Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(105)

He breaks the connection, goes into his study, boots up his computer, and searches for a local lawyer named Schron. It’s an unusual name and he finds it with no trouble. He notes down the firm and Schron’s first name, which happens to be George. Then he returns to the kitchen and calls Aunt Charlotte.

“Hodges,” he says. “Back atcha.”

“I don’t appreciate being hung up on, Mr. Hodges.”

“No more than I appreciate you telling my old partner that I was f**king your niece.”

He hears a shocked gasp, followed by silence. He almost hopes she’ll hang up. When she doesn’t, he tells her what she needs to know.

“Janey’s remains will be at the Huron County Morgue. You won’t be able to take possession today. Probably not tomorrow, either. There’ll have to be an autopsy, which is absurd given the cause of death, but it’s protocol.”

“You don’t understand! I have plane reservations!”

Hodges looks out his kitchen window and counts slowly to five.

“Mr. Hodges? Are you still there?”

“As I see it, you have two choices, Mrs. Gibney. One is to stay here and do the right thing. The other is to use your reservation, fly home, and let the city do it.”

Aunt Charlotte begins to snivel. “I saw the way you were looking at her, and the way she was looking at you. All I did was answer the woman cop’s questions.”

“And with great alacrity, I have no doubt.”

“With what?”

He sighs. “Let’s drop it. I suggest you and your brother visit the County Morgue in person. Don’t call ahead, let them see your faces. Talk to Dr. Galworthy. If Galworthy’s not there, talk to Dr. Patel. If you ask them in person to expedite matters—and if you can manage to be nice about it—they’ll give you as much help as they can. Use my name. I go back to the early nineties with both of them.”

“We’d have to leave Holly again,” Aunt Charlotte says. “She’s locked herself in her room. She’s clicking away on her laptop and won’t come out.”

Hodges discovers he’s pulling his hair and makes himself stop. “How old is your daughter?”

A long pause. “Forty-five.”

“Then you can probably get away with not hiring a sitter.” He tries to suppress what comes next, and can’t quite manage it. “Think of the money you’ll save.”

“I can hardly expect you to understand Holly’s situation, Mr. Hodges. As well as being mentally unstable, my daughter is very sensitive.”

Hodges thinks: That must make you especially difficult for her. This time he manages not to say it.

“Mr. Hodges?”

“Still here.”

“You don’t happen to know if Janelle left a will, do you?”

He hangs up.

2

Brady spends a long time in the motel shower with the lights off. He likes the womblike warmth and the steady drumming sound. He also likes the darkness, and it’s good that he does because soon he’ll have all he ever wanted. He’d like to believe there’s going to be a tender mother-and-child reunion—perhaps even one of the mother-and-lover type—but in his heart he doesn’t. He can pretend, but . . . no.

Just darkness.

He’s not worried about God, or about spending eternity being slow-roasted for his crimes. There’s no heaven and no hell. Anyone with half a brain knows those things don’t exist. How cruel would a supreme being have to be to make a world as f**ked-up as this one? Even if the vengeful God of the televangelists and child-molesting blackrobes did exist, how could that thunderbolt-thrower possibly blame Brady for the things he’s done? Did Brady Hartsfield grab his father’s hand and wrap it around the live power line that electrocuted him? No. Did he shove that apple slice down Frankie’s throat? No. Was he the one who talked on and on about how the money was going to run out and they’d end up living in a homeless shelter? No. Did he cook up a poisoned hamburger and say, Eat this, Ma, it’s delicious?

Can he be blamed for striking out at the world that has made him what he is?

Brady thinks not.

He muses on the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center (he muses on them often). Those clowns actually thought they were going to paradise, where they’d live in a kind of eternal luxury hotel being serviced by gorgeous young virgins. Pretty funny, and the best part? The joke was on them . . . not that they knew it. What they got was a momentary view of all those windows and a final flash of light. After that, they and their thousands of victims were just gone. Poof. Seeya later, alligator. Off you go, killers and killed alike, off you go into the universal null set that surrounds one lonely blue planet and all its mindlessly bustling denizens. Every religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That’s all history is, after all: scar tissue.

3

Brady dresses and drives to a twenty-four-hour drugstore near the airport. He’s seen in the bathroom mirror that his mother’s electric razor left a lot to be desired; his skull needs more maintenance. He gets disposable razors and shaving cream. He grabs more batteries, because you can never have enough. He also picks up a pair of clear glass spectacles from a spinner rack. He chooses hornrims because they give him a studently look. Or so it seems to him.