Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(114)

“Well, yeah. Sure. Stands to reason.” Beeson looks partly satisfied and partly mystified. But he goes back to his house, where he soon appears to them again, this time looking out a front window.

“RICO is the feds,” Hodges says mildly.

Holly tips her head fractionally toward their observer, and there’s a faint smile on her hard-used lips. “Do you think he knows that?” When neither of them answers, she becomes businesslike. “What do we do now?”

“If Hartsfield’s in there, I’m going to make a citizen’s arrest. If he’s not but his mother is, I’m going to interview her. You two are going to stay in the car.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Jerome says, but by the expression on his face—Hodges can see it in the rearview mirror—he knows this objection will be overruled.

“It’s the only one I have,” Hodges says.

He gets out of the car. Before he can close the door, Holly leans toward him and says: “There’s no one home.” He doesn’t say anything, but she nods as if he had. “Can’t you feel it?”

Actually, he can.





12


Hodges walks up the driveway, noting the drawn drapes in the big front window. He looks briefly in the Honda and sees nothing worth noting. He tries the passenger door. It opens. The air inside is hot and stale, with a faintly boozy smell. He shuts the door, climbs the porch steps, and rings the doorbell. He hears it cling-clong inside the house. Nobody comes. He tries it again, then knocks. Nobody comes. He hammers with the side of his fist, very aware that Mr. Beeson from across the street is taking all this in. Nobody comes.

He strolls to the garage and peers through one of the windows in the overhead door. A few tools, a mini-fridge, not much else.

He takes out his cell phone and calls Jerome. This block of Elm Street is very still, and he can hear—faintly—the AC/DC ringtone as the call goes through. He sees Jerome answer.

“Have Holly jump on her iPad and check the city tax records for the owner’s name at 49 Elm. Can she do that?”

He hears Jerome asking Holly.

“She says she’ll see what she can do.”

“Good. I’m going around back. Stay on the line. I’ll check in with you at roughly thirty-second intervals. If more than a minute goes by without hearing from me, call nine-one-one.”

“You positive you want to do this, Bill?”

“Yes. Be sure Holly knows that getting the name isn’t a big deal. I don’t want her getting squirrelly.”

“She’s chill,” Jerome says. “Already tapping away. Just make sure you stay in touch.”

“Count on it.”

He walks between the garage and the house. The backyard is small but neatly kept. There’s a circular bed of flowers in the middle. Hodges wonders who planted them, Mom or Sonny Boy. He mounts three wooden steps to the back stoop. There’s an aluminum screen door with another door inside. The screen door is unlocked. The house door isn’t.

“Jerome? Checking in. All quiet.”

He peers through the glass and sees a kitchen. It’s squared away. There are a few plates and glasses in the drainer by the sink. A neatly folded dishwiper hangs over the oven handle. There are two placemats on the table. No placemat for Poppa Bear, which fits the profile he has fleshed out on his yellow legal pad. He knocks, then hammers. Nobody comes.

“Jerome? Checking in. All quiet.”

He puts his phone down on the back stoop and takes out the flat leather case, glad he thought of it. Inside are his father’s lock-picks—three silver rods with hooks of varying sizes at the ends. He selects the medium pick. A good choice; it slides in easily. He fiddles around, turning the pick first one way, then the other, feeling for the mechanism. He’s just about to pause and check in with Jerome again when the pick catches. He twists, quick and hard, just as his father taught him, and there’s a click as the locking button pops up on the kitchen side of the door. Meanwhile, his phone is squawking his name. He picks it up.

“Jerome? All quiet.”

“You had me worried,” Jerome says. “What are you doing?”

“Breaking and entering.”





13


Hodges steps into the Hartsfield kitchen. The smell hits him at once. It’s faint, but it’s there. Holding his cell phone in his left hand and his father’s .38 in the right, Hodges follows his nose first into the living room—empty, although the TV remote and scattering of catalogs on the coffee table makes him think that the couch is Mrs. Hartsfield’s downstairs nest—and then up the stairs. The smell gets stronger as he goes. It’s not a stench yet, but it’s headed in that direction.

There’s a short upstairs hall with one door on the right and two on the left. He clears the righthand room first. It’s guest quarters where no guests have stayed for a long time. It’s as sterile as an operating theater.

He checks in with Jerome again before opening the first door on the left. This is where the smell is coming from. He takes a deep breath and enters fast, crouching until he’s assured himself there’s no one behind the door. He opens the closet—this door is the kind that folds on a center hinge—and shoves back the clothes. No one.

“Jerome? Checking in.”