“Bye, Sam.”
“Bye, Andy.”
Once I’m off the phone, I immediately dial Cindy Spodek at her house in Boston. Cindy is an FBI agent whom I got to know on a previous case. Her boss at the Bureau was directing criminal activities, and Cindy blew the whistle on him. It took considerable courage, and Cindy had to deal with strong internal resistance afterward. She has persevered, moved to the Boston office, and gotten a promotion. I’ve called on her for a number of favors since, and she’s always come through, albeit grudgingly.
“Hello?” she answers, her voice sounding simultaneously groggy and worried. I check my watch and realize that it’s eleven-fifteen in Boston.
“Cindy, Andy Carpenter. How are you? Am I calling too late? I forgot what time it is back East.”
“Andy… yes. Much too late.”
“Well, the damage is done. I need a favor.”
“That’s a major surprise. Can it wait until morning?”
“I suppose so, but I don’t want you beating yourself up all night over not helping me when I needed you.”
“I can handle the guilt,” she says, at which point I hear a man’s voice say, “Cindy, who is it?”
She answers him with, “It’s for me, honey.”
“What ‘honey’ are you talking to at this hour?” I ask.
“My husband, if that’s okay with you. Remember, the wedding was in May? It’s the one you didn’t come to.”
“Right. But I sent a gift.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Right. But I planned to, which is really what’s important.”
“Hey,” she says, “what do you mean you forgot the time back East? Where are you?”
I tell her about being in Findlay and about taking on the case. All she really cares about is that Laurie and I are in the same town. “So what’s going on with you two? Are you back together?”
“You really want to know?” I ask, sensing an opening.
“Of course,” she says.
“So listen to my favor, and then I’ll tell you about me and Laurie.”
“You’re a shithead,” she says, defeated.
“You got that right,” I say, victorious. “Now tell ‘honey’ to go back to sleep while you help your friend Andy.”
I proceed to explain our need to find the elusive Eddie, and ask her whether she can utilize the FBI computers to do so. I know from past experience that if they are tracking someone, they can find out on a moment’s notice whenever that person does something that enters a computer anywhere, like using a credit card.
“Are you insane?” she asks. “You think you can use the FBI as your own private investigative agency?”
“You won’t believe what’s going on with Laurie and me,” is my response.
“You think I have nothing better to do than track down your witnesses?” she asks.
“Our life is like an episode of The Young and the Restless,” I say.
She thinks for a moment. “It better be. What’s the guy’s name?”
I give her the information, and she agrees to get on it starting tomorrow. “Now tell me about you and Laurie,” she says.
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” I ask.
Suffice it to say that she doesn’t feel it can wait, and I spend the next hour describing our situation, stopping every thirty seconds or so to answer questions.
Cindy, like everyone else, has always liked Laurie, and her final question is, “So where is this going to wind up?”
“I wish I knew,” I say, understating the case about as much as a case can be understated.
• • • • •
THREE DAYS IS a long time to sit around and watch the temperature drop, but that’s basically what we’ve been doing. It was absolutely freezing when I took Tara out for our walk this morning. It is as if Wisconsin spent these last days hurtling away from the sun, and based on the temperature, we must be passing Pluto about now.
Kevin started sniffling a couple of days ago, which sent him on a mission to find the best ear, nose, and throat man in the area. His task has been made more difficult by the fact that there aren’t any ear, nose, and throat men in the area. Kevin has thus been reduced to seeing an internist, but his sniffling is increasing in frequency, as is his complaining about it.
I’ve heard nothing from Cindy about Eddie’s whereabouts, though I’ve called her twice at her office. Each time she was too busy to come to the phone and had her assistant tell me that when she has anything, she’ll let me know.
Laurie is unofficially aware of what is going on, but if I learn anything, I’m going to handle it myself. I have no legal obligation to inform the police of my investigative efforts, and I certainly don’t want Lester privy to them. Nor have I told Jeremy or his parents; this has to be done with some discretion.
With nothing else productive to do, I spend my time trying to understand why any of the earliest humans could possibly have chosen this place to live. The planet was barely inhabited… they could have settled anywhere. It was before money was invented, so land had to be cheap in places like San Diego. Yet people said no, they’d rather live in some place so cold that frostbite occurs in about eight seconds.
And it’s not like winter clothing was particularly advanced back then. Skiing also hadn’t been invented yet, so there couldn’t have been ski jackets, and I don’t know if there was even underwear, no less long underwear. Yet for some reason someone decided that this was the place to be, and the other prehistoric losers followed.
I’ve always been fascinated by firsts; I like to ponder who made strange initial decisions and why they made them. Who was the first person to try a parachute? Who first looked at a slimy, disgusting raw oyster and decided to chow down on it? And who saw a tobacco plant and figured it would be a good idea to stuff some of the leaves in their mouth and set them on fire?
I probably think about these things as a way of taking my mind off the upcoming trial. It’s a defense mechanism, which I need because I have not come up with an actual defense. We’re two weeks away from jury selection, and unless we wind up with a jury consisting of twelve of Jeremy’s relatives, we’re in a lot of trouble.
It’s while I’m attempting without success to convince Tara that in this weather she should take herself out for walks that Cindy Spodek calls. She doesn’t even take the time to say hello.
“He just used a credit card to get forty bucks at an ATM in a convenience store. The address is 414 Market Street, Warwick, Wisconsin.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll let you know how we make out.”
“I don’t know if I can stand the suspense,” she says. What could be worse than an FBI wiseass?
“We’ve got the address,” I say to Kevin as I hang up. “It’s in Warwick.”
He grabs the map we bought for this occasion and opens it on the table in front of us. “It’s about a two-hour drive.”
I’m already on the way to the door. “Let’s go.”
“What about Marcus?” he asks.
I can tell by the temperature in the house that Marcus is out. “I don’t know where he is. Come on, this is a nineteen-year-old kid we’re talking about. You can handle him.”
“Me?” he asks. Kevin is about as tough as I am.
“If he gives you a problem, sneeze on him.”
Once we’re settled in the car and on the way, I have time to reflect on the situation we’re in. We’re heading to a strange town to find someone, without any idea where he’s living or what he looks like. All we know is that he got some cash there; the fact is, he may have just been driving through. Another possibility is that someone else is using his credit card, as a way to throw pursuers like us off the track.