Читать книгу Fourth Down and Out - Andrew Welsh-Huggins - Страница 1

Andy Hayes Mysteries

by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Fourth Down and Out

Slow Burn (forthcoming)

Fourth Down And Out

An Andy Hayes Mystery

Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Swallow Press

Ohio University Press

Athens

To Mary Anne Huggins

For your love, support, and willingness to

overlook all those overdue library book fines

“I am quite used to being beaten and having things thrown at me.”

—Odysseus, in Homer’s Odyssey

Columbus is a town in which almost anything is likely to happen and in which almost everything has.

—James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times

1

“Hey! Woody Hayes!”

I was almost home when I heard the man’s voice. I shouldn’t have turned around. Partly because I haven’t been called that name by anyone I consider a friend in close to two decades. And partly because events earlier in the evening should have alerted me to trouble.

But turn around I did, and that’s when he hit me full in the face. With the flash of a cell phone camera.

“Woody Hayes,” the man repeated. “I don’t believe it.”

I stepped back, eyes adjusting in the dark to the flash, and made out a man in a ski mask a few feet in front of me holding a phone in one hand and something I couldn’t quite make out in the other.

“What the hell?” I said, and instinctively raised the baseball bat I keep in my van and had carried with me on the short walk to my house just in case. Because of what happened earlier. Which shows what a doofus I was to turn around in the first place.

That’s when I saw the shotgun.

“Laptop,” he said. “Nice and easy and no one gets hurt.”

“What if I say no?”

“What if I blow you away and just take it?”

“Why do you want it?”

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?”

I debated my options. I didn’t want to give up the laptop. But I knew better than to try something dumb like pitting my bat against his gun.

“All right,” I said. “It’s all yours.”

“Set it down,” he said, gesturing with the gun. “And the bat too.”

I followed his instructions. I lowered the cardboard box holding the computer onto the narrow, brick-paved street, then set the bat beside it.

“Now turn around and get lost.”

“Still curious why you want it,” I said.

“Move it.”

So I turned around, slowly, and started walking. I hadn’t made it more than ten feet when I heard the sound of boots on brick, turned back, and was just in time to raise my arms and deflect a blow from my own baseball bat that appeared to be destined for my head. I staggered back, forearms aching from the impact, which gave him just enough time to whack my left knee and send me staggering backward.

“What the hell,” I said again. “I gave you the computer.”

“That’s for the Illinois game, your senior year, shithead. I lost a hundred bucks on you.”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“Should have been an easy bet. Didn’t know you were playing both sides.”

The bat swung again, this time hitting my right forearm as I tried to shield my head.

“Fuck-up,” he said. “That’s all you are.”

“Get a life,” I managed. “That was twenty years ago.”

“And that’s how long I’ve been wanting to beat the shit out of you.”

“It was a football game. Get over it.”

“Woody Hayes, fuck-up,” he said, swinging the bat once more.

Maybe it was the pain in my arms and knee. Maybe I was pissed at hearing the old nickname. Maybe it was the laptop. For whatever reason, I found myself summoning the best approximation of a quarterback feint I had left, grabbed the end of the bat as it bounced off the brick instead of one of my body parts, then gripped hard and pulled my unknown assailant toward me. Surprised, he stumbled forward and fell in front of me. I reached over and ripped off the ski mask. A stranger stared back. A tough-looking guy with a menacing goatee and shaved head and what looked like a missing front tooth. There was nothing remarkable about his face except for what was tattooed from his left ear all the way down his neck, a design you don’t see every day, even in a football-crazy town like Columbus, Ohio.

He had put the shotgun and computer down to play out his revenge fantasy, so I had one shot to get this right. I raised the bat and took a step forward as I prepared to inflict a return blow, and that’s all it took for my left knee, which has always been a bit tricky, especially when clobbered with my own Louisville slugger, to buckle. As I teetered backward he yanked the bat out of my hands and hit the knee again, sending me down hard. After that, the last things I remember were a string of his swear words interspersed with the word “fuck-up,” then another voice that wasn’t his or mine and might have been shouting something like “Hey—what are you doing?!”—and then something hard and sharp hitting my head, which just might have been one of his boots. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s also true: everything went black.

What’s not a cliché is what happened next. I didn’t wake up in a hospital or on somebody’s couch or in the back of somebody’s car trunk, bound and trussed. I woke up exactly where I’d fallen, probably not more than ten minutes later, to the taste of blood in my mouth, the sound someplace close of sirens, and my bat lying on the curb in front of me. I tried to get up, lay back down, then remembered the laptop, pushed myself onto my knees, opened my eyes and looked around in the alley. Nothing doing. It was gone. Shit.

2

“One more time,” I said to the man sitting across from me. “What in God’s name possessed you to go into that girl’s room?”

A day earlier. I was sitting at a window table at Cup o’ Joe in German Village, the all-brick neighborhood south of downtown I call home. The Sunday Columbus Dispatch was spread before me, my large black coffee was cooling beside it, and next to that sat an uneaten pumpkin muffin.

“I don’t know,” he said for the third or fourth time. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

I have a certain Sunday morning ritual, and like most people I don’t like it interrupted. Sleep in a little, wake up and slurp some coffee, get dressed without rushing, put a leash on Hopalong and walk him around the block, then stroll over to the coffee shop for round two, including some pastries, while I sit and read the paper. If I have time, I’ll browse in one of the thirty-two rooms in the Book Loft next door, then make my way home in time to leave for an 11:30 a.m. appointment I’m not in the habit of missing.

But not today. I’d scarcely begun the paper’s extensive account of the Ohio State football team’s convincing victory over Penn State the day before when my cell phone went off. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello? Is this Woody Hayes?” A man’s voice.

“This is Andy Hayes,” I said. “May I help you?”

“Andy Hayes?”

“Andy Hayes,” I said patiently. A lot of my calls go like this.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. Woody Hayes died in 1987. You can look it up.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I wouldn’t dare to presume. Did you need something?”

A moment of silence. Then he said, “The thing is, I’m in a bit of trouble. Wondering if I could talk to you.”

“Always happy to talk. Any particular topic?”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“It usually is. I’m free tomorrow morning.”

“I was hoping for sooner.”

“Sooner?”

“Like today.”

“Today.”

“Like, maybe, this morning.”

I glanced at the paper. I still had Travel, Arts and Life, and Business to get through, and I was already thinking a third muffin wouldn’t be such a bad idea. And then of course there was 11:30 a.m.

“Mind if I ask what kind of trouble?”

“It might be better to tell you about it in person. If that’s OK. Is your office close?”

“You do know it’s Sunday morning, right? Is it really that urgent?”

“Yes,” he said. “Burke Cunningham recommended you. Said it was OK to call.”

Of course Burke would say that. So now I was stuck: either get mad at Burke for siccing what could well be a paying client on me, or get mad at the client just because it wasn’t the world’s most convenient time to call. Decisions, decisions.

I told him where I was.

“Any place less public?” he said.

“Plenty of places,” I said. “But this is where I am at the moment.”

“Your office?”

“That would be my living room. Which is a little cluttered right now.”

“OK,” he said finally.

I added, “I’ll be the grumpy-looking guy wearing—”

He interrupted. “I know what you look like.”

Of course he did. Everyone did. Some days it seemed like I was the only person left who didn’t recognize the guy in my bathroom mirror.

3

Less than half an hour later the coffee shop door opened and a man who didn’t look like he was enjoying a relaxing Sunday morning in mid-November walked in. White, age indeterminate but someplace in his early forties. Tall, or taller than me, anyway, sandy hair receding, a few extra pounds but otherwise pretty good looking. Black peacoat, unbuttoned, khakis and blue button-down shirt.

