12
They walk down the hill to the little shopping center at the intersection of Harper Road and Hanover Street with Odell padding between them on the slack leash. They can see the buildings of downtown two miles distant, City Center and the Midwest Culture and Arts Complex dominating the cluster of skyscrapers. The MAC is not one of I. M. Pei’s finer creations, in Hodges’s opinion. Not that his opinion has ever been solicited on the matter.
“So what’s the story, morning glory?” Jerome asks.
“Well,” Hodges says, “let’s say there’s this guy with a long-term lady friend who lives downtown. He himself lives in Parsonville.” This is a municipality just beyond Sugar Heights, not as lux but far from shabby.
“Some of my friends call Parsonville Whiteyville,” Jerome says. “I heard my father say it once, and my mother told him to shut up with the racist talk.”
“Uh-huh.” Jerome’s friends, the black ones, probably call Sugar Heights Whiteyville, too, which makes Hodges think he’s doing okay so far.
Odell has stopped to check out Mrs. Melbourne’s flowers. Jerome pulls him away before he can leave a doggy memo there.
“So anyway,” Hodges resumes, “the long-term lady friend has a condo apartment in the Branson Park area—Wieland Avenue, Branson Street, Lake Avenue, that part of town.”
“Also nice.”
“Yeah. He goes to see her three or four times a week. One or two nights a week he takes her to dinner or a movie and stays over. When he does that, he parks his car—a nice one, a Beemer—on the street, because it’s a good area, well policed, plenty of those high-intensity arc-sodiums. Also, the parking’s free from seven P.M. to eight A.M.”
“I had a Beemer, I’d put it in one of the garages down there and never mind the free parking,” Jerome says, and tugs the leash again. “Stop it, Odell, nice dogs don’t eat out of the gutter.”
Odell looks over his shoulder and rolls an eye as if to say You don’t know what nice dogs do.
“Well, rich people have some funny ideas about economy,” Hodges says, thinking of Mrs. T.’s explanation for doing the same thing.
“If you say so.” They have almost reached the shopping center. On the way down the hill they’ve heard the jingling tune of the ice cream truck, once quite close, but it fades again as the Mr. Tastey guy heads for the housing developments north of Harper Road.
“So one Thursday night this guy goes to visit his lady as usual. He parks as usual—all kinds of empty spaces down there once the business day is over—and locks up his car as usual. He and his lady take a walk to a nearby restaurant, have a nice meal, then walk back. His car’s right there, he sees it before they go in. He spends the night with his lady, and when he leaves the building in the morning—”
“His Beemer’s gone bye-bye.” They are now standing outside the ice cream shop. There’s a bicycle rack nearby. Jerome fastens Odell’s leash to it. The dog lies down and puts his muzzle on one paw.
“No,” Hodges says, “it’s there.” He is thinking that this is a damned good variation on what actually happened. He almost believes it himself. “But it’s facing the other way, because it’s parked on the other side of the street.”
Jerome raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah, I know. Weird, right? So the guy goes across to it. Car looks okay, it’s locked up tight just the way he left it, it’s just in a new place. So the first thing he does is check for his key, and yep, it’s still in his pocket. So what the hell happened, Jerome?”
“I don’t know, Mr. H. It’s like a Sherlock Holmes story, isn’t it? A real three-pipe problem.” There’s a little smile on Jerome’s face that Hodges can’t quite parse and isn’t sure he likes. It’s a knowing smile.
Hodges digs his wallet out of his Levi’s (the suit was good, but it’s a relief to be back in jeans and an Indians pullover again). He selects a five and hands it to Jerome. “Go get our ice cream cones. I’ll dog-sit Odell.”
“You don’t need to do that, he’s fine.”
“I’m sure he is, but standing in line will give you time to consider my little problem. Think of yourself as Sherlock, maybe that’ll help.”
“Okay.” Tyrone Feelgood Delight pops out. “Only you is Sherlock! I is Doctah Watson!”
