Hodges usually likes Isabelle well enough, even though she once nearly tripped him up in an interrogation room (this during the Mr. Mercedes thing, when he had been hip-deep in an unauthorized investigation), but he doesn’t like her much now. He can’t like anyone who makes Holly shrink like that.
“Be reasonable, Iz. Think it through. If Holly hadn’t found that thing—and purely by accident—it would still be there. You guys weren’t going to search the house.”
“You probably weren’t going to call the housekeeper, either,” Holly says, and although she still won’t look up, there’s metal in her voice. Hodges is glad to hear it.
“We would have gotten to the Alderson woman in time,” Izzy says, but those misty gray eyes of hers flick up and to the left as she says it. It’s a classic liar’s tell, and Hodges knows when he sees it that she and Pete haven’t even discussed the housekeeper yet, although they probably would have gotten around to her eventually. Pete Huntley may be a bit of a plodder, but plodders are usually thorough, you had to give them that.
“If there were any fingerprints on that gadget,” Izzy says, “they’re gone now. Kiss them goodbye.”
Holly mutters something under her breath, making Hodges remember that when he first met her (and completely underestimated her), he thought of her as Holly the Mumbler.
Izzy leans forward, her gray eyes suddenly not misty at all. “What did you say?”
“She said that’s silly,” Hodges says, knowing perfectly well that the word was actually stupid. “She’s right. It was shoved down between the arm of Ellerton’s chair and the cushion. Any fingerprints on it would be blurred, and you know it. Also, were you going to search the whole house?”
“We might have,” Isabelle says, sounding sulky. “Depending on what we get back from forensics.”
Other than in Martine Stover’s bedroom and bathroom, there were no forensics. They all know this, Izzy included, and there’s no need for Hodges to belabor the point.
“Take it easy,” Pete says to Isabelle. “I invited Kermit and Holly out there, and you agreed.”
“That was before I knew they were going to walk out with . . .”
She trails off. Hodges waits with interest to see how she will finish. Is she going to say with a piece of the evidence? Evidence of what? An addiction to computer solitaire, Angry Birds, and Frogger?
“With a piece of Mrs. Ellerton’s property,” she finishes lamely.
“Well, you’ve got it now,” Hodges says. “Can we move on? Perhaps discuss the man who gave it to her in the supermarket, claiming the company was eager for user input on a gadget that’s no longer made?”
“And the man who was watching them,” Holly says, still without looking up. “The man who was watching them from across the street with binoculars.”
Hodges’s old partner pokes the bag with the wrapped lens cap inside. “I’ll have this dusted for fingerprints, but I’m not real hopeful, Kerm. You know how people take these caps on and off.”
“Yeah,” Hodges says. “By the rim. And it was cold in that garage. Cold enough so I could see my breath. The guy was probably wearing gloves, anyway.”
“The guy in the supermarket was most likely working some kind of short con,” Izzy says. “It’s got that smell. Maybe he called a week later, trying to convince her that by taking the obsolete games gadget, she was obligated to buy a more expensive current one, and she told him to go peddle his papers. Or he might have used the info from the questionnaire to hack into her computer.”
“Not that computer,” Holly says. “It was older than dirt.”
“Had a good look around, didn’t you?” Izzy says. “Did you check the medicine cabinets while you were investigating?”
This is too much for Hodges. “She was doing what you should have done, Isabelle. And you know it.”
Color is rising in Izzy’s cheeks. “We called you in as a courtesy, that’s all, and I wish we’d never done it. You two are always trouble.”
“Stop it,” Pete says.
But Izzy is leaning forward, her eyes flicking between -Hodges’s face and the top of Holly’s lowered head. “These two mystery men—if they existed at all—have nothing to do with what happened in that house. One was probably running a con, the other was a simple peeper.”
Hodges knows he should stay friendly here—increase the peace, and all that—but he just can’t do it. “Some pervo salivating at the thought of watching an eighty-year-old woman undress, or seeing a quadriplegic get a sponge bath? Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Read my lips,” Izzy says. “Mom killed daughter, then self. Even left a suicide note of sorts—Z, the end. Couldn’t be any clearer.”
Z-Boy, Hodges thinks. Whoever’s under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella this time signs himself Z-Boy.
Holly lifts her head. “There was also a Z in the garage. Carved into the wood between the doors. Bill saw it. Zappit also begins with Z, you know.”