“Ted Hamilton,” he said, stopping at my table.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking the proffered hand. “Coffee?”

He shook his head. “Last thing I need right now.”

“So how can I help you?”

“It’s bad,” Hamilton said, sitting down. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I waited. It was a familiar type of conversation.

“If you can’t help me, then what? I could be well and truly screwed.”

“I won’t know if I can help until I hear your story.”

“OK,” he said, pausing as he looked around the coffee shop. He took a breath. “It’s like this. I dropped my daughter off at a party Friday night—I needed the car and she was going to get a ride home later. We know the parents, and they were inviting people to stay and have a drink.”

“Where?”

“In the kitchen.”

“No—the house, I mean. What part of town.”

“Upper Arlington. Big place. Near the golf course.”

“That where you live?”

“No. Girls go to school together. Columbus Prep. We live in Clintonville.”

“Gotcha. Go on. You had a beer.”

“Right,” he said. “OK, maybe a couple beers. And I hadn’t eaten yet. Big mistake. I’ve got this blood sugar thing. Anyway, before I left I had to use the bathroom. Somebody was in the downstairs one, so I went upstairs. You know? And after I was finished and came out, I bump into my daughter’s friend. The one whose house it is.”

“This is still upstairs?”

“Right. In the hallway.”

“What’s the girl’s name.”

“Jennifer. Jennifer Rawlings.”

“OK.”

“And she’s like, really glad to see me. You know. ‘Hey, Mr. Hamilton. How’s it going? Whoa, I like that shirt. How’s stuff at work.’ That kind of thing.”

“OK,” I repeated. My ex-wives used to complain, rightfully, that I was slow on the uptake. But even I could see where this was headed.

“So we start chatting, about school and movies and whatever, and then she mentions she’s got something she’s been meaning to show me. In her room.”

I sighed. Couldn’t help myself.

“So we go in there, and God, I don’t know, the next thing I know we’re, ah, kissing, and she’s really, like, sort of all over me.”

“All over you.”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re pushing her away? Fighting the whole time?”

He looked down. “Not exactly.”

“Then what happened?”

“Thing is,” he said. “I was a little drunk. And she was, you know, really hot, if you want the truth. And things with my wife and me, lately . . .”

“Keep going.”

“So we’re kissing, and I mean she seems really turned on, and then just when I’m starting to think, you know, how far is this going, she pulls away. Says she hears someone.”

“Did she?”

“I don’t know. I just know it all stopped real fast after that. After a few seconds she told me I better go. So I did. Left immediately. Right down the stairs and out.”

“Anybody see you leave?”

“No idea. I was in a haze at that point.”

“I take it that wasn’t the end of things, or we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

He shook his head. “Yesterday I was checking my e-mail, and I saw this message from someone I didn’t recognize. Subject line said, ‘You and Jennifer.’ My stomach dropped. Didn’t know what to think. Guessed maybe it was from her father or something.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t.”

“I click on it and there’s a real short message. ‘One thousand dollars by midnight Monday or this goes up on YouTube.’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. I click on the attachment and it’s a video. A video of us. In that room. It’s, it’s crystal clear.”

“Any idea who the e-mail’s from?”

He shook his head again. “The address was just letters and numbers. I figured it was her. But then I realized somebody had to shoot the footage, unless she did it herself somehow, remotely.”

“Any idea how they got your e-mail?”

“Who knows. Internet? School directory? It’s out there.”

I said, “May I see?”

He nodded. “Figured you’d ask.” He pulled out his phone, tapped on the screen a few times, then handed it to me. He looked away while I watched.

There was no sound, but he was right about the picture quality. It was good, the images clear and crisp, embarrassingly so, and there was no mistaking it was him. And he was right: it was bad.

I looked up at him.

“What in God’s name possessed you to go into that girl’s room?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m screwed, aren’t I?”

“You’ve got a big problem, that’s for sure. So let’s start with the basics: any idea how old that girl is?”

“She’s eighteen. I’m sure of that.”

“How do you know?”

“She just had a birthday—my daughter went to her party.”

“You’re sure? Because if she’s underage, then I have to report it to police and this conversation’s over.”

“I swear. I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t cross that line.”

“Big of you.”

“I know I made a mistake. That’s why I’m here. I just want to know if there’s anything you can do to fix this.”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On what you want me to do.”

“I want you to help me.”

“First way I can help is play the middleman and handle the money.”

“You mean I should pay them?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s not what I had in mind.”

“Probably smart. Second way I can help is tell them, on your behalf, to fuck off.”

“Run the risk of them posting it? No way.”

“Why not? What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Everything. Marriage. Ruin me at work.”

“What do you do?”

“Government relations. Work for grocery stores and liquor outlets. Lobbyist, basically.”

“Ever had this kind of problem before?”

“Never,” he said. “That’s why this is so bad.”

“First time for everything.”

He grimaced. “Anything else you can do?”

“Option three is I have a friendly conversation with this girl. Persuade her it’s not in her best interest, and whoever else is involved, to move forward.”

“You could do that? Get them to call it off? Get the video?”

I shook my head. “Not in this day and age. A copy of that video is sitting on a server someplace and somebody’s laptop and probably a flash drive, and that’s just for starters. It’s always going to be out there. You’re going to have to live with that. Best I can do is keep them from posting it.” “Jesus Christ,” Hamilton said. “What’s the good of any of this, then?”

“Good question. I can make a strong argument on your behalf, and we’ll cross our fingers. That’s about all we’ve got right now.”

“There’s no way you could fix this permanently?”

“If by permanently you mean wind the tape back, return to a moment when it hadn’t happened, then no. You’re going to have to accept the possibility that someday the video will surface.”

He went silent. I dipped my muffin in my coffee, took a bite. Looked out the coffee shop window and saw two women jog past. A man walking his dog the other direction turned to check them out. Another jogger, a man, passed the dog walker and checked him out. Sunday in German Village.

I heard Hamilton say, “When could you start?”

“You still want to hire me?”

“Sure,” he said. Then he added: “What other choice do I have?”

“What we already talked about. Go home and tell your wife. Even if you decide we go after them, try to stare them down, it’s better that she knows now. I mean, if your marriage is something you think worth’s saving.”

“I can only imagine her reaction.”

“Don’t, then.”

“Don’t tell her?”

“Don’t imagine. Just do it and hope to be surprised.”

He thought about this for several seconds. Then he said, “If you don’t mind me asking, you know who Art Schlichter is, right?”

I sighed. I got this question a lot. “Former Ohio State and NFL quarterback who lost everything to his gambling addiction. Yes, I know who Schlichter is. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing, I guess.”

“But you asked.”

“There are some similarities. You know.”

“Here’s the difference,” I said. “We both went to prison, but I’m the one sitting in a coffee shop on my day off trying to save your ass.”

4

Hamilton chose Door Number 3, though without telling his wife yet, while I’d attempt to make the problem go away as much as it was possible in the digital age. It wasn’t the option I’d have picked, but I was now up by a $500 deposit plus $100 a day in expenses. I lingered after Hamilton left, gulped a bit more coffee and took another bite of my muffin. I had one task to do before I got to work, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I dialed the number from memory.

“Hello?” I could tell right away I had awakened her.

“It’s Andy,” I said. “Sorry to call this early.”

“Damn right it’s early,” she said, and I didn’t respond, despite the fact it was nearing ten.

Instead I said, “Something’s come up. A job. Guy called me while I was having coffee this morning.”

“You can’t make it.” A statement, not a question.

“I could lie and say there’s still a chance. Or I might be there, but just a little late. But, you’re right, I can’t make it. I don’t know how it’s going to unfold. So I’ll tell the truth.”

“And you know how I feel about the truth.”

“Absolutely.”

“And you also know how I feel about broken promises.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And how I feel about that expression.”

