End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(15)

‘So there was never a Mr Stover.’

‘Yes there was, Janice had an earlier marriage. Very short, I believe, but she said she never regretted it because she got Martine. Marty did have a boyfriend not long before her accident, but he had a heart attack. Carried him right off. Marty said he was very fit, used to exercise three days a week at a health club downtown. She said it was being so fit that killed him. Because his heart was strong, and when it backfired, it just blew apart.’

Hodges, a coronary survivor, thinks, Reminder to self: no fitness club.

‘Marty used to say that being alone after someone you love passes on was the worst kind of paralysis. I didn’t feel exactly the same way about my Bill, but I knew what she meant. Reverend Henreid came in to see her often – Marty calls him her spiritual adviser – and even when he didn’t, she and Jan did daily devotions and prayers. Every day at noon. And Marty was thinking about taking an accounting course online – they have special courses for people with her kind of disability, did you know that?’

‘I didn’t,’ Hodges says. On his pad he prints STOVER PLANNING TO TAKE ACCOUNTING COURSE BY COMPUTER and turns it so Holly can read it. She raises her eyebrows.

‘There were tears and sadness from time to time, of course there was, but for the most part they were happy. At least … I don’t know …’

‘What are you thinking about, Nancy?’ He makes the switch to her first name – another old cop trick – without thinking about it.

‘Oh, it’s probably nothing. Marty seemed as happy as ever – she’s a real love-bug, that one, you wouldn’t believe how spiritual she is, always sees the good side of everything – but Jan did seem a little withdrawn lately, as if she had something weighing on her mind. I thought it might be money worries, or maybe just the after-Christmas blues. I never dreamed …’ She sniffles. ‘Excuse me, I have to blow.’

‘Sure.’

Holly grabs his pad. Her printing is small – constipated, he often thinks – and he has to hold the pad almost touching his nose to read ASK HER ABOUT ZAPPIT!

There’s a honking sound in his ear as Alderson blows her nose. ‘Sorry.’

‘That’s all right. Nancy, would you know if Mrs Ellerton happened to have a small handheld game console? It would have been pink.’

‘Goodness sakes, how did you know that?’

‘I really don’t know anything,’ Hodges says truthfully. ‘I’m just a retired detective with a list of questions I’m supposed to ask.’

‘She said a man gave it to her. He told her the game gadget was free as long as she promised to fill out a questionnaire and send it back to the company. The thing was a little bit bigger than a paperback book. It just sat around the house awhile—’

‘When was this?’

‘I can’t remember exactly, but before Christmas, for sure. The first time I saw it, it was on the coffee table in the living room. It just stayed there with the questionnaire folded up beside it until after Christmas – I know because their little tree was gone – and then I spied it one day on the kitchen table. Jan said she turned it on just to see what it would do, and found out there were solitaire games on it, maybe as many as a dozen different kinds, like Klondike and Picture and Pyramid. So, since she was using it, she filled out the questionnaire and sent it in.’

‘Did she charge it in Marty’s bathroom?’

‘Yes, because that was the most convenient place. She was in that part of the house so much, you know.’

‘Uh-huh. You said that Mrs Ellerton became withdrawn—’

‘A little withdrawn,’ Alderson corrects at once. ‘Mostly she was the same as always. A love-bug, just like Marty.’

‘But something was on her mind.’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Weighing on her mind.’

‘Well …’

‘Was this around the same time she got the handheld game machine?’

‘I guess it was, now that I think about it, but why in the world would playing solitaire on a little pink tablet depress her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hodges says, and prints DEPRESSED on his pad. He thinks there’s a significant jump between being withdrawn and being depressed.

‘Have their relations been told?’ Alderson asks. ‘There aren’t any in the city, but there are cousins in Ohio, I know that, and I think some in Kansas, too. Or maybe it was Indiana. The names would be in her address book.’

‘The police will be doing that as we speak,’ Hodges says, although he will call Pete later on to make sure. It will probably annoy his old partner, but Hodges doesn’t care. Nancy Alderson’s distress is in every word she utters, and he wants to offer what comfort he can. ‘May I ask one more question?’

‘Of course.’

‘Did you happen to notice anyone hanging around the house? Anyone without an obvious reason to be there?’

Holly is nodding vigorously.

‘Why would you ask that?’ Alderson sounds astonished. ‘Surely you don’t think some outsider—’

‘I don’t think anything,’ Hodges says smoothly. ‘I’m just helping the police because there’s been such a staff reduction in the last few years. Citywide budget cuts.’