بخش 02 - فصل 13

13 There’s a pocket park on the far side of Hanover. They cross at the WALK light, grab a bench, and watch a bunch of shaggy-haired middle-school boys dare life and limb in the sunken concrete skateboarding area. Odell divides his time between watching the boys and the ice cream cones.

“You ever try that?” Hodges asks, nodding at the daredevils. “No, suh!” Jerome gives him a wide-eyed stare. “I is black. I spends mah spare time shootin hoops and runnin on de cinder track at de high school. Us black fellas is mighty fast, as de whole worl’ knows.”

“Thought I told you to leave Tyrone at home.” Hodges uses his finger to swop some ice cream off his cone and extends the dripping finger to Odell, who cleans it with alacrity. “Sometimes dat boy jus’ show up!” Jerome declares. Then Tyrone is gone, just like that. “There’s no guy and no lady friend and no Beemer.

You’re talking about the Mercedes Killer.” So much for fiction. “Say I am.” “Are you investigating that on your own, Mr. Hodges?” Hodges thinks this over, very carefully, then repeats himself. “Say I am.” “Does the Debbie’s Blue Umbrella site have something to do with it?”

“Say it does.” A boy falls off his skateboard and stands up with road rash on both knees. One of his friends buzzes over, jeering. Road Rash Boy slides a hand across one oozing knee, flings a spray of red droplets at Jeering Boy, then rolls away, shouting “AIDS! AIDS!” Jeering Boy rolls after him, only now he’s Laughing Boy.

“Barbarians,”

Jerome

mutters. He bends to scratch

Odell behind the ears, then

straightens up. “If you want to

talk about it–”

Embarrassed, Hodges says,

“I don’t think at this point–”

“I understand,” Jerome says.

“But I did think about your

problem while I was in line,

and I’ve got a question.”

“Yes?”

“Your make-believe Beemer guy, where was his spare key?” Hodges sits very still, thinking how very quick this kid is. Then he sees a line of pink ice cream trickling down the side of his waffle cone and licks it off. “Let’s say he claims he never had one.” “Like the woman who owned the Mercedes did.”

“Yes. Exactly like that.” “Remember me telling you how my mom got pissed at my dad for calling Parsonville Whiteyville?” “Yeah.” “Want to hear about a time when my dad got pissed at my mom? The only time I ever heard him say, That’s just like a woman?”

“If it bears on my little problem, shoot.” “Mom’s got a Chevy Malibu. Candy-apple red. You’ve seen it in the driveway.” “Sure.” “He bought it new three years ago and gave it to her for her birthday, provoking massive squeals of delight.”

Yes, Hodges thinks, Tyrone Feelgood has definitely taken a hike. “She drives it for a year. No problems. Then it’s time to reregister. Dad said he’d do it for her on his way home from work. He goes out to get the paperwork, then comes back in from the driveway holding up a key. He’s not mad, but he’s irritated. He tells her that if

she leaves her spare key in the car, someone could find it and drive her car away. She asks where it was. He says in a plastic Ziploc bag along with her registration, her insurance card, and the owner’s manual, which she had never opened. Still had the paper band around it that says thanks for buying your new car at Lake Chevrolet.”

Another drip is trickling down Hodges’s ice cream. This time he doesn’t notice it even when it reaches his hand and pools there. “In the . . .” “Glove compartment, yes. My dad said it was careless, and my mom said . . .” Jerome leans forward, his brown eyes fixed on Hodges’s gray ones. “She said she didn’t even know it was there. That’s when he said

it was just like a woman. Which didn’t make her happy.” “Bet it didn’t.” In Hodges’s brain, all sorts of gears are engaging. “Dad says, Honey, all you have to do is forget once and leave your car unlocked. Some crack addict comes along, sees the buttons up, and decides to toss it in case there’s anything

worth stealing. He checks the glove compartment for money, sees the key in the plastic bag, and away he goes to find out who wants to buy a lowmileage Malibu for cash.” “What did your mother say to that?” Jerome grins. “First thing, she turned it around. No one does that any better than my moms. She says, You bought

the car and you brought it home. You should have told me. I’m eating my breakfast while they’re having this little discussion and thought of saying, If you’d ever checked the owner’s manual, Mom, maybe just to see what all those cute little lights on the dashboard signify, but I kept my mouth shut. My mom and dad don’t get into it often, but

when they do, a wise person steers clear. Even the Barbster knows that, and she’s only nine.” It occurs to Hodges that when he and Corinne were married, this is something Alison also knew. “The other thing she said was that she never forgets to lock her car. Which, so far as I know, is true. Anyway, that

key is now hanging on one of the hooks in our kitchen. Safe, sound, and ready to go if the primary ever gets lost.” Hodges sits looking at the skateboarders but not seeing them. He’s thinking that Jerome’s mom had a point when she said her husband should have either presented her with the spare key or at least told her about it. You

