‘There’s no way to be sure.’ But Hodges thinks it’s likely.

‘She quit her antidepressants.’ Janey is looking out at the lake again. ‘She denied it when I asked her, but I knew. She never liked them, said they made her feel woolly-headed. She took them for Kent, and once Kent was dead she took them for our mother, but after City Center …’ She shakes her head, takes a deep breath. ‘Have I told you enough about her mental state, Bill? Because there’s plenty more if you want it.’

‘I think I get the picture.’

She shakes her head in dull wonder. ‘It’s as if the guy knew her.’

Hodges doesn’t say what seems obvious to him, mostly because he has his own letter for comparison: he did. Somehow he did.

‘You said she was obsessive-compulsive. To the point where she turned around and went back to check if the oven was on.’

‘Yes.’

‘Does it seem likely to you that a woman like that would have forgotten her key in the ignition?’

Janey doesn’t answer for a long time. Then she says, ‘Actually, no.’

It doesn’t to Hodges, either. There’s a first time for everything, of course, but … did he and Pete ever discuss that aspect of the matter? He’s not sure, but thinks maybe they did. Only they hadn’t known the depths of Mrs T.’s mental problems, had they?

He asks, ‘Ever try going on this Blue Umbrella site yourself? Using the username he gave her?’

She stares at him, gobsmacked. ‘It never even crossed my mind, and if it had, I would have been too scared of what I might find. I guess that’s why you’re the detective and I’m the client. Will you try that?’

‘I don’t know what I’ll try. I need to think about it, and I need to consult a guy who knows more about computers than I do.’

‘Make sure you note down his fee,’ she says.

Hodges says he will, thinking that at least Jerome Robinson will get some good out of this, no matter how the cards fall. And why shouldn’t he? Eight people died at City Center and three more were permanently crippled, but Jerome still has to go to college. Hodges remembers an old saying: even on the darkest day, the sun shines on some dog’s ass.

‘What’s next?’

Hodges takes the letter and stands up. ‘Next, I take this to the nearest UCopy. Then I return the original to you.’

‘No need of that. I’ll scan it into the computer and print you one. Hand it over.’

‘Really? You can do that?’

Her eyes are still red from crying, but the glance she gives him is nonetheless merry. ‘It’s a good thing you have a computer expert on call,’ she says. ‘I’ll be right back. In the meantime, have another cookie.’

Hodges has three.

10

When she returns with his copy of the letter, he folds it into his inner jacket pocket. ‘The original should go into a safe, if there’s one here.’

‘There’s one at the Sugar Heights house – will that do?’

It probably would, but Hodges doesn’t care for the idea. Too many prospective buyers tromping in and out. Which is probably stupid, but there it is.

‘Do you have a safe-deposit box?’

‘No, but I could rent one. I use Bank of America, just two blocks over.’

‘I’d like that better,’ Hodges says, going to the door.

‘Thank you for doing this,’ she says, and holds out both of her hands. As if he has asked her to dance. ‘You don’t know what a relief it is.’

He takes the offered hands, squeezes them lightly, then lets go, although he would have been happy to hold them longer.

‘Two other things. First, your mother. How often do you visit her?’

‘Every other day or so. Sometimes I take her food from the Iranian restaurant she and Ollie liked – the Sunny Acres kitchen staff is happy to warm it up – and sometimes I bring her a DVD or two. She likes the oldies, like with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I always bring her something, and she’s always happy to see me. On her good days she does see me. On her bad ones, she’s apt to call me Olivia. Or Charlotte. That’s my aunt. I also have an uncle.’

‘The next time she has a good day, you ought to call me so I can go see her.’

‘All right. I’ll go with you. What’s the other thing?’

‘This lawyer you mentioned. Schron. Did he strike you as competent?’

‘Sharpest knife in the drawer, that was my impression.’

‘If I do find something out, maybe even put a name on the guy, we’re going to need someone like that. We’ll go see him, we’ll turn over the letters—’

‘Letters? I only found the one.’

Hodges thinks Ah, shit, then regroups. ‘The letter and the copy, I mean.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘If I find the guy, it’s the job of the police to arrest him and charge him. Schron’s job is to make sure we don’t get arrested for going off the reservation and investigating on our own.’

‘That would be criminal law, isn’t it? I’m not sure he does that kind.’

‘Probably not, but if he’s good, he’ll know somebody who does. Someone who’s just as good as he is. Are we agreed on that? We have to be. I’m willing to poke around, but if this turns into police business, we let the police take over.’

‘I’m fine with that,’ Janey says. Then she stands on tiptoe, puts her hands on the shoulders of his too-tight coat, and plants a kiss on his cheek. ‘I think you’re a good guy, Bill. And the right guy for this.’

He feels that kiss all the way down in the elevator. A lovely little warm spot. He’s glad he took pains about shaving before leaving the house.

11

The silver rain falls without end, but the young couple – lovers? friends? – are safe and dry under the blue umbrella that belongs to someone, likely a fictional someone, named Debbie. This time Hodges notices that it’s the boy who appears to be speaking, and the girl’s eyes are slightly widened, as if in surprise. Maybe he’s just proposed to her?

Jerome pops this romantic thought like a balloon. ‘Looks like a porn site, doesn’t it?’

‘Now what would a young pre-Ivy Leaguer like yourself know about porn sites?’

They are seated side by side in Hodges’s study, looking at the Blue Umbrella start-up page. Odell, Jerome’s Irish setter, is lying on his back behind them, rear legs splayed, tongue hanging from one side of his mouth, staring at the ceiling with a look of good-humored contemplation. Jerome brought him on a leash, but only because that’s the law inside the city limits. Odell knows enough to stay out of the street and is about as harmless to passersby as a dog can be.

‘I know what you know and what everybody with a computer knows,’ Jerome says. In his khaki slacks and button-down Ivy League shirt, his hair a close-cropped cap of curls, he looks to Hodges like a young Barack Obama, only taller. Jerome is six-five. And around him is the faint, pleasantly nostalgic aroma of Old Spice aftershave. ‘Porn sites are thicker than flies on roadkill. You surf the Net, you can’t help bumping into them. And the ones with the innocent-sounding names are the ones most apt to be loaded.’

‘Loaded how?’

‘With the kinds of images that can get you arrested.’

‘Kiddie porn, you mean.’

‘Or torture porn. Ninety-nine percent of the whips-and-chains stuff is faked. The other one percent …’ Jerome shrugs.

‘And you know this how?’

Jerome gives him a look – straight, frank, and open. Not an act, just the way he is, and what Hodges likes most about the kid. His mother and father are the same way. Even his little sis.

‘Mr Hodges, everybody knows. If they’re under thirty, that is.’

‘Back in the day, people used to say don’t trust anyone over thirty.’

Jerome smiles. ‘I trust em, but when it comes to computers, an awful lot of em are clueless. They beat up their machines, then expect em to work. They open bareback email attachments. They go to websites like this, and all at once their computer goes HAL 9000 and starts downloading pictures of teenage escorts or terrorist videos that show people getting their heads chopped off.’