With that attended to, he walks back to the airport’s long-term parking lot and retrieves his Subaru.

19

Hodges and his two apprentice detectives arrive on Harper Road shortly before three-thirty. Holly shoots a cursory glance around, then she totes the late Mrs Hartsfield’s laptop into the kitchen and powers it up. Jerome and Hodges stand by, both hoping there will be no password screen … but there is.

‘Try her name,’ Jerome says.

Holly does. The Mac shakes its screen: no.

‘Okay, try Debbie,’ Jerome says. ‘Both the – ie one and the one that ends with an i.’

Holly brushes a clump of mouse-brown hair out of her eyes so he can see her annoyance clearly. ‘Find something to do, Jerome, okay? I don’t want you looking over my shoulder. I hate that.’ She shifts her attention to Hodges. ‘Can I smoke in here? I hope I can. It helps me think. Cigarettes help me think.’

Hodges gets her a saucer. ‘Smoking lamp’s lit. Jerome and I will be in my study. Give a holler if you find something.’

Small chance of that, he thinks. Small chance of anything, really.

Holly pays no attention. She’s lighting up. She’s left the revival-preacher voice behind and returned to mumbling. ‘Hope she left a hint. I have hint-hope. Hint-hope is what Holly has.’

Oh boy, Hodges thinks.

In the study, he asks Jerome if he has any idea what kind of hint she’s talking about.

‘After three tries, some computers will give you a password hint. To jog your memory in case you forget. But only if one has been programmed.’

From the kitchen there comes a hearty, non-mumbled cry: ‘Shit! Double shit! Triple shit!’

Hodges and Jerome look at each other.

‘Guess not,’ Jerome says.

20

Hodges turns his own computer on and tells Jerome what he wants: a list of all public gatherings for the next seven days.

‘I can do that,’ Jerome says, ‘but you might want to check this out first.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a message. Under the Blue Umbrella.’

‘Click it.’ Hodges’s hands are clenched into fists, but as he reads merckill’s latest communiqué, they slowly open. The message is short, and although it’s of no immediate help, it contains a ray of hope.

So long, SUCKER.

PS: Enjoy your Weekend, I know I will.

Jerome says, ‘I think you just got a Dear John, Bill.’

Hodges thinks so, too, but he doesn’t care. He’s focused on the PS. He knows it might be a red herring, but if it’s not, they have some time.

From the kitchen comes a waft of cigarette smoke and another hearty cry of shit.

‘Bill? I just had a bad thought.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The concert tonight. That boy band, ’Round Here. At the Mingo. My sister and my mother are going to be there.’

Hodges considers this. Mingo Auditorium seats four thousand, but tonight’s attendees will be eighty per cent female – mommies and their pre-teen daughters. There will be men in attendance, but almost every one of them will be chaperoning their daughters and their daughters’ friends. Brady Hartsfield is a good-looking guy of about thirty, and if he tries going to that concert by himself, he’ll stick out like a sore thumb. In twenty-first-century America, any single man at an event primarily aimed at little girls attracts notice and suspicion.

Also: Enjoy your Weekend, I know I will.

‘Do you think I should call Mom and tell her to keep the girls home?’ Jerome looks dismayed at the prospect. ‘Barb’ll probably never speak to me again. Plus there’s her friend Hilda and a couple of others …’

From the kitchen: ‘Oh, you damn thing! Give it up!’

Before Hodges can reply, Jerome says, ‘On the other hand, it sure sounds like he has something planned for the weekend, and this is only Thursday. Or is that just what he wants us to think?’

Hodges tends to think the taunt is real. ‘Find that Cyber Patrol picture of Hartsfield again, would you? The one you get when you click on MEET THE EXPERTS.’

While Jerome does that, Hodges calls Marlo Everett in Police Records.

‘Hey, Marlo, Bill Hodges again. I … yeah, lot of excitement in Lowtown, I heard about it from Pete. Half the force is down there, right? … uh-huh … well, I won’t keep you long. Do you know if Larry Windom is still head of security at the MAC? Yeah, that’s right, Romper-Stomper. Sure, I’ll hold.’

While he does, he tells Jerome that Larry Windom took early retirement because the MAC offered him the job at twice the salary he was making as a detective. He doesn’t say that wasn’t the only reason Windom pulled the pin after twenty. Then Marlo is back. Yes, Larry’s still at the MAC. She even has the number of the MAC’s security office. Before he can say goodbye, she asks him if there’s a problem. ‘Because there’s a big concert there tonight. My niece is going. She’s crazy about those twerps.’

‘It’s fine, Marls. Just some old business.’

‘Tell Larry we could use him today,’ Marlo says. ‘The squad-room is dead empty. Nary a detective in sight.’

‘I’ll do that.’

Hodges calls MAC Security, identifies himself as Detective Bill Hodges, and asks for Windom. While he waits, he stares at Brady Hartsfield. Jerome has enlarged the photo so it fills the whole screen. Hodges is fascinated by the eyes. In the smaller version, and in a line with the two I-T colleagues, those eyes seemed pleasant enough. With the picture filling the screen, however, that changes. The mouth is smiling; the eyes aren’t. The eyes are flat and distant. Almost dead.

Bullshit, Hodges tells himself (scolds himself). This is a classic case of seeing something that’s not there based on recently acquired knowledge – like a bank-robbery witness saying I thought he looked shifty even before he pulled out that gun.

Sounds good, sounds professional, but Hodges doesn’t believe it. He thinks the eyes looking out of the screen are the eyes of a toad hiding under a rock. Or under a cast-off blue umbrella.

Then Windom’s on the line. He has the kind of booming voice that makes you want to hold the phone two inches from your ear while you talk to him, and he’s the same old yapper. He wants to know all about the big bust that afternoon. Hodges tells him it’s a mega-bust, all right, but beyond that he knows nothing. He reminds Larry that he’s retired.

But.

‘With all that going on,’ he says, ‘Pete Huntley kind of drafted me to call you. Hope you don’t mind.’

‘Jesus, no. I’d like to have a drink with you, Billy. Talk over old times now that we’re both out. You know, hash and trash.’

‘That would be good.’ Pure hell is what it would be.

‘How can I help?’

‘You’ve got a concert there tonight, Pete says. Some hot boy band. The kind all the little girls love.’

‘Iy-yi-yi, do they ever. They’re already lining up. And tuning up. Someone’ll shout out one of those kids’ names, and they all scream. Even if they’re still coming in from the parking lot they scream. It’s like Beatlemania back in the day, only from what I hear, this crew ain’t the Beatles. You got a bomb threat or something? Tell me you don’t. The chicks’ll tear me apart and the mommies will eat the leftovers.’

‘What I’ve got is a tip that you may have a child molester on your hands tonight. This is a bad, bad boy, Larry.’

‘Name and description?’ Hard and fast, no bullshit. The guy who left the force because he was a bit too quick with his fists. Anger issues, in the language of the department shrink. Romper-Stomper, in the language of his colleagues.

‘His name is Brady Hartsfield. I’ll email you his picture.’ Hodges glances at Jerome, who nods and makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger. ‘He’s approximately thirty years old. If you see him, call me first, then grab him. Use caution. If he tries to resist, subdue the motherfucker.’