13
There’s a pocket park on the far side of Hanover. They cross at the WALK light, grab a bench, and watch a bunch of shaggy-haired middle-school boys dare life and limb in the sunken concrete skateboarding area. Odell divides his time between watching the boys and the ice cream cones.
“You ever try that?” Hodges asks, nodding at the daredevils.
“No, suh!” Jerome gives him a wide-eyed stare. “I is black. I spends mah spare time shootin hoops and runnin on de cinder track at de high school. Us black fellas is mighty fast, as de whole worl’ knows.”
“Thought I told you to leave Tyrone at home.” Hodges uses his finger to swop some ice cream off his cone and extends the dripping finger to Odell, who cleans it with alacrity.
“Sometimes dat boy jus’ show up!” Jerome declares. Then Tyrone is gone, just like that. “There’s no guy and no lady friend and no Beemer. You’re talking about the Mercedes Killer.”
So much for fiction. “Say I am.”
“Are you investigating that on your own, Mr. Hodges?”
Hodges thinks this over, very carefully, then repeats himself. “Say I am.”
“Does the Debbie’s Blue Umbrella site have something to do with it?”
“Say it does.”
A boy falls off his skateboard and stands up with road rash on both knees. One of his friends buzzes over, jeering. Road Rash Boy slides a hand across one oozing knee, flings a spray of red droplets at Jeering Boy, then rolls away, shouting “AIDS! AIDS!” Jeering Boy rolls after him, only now he’s Laughing Boy.
“Barbarians,” Jerome mutters. He bends to scratch Odell behind the ears, then straightens up. “If you want to talk about it—”
Embarrassed, Hodges says, “I don’t think at this point—”
“I understand,” Jerome says. “But I did think about your problem while I was in line, and I’ve got a question.”
“Yes?”
“Your make-believe Beemer guy, where was his spare key?”
Hodges sits very still, thinking how very quick this kid is. Then he sees a line of pink ice cream trickling down the side of his waffle cone and licks it off.
“Let’s say he claims he never had one.”
“Like the woman who owned the Mercedes did.”
“Yes. Exactly like that.”
“Remember me telling you how my mom got pissed at my dad for calling Parsonville Whiteyville?”
“Yeah.”
“Want to hear about a time when my dad got pissed at my mom? The only time I ever heard him say, That’s just like a woman?”
“If it bears on my little problem, shoot.”
“Mom’s got a Chevy Malibu. Candy-apple red. You’ve seen it in the driveway.”
“Sure.”
“He bought it new three years ago and gave it to her for her birthday, provoking massive squeals of delight.”
Yes, Hodges thinks, Tyrone Feelgood has definitely taken a hike.
“She drives it for a year. No problems. Then it’s time to re-register. Dad said he’d do it for her on his way home from work. He goes out to get the paperwork, then comes back in from the driveway holding up a key. He’s not mad, but he’s irritated. He tells her that if she leaves her spare key in the car, someone could find it and drive her car away. She asks where it was. He says in a plastic Ziploc bag along with her registration, her insurance card, and the owner’s manual, which she had never opened. Still had the paper band around it that says thanks for buying your new car at Lake Chevrolet.”
Another drip is trickling down Hodges’s ice cream. This time he doesn’t notice it even when it reaches his hand and pools there. “In the . . .”
“Glove compartment, yes. My dad said it was careless, and my mom said . . .” Jerome leans forward, his brown eyes fixed on Hodges’s gray ones. “She said she didn’t even know it was there. That’s when he said it was just like a woman. Which didn’t make her happy.”
“Bet it didn’t.” In Hodges’s brain, all sorts of gears are engaging.
“Dad says, Honey, all you have to do is forget once and leave your car unlocked. Some crack addict comes along, sees the buttons up, and decides to toss it in case there’s anything worth stealing. He checks the glove compartment for money, sees the key in the plastic bag, and away he goes to find out who wants to buy a low-mileage Malibu for cash.”
“What did your mother say to that?”
