“I don’t think that’s so funny,” Angie says. “You all could have been killed.”
“There must have been more to it than that,” Hodges says.
“Sure. It said that there were like two thousand kids there, a lot of them at their first concert, and they got screwed out of the experience of a lifetime. Although, um, screwed wasn’t the word they used.”
“I think we can fill in that blank, dear one,” Carl says.
“And then it said that ’Round Here’s corporate sponsor had received a whole bunch of Zappit game consoles, and they wanted to give them away. To, you know, kind of make up for the concert.”
“Even though that was almost six years ago?” Angie looks incredulous.
“Yeah. Kind of weird, when you think of it.”
“But you didn’t,” Carl said. “Think of it.”
Dinah shrugs, looking petulant. “I did, but it seemed okay.”
“Famous last words,” her father says.
“So you just . . . what?” Hodges asks. “Emailed in your name and address and got that”—he points to the Zappit—“in the mail?”
“There was a little more to it than that,” Dinah says. “You had to, like, be able to prove you were actually there. So I went to see Barb’s mom. You know, Tanya.”
“Why?”
“For the pictures. I think I have mine somewhere, but I couldn’t find them.”
“Her room,” Angie says, and this time she’s the one with the eye-roll.
Hodges’s side has picked up a slow, steady throb. “What pictures, Dinah?”
“Okay, it was Tanya—she doesn’t mind if we call her that—who took us to the concert, see? There was Barb, me, Hilda Carver, and Betsy.”
“Betsy would be . . . ?”
“Betsy DeWitt,” Angie says. “The deal was, the moms drew straws to see who would take the girls. Tanya lost. She took Ginny Carver’s van, because it was the biggest.”
Hodges nods his understanding.
“So anyway, when we got there,” Dinah says, “Tanya took pictures of us. We had to have pictures. Sounds stupid, I guess, but we were just little kids. I’m into Mendoza Line and -Raveonettes now, but back then ’Round Here was a really big deal to us. Especially Cam, the lead singer. Tanya used our phones. Or maybe she used her own, I can’t exactly remember. But she made sure we all had copies, only I couldn’t find mine.”
“You had to send a picture to the website as proof of attendance.”
“Right, by email. I was afraid the pics would only show us standing in front of Mrs. Carver’s van and that wouldn’t be enough, but there were two that showed the Mingo Auditorium in the background, with all the people lined up. I thought even that might not be good enough, because it didn’t show the sign with the band’s name on it, but it was, and I got the Zappit in the mail just a week later. It came in a big padded envelope.”
“Was there a return address?”
“Uh-huh. I can’t remember the box number, but the name was Sunrise Solutions. I guess they were the tour sponsors.”
It’s possible that they were, Hodges thinks, the company wouldn’t have been bankrupt back then, but he doubts it. “Was it mailed from here in the city?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m pretty sure it was,” Angie says. “I picked the envelope up off the floor and tossed it in the trash. I’m the French maid around here, you know.” She shoots her daughter a look.
“Soh-ree,” Dinah says.
In his notebook, Hodges writes Sunrise Solutions based NYC, but pkg mailed from here.
“When did all this go down, Dinah?”
“I heard about the tweet and went to the website last year. I can’t remember exactly, but I know it was before the Thanksgiving break. And like I said, it came lickety-split. I was really surprised.”
“So you’ve had it for two months, give or take.”
“Yes.”
“And no shocks?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Have you ever had any experiences where you were playing with it—let’s say with the Fishin’ Hole game—and you kind of lost track of your surroundings?”
Mr. and Mrs. Scott look alarmed at this, but Dinah gives him an indulgent smile. “You mean like being hypnotized? Eenie-meenie, chili-beanie?”
“I don’t know what I mean, exactly, but okay, say that.”
“Nope,” Dinah says cheerily. “Besides, Fishin’ Hole is really dumb. It’s for little kids. You use the joystick thingie beside the keypad to operate Fisherman Joe’s net, see? And you get points for the fish you catch. But it’s too easy. Only reason I check back on that one is to see if the pink fish are showing numbers yet.”
“Numbers?”
“Yes. The letter that came with the game explained about them. I tacked it on my bulletin board, because I’d really like to win that moped. Want to see it?”