

‘Oh Christ, his head’s half off!’ Jerome cries. He’s so close that Hodges jerks in surprise, bringing the Slapper up and then lowering it again. My pacemaker just went into overdrive, he thinks. He turns and both of them are crowding up right behind him. Jerome has a hand over his mouth. His eyes are bulging.

Holly, on the other hand, looks calm. She’s got Wild Plants and Flowering Herbs of North America clasped against her chest and appears to be assessing the bleeding mess on the rug. To Jerome she says, ‘Don’t hurl. This is a crime scene.’

‘I’m not going to hurl.’ The words are muffled, thanks to the hand clutching his lower face.

‘Neither one of you minds worth a tinker’s dam,’ Hodges says. ‘If I were your teacher, I’d send you both to the office. I’m going in. You two stand right where you are.’

He takes two steps in. Jerome and Holly immediately follow, side by side. The fucking Bobbsey Twins, Hodges thinks.

‘Did Tina’s brother do this?’ Jerome asks. ‘Jesus Christ, Bill, did he?’

‘If he did, it wasn’t today. That blood’s almost dry. And there’s the flies. I don’t see any maggots yet, but—’

Jerome makes a gagging noise.

‘Jerome, don’t,’ Holly says in a forbidding voice. Then, to Hodges: ‘I see a little ax. Hatchet. Whatever you call it. That’s what did it.’

Hodges doesn’t reply. He’s assessing the scene. He thinks that Halliday – if it is Halliday – has been dead at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer. Probably longer. But something has happened in here since, because the smell of spilled liquor and gunpowder is fresh and strong.

‘Is that a bullet hole, Bill?’ Jerome asks. He’s pointing at a bookshelf to the left of the door, near a small cherrywood table. There’s a small round hole in a copy of Catch-22. Hodges goes to it, looks more closely, and thinks, That’s got to hurt the resale price. Then he looks at the table. There are two crystal decanters on it, probably Waterford. The table is slightly dusty, and he can see the shapes where two others stood. He looks across the room, beyond the desk, and yep, there they are, lying on the floor.

‘Sure it’s a bullet hole,’ Holly says. ‘I can smell the gunpowder.’

‘There was a fight,’ Jerome says, then points to the corpse without looking at it. ‘But he sure wasn’t part of it.’

‘No,’ Hodges says, ‘not him. And the combatants have since departed.’

‘Was one of them Peter Saubers?’

Hodges sighs heavily. ‘Almost for sure. I think he came here after he ditched us at the drugstore.’

‘Somebody took Mr Halliday’s computer,’ Holly says. ‘His DVD hookup is still there beside the cash register, and the wireless mouse – also a little box with a few thumb drives in it – but the computer is gone. I saw a big empty space on the desk out there. It was probably a laptop.’

‘What now?’ Jerome asks.

‘We call the police.’ Hodges doesn’t want to do it, senses that Pete Saubers is in bad trouble and calling the cops may only make it worse, at least to begin with, but he played the Lone Ranger in the Mercedes Killer case, and almost got a few thousand kids killed.

He takes out his cell, but before he can turn it on, it lights up and rings in his hand.

‘Peter,’ Holly says. Her eyes are shining and she speaks with utter certainty. ‘Bet you six thousand dollars. Now he wants to talk. Don’t just stand there, Bill, answer your fracking phone.’

He does.

‘I need help,’ Pete Saubers says rapidly. ‘Please, Mr Hodges, I really need help.’

‘Just a sec. I’m going to put you on speaker so my associates can hear.’

‘Associates?’ Pete sounds more alarmed than ever. ‘What associates?’

‘Holly Gibney. Your sister knows her. And Jerome Robinson. He’s Barbara Robinson’s older brother.’

‘Oh. I guess … I guess that’s okay.’ And, as if to himself: ‘How much worse can it get?’

‘Peter, we’re in Andrew Halliday’s shop. There’s a dead man in his office. I assume it’s Halliday, and I assume you know about it. Would those assumptions be correct?’

There’s a moment of silence. If not for the faint sound of traffic wherever Pete is, Hodges might have thought he’d broken the connection. Then the boy starts talking again, the words spilling out in a waterfall.

