by Stephen King
Maybe the years.
He looks out at the parking lot . . . and there he sees a ghost. A gray one.
He turns back to Jerome and Holly, now standing side by side, and doesn't even have to ask.
"Yeah," Jerome says. "Holly drove it here."
"The registration and the sticker decal on the license plate are both a tiny bit expired," Holly says. "Please don't be mad at me, okay? I had to come. I wanted to help, but I knew if I just called you, you'd say no."
"I'm not mad," Hodges says. In fact, he doesn't know what he is. He feels like he's entered a dreamworld where all the clocks run backward.
"What do we do now?" Jerome asks. "Call the cops?"
But Hodges is still not ready to let go. The young man in the picture may have a cauldron of crazy boiling away behind his bland face, but Hodges has met his share of psychopaths and knows that when they're taken by surprise, most collapse like puffballs. They're only dangerous to the unarmed and unsuspecting, like the broke folks waiting to apply for jobs on that April morning in 2009.
"Let's you and I take a ride to Mr. Hartsfield's place of residence," Hodges says. "And let's go in that." He points to the gray Mercedes.
"But . . . if he sees us pull up, won't he recognize it?"
Hodges smiles a sharklike smile Jerome Robinson has never seen before. "I certainly hope so." He holds out his hand. "May I have the key, Holly?"
Her abused lips tighten. "Yes, but I'm going."
"No way," Hodges says. "Too dangerous."
"If it's too dangerous for me, it's too dangerous for you." She won't look directly at him and her eyes keep skipping past his face, but her voice is firm. "You can make me stay, but if you do, I'll call the police and give them Brady Hartsfield's address just as soon as you're gone."
"You don't have it," Hodges says. This sounds feeble even to him.
Holly doesn't reply, which is a form of courtesy. She won't even need to go inside Discount Electronix and ask the dirty blonde; now that they have the name, she can probably suss out the Hartsfield address from her devilish iPad.
Fuck.
"All right, you can come. But I drive, and when we get there, you and Jerome are going to stay in the car. Do you have a problem with that?"
"No, Mr. Hodges."
This time her eyes go to his face and stay there for three whole seconds. It might be a step forward. With Holly, he thinks, who knows.
10
Because of drastic budget cuts that kicked in the previous year, most city patrol cars are solo rides. This isn't the case in Lowtown. In Lowtown every shop holds a deuce, the ideal deuce containing at least one person of color, because in Lowtown the minorities are the majority. At just past noon on June third, Officers Laverty and Rosario are cruising Lowbriar Avenue about half a mile beyond the overpass where Bill Hodges once stopped a couple of trolls from robbing a shorty. Laverty is white. Rosario is Latina. Because their shop is CPC 54, they are known in the department as Toody and Muldoon, after the cops in an ancient sitcom called Car 54, Where Are You? Amarilis Rosario sometimes amuses her fellow blue knights at roll call by saying, "Ooh, ooh, Toody, I got an idea!" It sounds extremely cute in her Dominican accent, and always gets a laugh.
On patrol, however, she's Ms. Taking Care of Business. They both are. In Lowtown you have to be.
"The cornerboys remind me of the Blue Angels in this air show I saw once," she says now.
"Yeah?"
"They see us coming, they peel off like they're in formation. Look, there goes another one."
As they approach the intersection of Lowbriar and Strike, a kid in a Cleveland Cavaliers warmup jacket (oversized and totally superfluous on this day) suddenly decamps from the corner where he's been jiving around and heads down Strike at a trot. He looks about thirteen.
"Maybe he just remembered it's a schoolday," Laverty says.
Rosario laughs. "As if, esse."
Now they are approaching the corner of Lowbriar and Martin Luther King Avenue. MLK is the ghetto's other large thoroughfare, and this time half a dozen cornerboys decide they have business elsewhere.
"That's formation flying, all right," Laverty says. He laughs, although it's not really funny. "Listen, where do you want to eat?"
"Let's see if that wagon's on Randolph," she says. "I'm in a taco state of mind."
"Senor Taco it is," he says, "but lay off the beans, okay? We've got another four hours in this . . . huh. Check it, Rosie. That's weird."