I didn’t say anything.

“On that note,” she said, “Goodbye.”

The hardest thing was not knowing whether she was disappointed I couldn’t make it. I knew I was.

At least, I think I was.

Back in the house I rent on Mohawk Street, I started by searching Facebook for Jennifer Rawlings. I found the same pretty-looking blonde from the video, her page locked to outsiders. I thought about sending her a Facebook message, but that could cut either way: it might provoke a return call, or it might scare her off.

Not sure what else to do, I called the number for the only Rawlings I could find listed in Upper Arlington.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice. Too old to be Jennifer.

“This is Mr. Weatherbee?” I said. “From the high school? For Jennifer?”

“She’s not here right now. Something I can help with?”

“Wouldn’t you know, our website’s gone down and I’ve been getting calls and e-mails about the assignment—lot of kids say they can’t access it, and it’s due tomorrow. I thought I’d just pass on the details by phone. Quicker that way. Do you know what time she’ll be home?”

“She didn’t say. Could I take a message?”

“Might be easier if I just talked to her myself. Or maybe I’ll e-mail her and you can just tell her to check that. As long as you think she’ll see it in time.”

“Oh, I’m sure she will. And I’ll text her just to be sure. She’s at the library, supposed to be doing homework. What class did you say this was for?”

“English history.”

“What did you say your name was again?”

“How about I leave you my number?”

It’s a funny thing, but over the years I’ve found that nothing allays suspicion on calls like this more than offering a way to contact me.

“Ah, sure,” she said. “Just a moment.”

When she returned to the phone, I gave her my cell number. “Nice speaking with you, Mrs. Rawlings. You have a nice day.”

“You, too.”

One of the things I like about Columbus is that, as big a city as it’s gotten to be, it still takes only about twenty minutes to get anywhere. And so it was that in almost exactly that amount of time I was driving up Tremont to the library in Upper Arlington. It was a tony old suburb full of comfortable houses, wide boulevards, tall trees, fine golf courses, stellar schools, and a Fourth of July parade that people start reserving lawn space for days ahead of time. It was a bit much at times—the ’burb’s nickname, “Uppity Arlington,” was not always undeserved—but its charms were hard to argue with. Jack Nicklaus grew up there, and Dave Thomas, the guy who founded Wendy’s, called it home for forty years. My namesake, the real Woody Hayes, moved there after landing the Ohio State job in 1950.

Which was one of the reasons, the cost of real estate aside, why I’d never considered living there myself. Just wouldn’t have worked out.

I eased my blue Honda Odyssey into an open space in the library parking lot, got out of the car, and headed for the entrance. Then I reconsidered and took a stroll around the lot instead. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for, but I found it anyway underneath a tree at the end of a row of cars: a gleaming new red Mini Cooper with the license plate “JENI KAR.”

I walked into the library, went over to the information desk, and explained my situation. A minute later I heard the announcement over the PA system. And a few minutes after that Jennifer Rawlings walked up to the desk, wearing a tight white sweater, jeans that fit her quite nicely, and a frown that could have stopped Sherman’s army.

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I dinged your car as I was pulling in. Do you have a sec—” I said, and gestured toward the door.

“Oh geez,” she said, with no improvement to the frown.

“Sorry,” I murmured, and we walked out together, the librarian at the desk casting a sympathetic look in my direction.

We walked without talking until we reached her car, at which point she stopped and demanded, “Where is it?”

I took two steps toward her. I said, “You’re Jennifer Rawlings?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” she said. “How’d you know my—”

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “I’m going to talk for five minutes and you’re going to listen. Interrupt me and I’ll key the Michigan fight song into the driver’s side door of your pretty little vehicle here. Understood?”

“I—” she began.

“I’m here on behalf of Ted Hamilton. I know all about the party. I’ve seen the e-mail and the video. I know what you’re up to and what you’re asking.”

“I, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tried.

“No interruptions, remember?” I said, jingling my keys. “What you’re doing is extortion, and it’s illegal. You can go to prison for it. You and whoever shot that video. But even worse is the publicity. Got any college plans? You can kiss them goodbye if this hits the papers.”

She stared toward the library, not meeting my eyes. But at least she was listening.

“I can see how you thought this might be pretty easy. A simple way to make some quick cash, not that you look exactly poverty stricken. I’ll wager Mr. Hamilton wasn’t even the first. But all that’s in the past. The situation is now like this. Mr. Hamilton, who I represent, is declining to meet your demand. If you choose to post the video, he and I will be at the county prosecutor’s office and the local FBI headquarters and the Upper Arlington Police Department and the sheriff’s and the dogcatcher’s and whoever else I can think of before you’ve had three hits on the site. Am I making myself at all clear?”

She didn’t say anything. Just looked at her car.

“On the other hand, should you choose to rethink your request, we’ll simply walk away—on one condition. I want the video camera, the laptop, and every memory stick and external drive and mouse used in this undertaking. If I’m in a good mood when I’m done wiping them clean, you’ll get them back.”

I looked at her to see if I was getting through. She met my glance, then looked away.

“Unfortunately,” I said, looking at my watch, “I can’t be as generous with my deadline as you were. Therefore, you have until eight o’clock tomorrow morning. If I don’t have the stuff by then, I’ll assume you’re not accepting my offer and we’ll head to the police. Got it?”

After a moment, she said, slowly, “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s up to you,” I said. I reached into my wallet, pulled out my business card, and handed it to her. She wouldn’t take it, so I tucked it under a windshield wiper on her car.

“Eight a.m.,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

5

Since it was by now well past 2 p.m., I drove back down the road, pulled into the Tremont Center lot, and walked into the Chef-O-Nette. I sat at the counter and declined the menu the waitress brought by.

“I’ll have the Hangover,” I said.

A few minutes later she brought me the restaurant’s signature sandwich, consisting of a hamburger, slice of ham, cheese, onion, lettuce, and tomato. I’d been there when I’d needed the sandwich for the real thing. Today I just felt hungry. Fixing Hamilton’s problem had given me an unexpected appetite. But I got no further than my first bite when my phone rang.

“Yeah,” a boy’s voice said. “This is, ah . . . Did you talk to Jennifer Rawlings, like, a few minutes ago?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you, like, talk to her about Ted Hamilton.”

“That’s right,” I said again.

“Did you ask her to give you something?”

“Right again.”

“I think I’ve got what you want. If what you told her is true.”

“I told her a lot of things.”

“What you told her about the police.”

“What I told her about the police is true.”

“And you get the equipment, you won’t tell the police.”

“With a couple conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“If the video ever surfaces, no matter how or who’s responsible, the deal’s off.”

“All right, I guess.”

“No,” I corrected him. “All right, period. Secondly, the equipment has to check out. If you give me dummies or decoys, that’s just going to increase your liability, because then you’re looking at obstruction of justice.”

“Can we get the stuff back?”

“Once I wipe everything, sure. No promises on how long that’ll take.”

“When can I give them to you?”

“Where do you live?”

“New Albany.”

“That’s clear across town. How do you know Jennifer?”

“We met at a tennis camp.”

“Of course you did. What’s your name.”

He hesitated. “Do I have to tell you that?”

“Don’t be stupid. And don’t bother making it up. Your number is showing up on my phone. I can figure it out anyway in about two minutes.”

“Pete,” he said after a moment. “Pete Freeley.”

“All right, Pete Freeley. Jennifer your girlfriend?”

A pause. “Yeah.”

“A slutty extortionist. Cute.”

“Listen—” he started.

“No, you listen. We’ll do it at Easton. There’s a surface parking lot near the Barnes and Noble. Nice and exposed.”

“OK,” he said. “What time.”

“I’m right in the middle of something,” I said. “Ninety minutes. Don’t be late. And come alone.”

