End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(81)

‘It has to be the games,’ Hodges muses. ‘He did something to the games. Amped them up, somehow.’

‘From his hospital room?’ Jerome gives him a look that says be serious.

‘I know, it doesn’t make sense, not even if you add in the telekinesis. But it has to be the games. Has to be.’

‘Babineau will know,’ Holly says.

‘She’s a poet and don’t know it,’ Jerome says moodily. He’s still tossing the console back and forth. Hodges has a feeling that he’s resisting an impulse to throw it on the floor and stomp on it, and that’s sort of reasonable. After all, one just like it almost got his sister killed.

No, Hodges thinks. Not just like it. The Fishin’ Hole demo on Dinah’s Zappit generates a mild hypnotic effect, but nothing else. And it’s probably …

He straightens suddenly, provoking a twinge of pain in his side. ‘Holly, have you searched for Fishin’ Hole info on the Net?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘I never thought of it.’

‘Would you do it now? What I want to know—’

‘If there’s chatter about the demo screen. I should have thought of that myself. I’ll do it now.’ She hurries into the outer office.

‘What I don’t understand,’ Hodges says, ‘is why Brady would kill himself before seeing how it all came out.’

‘You mean before seeing how many kids he could get to off themselves,’ Jerome says. ‘Kids who were at that fucking concert. Because that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ Hodges says. ‘There are too many blank spots, Jerome. Far too many. I don’t even know how he killed himself. If he actually did.’

Jerome presses the heels of his hands to his temples as if to keep his brain from swelling. ‘Please don’t tell me you think he’s still alive.’

‘No, he’s dead, all right. Pete wouldn’t make a mistake about that. What I’m saying is maybe somebody murdered him. Based on what we know, Babineau would be the prime suspect.’

‘Holy poop!’ Holly cries from the other room.

Hodges and Jerome happen to be looking at each other when she says it, and there is a moment of divine harmony as they both struggle against laughter.

‘What?’ Hodges calls. It’s all he can manage without bursting into mad brays of hilarity, which would hurt his side as well as Holly’s feelings.

‘I found a site called Fishin’ Hole Hypnosis! The start-page warns parents not to let their kids look at the demo screen too long! It was first noticed in the arcade game version back in 2005! The Game Boy fixed it, but the Zappit … wait a sec … they said they did, but they didn’t! There’s a whole big long thread!’

Hodges looks at Jerome.

‘She means an online conversation,’ Jerome says.

‘A kid in Des Moines passed out, hit his head on the edge of his desk, and fractured his skull!’ She sounds almost gleeful as she gets up and rushes back to them. Her cheeks are flushed and rosy. ‘There would have been lawsuits! I bet that’s one of the reasons the Zappit company went out of business! It might even have been one of the reasons why Sunrise Solutions—’

The phone on her desk begins to ring.

‘Oh, frack,’ she says, turning toward it.

‘Tell whoever it is that we’re closed today.’

But after saying Hello, you’ve reached Finders Keepers, Holly just listens. Then she turns, holding out the handset.

‘It’s Pete Huntley. He says he has to talk to you right away, and he sounds … funny. Like he’s sad or mad or something.’

Hodges goes into the outer office to find out what’s got Pete sounding sad or mad or something.

Behind him, Jerome finally powers up Dinah Scott’s Zappit.

In Freddi Linklatter’s computer nest (Freddi herself has taken four Excedrin and gone to sleep in her bedroom), 44 FOUND changes to 45 FOUND. The repeater flashes LOADING.

Then it flashes TASK COMPLETE.





16


Pete doesn’t say hello. What he says is, ‘Take it, Kerm. Take it and beat it until the truth falls out. Bitch is in the house with a couple of SKIDs, and I’m out back in a whatever-it-is. Potting shed, I think, and it’s cold as hell.’

Hodges is at first too surprised to answer, and not because a pair of SKIDs – the city cops’ acronym for State Criminal Investigation Division detectives – is on some scene Pete is working. He’s surprised (in truth almost flabbergasted) because in all their long association he’s only heard Pete use the b-word in connection with an actual woman a single time. That was when speaking of his mother-in-law, who urged Pete’s wife to leave, and took her in, along with the children, when she finally did. The bitch he’s talking about this time can only be his partner, aka Miss Pretty Gray Eyes.

‘Kermit? Are you there?’

‘I’m here,’ Hodges says. ‘Where are you?’

‘Sugar Heights. Dr Felix Babineau’s house on scenic Lilac Drive. Hell, his fucking estate. You know who Babineau is, I know you do. No one kept closer tabs on Brady Hartsfield than you. For awhile there he was your fucking hobby.’

‘Who you’re talking about, yes. What you’re talking about, no.’