3
After leaving DeMasio’s—with a side-trip to deal with the bullies hassling the little kid beneath the turnpike extension overpass—Hodges simply drives, piloting his Toyota through the city streets without any destination in mind. Or so he thinks until he realizes he is on Lilac Drive in the posh lakeside suburb of Sugar Heights. There he pulls over and parks across the street from a gated drive with a plaque reading 729 on one of the fieldstone posts.
The late Olivia Trelawney’s house stands at the top of an asphalt drive almost as wide as the street it fronts. On the gate is a FOR SALE sign inviting Qualified Buyers to call MICHAEL ZAFRON REALTY & FINE HOMES. Hodges thinks that sign is apt to be there awhile, given the housing market in this Year of Our Lord, 2010. But somebody is keeping the grass cut, and given the size of the lawn, the somebody must be using a mower a lot bigger than Hodges’s Lawn-Boy.
Who’s paying for the upkeep? Got to be Mrs. T.’s estate. She had certainly been rolling in dough. He seems to recall that the probated figure was in the neighborhood of seven million dollars. For the first time since his retirement, when he turned the unsolved case of the City Center Massacre over to Pete Huntley and Isabelle Jaynes, Hodges wonders if Mrs. T.’s mother is still alive. He remembers the scoliosis that bent the poor old lady almost double, and left her in terrible pain . . . but scoliosis isn’t necessarily fatal. Also, hadn’t Olivia Trelawney had a sister living somewhere out west?
He fishes for the sister’s name but can’t come up with it. What he does remember is that Pete took to calling Mrs. Trelawney Mrs. Twitchy, because she couldn’t stop adjusting her clothes, and brushing at tightly bunned hair that needed no brushing, and fiddling with the gold band of her Patek Philippe watch, turning it around and around on her bony wrist. Hodges disliked her; Pete had almost come to loathe her. Which made saddling her with some of the blame for the City Center atrocity rather satisfying. She had enabled the guy, after all; how could there be any doubt? She had been given two keys when she bought the Mercedes, but had been able to produce only one.
Then, shortly before Thanksgiving, the suicide.
Hodges remembers clearly what Pete said when they got the news: “If she meets those dead people on the other side—especially the Cray girl and her baby—she’s going to have some serious questions to answer.” For Pete it had been the final confirmation: somewhere in her mind, Mrs. T. had known all along that she had left her key in the ignition of the car she called her Gray Lady.
Hodges had believed it, too. The question is, does he still? Or has the poison-pen letter he got yesterday from the self-confessed Mercedes Killer changed his mind?
Maybe not, but that letter raises questions. Suppose Mr. Mercedes had written a similar missive to Mrs. Trelawney? Mrs. Trelawney with all those tics and insecurities just below a thin crust of defiance? Wasn’t it possible? Mr. Mercedes certainly would have known about the anger and contempt with which the public had showered her in the wake of the killings; all he had to do was read the Letters to the Editor page of the local paper.
Is it possible—
But here his thoughts break off, because a car has pulled up behind him, so close it’s almost touching his Toyota’s bumper. There are no jackpot lights on the roof, but it’s a late-model Crown Vic, powder blue. The man getting out from behind the wheel is burly and crewcut, his sportcoat no doubt covering a gun in a shoulder holster. If this were a city detective, Hodges knows, the gun would be a Glock .40, just like the one in his safe at home. But he’s not a city detective. Hodges still knows them all.
He rolls down his window.
“Afternoon, sir,” Crewcut says. “May I ask what you’re doing here? Because you’ve been parked quite awhile.”
Hodges glances at his watch and sees this is true. It’s almost four-thirty. Given the rush-hour traffic downtown, he’ll be lucky to get home in time to watch Scott Pelley on CBS Evening News. He used to watch NBC until he decided Brian Williams was a good-natured goof who’s too fond of YouTube videos. Not the sort of newscaster he wants when it seems like the whole world is falling apa—
“Sir? Sincerely hoping for an answer here.” Crewcut bends down. The side of his sportcoat gapes open. Not a Glock but a Ruger. Sort of a cowboy gun, in Hodges’s opinion.
“And I,” Hodges says, “am sincerely hoping you have the authority to ask.”
His interlocutor’s brow creases. “Beg pardon?”
