Hodges hangs up the phone, walks into the kitchen, and puts on a pot of coffee. He should have tea, coffee will burn the shit out of his poor struggling innards, but right now he doesn’t care. And he won’t take any pills, not for awhile. He needs to be as clearheaded about this as he possibly can.

He snatches his mobile off the charger and calls Holly. She answers at once, and he wonders briefly what time she gets up. Five? Even earlier? Maybe some questions are best left unanswered. He tells her what Pete just told him, and for once in her life, Holly Gibney does not gild her profanity.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Not unless Pete was kidding, and I don’t think he was. He doesn’t try joking until mid-afternoon, and he’s not very good at it then.”

Silence for a moment, and then Holly asks, “Do you believe it?”

“That he’s dead, yes. It could hardly be a case of mistaken identity. That he committed suicide? To me that seems . . .” He fishes for the right phrase, can’t find it, and repeats what he said to his old partner not five minutes before. “I don’t know.”

“Is it over?”

“Maybe not.”

“That’s what I think, too. We have to find out what happened to the Zappits that were left over after the company went broke. I don’t understand how Brady Hartsfield could have had anything to do with them, but so many of the connections go back to him. And to the concert he tried to blow up.”

“I know.” Hodges is again picturing a web with a big old spider at the center of it, one full of poison. Only the spider is dead.

And we all say hooray, he thinks.

“Holly, can you be at the hospital when the Robinsons come to pick up Barbara?”

“I can do that.” After a pause she adds, “I’d like to do that. I’ll call Tanya to make sure it’s okay, but I’m sure it is. Why?”

“I want you to show Barb a six-pack. Five elderly white guys in suits, plus Dr. Felix Babineau.”

“You think Myron Zakim was Hartsfield’s doctor? That he was the one who gave Barbara and Hilda those Zappits?”

“At this point it’s just a hunch.”

But that’s modest. It’s actually a bit more. Babineau gave Hodges a cock-and-bull story to keep him out of Brady’s room, then nearly blew a gasket when Hodges asked if he was all right. And Norma Wilmer claims he’s been conducting unauthorized experiments on Brady. Investigate Babineau, she said in Bar Bar Black Sheep. Get him in trouble. I dare you. As a man who probably has only months to live, that doesn’t seem like much of a dare.

“Okay. I respect your hunches, Bill. And I’m sure I can find a society-page picture of Dr. Babineau from one of those charity events they’re always having for the hospital.”