End of Watch

It is now six years after the Mercedes Massacre, and Bill Hodges runs his private detective firm, Finders Keepers. Bill is in the waiting room of a doctor’s office when he receives a text message from Pete Huntley, who was his old partner when he was still a police detective, or “Knight of the Badge and Gun” (21), as he used to think of himself. Pete asks Hodges to call him as soon as possible. Pete is nearing retirement, which is described here as “End of Watch” (17). Hodges himself retired a few years ago but has not been able to bring himself to fully give up his identity as a police detective. He now runs Finders Keepers, a private investigation business, with his friend Holly Gibney. Hodges steps outside and calls Pete back. Pete is at the scene of an apparent murder/suicide involving one of the victims of the Brady Hartsfield attack at City Center. Hodges abandons the appointment with the doctor. He had been waiting for the results of some tests to determine the cause of stomach pains he has been having recently. He hurries to the murder scene, stopping to pick up Holly on the way.

Holly gives Hodges the rundown on the victims. Martine Stover was severely injured in the Mercedes Massacre and is now a quadriplegic living with her mother Janice Ellerton. They meet Pete Huntley and his new partner Isabelle Jaynes at the scene. Their working theory is that the mother killed Martine, then herself. Holly examines the house where the two victims died. Hodges is confident she will have valuable insights.

Pete and Isabelle walk Hodges and Holly through the discovery of the bodies. The mother, Janice, first killed her daughter with vodka and Oxycontin through her feeding tube, then killed herself using helium. Holly notices that Janice used a black marker to draw a big letter Z on the bathroom countertop near a power cord for some kind of handheld device.

While Holly investigates the bathroom, Hodges, Pete, and Isabelle debate whether there is any direct connection between these deaths and the assault that left Martine handicapped. Isabelle says no, but Pete is uncomfortable because of the similarities to another pair of victims from the attack. Keith Frias and Krista Countryman were both at the City Center on the day of the attack. They were badly injured and met while in physical therapy. They were planning to get married when they died by suicide together. Hodges asks if anyone noticed a Z written anywhere at the scene. Isabelle says no, but Pete says he will check all the photos from that crime scene. Discussing the significance of the letter Z, Holly remarks that Zorro would leave the letter Z behind to mark his missions. The others ignore her.

They note other connections to the City Center attack: Olivia Trelawny, Holly’s cousin, was goaded into suicide by Brady Hartsfield, and Brady also tried to get Hodges to die by suicide. Holly and Hodges argue that the connections to Brady, though impossible, are undeniable. Isabelle is quietly scornful of the idea.

Pete and Holly leave. Holly is scornful that Pete and Isabelle did practically nothing at the crime scene. They both assumed murder/suicide based on the surface evidence and after taking fingerprints downstairs did nothing else. Holly goes upstairs looking for the device that belonged to the power cord. She also looks on Janice’s computer and doesn’t find any searches on means of suicide—she wonders how Janice knew how to use the helium to smother herself. Holly finds the device that fits the power cord. She produces it: a tablet-style game device called a Zappit. It isn’t the kind of thing that would normally belong to a quadriplegic woman or her 80-year-old mother, so Holly wonders what it is it doing there and what it has to do with the letter Z written on the countertop.

The Zappit stirs some kind of memory for Hodges, but he can’t put his finger on it. It has something to do with Brady Hartsfield. It has been at least a year since Hodges went to see Brady in the brain-injury clinic. On that occasion, Brady was the same as ever. He could sit upright and look out the window but was otherwise unresponsive—except that now and then, he would seem to be aware of his surroundings. Hodges had been going to the hospital regularly and asking the staff about strange things that happened around Brady. Things would sometimes move in his room with no one touching them.

Hodges stopped going to see Brady when the staff at the hospital changed, and the new head nurse, Ruth Scapelli, refused to let Hodges in and stopped the staff from spreading superstitious rumors. Since then, Hodges thinks about Brady less than he used to. He thinks his continuing obsession is because he can’t help feeling Brady Hartsfield escaped justice by winding up in the hospital rather than prison.

