“Tell whoever it is that we’re closed today.”

But after saying Hello, you’ve reached Finders Keepers, Holly just listens. Then she turns, holding out the handset.

“It’s Pete Huntley. He says he has to talk to you right away, and he sounds . . . funny. Like he’s sad or mad or something.”

Hodges goes into the outer office to find out what’s got Pete sounding sad or mad or something.

Behind him, Jerome finally powers up Dinah Scott’s Zappit.

In Freddi Linklatter’s computer nest (Freddi herself has taken four Excedrin and gone to sleep in her bedroom), 44 FOUND changes to 45 FOUND. The repeater flashes LOADING.

Then it flashes TASK COMPLETE.

16

Pete doesn’t say hello. What he says is, “Take it, Kerm. Take it and beat it until the truth falls out. Bitch is in the house with a couple of SKIDs, and I’m out back in a whatever-it-is. Potting shed, I think, and it’s cold as hell.”

Hodges is at first too surprised to answer, and not because a pair of SKIDs—the city cops’ acronym for State Criminal Investigation Division detectives—is on some scene Pete is working. He’s surprised (in truth almost flabbergasted) because in all their long association he’s only heard Pete use the b-word in connection with an actual woman a single time. That was when speaking of his mother-in-law, who urged Pete’s wife to leave, and took her in, along with the children, when she finally did. The bitch he’s talking about this time can only be his partner, aka Miss Pretty Gray Eyes.

“Kermit? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” Hodges says. “Where are you?”

“Sugar Heights. Dr. Felix Babineau’s house on scenic Lilac Drive. Hell, his fucking estate. You know who Babineau is, I know you do. No one kept closer tabs on Brady Hartsfield than you. For awhile there he was your fucking hobby.”

“Who you’re talking about, yes. What you’re talking about, no.”

“This whole thing is going to blow up, partner, and Izzy doesn’t want to get hit with the shrapnel when it does. She’s got ambitions, see? Chief of Detectives in ten years, maybe Chief of Police in fifteen. I get it, but that doesn’t mean I like it. She called Chief Horgan behind my back, and Horgan called the SKIDs. If it’s not officially their case now, it will be by noon. They’ve got their perp, but the shit’s not right. I know it, and Izzy does, too. She just doesn’t give a rat’s ass.”

“You need to slow down, Pete. Tell me what’s going on.”

Holly is hovering anxiously. Hodges shrugs his shoulders and raises a finger: wait.