“All right,” he said.

I cut the connection and signaled the waitress.

“Tapioca pudding?” she said. “Best in town.”

“Only if you can box it up,” I said. “Sandwich too.”

“Seems a shame to hurry on a Sunday afternoon.”

“Truer words,” I said.

6

Traffic was light, even for a Sunday, and I made it to Easton in, well, less than twenty minutes. “Mall” doesn’t quite do the layout of Easton Town Center justice. The traditional indoor profusion of shops is bookended by two faux Main Street outdoor shopping areas. They’re meant to evoke an old-fashioned downtown retail excursion but in fact bear about as much resemblance to a traditional city center as a golf course does to a wildlife preserve. All it did was remind me that as a boy, not all that long ago, the big deal in my little Ohio town was coming into Columbus to shop at the downtown Lazarus. And now Lazarus is gone too: not even Easton could bring it back to life.

I parked and got out of the van. I was exactly one hour early. Just the way I’d planned. I looked around and didn’t see anyone meeting the description of a nervous teenager with a couple thousand dollars of electronic equipment in tow. I strolled over to a Panera, bought a cup of coffee and a New York Times, took both outside, found a bench with a clear view of the cars coming in and out of the lot, and waited.

I’d made it through the front section and sports—the Times was already weighing in on Ohio State’s chances against Michigan in two weeks (good)—and I was deciding whether to go with Business or Arts when my mark showed up fifteen minutes early in a new-looking Explorer. We hadn’t arranged a signal, but there was no mistaking the strained look on Freeley’s face as he climbed out of the SUV.

As unobtrusively as possible, I got up from the bench and slipped back inside the restaurant. I found an empty chair at an inner wall table where I could see him but he couldn’t return the favor. I watched as Freeley walked up and down the parking lot, trying to look as casual as possible. I waited another minute, found his number on my phone, and called him.

“Hello,” he said sullenly.

“Listen very carefully,” I said.

A minute later Freeley opened the back of his Explorer and pulled out a cardboard box. He walked over to the restaurant, set the box down on the bench where I’d been sitting a few minutes before, looked around uncertainly, then walked slowly back to his car and got in.

“Hello,” he said, just as sullenly as before, when I called him back.

“Username and password?”

“Acooper. JarJarBinksMustDie.”

“Who’s Acooper?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I borrowed the laptop from my dad. The name and password were taped to the bottom.”

“Password is ‘JarJarBinksMustDie’? Like in Star Wars?”

“I guess.”

“You put this on a borrowed laptop?”

“It was just a joke,” he said, weakly.

“Sure it was,” I said. “OK—we’re done here. Go home and stop thinking about it. I’ll call you when I’m ready. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t screw this up, Pete,” I said. “Your future depends on it.”

I waited for a count of twenty after he pulled out of the parking lot, then left the restaurant. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time. You don’t leave boxes on benches in public anymore without risking a visit from fire trucks and guys in hazmat suits. I picked the box up, walked to my van, set it down, opened the rear door, slid the box inside, shut the door, locked the car, and went back to sit on the bench. It was a nice day: cool but sunny, and it seemed a shame to be inside.

When fifteen minutes had passed I called Hamilton.

“Hello?”

“It’s Andy Hayes.”

“Oh right,” he said distantly. “Can you hang on a second?”

So I hung on a second, which turned out to be almost a minute.

“Sorry,” he said, returning to the line. “Couldn’t talk just then.” A whisper. “In the living room. With the wife.” Then, louder: “What—what’s up?”

I explained the situation. After a long pause, he said, “That was fast.”

“It worked out.”

After another pause he said, “I just wish we could be more sure. I mean, about the video.”

“Me too,” I said. “Sorry.”

“So what’s next?”

“Next is I check out the equipment, see how honest they were, then wipe everything. Couple of days, tops. After that, we hold our breath.” For the rest of your life, I thought, but didn’t say it.

“OK,” he said.

“I’ll call you by Tuesday. That’ll be enough time.”

“Tuesday,” he said.

“Things change,” I said, “we may have to renew the contract. But hopefully we’re almost done.”

“OK,” he said again. He sounded distant now, and I thought I could hear a voice in the background.

“Bye now,” I said, and hung up.

I waited another minute, then dialed the same number from memory I’d called earlier in the day.

“Hello?”

I said, “I know this is irregular, but any chance there’s still room on your docket today? It turns out I’m just around the corner.”

A long pause. I was getting a lot of those today.

“That is irregular,” she said. “But not unprecedented. I suppose I could take your motion under advisement. How far away are you?”

“Ten minutes.”

“How convenient. No way to be late.”

I tried to think of something to say. But she had already hung up.

7

I drove out of the parking lot, maneuvered onto Easton Way, then turned right on Stelzer Road. A couple of minutes later I pulled into a small subdivision of town homes. After parking the Odyssey in its usual spot, I walked to the door, knocked twice, paused, knocked again, then used my key to let myself in.

“Laura?” I said.

I’d learned the hard way she didn’t like to be called “Judge,” at least by me. I also knew she didn’t want to be bothered with the niceties of answering the door. The key was her idea.

“In here,” she said.

“Here,” I knew, meant her study, which is where I found her at her computer.

“Sometimes,” she said, without turning around at my entrance, “I am amazed how anyone made it through law school. I have never seen such weak, poorly constructed arguments in my life.”

“Motion sickness?” I said, repeating her inside joke.

“Now they’re asking to suppress another boxful of evidence. Like I haven’t bent over backward already to what are sketchy requests at best.”

“You’re so exacting,” I said as I leaned over and kissed her on the neck.

“Wait,” she said, a little stiffly.

Had this been a few hours earlier, at our usual Sunday morning time, I would have persisted. But now, according to the parameters of our relationship, she had the upper hand because I’d screwed things up by canceling. I retreated to her bedroom, an austere room of beige walls and white curtains and gray carpet, sat down on the edge of the bed, picked up a copy of Ohio Lawyer on her nightstand, and read until, about five minutes later, she joined me. Then, for the next thirty minutes, with the door shut and the shades drawn, the judge’s standoffish courtroom demeanor thawed into something close to affability. Afterward, I watched as she nonchalantly pulled her bathrobe back on without a word. She kissed me on the cheek, left the bedroom, and headed straight back to the study and likely the very same paragraph she’d been working on when I arrived.

I returned the kiss as I left.

“That was nice,” I said.

“I should find you in contempt of court,” she said.

“Your Honor’s indulgence is appreciated.”

As I got back into the Odyssey I remembered my partially eaten sandwich from Chef-O-Nette and realized how hungry I was. It was now approaching dinnertime, and my mood turned dark. If ours had been a normal relationship, I would have suggested to the judge—to Laura—that we get something to eat.

But ours was as far from a normal relationship as you could get in town. And so I glumly drove away.

Back in German Village, I stopped at Happy Dragon on Livingston for takeout Hunan beef. When I got home, despite my growling stomach, I emptied the dinner into a casserole dish and placed it in the oven on low heat. Then I dug a plastic bag out of a drawer, grabbed the leash, and took Hopalong, whose youthful golden lab friskiness had mellowed to amiable boredom in recent years, to Schiller Park. Not that I was counting, but I passed five different couples, three straight, two gay, enjoying each other’s company in public. I did the math, figuring out the last time I’d had a real date. It wasn’t pretty.

Back inside, I dumped my dinner onto a plate, cracked open a can of Black Label, and settled into my armchair. As I ate, I made some progress on Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, which I’d picked up at the library a couple days earlier. An empty plate and three chapters later, I set the book down and channel-surfed for a while until I settled on ESPN and some of the pro game highlights. A brief segue into college games focused on the upcoming Ohio State–Wisconsin matchup. The Buckeyes were a three-point favorite.

