“That’s the ticket. Is there someone I could call for a ride if I do get stuck?”
“Call right here.” Thurston hands him a card from the plastic tray by the cash register. “I’ll send either Duane or Spider Willis. It might not be until late tonight, and it’ll cost you forty dollars, but with a case worth millions, I guess you can afford that.”
“Do cell phones work out here?”
“Five bars even in dirty weather,” Duane says. “There’s a tower on the south side of the lake.”
“Good to know. Thank you. Thank you both.”
He turns to go and the old man says, “That hat you’re wearing is no good in this weather. Take this.” He’s holding out a knit hat with a big orange pompom on top. “Can’t do nothing about those shoes, though.”
Hodges thanks him, takes the hat, then removes his fedora and puts it on the counter. It feels like bad luck; it feels like exactly the right thing to do. “Collateral,” he says.
Both of them grin, the younger one with quite a few more teeth.
“Good enough,” the old man says, “but are you a hundred percent sure you want to be driving out to the lake, Mr.—” he glances down at the Finders Keepers business card—“Mr. Hodges? Because you look a trifle peaky.”
“It’s a chest cold,” Hodges says. “I get one every damn winter. Thank you, both of you. And if Dr. Babineau should by any chance call here . . .”
“Wouldn’t give him the time of day,” Thurston says. “He’s a snooty one.”
Hodges starts for the door, and a pain like none he’s ever felt before comes out of nowhere, lancing up from his belly all the way to his jawline. It’s like being shot by a burning arrow, and he staggers.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” the old man asks, starting around the counter.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He’s far from that. “Leg cramp. From driving. I’ll be back for my hat.”
With luck, he thinks.
27
“You were in there a long time,” Holly says. “I hope you gave them a very good story.”
“Subpoena.” Hodges doesn’t need to say more; they’ve used the subpoena story more than once. Everyone likes to help, as long as they’re not the ones being served. “Who called?” Thinking it must have been Jerome, to see how they’re doing.
“Izzy Jaynes. They’ve had two more suicide calls, one attempted and one successful. The attempted was a girl who jumped out of a second-story window. She landed on a snowbank and just broke some bones. The other was a boy who hung himself in his closet. Left a note on his pillow. Just one word, Beth, and a broken heart.”
The Expedition’s wheels spin a little when Hodges drops it into gear and rolls back onto the state road. He has to drive with his low beams on. The brights turn the falling snow into a sparkling white wall.
“We have to do this ourselves,” she says. “If it’s Brady, no one will ever believe it. He’ll pretend to be Babineau and spin some story about how he was scared and ran away.”
“And never called the police himself after Library Al shot his wife?” Hodges says. “I’m not sure that would hold.”
“Maybe not, but what if he can jump to someone else? If he could jump to Babineau, who else could he jump to? We have to do this ourselves, even if it means we end up getting arrested for murder. Do you think that could happen, Bill? Do you do you do you?”
“We’ll worry about it later.”
“I’m not sure I could shoot a person. Not even Brady Hartsfield, if he looks like someone else.”
He repeats, “We’ll worry about it later.”
“Fine. Where did you get that hat?”
“Swapped it for my fedora.”
“The puffball on top is silly, but it looks warm.”
“Do you want it?”
“No. But Bill?”
“Jesus, Holly, what?”
“You look awful.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Be sarcastic. Fine. How far is it to where we’re going?”
“The general consensus back there was three and a half miles on this road. Then a camp road.”
Silence for five minutes as they creep through the blowing snow. And the main body of the storm is still coming, Hodges reminds himself.
“Bill?”
“What now?”
“You have no boots, and I’m all out of Nicorette.”
“Spark up one of those joints, why don’t you? But keep an eye out for a couple of red posts on the left while you do it. They should be coming up soon.”
Holly doesn’t light a joint, just sits forward, looking to the left. When the Expedition skids again, the rear end flirting first left and then right, she doesn’t appear to notice. A minute later she points. “Is that them?”