Jerome grins. “First thing, she turned it around. No one does that any better than my moms. She says, You bought the car and you brought it home. You should have told me. I’m eating my breakfast while they’re having this little discussion and thought of saying, If you’d ever checked the owner’s manual, Mom, maybe just to see what all those cute little lights on the dashboard signify, but I kept my mouth shut. My mom and dad don’t get into it often, but when they do, a wise person steers clear. Even the Barbster knows that, and she’s only nine.”
It occurs to Hodges that when he and Corinne were married, this is something Alison also knew.
“The other thing she said was that she never forgets to lock her car. Which, so far as I know, is true. Anyway, that key is now hanging on one of the hooks in our kitchen. Safe, sound, and ready to go if the primary ever gets lost.”
Hodges sits looking at the skateboarders but not seeing them. He’s thinking that Jerome’s mom had a point when she said her husband should have either presented her with the spare key or at least told her about it. You don’t just assume people will do an inventory and find things by themselves. But Olivia Trelawney’s case was different. She bought her own car, and should have known.
Only the salesman had probably overloaded her with info about her expensive new purchase; they had a way of doing that. When to change the oil, how to use the cruise control, how to use the GPS, don’t forget to put your spare key in a safe place, here’s how you plug in your cell phone, here’s the number to call roadside assistance if you need it, click the headlight switch all the way to the left to engage the twilight function.
Hodges could remember buying his first new car and letting the guy’s post-sales tutorial wash over him—uh-huh, yep, right, gotcha—just anxious to get his new purchase out on the road, to dig the rattle-free ride and inhale that incomparable new-car smell, which to the buyer is the aroma of money well spent. But Mrs. T. was obsessive-compulsive. He could believe she’d overlooked the spare key and left it in the glove compartment, but if she had taken her primary key that Thursday night, wouldn’t she also have locked the car doors? She said she did, had maintained that to the very end, and really, think about it—
“Mr. Hodges?”
“With the new smart keys, it’s a simple three-step process, isn’t it?” he says. “Step one, turn off the engine. Step two, remove the key from the ignition. If your mind’s on something else and you forget step two, there’s a chime to remind you. Step three, close the door and push the button stamped with the padlock icon. Why would you forget that, with the key right there in your hand? Theft-Proofing for Dummies.”
“True-dat, Mr. H., but some dummies forget, anyway.”
Hodges is too lost in thought for reticence. “She was no dummy. Nervous and twitchy but not stupid. If she took her key, I almost have to believe she locked her car. And the car wasn’t broken into. So even if she did leave the spare in her glove compartment, how did the guy get to it?”
“So it’s a locked-car mystery instead of a locked room. Dis be a fo’-pipe problem!”
Hodges doesn’t reply. He’s going over it and over it. That the spare might have been in the glove compartment now seems obvious, but did either he or Pete ever raise the possibility? He’s pretty sure they didn’t. Because they thought like men? Or because they were pissed at Mrs. T.’s carelessness and wanted to blame her? And she was to blame, wasn’t she?
Not if she really did lock her car, he thinks.
“Mr. Hodges, what does that Blue Umbrella website have to do with the Mercedes Killer?”
Hodges comes back out of his own head. He’s been in deep, and it’s a pretty long trudge. “I don’t want to talk about that just now, Jerome.”
“But maybe I can help!”
Has he ever seen Jerome this excited? Maybe once, when the debate team he captained his sophomore year won the citywide championship.
“Find out about that website and you will be helping,” Hodges says.
“You don’t want to tell me because I’m a kid. That’s it, isn’t it?”
It is part of the reason, but Hodges has no intention of saying so. And as it happens, there’s something else.
“It’s more complicated than that. I’m not a cop anymore, and investigating the City Center thing skates right up to the edge of what’s legal. If I find anything out and don’t tell my old partner, who’s now the lead on the Mercedes Killer case, I’ll be over the edge. You have a bright future ahead of you, including just about any college or university you decide to favor with your presence. What would I say to your mother and father if you got dragged into an investigation of my actions, maybe as an accomplice?”
Jerome sits quietly, digesting this. Then he gives the end of his cone to Odell, who accepts it eagerly. “I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.”