After dinner I left the plate in the sink and took Pete’s laptop out of the cardboard box. A Dell, newer model, with an Ohio State sticker on the upper left-hand corner. I powered it up, entered “Acooper” and the password “JarJarBinksMustDie,” and started looking. I’m no computer guru, but it wasn’t hard to find his handiwork, which he’d stored, rather charmingly, in a subfolder on the desktop named “JR” inside a subfolder named “Health Class” inside a folder named “Pete’s Homework.” I should have deleted the video then and there, but instead moved on to the video camera itself. I clicked through several options and took two accidental clips of my kitchen wall until I was satisfied the storage card was clear. The remaining question, whether he’d secretly stored the files elsewhere, on a flash drive or another computer or in the cloud, had to remain unanswered. I had no faith in taking him at his word, but lacking subpoena power, I had no way to do anything more about it.

It was a risky contest, since the one with the most to lose if Pete called my bluff about criminal charges was Ted Hamilton. And despite my best efforts, Hamilton was the lecherous equivalent of an uninsured driver. If Pete decided to, he could cause a very bad accident for him.

8

When my eyes opened at 5:30 Monday morning, I knew going back to sleep would be impossible. Once upon a time I could crash until noon without rolling over, but an untold number of on-field tackles and quite a few off-field ones in subsequent years had put an end to that. My joints acted as their own internal alarms.

After a single cup of coffee, black, and a look at the morning paper, I threw on my sweats, laced up my running shoes, grabbed the leash, and headed back to Schiller Park with Hopalong. After four laps around, or a little more than three miles, I’d worked up a decent sweat. When I got back I checked my cell phone and saw that I had three missed calls. I was starting to check voicemail when the phone rang again.

“This is Andy.”

“It’s Pete. Pete Freeley.”

“It’s not ready,” I said. “I told you it would be a couple days.”

“Didn’t you get my messages?”

“I was jogging. You should give it a try. You seem like you could use a little exercise.”

“I need to talk.”

I looked at my watch. “It’s 8:00. Why are you calling so early?”

“There’s been a mistake.”

“Tell me about it.”

“That’s not what I mean. The laptop—there’s something else on it. Something my dad needs. It’s got nothing to do with what we talked about. With Jennifer, or anything like that. But it’s really important.”

“What is it?”

“I have no idea. Files of some kind. He says it’s crucial he gets them back. He’s going crazy.”

“Can you be any more specific?”

“No—I don’t know what they are.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No,” he said, loudly. “He just said they were really, really important.”

“Do you know where on the computer they are?”

“Listen, could I just come and take it? Just for an hour. I promise I’ll bring it right back.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“You have to help me, man. This is serious.”

“Don’t call me man. And it’s serious to Ted Hamilton, too.”

“It’s not like that. I’ve never seen my dad like this.”

“Listen carefully. I’m going to look at the computer, and I’m going to see what’s on there. And then I’m going to wipe it. And then I’ll call you back.”

“Please,” Pete Freeley said. “Don’t wipe it yet. Please. What’s the big deal? You’ve got the stuff. I’m just asking you to wait.”

“No promises,” I said. I waited, but there was no response. He’d hung up.

I lifted weights for a couple of minutes in my living room while I thought about what to do. Then I showered, dressed, ate three bowls of cereal and a banana, rinsed and washed my bowl, then sat back down in front of the laptop.

I started by searching Word documents, with zero results, unless you counted what looked like a dozen or more English composition papers. Seemed like a lot for a high school kid, but I decided to stick to one mystery at a time. I moved on to PDFs: same outcome. But that wasn’t saying much. I know my way around the basics of a computer, but nothing fancy. Freeley’s father could easily have hidden files somewhere that would have been off-limits to me.

I finally thought I’d found something when I opened Excel and pulled up a spreadsheet crowded with number-filled cells. The headers had some categories I understood, like provider, address, phone number; some things I was a little vague on, like receivables and credit reserve; and some things that might as well have been Sanskrit, like overcollateralization. I looked a little farther and saw what appeared to be duplicates of the file, or maybe updates, but they meant nothing. It was all just numbers. Was this what Pete was talking about? Who knew?

Pete didn’t answer when I called back. I found this odd until I realized it was a school day and he was probably in class. I left a message, then decided to text him as well: “Found bunch of files, can’t tell one from another. Can’t give u laptop yet. I’ll be in touch.”

I was pouring myself another cup of coffee and deciding my next move when my phone rang. I looked down, expecting Pete’s number, but it was a caller I didn’t recognize.

“Hello, yes. Andy Hayes?”

“That’s right.”

“Andy Hayes, private investigator?”

“Right again.”

“This is, uh, someone, that is, someone interested in hiring you. If that’s the right word.”

The male caller had a hint of a southern accent and a formal lilt to his voice.

“That would be the right word. Unless ‘engaging your services’ is more your style.”

“Do you, that is, would you undertake investigations of a sensitive matter?”

“Generally, there’s no other kind.”

“And you can be discreet?”

“It’s called private eye for a reason,” I said. “As long as you’re not asking me to break the law.”

“No, nothing like that,” he said. “Is it possible we could meet?”

“Yes,” I said. “But for that I’d need your name.”

“That’s necessary, I suppose.”

“No name, no meeting.”

“I understand. Well, in that case, this is Henry Huntington.” A pause followed, almost as if he were hoping for a note of recognition from me.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Huntington,” I said.

“It’s Dr. Huntington, actually,” he said.

“Dr. Huntington, then. Where would you like to meet.”

“Do you know the Top? The steak house? On East Main?”

“Of course.”

“Perhaps we could have a cocktail together. This afternoon?”

“What time?”

“Say, five o’clock.”

“Five o’clock,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said.

After I cut the connection I did what any other self-respecting private eye would do. I fired up my own laptop, opened a browser, and tried to figure out if I should know who Dr. Henry Huntington was.

9

Not two minutes later the phone rang again. I wasn’t used to such busy mornings.

“Mr. Hayes?” A man’s voice.

“Yes.”

“My name’s Doug Freeley. I think you know my son Pete.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Old buddies, Pete and me.”

The slightest pause on his end. “I was wondering if I might have a word with you,” he said. “In person.”

“About what?”

“About the laptop.”

“What about the laptop?”

“About getting it back.”

“Not possible right now.”

“The thing is, Pete needs it for school. And, well, there were some files of mine on there that Pete didn’t quite know about. Some things for work I need back.”

I said, “Pete needs the laptop for school?”

“That’s right. I know what he did was wrong. But I don’t think that gave you the right to take it. Be that as it may, we’re not interested in making a big fuss or anything. I’d just like it back.”

“What did Pete tell you he did?”

“What did he tell me?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m not sure it’s necessary to repeat all that.”

“I think it is.”

“Well, if you insist”—an aggrieved tone crept into his voice—“he said he was at the mall, at Easton, with some friends, and they were using the mall wireless to, well, to download pornography. Stream it. And then you saw them and told them they’d broken mall rules and you’d have to confiscate it.”

“I saw them?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Who did he tell you I was?”

“Some kind of undercover mall security officer.”

“He told you I was a security guard?”

Another pause. “Well, aren’t you?”

I sighed. “Where do you live?”

He told me.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“With the laptop?”

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, and hung up.

I was moving up in the world of suburbs: the Freeleys lived in New Albany on the far east side. It was a village once, but the residents now included billionaires, like the guy who founded the Limited. I retrieved my van, caught the NPR headlines update on WCBE, the local independent radio station, then settled in for the station’s morning world music program. It was the perfect accompaniment for my expedition east. After several minutes on a series of highways, I exited onto Dublin-Granville Road, turned down Greensward Road, and soon found myself passing large red-brick houses with double wings and U-shaped driveways and multicar garages in the back. I pulled in behind a pair of Escalades parked in front of the Freeleys’ house, one white, one black.