Up ahead, a man is coming out of a storefront with a long flower box. It's weird because the storefront isn't a florist's; it's King Virtue Pawn & Loan. It's also weird because the man looks Caucasian and they are now in the blackest part of Lowtown. He's approaching a dirty white Econoline van that's standing on a yellow curb: a twenty-dollar fine. Laverty and Rosario are hungry, though, they've got their faces fixed for tacos with that nice hot picante sauce Senor Taco keeps on the counter, and they might have let it go. Probably would have.
But.
With David Berkowitz, it was a parking ticket. With Ted Bundy, it was a busted taillight. Today a florist's box with badly folded flaps is all it takes to change the world. As the guy fumbles for the keys to his old van (not even Emperor Ming of Mongo would leave his vehicle unlocked in Lowtown), the box tilts downward. The end comes open and something slides partway out.
The guy catches it and shoves it back in before it can fall into the street, but Jason Laverty spent two tours in Iraq and he knows an RPG launcher when he sees it. He flips on the blues and hooks in behind the guy, who looks around with a startled expression.
"Sidearm!" he snaps at his partner. "Get it out!"
They fly out the doors, double-fisted Glocks pointing at the sky.
"Drop the box, sir!" Laverty shouts. "Drop the box and put your hands on the van! Lean forward. Do it now!"
For a moment the guy--he's about forty, olive-skinned, round-shouldered--hugs the florist's box tighter against his chest, like a baby. But when Rosie Rosario lowers her gun and points it at his chest, he drops the box. It splits wide open and reveals what Laverty tentatively identifies as a Russian-made Hashim antitank grenade launcher.
"Holy shit!" Rosario says, and then: "Toody, Toody, I got an id--"
"Officers, lower your weapons."
Laverty keeps his focus on Grenade Launcher Guy, but Rosario turns and sees a gray-haired Cauc in a blue jacket. He's wearing an earpiece and has his own Glock. Before she can ask him anything, the street is full of men in blue jackets, all running for King Virtue Pawn & Loan. One is carrying a Stinger battering ram, the kind cops call a baby doorbuster. She sees ATF on the backs of the jackets, and all at once she has that unmistakable I-stepped-in-shit feeling.
"Officers, lower your weapons. Agent James Kosinsky, ATF."
Laverty says, "Maybe you'd like one of us to cuff him first? Just asking."
ATF agents are piling into the pawnshop like Christmas shoppers into Walmart on Black Friday. A crowd is gathering across the street, as yet too stunned by the size of the strike force to start casting aspersions. Or stones, for that matter.
Kosinsky sighs. "You may as well," he says. "The horse has left the barn."
"We didn't know you had anything going," Laverty says. Meanwhile, Grenade Launcher Guy already has his hands off the van and behind him with the wrists pressed together. It's pretty clear this isn't his first rodeo. "He was unlocking his van and I saw that poking out of the end of the box. What was I supposed to do?"
"What you did, of course." From inside the pawnshop there comes the sound of breaking glass, shouts, and then the boom of the doorbuster being put to work. "Tell you what, now that you're here, why don't you throw Mr. Cavelli there in the back of your car and come on inside. See what we've got."
While Laverty and Rosario are escorting their prisoner to the cruiser, Kosinsky notes the number.
"So," he says. "Which one of you is Toody and which one is Muldoon?"
11
As th
e ATF strike force, led by Agent Kosinsky, begins its inventory of the cavernous storage area behind King Virtue Pawn & Loan's humble facade, a gray Mercedes sedan is pulling to the curb in front of 49 Elm Street. Hodges is behind the wheel. Today Holly is riding shotgun--because, she claims (with at least some logic), the car is more hers than theirs.
"Someone is home," she points out. "There's a very badly maintained Honda Civic in the driveway."
Hodges notes the shuffling approach of an old man from the house directly across the street. "I will now speak with Mr. Concerned Citizen. You two will keep your mouths shut."
He rolls down his window. "Help you, sir?"
