‘Is that a hunch, or are you following some chain of logic I don’t see?’
‘I’d like to know why he was so anxious for her not to see it, that’s all.’ Having successfully evaded Hodges’s question, she heads for the door. ‘I’m going to build a computer search on robberies between 2001 and 2009. I know it’s a longshot, but it’s a place to start. What are you going to do?’
‘Go home. Think this over. Tomorrow I’m repo’ing cars and looking for a bail-jumper named Dejohn Frasier, who is almost certainly staying with his stepmom or ex-wife. Also, I’ll watch the Indians and possibly go to a movie.’
Holly lights up. ‘Can I go to the movies with you?’
‘If you like.’
‘Can I pick?’
‘Only if you promise not to drag me to some idiotic romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston.’
‘Jennifer Aniston is a very fine actress and a badly underrated comedienne. Did you know she was in the original Leprechaun movie, back in 1993?’
‘Holly, you’re a font of information, but you’re dodging the issue here. Promise me no rom-com, or I go on my own.’
‘I’m sure we can find something mutually agreeable,’ Holly says, not quite meeting his eyes. ‘Will Tina’s brother be all right? You don’t think he’d really try to kill himself, do you?’
‘Not based on his actions. He put himself way out on a limb for his family. Guys like that, ones with empathy, usually aren’t suicidal. Holly, does it seem strange to you that the little girl figured out Peter was behind the money, and their parents don’t seem to have a clue?’
The light in Holly’s eyes goes out, and for a moment she looks very much like the Holly of old, the one who spent most of her adolescence in her room, the kind of neurotic isolate the Japanese call hikikomori.
‘Parents can be very stupid,’ she says, and goes out.
Well, Hodges thinks, yours certainly were, I think we can agree on that.
He goes to the window, clasps his hands behind his back, and stares out at lower Marlborough, where the afternoon rush hour traffic is building. He wonders if Holly has considered the second plausible source of the boy’s anxiety: that the mokes who hid the money have come back and found it gone.
And have somehow found out who took it.
22
Statewide Motorcycle & Small Engine Repair isn’t statewide or even citywide; it’s a ramshackle zoning mistake made of rusty corrugated metal on the South Side, a stone’s throw from the minor league stadium where the Groundhogs play. Out front there’s a line of cycles for sale under plastic pennants fluttering lackadaisically from a sagging length of cable. Most of the bikes look pretty sketchy to Morris. A fat guy in a leather vest is sitting against the side of the building, swabbing road rash with a handful of Kleenex. He looks up at Morris and says nothing. Morris says nothing right back. He had to walk here from Edgemont Avenue, over a mile in the hot morning sun, because the buses only come out this far when the Hogs are playing.
He goes into the garage and there’s Charlie Roberson, sitting on a grease-smeared car seat in front of a half-disassembled Harley. He doesn’t see Morris at first; he’s holding the Harley’s battery up and studying it. Morris, meanwhile, studies him. Roberson is still a muscular fireplug of a man, although he has to be over seventy, bald on top with a graying fringe. He’s wearing a cut-off tee, and Morris can read a fading prison tattoo on one of his biceps: WHITE POWER 4EVER.
One of my success stories, Morris thinks, and smiles.
Roberson was doing life in Waynesville for bludgeoning a rich old lady to death on Wieland Avenue in Branson Park. She supposedly woke up and caught him creeping her house. He also raped her, possibly before the bludgeoning, perhaps after, as she lay dying on the floor of her upstairs hall. The case was a slam-dunk. Roberson had been seen in the area on several occasions leading up to the robbery, he had been photographed by the security camera outside the rich old lady’s gate a day prior to the breakin, he had discussed the possibility of creeping that particular crib and robbing that particular lady with several of his lowlife friends (all given ample reason to testify by the prosecution, having legal woes of their own), and he had a long record of robbery and assault. Jury said guilty; judge said life without parole; Roberson swapped motorcycle repair for stitching bluejeans and varnishing furniture.