Kermit is Hodges’s actual first name, but he goes by the middle one with most people; it keeps the frog jokes to a minimum. Pete makes a practice of using it, though. Finds it hilarious.
Hodges considers just pocketing the phone again (after muting it, if he can find his way to the DO NOT DISTURB control). He’ll be called into Dr. Stamos’s office at any minute, and he wants to get their conference over with. Like most elderly guys he knows, he doesn’t like doctors’ offices. He’s always afraid they’re going to find not just something wrong but something really wrong. Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t know what his ex-partner wants to talk about: Pete’s big retirement bash next month. It’s going to be at the Raintree Inn, out by the airport. Same place where Hodges’s party took place, but this time he intends to drink a lot less. Maybe not at all. He had trouble with booze when he was active police, it was part of the reason his marriage crashed, but these days he seems to have lost his taste for alcohol. That’s a relief. He once read a science fiction novel called The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. He doesn’t know about the moon, but would testify in court that whiskey is a harsh mistress, and that’s made right here on earth.
He thinks it over, considers texting, then rejects the idea and gets up. Old habits are too strong.
The woman behind the reception desk is Marlee, according to her nametag. She looks about seventeen, and gives him a brilliant cheerleader’s smile. “He’ll be with you soon, Mr. Hodges, I promise. We’re just running a teensy bit behind. That’s Monday for you.”
“Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day,” Hodges says.
She looks blank.
“I’m going to step out for a minute, okay? Have to make a call.”
“That’s fine,” Marlee says. “Just stand in front of the door. I’ll give you a big wave if you’re still out there when he’s ready.”
“That works.” Hodges stops by the old lady on his way to the door. “Good book?”
She looks up at him. “No, but it’s very energetic.”
“So I’ve been told. Have you seen the movie?”
She stares up at him, surprised and interested. “There’s a movie?”
“Yes. You should check it out.”
Not that Hodges has seen it himself, although Holly -Gibney—once his assistant, now his partner, a rabid film fan since her troubled childhood—tried to drag him to it. Twice. It was Holly who put the breaking pane of glass/home run text alert on his phone. She found it amusing. Hodges did, too . . . at first. Now he finds it a pain in the ass. He’ll look up how to change it on the Internet. You can find anything on the Internet, he has discovered. Some of it is helpful. Some of it is interesting. Some of it is funny.
And some of it is fucking awful.
2
Pete’s cell rings twice, and then his old partner is in his ear. “Huntley.”
Hodges says, “Listen to me carefully, because you may be tested on this material later. Yes, I’ll be at the party. Yes, I’ll make a few remarks after the meal, amusing but not raunchy, and I’ll propose the first toast. Yes, I understand both your ex and your current squeeze will be there, but to my knowledge no one has hired a stripper. If anyone has, it would be Hal Corley, who is an idiot, and you’d have to ask hi—”
“Bill, stop. It’s not about the party.”
Hodges stops at once. It’s not just the intertwined babble of voices in the background—police voices, he knows that even though he can’t tell what they’re saying. What stops him dead is that Pete has called him Bill, and that means it’s serious shit. Hodges’s thoughts fly first to Corinne, his own ex-wife, next to his daughter Alison, who lives in San Francisco, and then to Holly. Christ, if something has happened to Holly . . .
“What is it about, Pete?”
“I’m at the scene of what appears to be a murder-suicide. I’d like you to come out and take a look. Bring your sidekick with you, if she’s available and agreeable. I hate to say this, but I think she might actually be a little smarter than you are.”
Not any of his people. Hodges’s stomach muscles, tightened as if to absorb a blow, loosen. Although the steady ache that’s brought him to Stamos is still there. “Of course she is. Because she’s younger. You start to lose brain cells by the millions after you turn sixty, a phenomenon you’ll be able to experience for yourself in another couple of years. Why would you want an old carthorse like me at a murder scene?”
“Because this is probably my last case, because it’s going to blow up big in the papers, and because—don’t swoon—I actually value your input. Gibney’s, too. And in a weird way, you’re both connected. That’s probably a coincidence, but I’m not entirely sure.”
“Connected how?”