I hadn’t even made it up the walk when the door opened and an older, slightly taller version of Pete Freeley stepped out. Doug Freeley was distinguished looking, with short dark hair starting to gray, blue eyes, and a chiseled, handsome face. Pinstriped suit, white shirt, dark-patterned tie. He looked to the right and left, making sure we weren’t noticed, before making eye contact and reaching out his hand. If he recognized me, he didn’t show it.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

Inside, he guided me into a living room nearly the size of my house. He gestured to a large black leather L-shaped sectional couch, where I sat down, flipping an Ohio State throw pillow aside, and admired the fireplace opposite me. Mrs. Freeley—“Beth,” Doug Freeley said with a vague wave in her direction—delivered a tray of steaming coffee cups, cream and sugar, then stood on the periphery. There was no sign of Pete.

“No trouble finding us?” Doug Freeley said.

“None,” I said. “So he told you I was a mall cop?”

He shifted in his seat and looked uncomfortably at his wife, then back at me. He was sitting on the far side of the sectional, as far away from me as it was possible to sit without falling off the couch. Or being pushed. He gripped his cup of coffee as though someone might take it from him.

“That’s right.”

“And he was stealing wireless to download porn?”

“That’s what he said.”

“You realize he could do that at home? And being a teenage boy, probably already has? And probably on a smart phone, which arguably has better screen resolution than that laptop.”

“I just—I’m just telling you what he said.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Not really. He apologized. Said he was sorry.”

“Where is he?”

Beth spoke. “Still at school,” she said. She was pretty, dyed blonde but tasteful, smart in gray leggings and a brown knit dress accented with a wide leather belt and boots to match, with a trim figure to equal her husband’s. They were a striking couple.

“Did he know I was coming?”

“No,” she said.

“How’d you get my number?”

“He gave it to us,” Doug said. “After I started asking about the laptop.”

“What’s on the computer that’s so important?”

“Work files,” he said. “Things from the office I needed at home.”

“Not on a flash drive? Seems more convenient than lugging around a laptop.”

“Easier this way,” he said, a little vaguely. “I was afraid I might lose a flash drive.”

“As opposed to losing a laptop,” I said.

“Well, right,” he said.

“Where do you work?”

Freeley shifted again, and again traded glances with his wife. I might have been mistaken, but the look did not seem to be what we in the trade call lovey-dovey. “American Financial Health Care.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Most people haven’t.”

“What do you do?”

“It’s a bit complicated.”

“Try me.”

“We help small health care facilities, like nursing homes or doctors’ practices, pay their bills faster. Something like that.”

“Sounds simple enough. What kind of files were on the laptop?”

“Important ones,” he said.

“How important?”

“The thing is,” Freeley said, ignoring my question, “Pete got ahold of the laptop without me knowing and went off to the mall. Which is where you came in.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not.”

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s not where I came in.”

“What do you mean?”

I took a sip of the coffee Beth had placed before me.

I said, “Let me explain a couple of things.”

There was a long silence when I’d finished.

“I don’t believe it,” Doug said, in a tone that suggested the opposite. He looked at Beth, who had sat down in a wingback chair near the fireplace. She just shook her head.

“What can I do to fix this?” Doug said. “I really need the laptop back.”

“You’ll get it back. But it’s not going to be right away. I need to deal with the video files, see what else Pete might have stored on there that might relate to my client. You’ll forgive me if I don’t take his word that he told me everything.”

“I can pay,” Doug said. “If that’s what it takes. How much? A thousand? Two thousand? I’ll write you a check right now.”

“It’s not about money,” I said.

“I really need those files.”

“I agree with Doug,” Beth interrupted, impatience in her voice. “Those files mean a lot to his company. Seems like you could do what you have to do with the video in an hour or two.”

“Might seem like it,” I said. “But it’s just going to take a little longer.”

“We could call the police,” Beth said, color rising in her cheeks.

“You could,” I agreed. “And I could be sure to mention upfront the reason I have the laptop at all.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Doug said quickly.

Beth started to speak, then stopped. She appeared to be wrestling with something. Whatever it was stayed unspoken, though if I’d had to guess, it didn’t involve a charitable thought toward her husband. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “Against my better judgment, I’ll trust Mr. Hayes on this.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes as she said my name. “Right now, we’ve got other things to worry about. We’ve got to deal with Pete. This is . . . unacceptable. Completely unacceptable behavior.”

“Unacceptable,” Doug echoed a moment later..

“Just give me a few days,” I said. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“Please,” Doug said. “As quickly as possible.”

“A few days will be fine,” Beth said. “We appreciate everything you’ve done. I’m sorry about our son.”

“Not as sorry as my client,” I said.

10

I was still trying to wrap my mind around the parenting issues confronting the Freeleys when I walked under the long white awning at the Top that afternoon and looked around.

I wasn’t sure quite what I’d expected Henry Huntington to look like. After collecting information from my Google search, I’d tried to put aside whatever stereotypes I had about the result: provost and distinguished professor of nineteenth-century American studies at McCulloh College, a small liberal arts institution tucked between the city’s other two east-side colleges, Capital and Ohio Dominican. On the one hand, the man who stood up as soon as I’d reached the bar was indeed wearing a bow tie, tortoiseshell horn-rimmed glasses, and a tweedy-looking jacket with the requisite elbow patches. On the other hand, his hair was longer than I would have guessed, nearly shoulder length, and the close attention he was paying his smart phone as I walked up—and indeed paid throughout our conversation—belied any notions of a fusty academic out of step with the modern age. Frankly, he looked right at home with the smart set crowding the bar at the Top, an old-style steak house on East Main Street.

“Mr. Hayes,” he said, extending a hand.

“Call me Andy,” I said.

The bartender approached and I ordered an Elevator Brewing Company Buckeye Red draft. Huntington signaled for a second bourbon on ice. Cocktail hour was in full swing, and the bar was getting loud. I signaled toward a table and he nodded. We walked past the piano player and tucked into a corner booth.

“A shame there’s so few of these places left,” he said. “It’s like a tableau of the elegant past.”

“I try not to dwell in the past,” I said.

“An optimist?”

“Something like that. What can I do for you?”

“Regrettably,” Huntington said, looking past me, “I believe my wife is having an affair. I’d like you to look into it.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Inklings,” he said. “She doesn’t work, well, not for money, and there are stretches of the day where I can never seem to reach her. Especially between noon and two. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Like clockwork.” He sipped his drink. I followed suit.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, responding to something in my expression. “She occupies herself fully. She sits on the boards of the art museum and the conservatory, and she hosts a number of faculty gatherings at our house each semester. As you can imagine, those can rival Yalta in their social complexity.”

I nodded, unable to imagine this.

“Hester and Roger also require a fair amount of work on her part.”

“Your children?”

“Our poodles.”

“Toy?”

“Standard,” he said, sounding slightly offended.

“You’re a Hawthorne scholar?”

“You know my work,” he said.

“I know my Scarlet Letter characters.”

“Very good,” Huntington said.

“Not as good as a husband and wife in your circumstances having poodles with those names. But you were saying.”

“Yes,” he said, a tad frostily. “In any case, she does have time on her hands. As I said, between noon and two three days a week, it’s a blank canvas. Her answers are vague, evasive, if I press her on where she was.”

“What’s her name?”

“Honey.”

“That’s her Christian name?”

“Her given name is Susan. But no one knows her by that.”

“Have you asked her?”

“Asked her?”

“If she’s having an affair.”

“Not in so many words. But I suspect she knows I suspect something.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“Discover the truth,” he said. “See where she goes, what she’s doing. What his name is, if my suspicions are right.”

