‘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 says.

Jerome turns, gives him a grin. ‘Ice cream man’s like a cop.’

‘Huh?’

‘Never around when you need him.’

14

Brady rolls along, obeying the speed limit (twenty miles per hour on Vinson Lane), hardly hearing the jingle and clang of ‘Buffalo Gals’ from the speakers above him. He’s wearing a sweater beneath his white Mr Tastey jacket, because the load behind him is cold.

Like my mind, he thinks. Only ice cream is just cold. My mind is also analytical. It’s a machine. A Mac loaded with gigs to the googolplex.

He turns it to what he has just seen, the fat ex-cop walking up Harper Road Hill with Jerome Robinson and the Irish setter with the nigger name. Jerome gave him a wave and Brady gave it right back, because that’s the way you blend in. Like listening to Freddi Linklatter’s endless rants about how tough it was to be a gay woman in a straight world.

Kermit William ‘I wish I was young’ Hodges and Jerome ‘I wish I was white’ Robinson. What was the Odd Couple talking about? That’s something Brady Hartsfield would like to know. Maybe he’ll find out if the cop takes the bait and strikes up a conversation on Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. It certainly worked with the rich bitch; once she started talking, nothing could stop her.

The Det-Ret and his darkie houseboy.

Also Odell. Don’t forget Odell. Jerome and his little sister love that dog. It would really break them up if something happened to it. Probably nothing will, but maybe he’ll research some more poisons on the Net when he gets home tonight.

Such thoughts are always flitting through Brady’s mind; they are the bats in his belfry. This morning at DE, as he was inventorying another load of cheap-ass DVDs (why more are coming in at the same time they’re trying to dump stock is a mystery that will never be solved), it occurred to him that he could use his suicide vest to assassinate the president, Mr Barack ‘I wish I was white’ Obama. Go out in a blaze of glory. Barack comes to this state often, because it’s important to his re-election strategy. And when he comes to the state, he comes to this city. Has a rally. Talks about hope. Talks about change. Rah-rah-rah, blah-blah-blah. Brady was figuring out how to avoid metal detectors and random checks when Tones Frobisher buzzed him and told him he had a service call. By the time he was on the road in one of the green Cyber Patrol VWs, he was thinking about something else. Brad Pitt, to be exact. Fucking matinee idol.

Sometimes, though, his ideas stick.

A chubby little boy comes running down the sidewalk, waving money. Brady pulls over.

‘I want chawww-klit!’ the little boy brays. ‘And I want it with springles!’

You got it, you fat-ass little creep, Brady thinks, and smiles his widest, most charming smile. Fuck up your cholesterol all you want, I give you until forty, and who knows, maybe you’ll survive the first heart attack. That won’t stop you, though, nope. Not when the world is full of beer and Whoppers and chocolate ice cream.

‘You got it, little buddy. One chocolate with sprinkles coming right up. How was school? Get any As?’

15

That night the TV never goes on at 63 Harper Road, not even for the Evening News. Nor does the computer. Hodges hauls out his trusty legal pad instead. Janelle Patterson called him old school. So he is, and he doesn’t apologize for it. This is the way he has always worked, the way he’s most comfortable.

Sitting in beautiful no-TV silence, he reads over the letter Mr Mercedes sent him. Then he reads the one Mrs T. got. Back and forth he goes for an hour or more, examining the letters line by line. Because Mrs T.’s letter is a copy, he feels free to jot in the margins and circle certain words.

He finishes this part of his procedure by reading the letters aloud. He uses different voices, because Mr Mercedes has adopted two different personae. The letter Hodges received is gloating and arrogant. Ha-ha, you broken-down old fool, it says. You have nothing to live for and you know it, so why don’t you just kill yourself? The tone of Olivia Trelawney’s letter is cringing and melancholy, full of remorse and tales of childhood abuse, but here also is the idea of suicide, this time couched in terms of sympathy: I understand. I totally get it, because I feel the same.