Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(36)

Hodges may be retired, but he still has his loyalties. “That isn’t necessarily true.”

“I understand why you’d say that, Detective—”

“Mister, please. Just Mr. Hodges. Or Bill, if you like.”

“Bill, then. And it is true. There’s a connection between those murders and my sister’s suicide, because the man who used the car is also the man who wrote the letter. And those other things. Those Blue Umbrella things.”

Easy, Hodges cautions himself. Don’t blow it.

“What letter are we talking about, Mrs. Patterson?”

“Janey. If you’re Bill, I’m Janey. Wait here. I’ll show you.”

She gets up and leaves the room. Hodges’s heart is beating hard—much harder than when he took on the trolls beneath the underpass—but he still appreciates that the view of Janey Patterson going away is as good as the one from the front.

Easy, boy, he tells himself again, and sips more coffee. Philip Marlowe you ain’t. His mug is already half empty, and no acid. Not a trace of it. Miracle coffee, he thinks.

She comes back holding two pieces of paper by the corners and with an expression of distaste. “I found it when I was going through the papers in Ollie’s desk. Her lawyer, Mr. Schron, was with me—she named him the executor of her will, so he had to be—but he was in the kitchen, getting himself a glass of water. He never saw this. I hid it.” She says it matter-of-factly, with no shame or defiance. “I knew what it was right away. Because of that. The guy left one on the steering wheel of her car. I guess you could call it his calling-card.”

She taps the sunglasses-wearing smile-face partway down the first page of the letter. Hodges has already noted it. He has also noted the letter’s font, which he has identified from his own word processing program as American Typewriter.

“When did you find it?”

She thinks back, calculating the passage of time. “I came for the funeral, which was near the end of November. I discovered that I was Ollie’s sole beneficiary when the will was read. That would have been the first week of December. I asked Mr. Schron if we could put off the inventory of Ollie’s assets and possessions until January, because I had some business to take care of back in L.A. He agreed.” She looks at Hodges, a level stare from blue eyes with a bright sparkle in them. “The business I had to take care of was divorcing my husband, who was—may I be vulgar again?—a philandering, coke-snorting *.”

Hodges has no desire to go down this sidetrack. “You returned to Sugar Heights in January?”

“Yes.”

“And found the letter then?”

“Yes.”

“Have the police seen it?” He knows the answer, January was over four months ago, but the question has to be asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I already told you! Because I don’t trust them!” That bright sparkle in her eyes overspills as she begins to cry.





8


She asks if he will excuse her. Hodges tells her of course. She disappears, presumably to get control of herself and repair her face. Hodges picks up the letter and reads it, taking small sips of coffee as he does so. The coffee really is delicious. Now, if he just had a cookie or two to go with it . . .


Dear Olivia Trelawney,

I hope you will read this letter all the way to the end before throwing it away or burning it up. I know I don’t deserve your consideration, but I am begging for it just the same. You see, I am the man who stole your Mercedes and drove it into those people. Now I am burning like you might burn my letter, only with shame and remorse and sorrow.

Please, please, please give me a chance to explain! I can never have your forgiveness, that’s another thing I know, and I don’t expect it, but if I can only get you to understand, that would be enough. Will you give me that chance? Please? To the public I am a monster, to the TV news I am just another bloody story to sell commercials, to the police I am just another perk they want to catch and put in jail, but I am also a human being, just as you are. Here is my story.

I grew up in a physically and sexually abusive household. My stepfather was the first, and do you know what happened when my mother found out? She joined the fun! Have you stopped reading yet? I wouldn’t blame you, it’s disgusting, but I hope you have not, because I have to get this off my chest. I may not be “in the land of the living” much longer, you see, but I cannot end my life without someone knowing WHY I did what I did. Not that I understand it completely myself, but perhaps you, as an “outsider,” will.

Here was Mr. Smiley-Face.


The sexual abuse went on until my stepfather died of a heart attack when I was 12. My mother said if I ever told, I would be blamed. She said if I showed the healed cigarette burns on my arms and legs and privates, she would tell people I did it myself. I was just a kid and I thought she was telling the truth. She also told me that if people did believe me, she would have to go to jail and I would be put in an orphan home (which was probably true).

I kept my mouth shut. Sometimes “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t!”

I never grew very much and I was very thin because I was too nervous to eat and when I did I often threw up (bulimia). Hence and because of this, I was bullied at school. I also developed a bunch of nervous tics, such as picking at my clothes and pulling at my hair (sometimes pulling it out in bunches). This caused me to be laughed at, not just by the other kids but by teachers too.