Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(79)
“Did she take your ex’s side in the divorce?”
“I suppose she did.” Hodges has never thought about it in exactly those terms. “If so, she was probably right to.”
“You might be too hard on yourself.”
Hodges sips his beer. It tastes pretty good. As he sips again, a thought occurs to him.
“Does Aunt Charlotte have this number, Janey?”
“No way. That’s not the reason I wanted to come here instead of going back to the condo, but I’d be a liar if I said it never crossed my mind.” She looks at him gravely. “Will you come to the memorial service on Wednesday? Say you will. Please. I need a friend.”
“Of course. I’ll be at the viewing on Tuesday as well.”
She looks surprised, but happily so. “That seems above and beyond.”
Not to Hodges, it doesn’t. He’s in full investigative mode now, and attending the funeral of someone involved in a murder case—even peripherally—is standard police procedure. He doesn’t really believe Mr. Mercedes will turn up at either the viewing or the service on Wednesday, but it’s not out of the question. Hodges hasn’t seen today’s paper, but some alert reporter might well have linked Mrs. Wharton and Olivia Trelawney, the daughter who committed suicide after her car was used as a murder weapon. Such a connection is hardly news, but you could say the same about Lindsay Lohan’s adventures with drugs and alcohol. Hodges thinks there might at least have been a sidebar.
“I want to be there,” he says. “What’s the deal with the ashes?”
“The mortician called them the cremains,” she says, and wrinkles her nose the way she does when she mocks his yeah. “Is that gross or what? It sounds like something you’d pour in your coffee. On the upside, I’m pretty sure I won’t have to fight Aunt Charlotte or Uncle Henry for them.”
“No, you won’t have to do that. Is there going to be a reception?”
Janey sighs. “Auntie C insists. So the service at ten, followed by a luncheon at the house in Sugar Heights. While we’re eating catered sandwiches and telling our favorite Elizabeth Wharton stories, the funeral home people will take care of the cremation. I’ll decide what to do with the ashes after the three of them leave on Thursday. They’ll never even have to look at the urn.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Thanks, but I dread the luncheon. Not Mrs. Greene and the rest of Mom’s few old friends, but them. If Aunt Charlotte freaks, Holly’s apt to have a meltdown. You’ll come to lunch, too, won’t you?”
“If you let me reach inside that shirt you’re wearing, I’ll do anything you want.”
“In that case, let me help you with the buttons.”
4
Not many miles from where Kermit William Hodges and Janelle Patterson are lying together in the house on Harper Road, Brady Hartsfield is sitting in his control room. Tonight he’s at his worktable instead of his bank of computers. And doing nothing.
Nearby, lying amid the litter of small tools, bits of wire, and computer components, is the Monday paper, still rolled up inside its thin plastic condom. He brought it in when he got back from Discount Electronix, but only from force of habit. He has no interest in the news. He has other things to think about. How he’s going to get the cop. How he’s going to get into the ’Round Here concert at the MAC wearing his carefully constructed suicide vest. If he really intends to do it, that is. Right now it all seems like an awful lot of work. A long row to hoe. A high mountain to climb. A . . . a . . .
But he can’t think of any other similes. Or are those metaphors?
Maybe, he thinks drearily, I just ought to kill myself now and be done with it. Get rid of these awful thoughts. These snapshots from hell.
Snapshots like the one of his mother, for instance, convulsing on the sofa after eating the poisoned meat meant for the Robinson family’s dog. Mom with her eyes bugging out and her pajama shirt covered with puke—how would that picture look in the old family album?
He needs to think, but there’s a hurricane going on in his head, a big bad Category Five Katrina, and everything is flying.
His old Boy Scout sleeping bag is spread out on the basement floor, on top of an air mattress he scrounged from the garage. The air mattress has a slow leak. Brady supposes he ought to replace it if he means to continue sleeping down here for whatever short stretch of life remains to him. And where else can he sleep? He can’t bring himself to use his bed on the second floor, not with his mother lying dead in her own bed just down the hall, maybe already rotting her way into the sheets. He’s turned on her air conditioner and cranked it up to HI COOL, but he’s under no illusions about how well that will work. Or for how long. Nor is sleeping on the living room couch an option. He cleaned it as well as he could, and turned the cushions, but it still smells of her vomit.
No, it has to be down here, in his special place. His control room. Of course the basement has its own unpleasant history; it’s where his little brother died. Only died is a bit of a euphemism, and it’s a bit late for those.
Brady thinks about how he used Frankie’s name when he posted to Olivia Trelawney under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. It was as if Frankie was alive again for a little while. Only when the Trelawney bitch died, Frankie died with her.