“And then?”

“Bring the information to me, of course.”

“What will you do with it?”

“I suppose I haven’t completely decided yet. Frankly, I’m hoping you’ll prove me wrong.”

I explained my fee structure. If he found fault with the amounts, his expression didn’t show it.

“One other thing,” I said.

“Yes?”

“I don’t take sides in these cases. I just provide information. What you do with it is your business. As long as it doesn’t involve violent behavior toward your spouse. Am I making myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” he said.

I walked out of the Top $500 richer than when I’d walked in, but still not sure how I felt about the job. There was something about Huntington that bugged me. Despite his good looks, station in life, and apparent access to lots of cash, I could see why his wife might not be entirely happy at home.

11

I was short on groceries—yesterday’s activities had interrupted my usual supply run—so I stopped by the Giant Eagle off Whittier, the one that used to be the Big Bear, before returning to my house. By then Hopalong was whining for his walk. I took him around the park once, then headed home, hungry.

The first thing I noticed as I neared home was the police cruiser parked in front of the house, followed by the police officer standing on my porch writing something in a notebook. Beside him was my twenty-something neighbor in a jogging suit.

“Everything OK?” I said.

The officer looked at me for a moment longer than necessary, then glanced at something in his notebook.

“You live here?”

“Yes.”

“You got broken into.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Went through the back door. This girl here heard something, called it in. You mind taking a look inside, see if anything was taken.”

I looked at my neighbor. I said, “You all right?”

She nodded. “I was just coming back from running. I wouldn’t normally go around the back, but I’d picked up some trash by the park and came around to the alley to throw it in the garbage. I noticed when I walked past your house that the back door was partly open. I didn’t think anything of it at first. But after I dumped the stuff, I was walking back and these two guys came out of the door, moving kind of fast. They looked at me and just took off.” She pointed vaguely up the street. “I got a little closer and saw the door had been forced open. That’s when I called the police.”

“Thanks,” I said.

The officer gestured toward my front door. “You mind?”

Inside, I moved slowly from room to room, turning on lights as I went. No question somebody had been there. Stuff was thrown everywhere. Pillows were off the couch, magazines from my coffee table littered the floor, and my desk was a mess. Thanks to the generosity of a former client, I was able to rent a house in German Village at below the normal sky-high rate, but the heady real estate prices didn’t insulate the neighborhood from the usual rash of property crime. It was still the city, after all. Yet the longer I looked, the more it became clear they were either the world’s worst burglars or they were after something else. My TV was still there. So was my own laptop, though it would have taken an enterprising pair of B&E men to find where I keep it hidden under my bed—the unfortunate consequence of a series of neighborhood break-ins the year before. I wondered if it would have mattered. The loose change on the top of my dresser was right where I’d left it. I walked through twice but my conclusion didn’t change. Someone had broken in, ransacked the place, then left without taking anything discernible.

“You sure?” the cop asked.

“I’m sure,” I said. “I don’t have that much to begin with, and all the obvious stuff is here.”

“Any prescription drugs?” he said. “Half the time these guys will skip the family silver and go straight to the medicine cabinet looking for Vicodin.”

I shook my head. “Ibuprofen. Aspirin. Maybe some cough syrup.”

“Kind of strange,” he said.

“Maybe Shelley interrupted them?” I said, referring to my neighbor.

He thought about it. “Possible, I guess. But the way she made it sound, they looked like they were finished with the job when she saw them.”

That’s when I remembered. Just before leaving for the Freeleys’ house I had stuck the laptop and the camera equipment in the back of the van in case they could serve some purpose in our meeting. They hadn’t. But it was all still there. Not in the house.

“I dunno,” I said slowly. “Maybe they were after drugs, then decided to hightail it when they came up empty.”

“Doesn’t explain why they left your TV.”

“True,” I said.

“You’re Woody Hayes, aren’t you?” the officer said. “If you don’t mind me asking. I mean, I recognized you.”

“I’m flattered,” I said, which he and I both knew was a lie. “I go by Andy now. And no, I don’t mind you asking.”

“Andy,” the officer said, considering. “Got anything from your playing days inside? Anything valuable?”

I shook my head. “All long gone.”

“Still got your ring.”

I saw he was looking at my hand. I raised the offending item: a Big Ten championship ring from a couple of decades ago.

“That’s it,” I said. “Not even sure why I still wear it.”

“Worth a lot of money. Probably safer there.”

“Maybe.”

“People know you live here?”

“Some people,” I said. “Why?”

“Just wondering if maybe you were targeted for, you know, who you were.”

“Buckeye fans going a bit too far?” I said.

“Who knows. Heard of weirder things.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Michigan game in a couple weeks. People get strange ideas.”

“Strange,” I said. But he wasn’t half wrong. The insults and heckling always go up the second half of November, right before the big game.

We left it at that because there wasn’t anything else to do. I was the victim of a victimless crime, unless you counted the busted doorjamb and the mess inside. The officer took my essentials and gave me a case number. When he’d gone, I walked next door and knocked on Shelley’s door and thanked her for calling the police.

“Did you lose much?” she said.

“Peace of mind.”

I went inside and cleaned up as best I could. Took me an hour just to get the basics back in place.

It was past nine o’clock when I realized I still hadn’t brought Pete’s equipment inside. Making sure the broken door would at least stay closed, if not locked, I headed out to retrieve it.

Like a lot of people, I love German Village and hate the parking hassles that can come with it. On rare occasions the stars align and I’ll find a space along Mohawk near my house. But more often than not, I end up following a tiresome routine: drive down to Whittier, turn right, turn right on Lazelle and then right again on Lansing where I begin eyeballing empty spots. It could be worse, I suppose. For a guy whose college football past had brainwashed me to suspect all things Michigan, Lansing wasn’t quite as bad a name for the half-alley half-street as, say, Ann Arbor. And it was generally well lit, except for tonight, when one of the lights was out. But it felt, well, just a little lonelier on Lansing compared to Mohawk. It was, as I said, still the city.

After I got to the van, I opened up the rear, lifted out the box, put it on the ground, then reached farther in and retrieved my trusty baseball bat. I shut the door and hit the van’s remote lock. Bat in hand, I picked up the box and had started walking up Lansing to Mohawk when I heard the sound behind me. Then came the voice.

“Hey! Woody Hayes!”

12

“Your lucky night,” the man standing over me was saying. “A burglary and an assault.”

I said, “Maybe we should wrap this up so I can go buy a lottery ticket.”

I was sitting on the side of an emergency room hospital bed in Grant Medical Center downtown. My head felt like someone had massaged it with the claw end of a hammer, my arms ached if I let them relax by my sides and ached even more if I lifted them off the bed, and my left knee did not appear to be working. On my left a nurse was swabbing something cold and stingy on my shoulder. “This is going to hurt,” she said. “A lot.”

“Honesty appreciated,” I said.

“Shit,” I said a second later. “You weren’t lying.”

“I haven’t really started yet,” she said.

In front of me stood Columbus police Detective Henry Fielding. Light reflected off his shiny white bald head, and I was pretty sure his nose, whenever it had been broken, had involved somebody’s fist and not an accidental encounter with an errant door.

“You’re a private investigator now.” A statement.

“That’s right.”

“Ever seen that movie Point Break? Keanu Reeves is an ex–Ohio State quarterback who becomes an FBI agent.”

“‘Quarterback punk,’” I said. “Yes, I’ve seen Point Break. Except I’m not an FBI agent and this isn’t Southern California. Next question.”

“OK. Got a license?”

I fished it, very painfully, out of my wallet.

“Who do you work for?” Fielding asked.

“Burke Cunningham, mostly.”

