Characters in End of Watch

She looks quite a bit older than fifteen tonight, because she’s recently back from a rehearsal at North Side High School, where the Drama Club will soon be putting on The Fantasticks. She has the role of Luisa, Angie Scott has told Hodges, a real plum.

… When he passed Anna Corey, the A Wing head housekeeper, he asked how her husband was bearing up with those radiation treatments.

… Dr. Annu Singh, ably assisted by Dr. Felix Babineau, performed a craniotomy to evacuate the massive blood clot that was pressing on Brady’s brain …

Accordingly, Z-Boy visited an Internet café a block or two down from the hospital, and after five minutes on a computer (Brady was exhilarated to be sitting in front of a screen again), he discovered where Anthony Moretti, aka the fat testicle-punching cocksucker, lived.

… Belinda Jensen, Stamos’s nurse, usually greets him at his yearly physicals with smiling good cheer, but she’s not smiling this morning …

… “That’s right, Betty,” said the male half. “Two survivors of the City Center Massacre, twenty-six-year-old Krista Countryman and twenty-four-year-old Keith Frias, have committed suicide …

It was the big four-oh, so Harry’s wife made a fuss about it. She’s staying until Wednesday or Thursday, I think—at least that was the plan. I’m sure this news will bring her back. Nan lives alone since Bill died—Bill was my husband’s brother—with only her cat for company.

“Big Bob’s is on the right, Heads and Skins on the left. I ought to know, I reshingled Big Bob Rowan’s roof last October. This must be pretty important, mister. To get you out on a day like this.” “Will my SUV make it on that road, do you think?”

… Hodges is dreaming of Bowser, the feisty little mongrel he had when he was a kid. His father hauled Bowser to the vet and had him put down, over Hodges’s weeping protests, after ole Bowse bit the newspaper boy badly enough to require stitches.

Martine Stover was one of his City Center victims. Ruth Scapelli was his nurse. It would take a moderately bright reporter about six minutes to put those things together and stir up a nice fat scare story. That’s what you got from Captain Pedersen?” “That’s what I got.

(This causes Dinah to roll her eyes.) Hodges is across from them in a La-Z-Boy very much like the one in his own living room. From the deep divot in the seat, he deduces it is Carl Scott’s normal evening roost.

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.

Her aunt Wanda helped her raise the child. Cynthia Scapelli Robinson now lives in San Francisco, where she has a fine husband (no tattoos) and two children, the older of whom is an honor roll student in high school. Her household is a warm one.

… A couple of them, like Daniel Starr and Judith Loma, were still wheelchair bound. Loma might get out of hers; Starr, never.

… Brady tried again a few days later, this time with Denise Woods, the PT associate who came into his room twice a week to exercise his arms and legs.

… Dereece Neville is sitting on the sofa. In his chino pants and white button-up shirt, he looks neat and squared away.

You keep on going the way you were heading, about . . .” He turns his attention to the younger man. “What would you say, Duane? Three miles?” “More like four,” Duane says. “Well, split the difference and call it three and a half,” Thurston says.

19 In the pleasantly upscale neighborhood of Branson Park, Ellen Murphy struggles to her feet. The last thing she remembers is telling her mother she was too sick to go to school—a lie so she could tap pink fish and hunt for prizes on the pleasantly addictive Fishin’ Hole demo.

She told him Ellis was doing pretty well, all things considered, and thanked him for asking.

… The skin in front of the fireplace belonged to a bear brought down by Dr. Elton Marchant, who has now gone to that great operating room in the sky.

There he was examined by Dr. Emory Winston, an old hand in the patch-em-up, fix-em-up wing of the hospital some vets called the Saturday Night Knife and Gun Club. Winston collared a med student who happened to be hanging around the ER and chatting up nurses.

… You use the joystick thingie beside the keypad to operate Fisherman Joe’s net, see? And you get points for the fish you catch. But it’s too easy.

Not bad. Correspondent Frank Denton, also wearing his best Oh Shit expression, went blah-de-blah for awhile, and then the picture switched to the Countryman chick’s pore ole daddy, who read the suicide note the couple had left. He blubbered through most of it, but Brady caught the gist.

… I asked Georgia ­Frederick—she’s been bouncing back and forth between Ortho and the Bucket for the last ten years—and she says the only person she ever saw visiting Hartsfield besides you was some ratty chick …

She and the other aide, Georgina Ross, found the bodies when they arrived this morning shortly before six.

Which makes them both suicides in my book, even though it won’t get written up that way in the official report.” “I assume you’ve checked on the other City Center survivors?” Hodges asks. “All alive except for Gerald Stansbury, who died just after Thanksgiving last year,” Pete says.