“I think you’re private security,” Hodges says patiently, “but I want to see some ID. Then, you know what? I want to see your carry-concealed permit for the cannon you’ve got inside your coat. And it better be in your wallet and not in the glove compartment of your car, or you’re in violation of section nineteen of the city firearms code, which, briefly stated, is this: ‘If you carry concealed, you must also carry your permit to carry concealed.’ So let’s see your paperwork.”
Crewcut’s frown deepens. “Are you a cop?”
“Retired,” Hodges says, “but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten either my rights or your responsibilities. Let me see your ID and your carry permit, please. You don’t have to hand them over—”
“You’re damn right I don’t.”
“—but I want to see them. Then we can discuss my presence here on Lilac Drive.”
Crewcut thinks it over, but only for a few seconds. Then he takes out his wallet and flips it open. In this city—as in most, Hodges thinks—security personnel treat retired cops as they would those on active duty, because retired cops have plenty of friends who are on active duty, and who can make life difficult if given a reason to do so. The guy turns out to be Radney Peeples, and his company card identifies him as an employee of Vigilant Guard Service. He also shows Hodges a permit to carry concealed, which is good until June of 2012.
“Radney, not Rodney,” Hodges says. “Like Radney Foster, the country singer.”
Foster’s face breaks into a grin. “That’s right.”
“Mr. Peeples, my name is Bill Hodges, I ended my tour as a Detective First Class, and my last big case was the Mercedes Killer. I’m guessing that’ll give you a pretty good idea of what I’m doing here.”
“Mrs. Trelawney,” Foster says, and steps back respectfully as Hodges opens his car door, gets out, and stretches. “Little trip down Memory Lane, Detective?”
“I’m just a mister these days.” Hodges offers his hand. Peeples shakes it. “Otherwise, you’re correct. I retired from the cops at about the same time Mrs. Trelawney retired from life in general.”
“That was sad,” Peeples said. “Do you know that kids egged her gate? Not just at Halloween, either. Three or four times. We caught one bunch, the others . . .” He shook his head. “Plus toilet paper.”
“Yeah, they love that,” Hodges says.
“And one night someone tagged the lefthand gatepost. We got it taken care of before she saw it, and I’m glad. You know what it said?”
Hodges shakes his head.
Peeples lowers his voice. “KILLER CUNT is what it said, in big drippy capital letters. Which was absolutely not fair. She goofed up, that’s all. Is there any of us who haven’t at one time or another?”
“Not me, that’s for sure,” Hodges says.
“Right. Bible says let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
That’ll be the day, Hodges thinks, and asks (with honest curiosity), “Did you like her?”
Peeples’s eyes shift up and to the left, an involuntary movement Hodges has seen in a great many interrogation rooms over the years. It means Peeples is either going to duck the question or outright lie.
It turns out to be a duck.
“Well,” he says, “she treated us right at Christmas. She sometimes mixed up the names, but she knew who we all were, and we each got forty dollars and a bottle of whiskey. Good whiskey. Do you think we got that from her husband?” He snorts. “Ten bucks tucked inside a Hallmark card was what we got when that skinflint was still in the saddle.”
“Who exactly does Vigilant work for?”
“It’s called the Sugar Heights Association. You know, one of those neighborhood things. They fight over the zoning regulations when they don’t like em and make sure everyone in the neighborhood keeps to a certain . . . uh, standard, I guess you’d say. There are lots of rules. Like you can put up white lights at Christmas but not colored ones. And they can’t blink.”
Hodges rolls his eyes. Peeples grins. They have gone from potential antagonists to colleagues—almost, anyway—and why? Because Hodges happened to recognize the guy’s slightly off-center first name. You could call that luck, but there’s always something that will get you on the same side as the person you want to question, something, and part of Hodges’s success on the cops came from being able to recognize it, at least in most cases. It’s a talent Pete Huntley never had, and Hodges is delighted to find his remains in good working order.
“I think she had a sister,” he says. “Mrs. Trelawney, I mean. Never met her, though, and can’t remember the name.”
“Janelle Patterson,” Peeples says promptly.
“You have met her, I take it.”
“Yes indeed. She’s good people. Bears a resemblance to Mrs. Trelawney, but younger and better-looking.” His hands describe an hourglass shape in the air. “More filled out. Do you happen to know if there’s been any progress on the Mercedes thing, Mr. Hodges?”
