Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(67)

Tones is down front, trying to sell an old lady an HDTV that’s already an antique. Freddi Linklatter is out back, chain-smoking Marlboro Reds and probably rehearsing her latest g*y rights rant. Brady is sitting at one of the computers in the back row, an ancient Vizio that he’s rigged to leave no keystroke tracks, let alone a history. He’s staring at Hodges’s latest message. One eye, his left, has picked up a rapid, irregular tic.

Quit dumping on my mother, okay? Not her fault you got caught in a bunch of stupid lies. Got a key out of the glove compartment, did you? That’s pretty good, since Olivia Trelawney had both of them. The one missing was the valet key. She kept it in a small magnetic box under the rear bumper. The REAL Mercedes Killer must have scoped it.

I think I’m done writing to you, dickwad. Your Fun Quotient is currently hovering around zero, and I have it on good authority that Donald Davis is going to cop to the City Center killings. Which leaves you where? Just living your shitty little unexciting life, I guess. One other thing before I close this charming correspondence. You threatened to kill me. That’s a felony offense, but guess what? I don’t care. Buddy, you are just another chickenshit ass**le. The Internet is full of them. Want to come to my house (I know you know where I live) and make that threat in person? No? I thought not. Let me close with two words so simple even a thud like you should be able to understand them.

Go away.

Brady’s rage is so great he feels frozen in place. Yet he’s also still burning. He thinks he will stay this way, hunched over the piece-of-shit Vizio ridiculously sale-priced at eighty-seven dollars and eighty-seven cents, until he either dies of frostbite or goes up in flames or somehow does both at the same time.

But when a shadow rises on the wall, Brady finds he can move after all. He clicks away from the fat ex-cop’s message just before Freddi bends over to peer at the screen. “What you looking at, Brades? You moved awful fast to hide it, whatever it was.”

“A National Geographic documentary. It’s called When Lesbians Attack.”

“Your humor,” she says, “might be exceeded by your sperm count, but I tend to doubt it.”

Tones Frobisher joins them. “Got a service call over on Edgemont,” he says. “Which one of you wants it?”

Freddi says, “Given a choice between a service call in Hillbilly Heaven and having a wild weasel stuck up my ass, I’d have to pick the weasel.”

“I’ll take it,” Brady says. He’s decided he has an errand to run. One that can’t wait.

19

Jerome’s little sis and a couple of her friends are jumping rope in the Robinson driveway when Hodges arrives. All of them are wearing sparkly tees with silkscreens of some boy band on them. He cuts across the lawn, his case-folder in one hand. Barbara comes over long enough to give him a high-five and a dap, then hurries back to grab her end of the rope. Jerome, dressed in shorts and a City College tee-shirt with the sleeves torn off, is sitting on the porch steps and drinking orange juice. Odell is by his side. He tells Hodges his folks are off Krogering, and he’s got babysitting duty until they get back.

“Not that she really needs a sitter anymore. She’s a lot hipper than our parents think.”

Hodges sits down beside him. “You don’t want to take that for granted. Trust me on this, Jerome.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Tell me what you came up with first.”

Instead of answering, Jerome points to Hodges’s car, parked at the curb so as not to interfere with the girls’ game. “What year is that?”

“Oh-four. No show-stopper, but it gets good mileage. Want to buy it?”

“I’ll pass. Did you lock it?”

“Yeah.” Even though this is a good neighborhood and he’s sitting right here looking at it. Force of habit.

“Give me your keys.”

Hodges digs in his pocket and hands them over. Jerome examines the fob and nods. “PKE,” he says. “Started to come into use during the nineteen-nineties, first as an accessory but pretty much standard equipment since the turn of the century. Do you know what it stands for?”

As lead detective on the City Center Massacre (and frequent interviewer of Olivia Trelawney), Hodges certainly does. “Passive keyless entry.”

“Right.” Jerome pushes one of the two buttons on the fob. At the curb, the parking lights of Hodges’s Toyota flash briefly. “Now it’s open.” He pushes the other button. The lights flash again. “Now it’s locked. And you’ve got the key.” He puts it in Hodges’s palm. “All safe and sound, right?”

“Based on this discussion, maybe not.”

“I know some guys from the college who have a computer club. I’m not going to tell you their names, so don’t ask.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

“They’re not bad guys, but they know all the bad tricks—hacking, cloning, info-jacking, stuff like that. They tell me that PKE systems are pretty much a license to steal. When you push the button to lock or unlock your car, the fob emits a low-frequency radio signal. A code. If you could hear it, it would sound like the boops and beeps you get when you speed-dial a fax number. With me?”

“So far, yeah.”

In the driveway the girls chant Sally-in-the-alley while Barbara Robinson darts deftly in and out of the loop, her sturdy brown legs flashing and her pigtails bouncing.