‘He was there when I got there. The man with the red lips. He told me Mr Halliday was in the back, so I went into his office, and he followed me and he had a gun and he tried to kill me when I wouldn’t tell him where the notebooks were. I wouldn’t because … because he doesn’t deserve to have them and besides he was going to kill me anyway, I could tell just by looking in his eyes. He … I …’

‘You threw the decanters at him, didn’t you?’

‘Yes! The bottles! And he shot at me! He missed, but it was so close I heard it go by. I ran and got away, but then he called me and said they’d blame me, the police would, because I threw a hatchet at him, too … did you see the hatchet?’

‘Yes,’ Hodges says. ‘I’m looking at it right now.’

‘And … and my fingerprints, see … they’re on it because I threw it at him … and he has some video discs of me and Mr Halliday arguing … because he was trying to blackmail me! Halliday, I mean, not the man with the red lips, only now he’s trying to blackmail me, too!’

‘This red-lips man has the store security video?’ Holly asks, bending toward the phone. ‘Is that what you mean?’

‘Yes! He said the police will arrest me and they will because I didn’t go to any of the Sunday meetings at River Bend, and he also has a voicemail and I don’t know what to do!’

‘Where are you, Peter?’ Hodges asks. ‘Where are you right now?’

There’s another pause, and Hodges knows exactly what Pete’s doing: checking for landmarks. He may have lived in the city his whole life, but right now he’s so freaked he doesn’t know east from west.

‘Government Square,’ he says at last. ‘Across from this restaurant, the Happy Cup?’

‘Do you see the man who shot at you?’

‘N-No. I ran, and I don’t think he could chase me very far on foot. He’s kind of old, and you can’t drive a car on Lacemaker Lane.’

‘Stay there,’ Hodges says. ‘We’ll come and get you.’

‘Please don’t call the police,’ Peter says. ‘It’ll kill my folks, after everything else that’s happened to them. I’ll give you the notebooks. I never should have kept them, and I never should have tried to sell any of them. I should have stopped with the money.’ His voice is blurring now as he breaks down. ‘My parents … they were in such trouble. About everything. I only wanted to help!’

‘I’m sure that’s true, but I have to call the police. If you didn’t kill Halliday, the evidence will show that. You’ll be fine. I’ll pick you up and we’ll go to your house. Will your parents be there?’

‘Dad’s on a business thing, but my mom and sister will be.’ Pete has to hitch in a breath before going on. ‘I’ll go to jail, won’t I? They’ll never believe me about the man with the red lips. They’ll think I made him up.’

‘All you have to do is tell the truth,’ Holly says. ‘Bill won’t let anything bad happen to you.’ She grabs his hand and squeezes it fiercely. ‘Will you?’

Hodges repeats, ‘If you didn’t kill him, you’ll be fine.’

‘I didn’t! Swear to God!’

‘This other man did. The one with the red lips.’

‘Yes. He killed John Rothstein, too. He said Rothstein sold out.’

Hodges has a million questions, but this isn’t the time.

‘Listen to me, Pete. Very carefully. Stay where you are. We’ll be at Government Square in fifteen minutes.’

‘If you let me drive,’ Jerome says, ‘we can be there in ten.’

Hodges ignores this. ‘The four of us will go to your house. You’ll tell the whole story to me, my associates, and your mother. She may want to call your father and discuss getting you legal representation. Then we’re going to call the police. It’s the best I can do.’

And better than I should do, he thinks, eyeing the mangled corpse and thinking about how close he came to going to jail himself four years ago. For the same kind of thing, too: Lone Ranger shit. But surely another half hour or forty-five minutes can’t hurt. And what the boy said about his parents hit home. Hodges was at City Center that day. He saw the aftermath.

‘A-All right. Come as fast as you can.’

‘Yes.’ He breaks the connection.

‘What do we do about our fingerprints?’ Holly asks.

‘Leave them,’ Hodges says. ‘Let’s go get that kid. I can’t wait to hear his story.’ He tosses Jerome the Mercedes key.

‘Thanks, Massa Hodges!’ Tyrone Feelgood screeches. ‘Dis here black boy is one safe drivuh! I is goan get chall safe to yo destin—’

‘Shut up, Jerome.’

Hodges and Holly say it together.