don’t just assume people will do an inventory and find things by themselves. But Olivia Trelawney’s case was different. She bought her own car, and should have known. Only the salesman had probably overloaded her with info about her expensive new purchase; they had a way of doing that. When to change the oil, how to use the cruise

control, how to use the GPS, don’t forget to put your spare key in a safe place, here’s how you plug in your cell phone, here’s the number to call roadside assistance if you need it, click the headlight switch all the way to the left to engage the twilight function. Hodges could remember buying his first new car and letting the guy’s post-sales

tutorial wash over him–uhhuh, yep, right, gotcha–just anxious to get his new purchase out on the road, to dig the rattle-free ride and inhale that incomparable newcar smell, which to the buyer is the aroma of money well spent. But Mrs. T. was obsessivecompulsive. He could believe she’d overlooked the spare key and left it in the glove

compartment, but if she had taken her primary key that Thursday night, wouldn’t she also have locked the car doors? She said she did, had maintained that to the very end, and really, think about it – “Mr. Hodges?” “With the new smart keys, it’s a simple three-step process, isn’t it?” he says. “Step one,

turn off the engine. Step two, remove the key from the ignition. If your mind’s on something else and you forget step two, there’s a chime to remind you. Step three, close the door and push the button stamped with the padlock icon. Why would you forget that, with the key right there in your hand? Theft-Proofing for Dummies.”

“True-dat, Mr. H., but some dummies forget, anyway.” Hodges is too lost in thought for reticence. “She was no dummy. Nervous and twitchy but not stupid. If she took her key, I almost have to believe she locked her car. And the car wasn’t broken into. So even if she did leave the spare

in her glove compartment, how did the guy get to it?” “So it’s a locked-car mystery instead of a locked room. Dis be a fo’-pipe problem!” Hodges doesn’t reply. He’s going over it and over it. That the spare might have been in the glove compartment now seems obvious, but did either he or Pete ever raise the possibility? He’s pretty sure

they didn’t. Because they thought like men? Or because they were pissed at Mrs. T.’s carelessness and wanted to blame her? And she was to blame, wasn’t she? Not if she really did lock her car, he thinks. “Mr. Hodges, what does that Blue Umbrella website have to do with the Mercedes Killer?”

Hodges comes back out of

his own head. He’s been in

deep, and it’s a pretty long

trudge. “I don’t want to talk

about that just now, Jerome.”

“But maybe I can help!”

Has he ever seen Jerome

this excited? Maybe once,

when the debate team he

captained his sophomore year

won

the

citywide

championship.

“Find out about that website and you will be helping,” Hodges says. “You don’t want to tell me because I’m a kid. That’s it, isn’t it?” It is part of the reason, but Hodges has no intention of saying so. And as it happens, there’s something else. “It’s more complicated than that. I’m not a cop anymore,

and investigating the City Center thing skates right up to the edge of what’s legal. If I find anything out and don’t tell my old partner, who’s now the lead on the Mercedes Killer case, I’ll be over the edge. You have a bright future ahead of you, including just about any college or university you decide to favor with your presence. What would I say to your

mother and father if you got dragged into an investigation of my actions, maybe as an accomplice?” Jerome sits quietly, digesting this. Then he gives the end of his cone to Odell, who accepts it eagerly. “I get it.” “Do you?” “Yeah.”

Jerome stands up and Hodges does the same. “Still friends?” “Sure. But if you think I can help you, promise me that you’ll ask. You know what they say, two heads are better than one.” “That’s a deal.” They start back up the hill. At first Odell walks between them as before, then starts to

pull ahead because Hodges is slowing down. He’s also losing his breath. “I’ve got to drop some weight,” he tells Jerome. “You know what? I tore the seat out of a perfectly good pair of pants the other day.” “You could probably stand to lose ten,” Jerome says diplomatically. “Double that and you’d be a lot closer.”

“Want to stop and rest a minute?” “No.” Hodges sounds childish even to himself. He means it about the weight, though; when he gets back to the house, every damn snack in the cupboards and the fridge is going into the trash. Then he thinks, Make it the garbage disposal. Too easy to weaken and fish stuff out of the trash.

“Jerome, it would be best if you kept my little investigation to yourself. Can I trust your discretion?” Jerome replies without hesitation. “Absolutely. Mum’s the word.” “Good.” A block ahead, the Mr. Tastey truck jingles its way across Harper Road and heads down Vinson Lane. Jerome tips

a wave. Hodges can’t see if the ice cream man waves back. “Now we see him,” Hodges said. Jerome turns, gives him a grin. “Ice cream man’s like a cop.” “Huh?” “Never around when you need him.”