Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(118)

Every detective in the department, Hodges thinks. Which leaves what for Mr. Mercedes? Bupkes is what.

“Bill, I gotta go. This . . . man, this is amazing.”

“Sure, but first tell me what it has to do with me.”

“What you said. The car-bomb was revenge. Moretti trying to pay off his grandfather’s blood debt. In addition to the rifles, machine guns, grenades, pistols, and other assorted hardware, there’s at least four dozen crates of Hendricks Chemicals Detasheet. Do you know what that is?”

“Rubberized explosive.” Now it’s coming into focus.

“Yeah. You set it off with lead azide detonators, and we know already that was the kind that was used to blow the stuff in your car. We haven’t got a chem analysis on the explosive itself, but when we do, it’ll turn out to be Detasheet. You can count on it. You’re one lucky old sonofabitch, Bill.”

“That’s right,” Hodges says. “I am.”

He can picture the scene outside King Virtue: cops and ATF agents everywhere (probably arguing over jurisdiction already), and more coming all the time. Lowbriar closed off, probably MLK Avenue, too. Crowds of lookie-loos gathering. The Chief of Police and other assorted big boys on their way. The mayor won’t miss the chance to make a speech. Plus all those reporters, TV crews, and live broadcast vans. Pete is bullshit with excitement, and is Hodges going to launch into a long and complicated story about the City Center Massacre, and a computer chat-room called Debbie’s Blue Umbrella, and a dead mommy who probably drank herself to death, and a fugitive computer repairman?

No, he decides, I am not.

What he does is wish Pete good luck and push END.





17


When he comes back into the kitchen, Holly is no longer there, but he can hear her. Holly the Mumbler has turned into Holly the Revival Preacher, it seems. Certainly her voice has that special good-God-a’mighty cadence, at least for the moment.

“I’m with Mr. Hodges and his friend Jerome,” she’s saying. “They’re my friends, Momma. We had a nice lunch together. Now we’re seeing some of the sights, and this evening we’re going to have a nice supper together. We’re talking about Janey. I can do that if I want.”

Even in his confusion over their current situation and his continuing sadness about Janey, Hodges is cheered by the sound of Holly standing up to Aunt Charlotte. He can’t be sure it’s for the first time, but by the living God, it might be.

“Who called who?” he asks Jerome, nodding toward her voice.

“Holly made the call, but it was my idea. She had her phone turned off so her mother couldn’t call her. She wouldn’t do it until I said her mother might call the cops.”

“So what if I did,” Holly is saying now. “It was Olivia’s car and it’s not like I stole it. I’ll be back tonight, Momma. Until then, leave me alone!”

She comes back into the room looking flushed, defiant, years younger, and actually pretty.

“You rock, Holly,” Jerome says, and holds his hand up for a high-five.

She ignores this. Her eyes—still snapping—are fixed on Hodges. “If you call the police and I get in trouble, I don’t care. But unless you already did, you shouldn’t. They can’t find him. We can. I know we can.”

Hodges realizes that if catching Mr. Mercedes is more important to anyone on earth than it is to him, that person is Holly Gibney. Maybe for the first time in her life she’s doing something that matters. And doing it with others who like and respect her.

“I’m going to hold on to it a little longer. Mostly because the cops are otherwise occupied this afternoon. The funny part—or maybe I mean the ironic part—is that they think it has to do with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Jerome asks.

Hodges glances at his watch and sees it’s twenty past two. They have been here long enough. “Let’s go back to my place. I can tell you on the way, and then we can kick this around one more time. If we don’t come up with anything, I’ll have to call my partner back. I’m not risking another horror show.”

Although the risk is already there, and he can see by their faces that Jerome and Holly know it as well as he does.

“I went in that little study beside the living room to call my mother,” Holly says. “Mrs. Hartsfield’s got a laptop. If we’re going to your house, I want to bring it.”

“Why?”

“I may be able to find out how to get into his computers. She might have written down the keyboard prompts or voice-ac password.”

“Holly, that doesn’t seem likely. Mentally ill guys like Brady go to great lengths to hide what they are from everyone.”

“I know that,” Holly says. “Of course I do. Because I’m mentally ill, and I try to hide it.”

“Hey, Hol, come on.” Jerome tries to take her hand. She won’t let him. She takes her cigarettes from her pocket instead.

“I am and I know I am. My mother knows, too, and she keeps an eye on me. She snoops on me. Because she wants to protect me. Mrs. Hartsfield will have been the same. He was her son, after all.”

“If the Linklatter woman at Discount Electronix was right,” Hodges says, “Mrs. Hartsfield would have been drunk on her ass a good deal of the time.”