“Yes,” Izzy says. “And Kennedy and Lincoln have the same number of letters, proving they were both killed by the same man.”
Hodges sneaks a peek at his watch and sees he’ll have to leave soon, and that’s okay. Other than upsetting Holly and pissing off Izzy, this meeting has accomplished nothing. Nor can it, because he has no intention of telling Pete and Isabelle what he discovered on his own computer early this morning. That information might shift the investigation into a higher gear, but he’s going to keep it on the down-low until he does a little more investigation himself. He doesn’t want to think that Pete would fumble it, but—
But he might. Because being thorough is a poor substitute for being thoughtful. And Izzy? She doesn’t want to open a can of worms filled with a lot of pulp-novel stuff about cryptic letters and mystery men. Not when the deaths at the Ellerton house are already on the front page of today’s paper, along with a complete recap of how Martine Stover came to be paralyzed. Not when Izzy’s expecting to take the next step up the police department ladder just as soon as her current partner retires.
“Bottom line,” Pete says, “this is going down as a murder-suicide, and we’re gonna move on. We have to move on, Kermit. I’m retiring. Iz will be left with a huge caseload and no new partner for awhile, thanks to the damn budget cuts. This stuff”—he indicates the two plastic bags—“is sort of interesting, but it doesn’t change the clarity of what happened. Unless you think some master criminal set it up? One who drives an old car and mends his coat with masking tape?”
“No, I don’t think that.” Hodges is remembering something Holly said about Brady Hartsfield yesterday. She used the word architect. “I think you’ve got it right. Murder-suicide.”
Holly gives him a brief look of wounded surprise before lowering her eyes again.
“But will you do something for me?”
“If I can,” Pete says.
“I tried the game console, but the screen stayed blank. Probably a dead battery. I didn’t want to open the battery compartment, because that little slide panel would be a place to check for fingerprints.”
“I’ll see that it’s dusted, but I doubt—”
“Yeah, I do, too. What I really want is for one of your cyber-wonks to boot it up and check the various game applications. See if there’s anything out of the ordinary.”
“Okay,” Pete says, and shifts slightly in his seat when Izzy rolls her eyes. Hodges can’t be sure, but he thinks Pete just kicked her ankle under the table.
“I have to go,” Hodges says, and grabs for his wallet. “Missed my appointment yesterday. Can’t miss another one.”
“We’ll pick up the check,” Izzy says. “After you brought us all this valuable evidence, it’s the least we can do.”
Holly mutters something else under her breath. This time Hodges can’t be sure, even with his trained Holly-ear, but he thinks it might have been bitch.
20
On the sidewalk, Holly jams an unfashionable but somehow charming plaid hunting cap down to her ears and then thrusts her hands into her coat pockets. She won’t look at him, only starts walking toward the office a block away. Hodges’s car is parked outside Dave’s, but he hurries after her.
“Holly.”
“You see how she is.” Walking faster. Still not looking at him.
The pain in his gut is creeping back, and he’s losing his breath. “Holly, wait. I can’t keep up.”
She turns to him, and he’s alarmed to see her eyes are swimming with tears.
“There’s more to it! More more more! But they’re just going to sweep it under the rug and they didn’t even say the real reason which is so Pete can have a nice retirement party without this hanging over his head the way you had to retire with the Mercedes Killer hanging over yours and so the papers don’t make a big deal of it and you know there’s more to it I know you do and I know you have to get your test results I want you to get them because I’m so worried, but those poor women . . . I just don’t think . . . they don’t deserve to . . . to just be shoveled under!”
She halts at last, trembling. The tears are already freezing on her cheeks. He tilts her face to look at him, knowing she would shrink away if anyone else tried to touch her that way—yes, even Jerome Robinson, and she loves Jerome, probably has since the day the two of them discovered the ghost-program Brady left in Olivia Trelawney’s computer, the one that finally pushed her over the edge and caused her to take her own overdose.
“Holly, we’re not done with this. In fact I think we might just be getting started.”
She looks him squarely in the face, another thing she will do with no one else. “What do you mean?”