"I thought maybe I could help you," the old guy says. His bright eyes are busy inventorying Hodges and his passengers. Also the car, which doesn't surprise Hodges. It's a mighty fine car. "If you're looking for Brady, you're out of luck. That in the driveway is Missus Hartsfield's car. Haven't seen it move in weeks. Not sure it even runs anymore. Maybe Missus Hartsfield went off with him, because I haven't seen her today. Usually I do, when she toddles out to get her post." He points to the mailbox beside the door of 49. "She likes the catalogs. Most women do." He extends a knuckly hand. "Hank Beeson."
Hodges shakes it briefly, then flashes his ID, careful to keep his thumb over the expiration date. "Good to meet you, Mr. Beeson. I'm Detective Bill Hodges. Can you tell me what kind of car Mr. Hartsfield drives? Make and model?"
"It's a brown Subaru. Can't help you with the model or the year. All those rice-burners look the same to me."
"Uh-huh. Have to ask you to go back to your house now, sir. We may come by to ask you a few questions later."
"Did Brady do something wrong?"
"Just a routine call," Hodges says. "Go on back to your house, please."
Instead of doing that, Beeson bends lower for a look at Jerome. "Aren't you kinda young to be on the cops?"
"I'm a trainee," Jerome says. "Better do as Detective Hodges says, sir."
"I'm goin, I'm goin." But he gives the trio another stem-to-stern onceover first. "Since when do city cops drive around in Mercedes-Benzes?"
Hodges has no answer for that, but Holly does. "It's a RICO car. RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. We take their stuff. We can use it any way we want because we're the police."
"Well, yeah. Sure. Stands to reason." Beeson looks partly satisfied and partly mystified. But he goes back to his house, where he soon appears to them again, this time looking out a front window.
"RICO is the feds," Hodges says mildly.
Holly tips her head fractionally toward their observer, and there's a faint smile on her hard-used lips. "Do you think he knows that?" When neither of them answers, she becomes businesslike. "What do we do now?"
"If Hartsfield's in there, I'm going to make a citizen's arrest. If he's not but his mother is, I'm going to interview her. You two are going to stay in the car."
"I don't know if that's a good idea," Jerome says, but by the expression on his face--Hodges can see it in the rearview mirror--he knows this objection will be overruled.
"It's the only one I have," Hodges says.
He gets out of the car. Before he can close the door, Holly leans toward him and says: "There's no one home." He doesn't say anything, but she nods as if he had. "Can't you feel it?"
Actually, he can.
12
Hodges walks up the driveway, noting the drawn drapes in the big front window. He looks briefly in the Honda and sees nothing worth noting. He tries the passenger door. It opens. The air inside is hot and stale, with a faintly boozy smell. He shuts the door, climbs the porch steps, and rings the doorbell. He hears it cling-clong inside the house. Nobody comes. He tries it again, then knocks. Nobody comes. He hammers with the side of his fist, very aware that Mr. Beeson from across the street is taking all this in. Nobody comes.
He strolls to the garage and peers through one of the windows in the overhead door. A few tools, a mini-fridge, not much else.
He takes out his cell phone and calls Jerome. This block of Elm Street is very still, and he can hear--faintly--the AC/DC ringtone as the call goes through. He sees Jerome answer.
"Have Holly jump on her iPad and check the city tax records for the owner's name at 49 Elm. Can she do that?"
He hears Jerome asking Holly.
"She says she'll see what she can do."
"Good. I'm going around back. Stay on the line. I'll check in with you at roughly thirty-second intervals. If more than a minute goes by without hearing from me, call nine-one-one."
"You positive you want to do this, Bill?"
"Yes. Be sure Holly knows that getting the name isn't a big deal. I don't want her getting squirrelly."
"She's chill," Jerome says. "Already tapping away. Just make sure you stay in touch."
"Count on it."
He walks between the garage and the house. The backyard is small but neatly kept. There's a circular bed of flowers in the middle. Hodges wonders who planted them, Mom or Sonny Boy. He mounts three wooden steps to the back stoop. There's an aluminum screen door with another door inside. The screen door is unlocked. The house door isn't.
"Jerome? Checking in. All quiet."
He peers through the glass and sees a kitchen. It's squared away. There are a few plates and glasses in the drainer by the sink. A neatly folded dishwiper hangs over the oven handle. There are two placemats on the table. No placemat for Poppa Bear, which fits the profile he has fleshed out on his yellow legal pad. He knocks, then hammers. Nobody comes.
