Hodges thanks her for the tip and trudges across the street. Black SUVs and the Mr Tastey guy, he thinks. Plus the delivery vans filled with Al Qaeda terrorists.

Across the street he finds a stay-at-home dad, Alan Bowfinger by name. ‘Just don’t confuse me with Goldfinger,’ he says, and invites Hodges to sit in one of the lawn chairs on the left side of his house, where there’s shade. Hodges is happy to take him up on this.

Bowfinger tells him that he makes a living writing greeting cards. ‘I specialize in the slightly snarky ones. Like on the outside it’ll say, “Happy Birthday! Who’s the fairest of them all?” And when you open it up, there’s a piece of shiny foil with a crack running down the middle of it.’

‘Yeah? And what’s the message?’

Bowfinger holds up his hands, as if framing it. ‘“Not you, but we love you anyway.”’

‘Kind of mean,’ Hodges ventures.

‘True, but it ends with an expression of love. That’s what sells the card. First the poke, then the hug. As to your purpose today, Mr Hodges … or do I call you Detective?’

‘Just Mister these days.’

‘I haven’t seen anything but the usual traffic. No slow cruisers except people looking for addresses and the ice cream truck after school lets out.’ Bowfinger rolls his eyes. ‘Did you get an earful from Mrs Melbourne?’

‘Well …’

‘She’s a member of NICAP,’ Bowfinger says. ‘That stands for National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.’

‘Weather stuff? Tornadoes and cloud formations?’

‘Flying saucers.’ Bowfinger raises his hands to the sky. ‘She thinks they walk among us.’

Hodges says something that would never have passed his lips if he’d still been on active duty and conducting an official investigation. ‘She thinks Mr Tastey might be a peedaroast.’

Bowfinger laughs until tears squirt out of his eyes. ‘Oh God,’ he says. ‘That guy’s been around for five or six years, driving his little truck and jingling his little bells. How many peeds do you think he’s roasted in all that time?’

‘Don’t know,’ Hodges says, getting to his feet. ‘Dozens, probably.’ He holds out his hand and Bowfinger shakes it. Another thing Hodges is discovering about retirement: his neighbors have stories and personalities. Some of them are even interesting.

As he’s putting his notepad away, a look of alarm comes over Bowfinger’s face.

‘What?’ Hodges asks, at once on point.

Bowfinger points across the street and says, ‘You didn’t eat any of her cookies, did you?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘I’d stay close to the toilet for a few hours, if I were you.’

6

When he gets back to his house, his arches throbbing and his ankles singing high C, the light on his answering machine is blinking. It’s Pete Huntley, and he sounds excited. ‘Call me,’ he says. ‘This is unbelievable. Un-fucking-real.’

Hodges is suddenly, irrationally sure that Pete and his pretty new partner Isabelle have nailed Mr Mercedes after all. He feels a deep stab of jealousy, and – crazy but true – anger. He hits Pete on speed-dial, his heart hammering, but his call goes right to voicemail.

‘Got your message,’ Hodges says. ‘Call back when you can.’

He kills the phone, then sits still, drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk. He tells himself it doesn’t matter who catches the psycho sonofabitch, but it does. For one thing, it’s certainly going to mean that his correspondence with the perk (funny how that word gets in your head) will come out, and that may put him in some fairly warm soup. But it’s not the important thing. The important thing is that without Mr Mercedes, things will go back to what they were: afternoon TV and playing with his father’s gun.

He takes out his yellow legal pad and begins transcribing notes on his neighborhood walk-around. After a minute or two of this, he tosses the pad back into the case-folder and slams it closed. If Pete and Izzie Jaynes have popped the guy, Mrs Melbourne’s vans and sinister black SUVs don’t mean shit.

He thinks about going on Debbie’s Blue Umbrella and sending merckill a message: Did they catch you?

Ridiculous, but weirdly attractive.

His phone rings and he snatches it up, but it’s not Pete. It’s Olivia Trelawney’s sister.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Hi, Mrs Patterson. How you doing?’

‘I’m fine,’ she says, ‘and it’s Janey, remember? Me Janey, you Bill.’

‘Janey, right.’

‘You don’t sound exactly thrilled to hear from me, Bill.’ Is she being the tiniest bit flirty? Wouldn’t that be nice.

‘No, no, I’m happy you called, but I don’t have anything to report.’

‘I didn’t expect you would. I called about Mom. The nurse at Sunny Acres who’s most familiar with her case works the day shift in the McDonald Building, where my mother has her little suite of rooms. I asked her to call if Mom brightened up. She still does that.’

‘Yes, you told me.’

‘Well, the nurse called just a few minutes ago to tell me Mom’s back, at least for the time being. She might be clear for a day or two, then it’s into the clouds again. Do you still want to go see her?’

‘I think so,’ Hodges says cautiously, ‘but it would have to be this afternoon. I’m waiting on a call.’

‘Is it about the man who took her car?’ Janey’s excited. As I should be, Hodges tells himself.

‘That’s what I need to find out. Can I call you back?’

‘Absolutely. You have my cell number?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah,’ she says, gently mocking. It makes him smile, in spite of his nerves. ‘Call me as soon as you can.’

‘I will.’

He breaks the connection, and the phone rings while it’s still in his hand. This time it’s Pete, and he’s more excited than ever.

‘Billy! I gotta go back, we’ve got him in an interview room – IR4, as a matter of fact, remember how you always used to say that was your lucky one? – but I had to call you. We got him, partner, we fucking got him!’

‘Got who?’ Hodges asks, keeping his voice steady. His heartbeat is steady now, too, but the beats are hard enough to feel in his temples: whomp and whomp and whomp.

‘Fucking Davis!’ Pete shouts. ‘Who else?’

Davis. Not Mr Mercedes but Donnie Davis, the camera-friendly wife murderer. Bill Hodges closes his eyes in relief. It’s the wrong emotion to feel, but he feels it nevertheless.

He says, ‘So the body that game warden found near his cabin turned out to be Sheila Davis’s? You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Who’d you blow to get the DNA results so fast?’ When Hodges was on the force, they were lucky to get DNA results within a calendar month of sample submission, and six weeks was the average.

‘We don’t need DNA! For the trial, sure, but—’

‘What do you mean, you don’t—’

‘Shut up and listen, okay? He just walked in off the street and copped to it. No lawyer, no bullshit justifications. Listened to the Miranda and said he didn’t want a lawyer, only wanted to get it off his chest.’

‘Jesus. As smooth as he was in all the interviews we had with him? Are you sure he’s not fucking with you? Playing some sort of long game?’

Thinking it’s the kind of thing Mr Mercedes would try to do if they nailed him. Not just a game but a long game. Isn’t that why he tries to create alternate writing styles in his poison-pen letters?

‘Billy, it’s not just his wife. You remember those dollies he had on the side? Girls with big hair and inflated tits and names like Bobbi Sue?’

‘Sure. What about them?’

‘When this breaks, those young ladies are going to get on their knees and thank God they’re still alive.’

‘I’m not following you.’

‘Turnpike Joe, Billy! Five women raped and killed at various Interstate rest stops between here and Pennsylvania, starting back in ninety-four and ending in oh-eight! Donnie Davis says it’s him! Davis is Turnpike Joe! He’s giving us times and places and descriptions. It all fits. This … it blows my mind!’