Jerome stands up and Hodges does the same. “Still friends?”
“Sure. But if you think I can help you, promise me that you’ll ask. You know what they say, two heads are better than one.”
“That’s a deal.”
They start back up the hill. At first Odell walks between them as before, then starts to pull ahead because Hodges is slowing down. He’s also losing his breath. “I’ve got to drop some weight,” he tells Jerome. “You know what? I tore the seat out of a perfectly good pair of pants the other day.”
“You could probably stand to lose ten,” Jerome says diplomatically.
“Double that and you’d be a lot closer.”
“Want to stop and rest a minute?”
“No.” Hodges sounds childish even to himself. He means it about the weight, though; when he gets back to the house, every damn snack in the cupboards and the fridge is going into the trash. Then he thinks, Make it the garbage disposal. Too easy to weaken and fish stuff out of the trash.
“Jerome, it would be best if you kept my little investigation to yourself. Can I trust your discretion?”
Jerome replies without hesitation. “Absolutely. Mum’s the word.”
“Good.”
A block ahead, the Mr. Tastey truck jingles its way across Harper Road and heads down Vinson Lane. Jerome tips a wave. Hodges can’t see if the ice cream man waves back.
“Now we see him,” Hodges said.
Jerome turns, gives him a grin. “Ice cream man’s like a cop.”
“Huh?”
“Never around when you need him.”
14
Brady rolls along, obeying the speed limit (twenty miles per here on Vinson Lane), hardly hearing the jingle and clang of “Buffalo Gals” from the speakers above him. He’s wearing a sweater beneath his white Mr. Tastey jacket, because the load behind him is cold.
Like my mind, he thinks. Only ice cream is just cold. My mind is also analytical. It’s a machine. A Mac loaded with gigs to the googolplex.
He turns it to what he has just seen, the fat ex-cop walking up Harper Road Hill with Jerome Robinson and the Irish setter with the nigger name. Jerome gave him a wave and Brady gave it right back, because that’s the way you blend in. Like listening to Freddi Linklatter’s endless rants about how tough it was to be a gay woman in a straight world.
Kermit William “I wish I was young” Hodges and Jerome “I wish I was white” Robinson. What was the Odd Couple talking about? That’s something Brady Hartsfield would like to know. Maybe he’ll find out if the cop takes the bait and strikes up a conversation on Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. It certainly worked with the rich bitch; once she started talking, nothing could stop her.
The Det-Ret and his darkie houseboy.
Also Odell. Don’t forget Odell. Jerome and his little sister love that dog. It would really break them up if something happened to it. Probably nothing will, but maybe he’ll research some more poisons on the Net when he gets home tonight.
Such thoughts are always flitting through Brady’s mind; they are the bats in his belfry. This morning at DE, as he was inventorying another load of cheap-ass DVDs (why more are coming in at the same time they’re trying to dump stock is a mystery that will never be solved), it occurred to him that he could use his suicide vest to assassinate the president, Mr. Barack “I wish I was white” Obama. Go out in a blaze of glory. Barack comes to this state often, because it’s important to his re-election strategy. And when he comes to the state, he comes to this city. Has a rally. Talks about hope. Talks about change. Rah-rah-rah, blah-blah-blah. Brady was figuring out how to avoid metal detectors and random checks when Tones Frobisher buzzed him and told him he had a service call. By the time he was on the road in one of the green Cyber Patrol VWs, he was thinking about something else. Brad Pitt, to be exact. F*cking matinee idol.
Sometimes, though, his ideas stick.
A chubby little boy comes running down the sidewalk, waving money. Brady pulls over.
“I want chawww-klit!” the little boy brays. “And I want it with springles!”
You got it, you fatass little creep, Brady thinks, and smiles his widest, most charming smile. F*ck up your cholesterol all you want, I give you until forty, and who knows, maybe you’ll survive the first heart attack. That won’t stop you, though, nope. Not when the world is full of beer and Whoppers and chocolate ice cream.
“You got it, little buddy. One chocolate with sprinkles coming right up. How was school? Get any As?”