“Right now, good. I’ve got pills for pain, but you’re better medicine.”
Holly is standing in the doorway, sensible winter coat unzipped, small hands linked at her waist. She’s watching them with an unhappy smile. Hodges wouldn’t have believed there was such a thing, but apparently there is.
“Come on over, Holly,” he says. “No group hug, I promise. Have you filled Jerome in on this business?”
“He knows about Barbara’s part, but I thought I’d better let you tell the rest.”
Jerome briefly cups the back of Hodges’s neck with a big warm hand. “Holly says you’re going into the hospital tomorrow for more tests and a treatment plan, and if you try to argue, I’m supposed to tell you to shut up.”
“Not shut up,” Holly says, looking at Jerome severely. “I never used that phrase.”
Jerome grins. “You had be quiet on your lips, but shut up in your eyes.”
“Fool,” she says, but the smile returns. Happy we’re together, Hodges thinks, sad because of the reason why. He breaks up this strangely pleasant sibling rivalry by asking how Barbara is.
“Okay. Fractures of the tibia and fibula, mid-shaft. Could have happened on the soccer field or skiing on a bunny slope. Supposed to heal with no problem. She’s got a cast and is already complaining about how it itches underneath. Mom went out to get her a scratcher thing.”
“Holly, did you show her the six-pack?”
“I did, and she picked out Dr. Babineau. Never even hesitated.”
I have a few questions for you, Doc, Hodges thinks, and I intend to get some answers before my last day is over. If I have to squeeze you to get them, make your eyes pop out a little, that will be just fine.
Jerome settles on one corner of Hodges’s desk, his usual perch. “Run through the whole thing for me, from the beginning. I might see something new.”
Hodges does most of the talking. Holly goes to the window and looks out on Lower Marlborough, arms crossed, hands cupping her shoulders. She adds something from time to time, but mostly she just listens.
When Hodges is done, Jerome asks, “How sure are you about this mind-over-matter thing?”
Hodges considers. “Eighty percent. Maybe more. It’s wild, but there are too many stories to discount it.”
“If he could do it, it’s my fault,” Holly says without turning from the window. “When I hit him with your Happy Slapper, Bill, it could have rearranged his brains somehow. Given him access to the ninety percent of gray matter we never use.”
“Maybe,” Hodges says, “but if you hadn’t clobbered him, you and Jerome would be dead.”
“Along with a lot of other people,” Jerome says. “And the hit might not have had anything to do with it. Whatever Babineau was feeding him could have done more than bring him out of his coma. Experimental drugs sometimes have unexpected effects, you know.”
“Or it could have been a combination of the two,” Hodges says. He can’t believe they’re having this conversation, but not to have it would fly in the face of rule one in the detective biz: you go where the facts lead you.
“He hated you, Bill,” Jerome says. “Instead of killing yourself, which is what he wanted, you came after him.”
“And turned his own weapon against him,” Holly adds, still without turning and still hugging herself. “You used Debbie’s Blue Umbrella to force him into the open. It was him who sent you that message two nights ago, I know it was. Brady Hartsfield, calling himself Z-Boy.” Now she turns. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face. You stopped him at the Mingo—”
“No, I was downstairs having a heart attack. You were the one who stopped him, Holly.”
She shakes her head fiercely. “He doesn’t know that, because he never saw me. Do you think I could forget what happened that night? I’ll never forget it. Barbara was sitting across the aisle a few rows up, and it was her he was looking at, not me. I shouted something at him, and hit him as soon as he started to turn his head. Then I hit him again. Oh God, I hit him so hard.”
Jerome starts toward her, but she motions him back. Eye contact is hard for her, but now she’s looking straight at Hodges, and her eyes are blazing.
“You goaded him out into the open, you were the one who figured out his password so we could crack his computer and find out what he was going to do. You were the one he always blamed. I know that. And then you kept going to his room, sitting there and talking to him.”
“And you think that’s why he did this, whatever this is?”
“No!” She nearly shrieks it. “He did it because he was fracking crazy!” There’s a pause, and then in a meek voice she says she’s sorry for raising her voice.
“Don’t apologize, Hollyberry,” Jerome says. “You thrill me when you’re masterful.”
She makes a face at him. Jerome snorts a laugh and asks Hodges about Dinah Scott’s Zappit. “I’d like a look at it.”