This isn’t a question Hodges would ordinarily answer, but if you want to get information, you have to give information. And what he has is safe enough, because it isn’t information at all. He uses the phrase Pete Huntley used at lunch a few hours ago. “Dead in the water.”
Peeples nods as if this is no more than he expected. “Crime of impulse. No ties to any of the vics, no motive, just a goddam thrill-killing. Best chance of getting him is if he tries to do it again, don’t you think?”
Mr. Mercedes says he won’t, Hodges thinks, but this is information he absolutely doesn’t want to give out, so he agrees. Collegial agreement is always good.
“Mrs. T. left a big estate,” Hodges says, “and I’m not just talking about the house. I wonder if the sister inherited.”
“Oh yeah,” Peeples says. He pauses, then says something Hodges himself will say to someone else in the not too distant future. “Can I trust your discretion?”
“Yes.” When asked such a question, the simple answer is best. No qualifiers.
“The Patterson woman was living in Los Angeles when her sister . . . you know. The pills.”
Hodges nods.
“Married, but no children. Not a happy marriage. When she found out she had inherited megabucks and a Sugar Heights estate, she divorced the husband like a shot and came east.” Peeples jerks a thumb at the gate, the wide drive, and the big house. “Lived there for a couple of months while the will was going through probate. Got close with Mrs. Wilcox, down at 640. Mrs. Wilcox likes to talk, and sees me as a friend.”
This might mean anything from coffee-buddies to afternoon sex.
“Miz Patterson took over visiting the mother, who lived in a condo building downtown. You know about the mother?”
“Elizabeth Wharton,” Hodges says. “Wonder if she’s still alive.”
“I’m pretty sure she is.”
“Because she had terrible scoliosis.” Hodges takes a little hunched-over walk to demonstrate. If you want to get, you have to give.
“Is that so? Too bad. Anyway, Helen—Mrs. Wilcox—says that Miz Patterson visited as regular as clockwork, just like Mrs. Trelawney did. Until a month ago, that is. Then things must have got worse, because I believe the old lady’s now in a nursing home in Warsaw County. Miz Patterson moved into the condo herself. And that’s where she is now. I still see her every now and then, though. Last time was a week ago, when the real estate guy showed the house.”
Hodges decides he’s gotten everything he can reasonably expect from Radney Peeples. “Thanks for the update. I’m going to roll. Sorry we kind of got off on the wrong foot.”
“Not at all,” Peeples says, giving Hodges’s offered hand two brisk pumps. “You handled it like a pro. Just remember, I never said anything. Janelle Patterson may be living downtown, but she’s still part of the Association, and that makes her a client.”
“You never said a word,” Hodges says, getting back into his car. He hopes that Helen Wilcox’s husband won’t catch his wife and this beefcake in the sack together, if that is indeed going on; it would probably be the end of Vigilant Guard Service’s arrangement with the residents of Sugar Heights. Peeples himself would immediately be terminated for cause. About that there is no doubt at all.
Probably she just trots out to his car with fresh-baked cookies, Hodges thinks as he drives away. You’ve been watching too much Nazi couples therapy on afternoon TV.
Not that Radney Peeples’s love-life matters to him. What matters to Hodges as he heads back to his much humbler home on the West Side is that Janelle Patterson inherited her sister’s estate, Janelle Patterson is living right here in town (at least for the time being), and Janelle Patterson must have done something with the late Olivia Trelawney’s possessions. That would include her personal papers, and her personal papers might contain a letter—possibly more than one—from the freako who has reached out to Hodges. If such correspondence exists, he would like to see it.
Of course this is police business and K. William Hodges is no longer a policeman. By pursuing it he is skating well beyond the bounds of what is legal and he knows it—for one thing, he is withholding evidence—but he has no intention of stopping just yet. The cocky arrogance of the freako’s letter has pissed him off. But, he admits, it’s pissed him off in a good way. It’s given him a sense of purpose, and after the last few months, that seems like a pretty terrific thing.
If I do happen to make a little progress, I’ll turn the whole thing over to Pete.
He’s not looking in the rearview mirror as this thought crosses his mind, but if he had been, he would have seen his eyes flick momentarily up and to the left.