… Gloria Hollis has been gone for quite awhile now. Babineau—or Dr. Z, as he styles himself, like the villain in a comic book—was part of the reason why.

Yes, I understand both your ex and your current squeeze will be there, but to my knowledge no one has hired a stripper. If anyone has, it would be Hal Corley, who is an idiot, and you’d have to ask hi—” “Bill, stop. It’s not about the party.”

… This morning she rises at seven, fixes breakfast for her husband and the two boys, sees Hank off to work, sees the boys off to school, then rinses the dishes and gets the dishwasher going.

It was the big four-oh, so Harry’s wife made a fuss about it.

“Are you sure?” Rob asked. “After the object lesson we just had in what that shit can do?” The run from which they were now returning had been to one of the McMansions in Sugar Heights, where a man named Harvey Galen had called 911 complaining of terrible chest pains.

He puts the boards across the top of a handy wheelbarrow and plucks his phone from his belt, thinking it will be Hector Alonzo, the job foreman. This morning one of the workmen (a workwoman, actually) tripped and fell into a stack of rebar.

… Reverend Henreid came in to see her often—Marty calls him her spiritual adviser—and even when he didn’t, she and Jan did daily devotions and prayers.

… Often as he did so he thought of a high school classmate named Henry “Hook” Crosby, who had lost his right hand in a car accident.

… The best one in this part of the country is Henry Yip, at Kiner. He’ll refer you to a good oncologist.

“Jack Higgins,” the detective says, offering his hand. “Like the book-writer, only not white.” Hodges shakes with him and introduces Holly, who gives a little wave and her usual muttered hello before returning her attention to her iPad. “I think I remember you,” Hodges says.

Jack O’Malley was a fat old dinosaur who had probably started in the biz when TV was still black-and-white, and he bumbled on for five minutes or so at the end of every newscast about whatever was on what remained of his mind.

Mom in her easy chair, Martine in her wheelchair. Which must have weighed a ton, judging by those marks. “What was her mother’s name?” he asks. “Janice Ellerton. Husband James died twenty years ago, according to . . .” Old-school like Hodges, Pete carries a notebook instead of an iPad.

Because I didn’t want to.” Hodges takes a deep breath, which reawakens the pain. “Start from the beginning, Freddi, and take us through it.” “And as quickly as you can,” Holly adds. 12 Jamie Winters was nine when he attended the ’Round Here concert at the Mac with his mother.

… Jane Ellsbury was a perfectly normal baby—at six pounds, nine ounces, a little underweight, in fact—but by the time she was seven, she weighed ninety pounds …

he asks. “Janice Ellerton.

A fine cold drizzle had begun to fall through it, just to add to the fun. Rob clicked the wiper control from intermittent to slow. Not far up ahead, two unmistakable yellow arches rose from the murk. “The Golden Tits of America!” Jason Rapsis cried from the shotgun seat.

Josh doing fine in school, made the ­soccer team is followed by a terse reply: Good for him.

… A couple of them, like Daniel Starr and Judith Loma, were still wheelchair bound. Loma might get out of hers; Starr, never.

She’s got a Zappit.” Holly takes a deep breath. “They’re dangerous.” She can’t quite bring herself to say what she is coming to believe: that they are suicide machines. 26 In Room 217, orderlies Norm Richard and Kelly Pelham lift Brady back into bed while Mavis Rainier supervises.

… “Ken, the shocked parents say the couple was hoping to be married in May of this year, but both were badly injured in the attack perpetrated by Brady Hartsfield …

… “Keith Frias and Krista Countryman,” Pete says. “Both were also at City Center on the morning of April tenth, when Hartsfield did his thing.

Blood and brains fly in a fan and decorate the doorframe with gaud. The boy in his mother’s dress and makeup falls forward, the left side of his face pushed out like a balloon. Lenny Winters gives voice to a series of high, wavering screams. He screams like a girl.

… “Oh my God,” Linda Alderson says (Holly has jotted the name on his pad). “She’s going to be devastated to hear that …

… He tastes the peppermint lipstick of the first girl he ever kissed, Marjorie Patterson at East Junior High, in Joplin, Missouri.

He thinks it over, considers texting, then rejects the idea and gets up. Old habits are too strong. The woman behind the reception desk is Marlee, according to her nametag. She looks about seventeen, and gives him a brilliant cheerleader’s smile. “He’ll be with you soon, Mr. Hodges, I promise.

