End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(76)

‘Yeah, but …’

But what? Pete’s right, Brady was a fan of suicide, and not just the other guy’s. He had been ready to die at the City Center Job Fair in 2009, if things worked out that way, and a year later he rolled a wheelchair into Mingo Auditorium with three pounds of plastic explosive strapped to the seat. Which put his ass at ground zero. Only that was then, and things have changed. Haven’t they?

‘But what?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hodges says.

‘I do. He finally found a way to do it. Simple as that. In any case, if you thought Hartsfield was somehow involved in the deaths of Ellerton, Stover, and Scapelli – and I have to tell you I had my own thoughts along that line – you can stop worrying. He’s a gone goose, a toasty turkey, a baked buzzard, and we all say hooray.’

‘Pete, I need to process this a little.’

‘No doubt,’ Pete says. ‘You had quite the history with him. Meanwhile, I have to call Izzy. Get her day started on the good foot.’

‘Will you call me when you get back the analysis of whatever he swallowed?’

‘Indeed I will. Meanwhile, sayonara Mr Mercedes, right?’

‘Right, right.’

Hodges hangs up the phone, walks into the kitchen, and puts on a pot of coffee. He should have tea, coffee will burn the shit out of his poor struggling innards, but right now he doesn’t care. And he won’t take any pills, not for awhile. He needs to be as clearheaded about this as he possibly can.

He snatches his mobile off the charger and calls Holly. She answers at once, and he wonders briefly what time she gets up. Five? Even earlier? Maybe some questions are best left unanswered. He tells her what Pete just told him, and for once in her life, Holly Gibney does not gild her profanity.

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!’

‘Not unless Pete was kidding, and I don’t think he was. He doesn’t try joking until mid-afternoon, and he’s not very good at it then.’

Silence for a moment, and then Holly asks, ‘Do you believe it?’

‘That he’s dead, yes. It could hardly be a case of mistaken identity. That he committed suicide? To me that seems …’ He fishes for the right phrase, can’t find it, and repeats what he said to his old partner not five minutes before. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it over?’

‘Maybe not.’

‘That’s what I think, too. We have to find out what happened to the Zappits that were left over after the company went broke. I don’t understand how Brady Hartsfield could have had anything to do with them, but so many of the connections go back to him. And to the concert he tried to blow up.’

‘I know.’ Hodges is again picturing a web with a big old spider at the center of it, one full of poison. Only the spider is dead.

And we all say hooray, he thinks.

‘Holly, can you be at the hospital when the Robinsons come to pick up Barbara?’

‘I can do that.’ After a pause she adds, ‘I’d like to do that. I’ll call Tanya to make sure it’s okay, but I’m sure it is. Why?’

‘I want you to show Barb a six-pack. Five elderly white guys in suits, plus Dr Felix Babineau.’

‘You think Myron Zakim was Hartsfield’s doctor? That he was the one who gave Barbara and Hilda those Zappits?’

‘At this point it’s just a hunch.’

But that’s modest. It’s actually a bit more. Babineau gave Hodges a cock-and-bull story to keep him out of Brady’s room, then nearly blew a gasket when Hodges asked if he was all right. And Norma Wilmer claims he’s been conducting unauthorized experiments on Brady. Investigate Babineau, she said in Bar Bar Black Sheep. Get him in trouble. I dare you. As a man who probably has only months to live, that doesn’t seem like much of a dare.

‘Okay. I respect your hunches, Bill. And I’m sure I can find a society-page picture of Dr Babineau from one of those charity events they’re always having for the hospital.’

‘Good. Now refresh me on the name of the bankruptcy trustee guy.’

‘Todd Schneider. You should call him at eight thirty. If I’m with the Robinsons, I won’t be in until later. I’ll bring Jerome with me.’

‘Yeah, good. Have you got Schneider’s number?’

‘I emailed it to you. You remember how to access your email, don’t you?’

‘It’s cancer, Holly, not Alzheimer’s.’

‘Today is your last day. Remember that, too.’

How can he forget? They’ll put him in the hospital where Brady died, and that will be that, Hodges’s last case left hanging fire. He hates the idea, but there’s no way around it. This is going fast.

‘Eat some breakfast.’

‘I will.’

He ends the call, and looks longingly at the fresh pot of coffee. The smell is wonderful. He turns it down the sink and gets dressed. He does not eat breakfast.





13


Finders Keepers seems very empty without Holly at her desk in the reception area, but at least the seventh floor of the Turner Building is quiet; the noisy crew from the travel agency down the hall won’t start to arrive for at least another hour.

Hodges thinks best with a yellow pad in front of him, jotting down ideas as they come, trying to tease out the connections and form a coherent picture. It’s the way he worked when he was on the cops, and he was capable of making those connections more often than not. He won a lot of citations over the years, but they’re piled helter-skelter on a shelf in his closet instead of hanging on a wall. The citations never mattered to him. The reward was the flash of light that came with the connections. He found himself unable to give it up. Hence Finders Keepers instead of retirement.