Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(38)

“I’m pretty sure it was. I won’t say Althea and Ollie were bosom buddies or anything, but they got on, and they saw eye to eye about Mom’s care. Now Sunny’s the best thing for her, and Mom’s relieved to be there. On her good days, at least. So am I. For one thing, they manage her pain better.”

“If I were to go out and talk to her . . .”

“She might remember a few things, or she might not.” She turns from the lake to look at him directly. “Will you take the job? I checked private detective rates online, and I’m prepared to do considerably better. Five thousand dollars a week, plus expenses. An eight-week minimum.”

Forty thousand for eight weeks’ work, Hodges marvels. Maybe he could be Philip Marlowe after all. He imagines himself in a ratty two-room office that gives on the third-floor hallway of a cheap office building. Hiring a va-voom receptionist with a name like Lola or Velma. A tough-talking blonde, of course. He’d wear a trenchcoat and a brown fedora on rainy days, the hat pulled down to one eyebrow.

Ridiculous. And not what attracts him. The attraction is not being in his La-Z-Boy, watching the lady judge and stuffing his face with snacks. He also likes being in his suit. But there’s more. He left the PD with strings dangling. Pete has ID’d the pawnshop armed robber, and it looks like he and Isabelle Jaynes may soon be arresting Donald Davis, the mope who killed his wife and then went on TV, flashing his handsome smile. Good for Pete and Izzy, but neither Davis or the pawnshop shotgunner is the Big Casino.

Also, he thinks, Mr. Mercedes should have left me alone. And Mrs. T. He should have left her alone, too.

“Bill?” Janey’s snapping her fingers like a stage hypnotist bringing a subject out of a trance. “Are you there, Bill?”

He returns his attention to her, a woman in her mid-forties who’s not afraid to sit in bright sunlight. “If I say yes, you’ll be hiring me as a security consultant.”

She looks amused. “Like the men who work for Vigilant Guard Service out in the Heights?”

“No, not like them. They’re bonded, for one thing. I’m not.” I never had to be, he thinks. “I’d just be private security, like the kind of guys who work the downtown nightclubs. That’s nothing you’d be able to claim as a deduction on your income tax, I’m afraid.”

Amusement broadens into a smile, and she does the nose-wrinkling thing again. A fairly entrancing sight, in Hodges’s opinion. “Don’t care. In case you didn’t know, I’m rolling in dough.”

“What I’m trying for is full disclosure, Janey. I have no private detective’s license, which won’t stop me from asking questions, but how well I can operate without either a badge or a PI ticket remains to be seen. It’s like asking a blind man to stroll around town without his guide dog.”

“Surely there’s a Police Department old boys’ network?”

“There is, but if I tried to use it, I’d be putting both the old boys and myself in a bad position.” That he has already done this by pumping Pete for information is a thing he won’t share with her on such short acquaintance.

He lifts the letter Janey has showed him.

“For one thing, I’m guilty of withholding evidence if I agree to keep this between us.” That he’s already withholding a similar letter is another thing she doesn’t need to know. “Technically, at least. And withholding is a felony offense.”

She looks dismayed. “Oh my God, I never thought of that.”

“On the other hand, I doubt if there’s much Forensics could do with it. A letter dropped into a mailbox on Marlborough Street or Lowbriar Avenue is just about the most anonymous thing in the world. Once upon a time—I remember it well—you could match up the typing in a letter to the machine that wrote it. If you could find the machine, that is. It was as good as a fingerprint.”

“But this wasn’t typed.”

“Nope. Laser printer. Which means no hanging As or crooked Ts. So I wouldn’t be withholding much.”

Of course withholding is still withholding.

“I’m going to take the job, Janey, but five thousand a week is ridiculous. I’ll take a check for two, if you want to write one. And bill you for expenses.”

“That doesn’t seem like anywhere near enough.”

“If I get someplace, we can talk about a bonus.” But he doesn’t think he’ll take one, even if he does manage to run Mr. Mercedes to ground. Not when he came here already determined to investigate the bastard, and to sweet-talk her into helping him.

“All right. Agreed. And thank you.”

“Welcome. Now tell me about your relationship with Olivia. All I know is it was good enough for you to call her Ollie, and I could use more.”

“That will take some time. Would you like another cup of coffee? And a cookie or two to go with it? I have lemon snaps.”

Hodges says yes to both.

9

“Ollie.”

Janey says this, then falls silent long enough for Hodges to sip some of his new cup of coffee and eat a cookie. Then she turns to the window and the sailboats again, crosses her legs, and speaks without looking at him.

“Have you ever loved someone without liking them?”

Hodges thinks of Corinne, and the stormy eighteen months that preceded the final split. “Yes.”