By the time Tina has finished, she’s calmed down considerably. Hodges has seen this before. Confession may or may not be good for the soul, but it’s undoubtedly soothing to the nerves.
He opens the door to the outer office and sees Holly sitting at her desk, playing computer solitaire. Beside her is a bag filled with enough energy bars to feed the four of them during a zombie siege. ‘Come in here, Hols,’ he says. ‘I need you. And bring those.’
Holly steps in tentatively, checks Tina Saubers out, and seems relieved by what she sees. Each of the girls takes an energy bar, which seems to relieve her even more. Hodges takes one himself. The salad he had for lunch seems to have gone down the hatch a month ago, and the veggie burger hasn’t really stuck to his ribs, either. Sometimes he still dreams of going to Mickey D’s and ordering everything on the menu.
‘This is good,’ Barbara says, munching. ‘I got raspberry. What’d you get, Teens?’
‘Lemon,’ she says. ‘It is good. Thank you, Mr Hodges. Thank you, Ms Holly.’
‘Barb,’ Holly says, ‘where does your mom think you are now?’
‘Movies,’ Barbara says. ‘Frozen again, the sing-along version. It plays every afternoon at Cinema Seven. It’s been there like for-ever.’ She rolls her eyes at Tina, who rolls hers in complicity. ‘Mom said we could take the bus home, but we have to be back by six at the very latest. Tina’s staying over.’
That gives us a little time, Hodges thinks. ‘Tina, I want you to tell it all again, so Holly can hear. She’s my assistant, and she’s smart. Plus, she can keep a secret.’
Tina goes through it again, and in more detail now that she’s calmer. Holly listens closely, her Asperger’s-like tics mostly disappearing as they always do when she’s fully engaged. All that remains are her restlessly moving fingers, tapping her thighs as if she’s working at an invisible keyboard.
When Tina has come to the end, Holly asks, ‘The money started coming in February of 2010?’
‘February or March,’ Tina says. ‘I remember, because our folks were fighting a lot then. Daddy lost his job, see … and his legs were all hurt … and Mom used to yell at him about smoking, how much his cigarettes cost …’
‘I hate yelling,’ Holly says matter-of-factly. ‘It makes me sick in my stomach.’
Tina gives her a grateful look.
‘The conversation about the doubloons,’ Hodges puts in. ‘Was that before or after the money-train started to roll?’
‘Before. But not long before.’ She gives the answer with no hesitation.
‘And it was five hundred every month,’ Holly says.
‘Sometimes the time was a little shorter than that, like three weeks, and sometimes it was a little longer. When it was more than a month, my folks would think it was over. Once I think it was like six weeks, and I remember Daddy saying to Mom, “Well, it was good while it lasted.”’
‘When was that?’ Holly’s leaning forward, eyes bright, fingers no longer tapping. Hodges loves it when she’s like this.
‘Mmm …’ Tina frowns. ‘Around my birthday, for sure. When I was twelve. Pete wasn’t there for my party. It was spring vacation, and his friend Rory invited him to go to Disney World with their family. That was a bad birthday, because I was so jealous he got to go and I …’
She stops, looking first at Barbara, then at Hodges, finally at Holly, upon whom she seems to have imprinted as Mama Duck. ‘That’s why it was late that time! Isn’t it? Because he was in Florida!’
Holly glances at Hodges with just the slightest smile edging her lips, then returns her attention to Tina. ‘Probably. Always twenties and fifties?’
‘Yes. I saw it lots of times.’
‘And it ran out when?’
‘Last September. Around the time school started. There was a note that time. It said something like, “This is the last of it, I’m sorry there isn’t more.”’
‘And how long after that was it when you told your brother you thought he was the one sending the money?’
‘Not very long. And he never exactly admitted it, but I know it was him. And maybe this is all my fault because I kept talking to him about Chapel Ridge … and he said he wished the money wasn’t all gone so I could go … and maybe he did something stupid and now he’s sorry, and it’s too l-l-late!’
She starts crying again. Barbara enfolds her and makes comforting sounds. Holly’s finger-tapping resumes, but she shows no other signs of distress; she’s lost in her thoughts. Hodges can almost see the wheels turning. He has his own questions, but for the time being, he’s more than willing to let Holly take the lead.
When Tina’s weeping is down to sniffles, Holly says, ‘You said you came in one night and he had a notebook he acted guilty about. He put it under his pillow.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Was that near the end of the money?’
‘I think so, yeah.’
‘Was it one of his school notebooks?’
‘No. It was black, and looked expensive. Also, it had an elastic strap that went around the outside.’