Back at the office, Holly finds the contact information for Nancy Alderson—Martine and Janice’s housekeeper—and gives her the news of their deaths. At first, Nancy refuses to believe it because Martine and Janice were always happy and Martine was thinking of taking classes online. Although now that she thinks of it, she did think Janice was feeling down lately. Hodges asks Nancy if she ever saw a game console called a Zappit, and Nancy says that there was one. It was given to Janice by a man who approached her at the grocery store. He said it was free; she just had to fill out a questionnaire. That was about the time Janice started to feel depressed. Hodges asks if Nancy ever saw the man hanging around the house, and Nancy says no. As they are about to hang up, she mentions that there was another man, an elderly man in patched workman’s clothes, who often parked at the curb and stared at a house down the street from Martine and Janice. The house was for sale, and Nancy once saw him looking in the window around the time of the last big snowstorm. She describes his car as old with spots of primer.

Holly and Hodges determine that the staring stranger appeared on Janice’s street around the same time Janice received the Zappit. Hodges has learned that the Zappit Commander consoles were never popular, and the manufacturer went bankrupt, so the man who gave Janice the console was probably running a scam.

The setting shifts to the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic where Brady Hartsfield is being kept. The head nurse, Ruth Scapelli, is cold and outwardly emotionless. She actively hates Brady Hartsfield; she thinks he is faking his condition to get out of being convicted for his crimes. On this day, she accompanies Dr. Babineau to Brady’s room. Babineau brags about how well Brady has recovered—he can walk a little, feed himself clumsily, and respond to simple questions, although he can’t enunciate clearly. While the doctor’s back is turned, Brady gives Ruth the finger with a malicious grin. Then two buttons pop off her uniform.

Later, Ruth goes to Brady’s room. She grabs his nipple and twists it, but he doesn’t react. She tells him he isn’t fooling her; she knows Dr. Babineau has been giving him experimental drugs. She warns him that if he ever gives her the finger again, it will be his testicles she goes for next. Brady gives her the finger again and shows her the same grin he did before. Then the venetian blinds rattle sharply. Ruth leaves the room, suddenly afraid.

Hodges takes a tour of the empty house down the street from Martine and Janice. He notices that the garage door has been broken open. Footprints and a broken chair indicate that someone has been sitting where he has a clear view of Martine and Janice’s front window. Under the chair, he finds the lens cap from a pair of binoculars. The last thing he notices is that someone has carved a letter Z in the nearby doorjamb. While Hodges is distracted, an old car with spots of primer drives past with an old man at the wheel.

Hodges’s doctor sets up a new appointment for Hodges and emphasizes that he absolutely must keep the appointment. The pain in Hodges’s stomach has been getting worse, and he suspects the doctor has very bad news.

That evening, Ruth Scarpelli is astonished to get a visit from Brady’s doctor, Babineau. Ruth notices that his eyes are strangely vacant. Babineau reveals that he knows everything she did to Brady in Brady’s room that day, and if she doesn’t do exactly what he says, she will be criminally prosecuted.

At the same time, one of the nurses at the clinic notices that Brady is in a semi-catatonic state. He is holding his favorite game console and looking at the demo screen on which a game called “Fishin’ Hole” is running. Colorful fish swim back and forth while a tune plays a children’s song called “By the Sea.” The game is hypnotic, and when the nurse comes to herself, she has lost several minutes of time.

Doctor Babineau hands Ruth a Zappit console. There are colorful fish swimming back and forth on the screen. He tells her to look for the pink fish. As she watches, there is a flash of blue light. More blue flashes appear on the screen, and Ruth is soon hypnotized. Babineau then leaves, and Brady is in control of Ruth.

Hodges wakes with bad stomach pain. Unable to sleep, he goes on his computer and notices that there is a message from “Debbie’s Blue Umbrella,” the private chat site where he first made contact with Brady Hartsfield. The message is from someone called Z-Boy. The message tells Hodges that “he” is not done with Hodges yet. Hodges recognizes the connection between Z-Boy and the Zs at the murder scene and the house down the street.

Hodges and Holly meet with Pete and Isabelle. Holly shows them the Zappit, and Hodges tells them about the man who gave it to Janice and the old man who was watching the house. Isabelle refuses to take anything seriously. She believes she already knows what happened. Holly points out the connection with the Zs and “Zappit.” Isabelle dismisses this with contempt. Hodges asks Pete to at least have the police cyber-specialists examine the device. It won’t turn on, but maybe their experts can get into it.

Hodges finally meets with his doctor, Dr. Stamos, about his test results. The tests show pancreatic cancer. With treatment, he probably has a year to live—maybe two.

Ruth Scapelli’s daughter Cynthia receives an email hinting that Ruth may be considering suicide. Cynthia calls the police, who enter Ruth’s house and find her dead, her wrists cut and the letter Z drawn in her blood on the floor beside her.