"Jerome? Checking in. All quiet."
He puts his phone down on the back stoop and takes out the flat leather case, glad he thought of it. Inside are his father's lock-picks--three silver rods with hooks of varying sizes at the ends. He selects the medium pick. A good choice; it slides in easily. He fiddles around, turning the pick first one way, then the other, feeling for the mechanism. He's just about to pause and check in with Jerome again when the pick catches. He twists, quick and hard, just as his father taught him, and there's a click as the locking button pops up on the kitchen side of the door. Meanwhile, his phone is squawking his name. He picks it up.
"Jerome? All quiet."
"You had me worried," Jerome says. "What are you doing?"
"Breaking and entering."
13
Hodges steps into the Hartsfield kitchen. The smell hits him at once. It's faint, but it's there. Holding his cell phone in his left hand and his father's .38 in the right, Hodges follows his nose first into the living room--empty, although the TV remote and scattering of catalogs on the coffee table makes him think that the couch is Mrs. Hartsfield's downstairs nest--and then up the stairs. The smell gets stronger as he goes. It's not a stench yet, but it's headed in that direction.
There's a short upstairs hall with one door on the right and two on the left. He clears the righthand room first. It's guest quarters where no guests have stayed for a long time. It's as sterile as an operating theater.
He checks in with Jerome again before opening the first door on the left. This is where the smell is coming from. He takes a deep breath and enters fast, crouching until he's assured himself there's no one behind the door. He opens the closet--this door is the kind that folds on a center hinge--and shoves back the clothes. No one.
"Jerome? Checking in."
"Is anyone there?"
Well . . . sort of. The coverlet of the double bed has been pulled up over an unmistakable shape.
"Wait one."
He looks under the bed and sees nothing but a pair of slippers, a pair of pink sneakers, a single white ankle sock, and a few dust kitties. He pulls the coverlet back and there's Brady Hartsfield's mother. Her skin is waxy-pale, with a faint green undertint. Her mouth hangs ajar. Her eyes, dusty and glazed, have settled in their sockets. He lifts an arm, flexes it slightly, lets it drop. Rigor has come and gone.
"Listen, Jerome. I've found Mrs. Hartsfield. She's dead."
"
Oh my God." Jerome's usually adult voice cracks on the last word. "What are you--"
"Wait one."
"You already said that."
Hodges puts his phone on the night table and draws the coverlet down to Mrs. Hartsfield's feet. She's wearing blue silk pajamas. The shirt is stained with what appears to be vomit and some blood, but there's no visible bullet hole or stab wound. Her face is swollen, yet there are no ligature marks or bruises on her neck. The swelling is just the slow death-march of decomposition. He pulls up her pajama top enough so he can see her belly. Like her face, it's slightly swollen, but he's betting that's gas. He leans close to her mouth, looks inside, and sees what he expected: clotted goop on her tongue and in the gutters between her gums and her cheeks. He's guessing she got drunk, sicked up her last meal, and went out like a rock star. The blood could be from her throat. Or an aggravated stomach ulcer.
He picks up the phone and says, "He might have poisoned her, but it's more likely she did it to herself."
"Booze?"
"Probably. Without a postmortem, there's no way to tell."
"What do you want us to do?"
"Sit tight."
"We still don't call the police?"
"Not yet."
"Holly wants to talk to you."
There's a moment of dead air, then she's on the line, and clear as a bell. She sounds calm. Calmer than Jerome, actually.
"Her name is Deborah Hartsfield. The kind of Deborah that ends in an H."
"Good job. Give the phone back to Jerome."
A second later Jerome says, "I hope you know what you're doing."
I don't, he thinks as he checks the bathroom. I've lost my mind and the only way to get it back is to let go of this. You know that.
But he thinks of Janey giving him his new hat--his snappy private eye fedora--and knows he can't. Won't.
The bathroom is clean . . . or almost. There's some hair in the sink. Hodges sees it but doesn't take note of it. He's thinking of the crucial difference between accidental death and murder. Murder would be bad, because killing close family members is all too often how a serious nutcase starts his final run. If it was an accident or suicide, there might still be time. Brady could be hunkered down somewhere, trying to decide what to do next.