He does.
‘I need help,’ Pete Saubers says rapidly. ‘Please, Mr Hodges, I really need help.’
‘Just a sec. I’m going to put you on speaker so my associates can hear.’
‘Associates?’ Pete sounds more alarmed than ever. ‘What associates?’
‘Holly Gibney. Your sister knows her. And Jerome Robinson. He’s Barbara Robinson’s older brother.’
‘Oh. I guess … I guess that’s okay.’ And, as if to himself: ‘How much worse can it get?’
‘Peter, we’re in Andrew Halliday’s shop. There’s a dead man in his office. I assume it’s Halliday, and I assume you know about it. Would those assumptions be correct?’
There’s a moment of silence. If not for the faint sound of traffic wherever Pete is, Hodges might have thought he’d broken the connection. Then the boy starts talking again, the words spilling out in a waterfall.
‘He was there when I got there. The man with the red lips. He told me Mr Halliday was in the back, so I went into his office, and he followed me and he had a gun and he tried to kill me when I wouldn’t tell him where the notebooks were. I wouldn’t because … because he doesn’t deserve to have them and besides he was going to kill me anyway, I could tell just by looking in his eyes. He … I …’
‘You threw the decanters at him, didn’t you?’
‘Yes! The bottles! And he shot at me! He missed, but it was so close I heard it go by. I ran and got away, but then he called me and said they’d blame me, the police would, because I threw a hatchet at him, too … did you see the hatchet?’
‘Yes,’ Hodges says. ‘I’m looking at it right now.’
‘And … and my fingerprints, see … they’re on it because I threw it at him … and he has some video discs of me and Mr Halliday arguing … because he was trying to blackmail me! Halliday, I mean, not the man with the red lips, only now he’s trying to blackmail me, too!’
‘This red-lips man has the store security video?’ Holly asks, bending toward the phone. ‘Is that what you mean?’
‘Yes! He said the police will arrest me and they will because I didn’t go to any of the Sunday meetings at River Bend, and he also has a voicemail and I don’t know what to do!’
‘Where are you, Peter?’ Hodges asks. ‘Where are you right now?’
There’s another pause, and Hodges knows exactly what Pete’s doing: checking for landmarks. He may have lived in the city his whole life, but right now he’s so freaked he doesn’t know east from west.
‘Government Square,’ he says at last. ‘Across from this restaurant, the Happy Cup?’
‘Do you see the man who shot at you?’
‘N-No. I ran, and I don’t think he could chase me very far on foot. He’s kind of old, and you can’t drive a car on Lacemaker Lane.’
‘Stay there,’ Hodges says. ‘We’ll come and get you.’
‘Please don’t call the police,’ Peter says. ‘It’ll kill my folks, after everything else that’s happened to them. I’ll give you the notebooks. I never should have kept them, and I never should have tried to sell any of them. I should have stopped with the money.’ His voice is blurring now as he breaks down. ‘My parents … they were in such trouble. About everything. I only wanted to help!’
‘I’m sure that’s true, but I have to call the police. If you didn’t kill Halliday, the evidence will show that. You’ll be fine. I’ll pick you up and we’ll go to your house. Will your parents be there?’
‘Dad’s on a business thing, but my mom and sister will be.’ Pete has to hitch in a breath before going on. ‘I’ll go to jail, won’t I? They’ll never believe me about the man with the red lips. They’ll think I made him up.’
‘All you have to do is tell the truth,’ Holly says. ‘Bill won’t let anything bad happen to you.’ She grabs his hand and squeezes it fiercely. ‘Will you?’
Hodges repeats, ‘If you didn’t kill him, you’ll be fine.’
‘I didn’t! Swear to God!’
‘This other man did. The one with the red lips.’
‘Yes. He killed John Rothstein, too. He said Rothstein sold out.’
Hodges has a million questions, but this isn’t the time.
‘Listen to me, Pete. Very carefully. Stay where you are. We’ll be at Government Square in fifteen minutes.’
‘If you let me drive,’ Jerome says, ‘we can be there in ten.’
Hodges ignores this. ‘The four of us will go to your house. You’ll tell the whole story to me, my associates, and your mother. She may want to call your father and discuss getting you legal representation. Then we’re going to call the police. It’s the best I can do.’