She’s got a Zappit.” Holly takes a deep breath. “They’re dangerous.” She can’t quite bring herself to say what she is coming to believe: that they are suicide machines. 26 In Room 217, orderlies Norm Richard and Kelly Pelham lift Brady back into bed while Mavis Rainier supervises.

“You got it,” Hodges says. “One more question, Dinah, and if I sound stupid, remember that I’m pushing seventy.” She smiles. “At school, Mr. Morton says the only stupid question—” “Is the one you don’t ask, yeah. I’ve always felt that way myself, so here it comes.

… He learned the phrase to cross the Rubicon way back in high school, and grasped its meaning without Mrs. Bradley’s explanation …

… Tanya at first made that assumption herself when Mrs. Rossi, the Chapel Ridge attendance officer, called to ask if Barbara was home sick.

Seven days a week. Private company called”—back to the notebook—“Home Helpers. They did all the heavy lifting. There’s also a housekeeper, Nancy Alderson, but apparently she’s off. Note on the kitchen calendar says Nancy in Chagrin Falls. There’s a line drawn through today, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”

… Nora Everly by name. And at the top of the drive she sees Babineau’s BMW on the lawn, with a bullet hole in the windshield.

She’s got a Zappit.” Holly takes a deep breath. “They’re dangerous.” She can’t quite bring herself to say what she is coming to believe: that they are suicide machines. 26 In Room 217, orderlies Norm Richard and Kelly Pelham lift Brady back into bed while Mavis Rainier supervises.

“Brrrr! Here’s Patty Newfield with the details.” How many more could I get? Brady wondered. He was on fire. I’ve got nine augmented Zappits, plus the two my drones have and the one in my drawer. Who says I have to be done with those job-hunting assholes?

… This elderly chestnut occurred to Rob Martin as the ambulance he drove rolled slowly along Upper Marlborough Street toward home base …

… Ruth Scapelli refused Hodges’s offer of fifty dollars for any little tidbits about Brady and threatened to report him if he ever offered her money for patient information again.

… The nurse who came in most afternoons to check his vitals and most evenings to get him ready for the night (you couldn’t say ready for bed when he was always in bed) was a young woman named Sadie MacDonald.

… Selma Valdez, one of four nurses who work the three-to-eleven shift in the Bucket, gives a perfunctory rap on the door of 217 …

… Simonson, his name is. The ME’s analysis won’t be back for two days at the soonest, but Simonson did one right away.

“I saw that car, Granddad. A Chev’alay. I was out front, talking with Spider Willis, when it went by.” He turns his attention to Hodges. “I only noticed because there’s not much the way he was headed, and that car was no snowdog like the one you’ve got out there.”

She’s finally connected to a nurse who identifies himself as Steve Halpern. No, Halpern tells her, Nurse Scapelli hasn’t come in, which is surprising. Her shift starts at eight, and in the Midwest it’s now twenty to one. “Try her at home,” he advises.

“Can you give me directions to the camp?” “Easiest thing in the world,” Thurston says. “Or would be on a fair day. You keep on going the way you were heading, about . . .” He turns his attention to the younger man. “What would you say, Duane? Three miles?”

… His name is Todd Schneider. He’s part of a law firm six names long. Their offices are in New York.

“The big private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks.” “Don’t get used to it,” Jerome says. Holly’s cell rings. It’s a guy named Trevor Jeppson, from the police department’s Computer Forensics Squad. Holly is soon speaking in a jargon Hodges doesn’t understand—something about BOTS and the darknet.

He was eventually able to shamble thirty feet or so along the corridor some patients called the Torture Highway, but only with the help of Rehab Care Coordinator Ursula Haber, the bull dyke Nazi who ran the place.

… Vi doesn’t remember how to get there—I’m guessing she had more than a few shots on the ride, just to get her motor running—but she does remember they went north on the turnpike for quite a ways …

Her aunt Wanda helped her raise the child. Cynthia Scapelli Robinson now lives in San Francisco, where she has a fine husband (no tattoos) and two children, the older of whom is an honor roll student in high school. Her household is a warm one.

… Wendell Stamos is a fiftysomething with a fast-receding hairline and the broad-shouldered, trim-waisted build of a pro jock who’s stayed in shape after retirement.

… According to Yvonne Carstairs. She and the other aide, Georgina Ross, found the bodies when they arrived this morning shortly before six.

Something is coming down MLK, he can’t be sure what it is because a down-deep part of her is still fighting him, but it’s big. Big enough to do the job. “Brady, listen to me. Z-Boy called.” Z-Boy’s actual name is Brooks, but Brady refuses to call him that anymore.