“Burke Cunningham? Guy who defends all the killers?”

“Alleged killers,” I said.

“Figured you’d say that. Anybody else?”

“I freelance. People hire me on the side.”

“Cunningham knows about those jobs?”

“Sure. Recommends people sometimes.”

“Why do you freelance? Cunningham doesn’t pay enough?”

“I have more than one ex-wife and two sons I pay a considerable sum in child support for. Happily pay, I might add. Mind explaining what all this has to do with anything?”

“Talked to the officer who took the report earlier,” Fielding said, ignoring me. “Nothing missing from your house?”

“That’s right.”

“But this time they took a laptop?”

“That’s right,” I said again.

“But not your wallet.”

“Apparently not.”

“Any idea why they didn’t take the computer the first time?”

“It was in my van,” I said. “Forgot I’d left it there. I was retrieving it after the break-in.”

“Lucky for you.”

“Lucky?”

“Lucky it was in the van. At least the first time they came by.”

“That’s assuming it was the same people.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know. There was only one guy in the alley. Gal next door saw two leave my house.”

“Only one guy that you saw.”

“I put up a little bit of a fight,” I said. “I’m thinking a second guy would have jumped in to help.”

“Waiting in a getaway car?” Fielding suggested.

“He wasn’t dressed the same way.”

“The same way?”

“This guy was in all dark clothes. The other guys were wearing gray sweatshirts.”

“OK, same gang, third guy. You said it sounded like he knew who you were.”

“Everybody knows who I am. The first nurse in here gave me a look like I kill puppies in my spare time.”

“Do you?” said the nurse working on my shoulder.

“Only if their eyes aren’t open yet,” I said. “I’m sure he recognized me. You did, didn’t you?”

“Anything important on the laptop,” Fielding said, ignoring me again.

“Important enough,” I said carefully. “Files, documents. The usual.”

Fielding said, “I’m just wondering. A break-in, nothing taken. Pretty rare, in my book. An hour later, you’re jumped and he leaves your wallet but grabs the one valuable thing that wasn’t in the house earlier. Leaves a pretty nice video camera, too.”

“OK.”

“Just seems odd, is all.” He waited. I didn’t say anything. Problem was, I agreed with him.

I was starting to wonder whether it was time to come clean about Pete Freeley and Jennifer Rawlings when the nurse who’d been torturing my shoulder interrupted.

“Gotta take your pulse,” she said.

“It’s sixty-eight,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve got a resting pulse of sixty-eight.”

“Thank you, Dr. Kildare,” she said as she placed a small plastic clamp on the pointer finger on my left hand. That’s when I noticed.

“My ring,” I said.

Fielding said, “What?”

I raised my hand. The nurse told me in no uncertain terms not to.

“My ring. Big Ten champions.”

“I remember,” Fielding said.

“Me too,” I said. “It’s missing.”

“When’s the last time you saw it?”

“When the other officer asked me about it two hours ago. After the break-in.”

“He didn’t have it when he came in,” the nurse concurred. “And your pulse is 69.”

“Must be nervous,” I said.

Fielding wrote some things in his notebook. He said: “Laptop, Big Ten ring.”

“I got mugged,” I offered.

“Or someone made it look like a mugging.”

“Are you always like this?” I said.

“Like what.”

“So conspiratorial.”

“Only with gridiron heroes,” he said, but without the slightest trace of humor in his voice.

“In that case, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

Grant is not much more than a mile from my house, and I thought briefly about walking after Fielding was done and I’d politely told Nurse Ratched I wouldn’t be accepting the hospital’s invitation to spend the night for observation, whatever that means. The pounding in my head dissuaded me from attempting the journey, along with the stab of pain in my side and the fact that my knee couldn’t bend. I thought about calling a cab, but I was tired of strangers for the night. I considered asking Burke, but it didn’t seem worth getting him out of bed, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to explain about the laptop.

In the end I called Roy. He showed up about twenty minutes later in his battered white van with “Church of the Holy Apostolic Fire” emblazoned across the side. He had a backseat passenger, as was often the case. A woman looking as if she’d seen not just better days but better decades.

“Jesus,” he said, looking at me. “You look worse than people I saw in Fallujah.”

“Says the guy who left part of a leg there,” I said, climbing slowly into the passenger seat.

“Had a spare,” he said. “No big deal. Theresa,” he said, gesturing behind him, “Andy. Andy—Theresa. I was just taking her home after church when you called.”

“Mister, you got a cigarette?” Theresa said.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Pills?”

“Proselytizing going well?” I said to Roy.

“Baby steps,” he replied, slowing for the light at Grant and Livingston. “Wasn’t for me, she’d have spent her evening much differently.”

I tried to think of something snappy to say but came up with fog. Just as well. Roy and his white van and storefront church were a do-gooding force of nature. Much more effective than a private investigator who couldn’t hang onto one stinking laptop.

“So what happened?”

I explained, leaving out the same things I didn’t tell the first officer or Fielding. Roy wasn’t fooled.

“I’m thinking that’s 50 percent of what really happened. “About right?”

“About,” I said.

He pulled up in front of my house. “Need help getting in?” he said.

“No thanks. Look, I really appreciate the lift.”

“You’re welcome. Glad you called. I’ll check in tomorrow.”

I opened the door with difficulty. It was hard to say at this point if there was anything on me that wasn’t hurting.

“Hey, mister,” Theresa said.

“Yeah?”

“Let me come with you. Fifty bucks. All night.”

I turned back to look at her. I said, “Listen to me. This guy here, Pastor Roy? Listen to what he says. Take his advice.”

“Why should I?”

“Because he’s the one guy in the whole city who’s got your back but doesn’t want you on it. You understand what I’m saying?”

She looked at me, blankly.

“You do that for me, listen to Roy and let him help you, and you and I will go get breakfast, on me, wherever you want. Just breakfast, though. And no cigarettes.”

She continued looking at me as if I were a private investigator from another planet.

Roy interrupted. “Theresa’s a little shy. And I’ve told her she has to stop trusting strange men.”

“God knows why she’s with you,” I said, shutting the door with a wave.

Inside, I let Hopalong out to water my dead pansies, let him back in, then pushed a chair up against the knob of the back door and fastened the chain. Best I could do for tonight. I opened the fridge, pulled out my last Columbus Brewing Company Winter Warmer, and used it to wash down some of the Tylenol with codeine I’d left the emergency room with. From there I somehow made it to my bedroom and found myself lying on my back. I managed to keep my eyes open for almost ten seconds before, for the second time that night, things just went black.

13

Even my internal alarm clock couldn’t compete with a baseball-bat massage. I woke up at seven with a raging headache and several aching body parts. It’s possible I’d taken worse overall beatings in my playing days, except they hadn’t involved muggings and I’d been twenty years younger. I staggered to the bathroom, then lumbered around the kitchen slowly, making coffee and feeding the dog. I let him back out into my postage-stamp yard. A walk was out of the question. Plus I had work to do.

“What the hell?” Ted Hamilton said when I reached him. “I hired you to get the laptop, not lose it.”

“I didn’t lose it,” I said for the second time. “Somebody took it.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to figure out who’s got it and get it back. But I’m not holding out a lot of hope right now. So many pawnshops, so little time, if you catch my drift.”

“Very funny.”

“Speaking of funny, OK if I rule you out as a suspect?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just running down all the leads. You had a motive to make sure the laptop was secured.”

“You think I was behind this?”

“I don’t think anything. I’m just asking questions.”

“You have a hell of a lot of nerve, you know that?”

“Maybe I do. And maybe that’s why I was able to help you in the first place.”

“Big help.”

“Let me try it this way,” I said. “Where were you last night?”

“Listen,” he said, ignoring me. “If this video surfaces, I’m blaming you. I hired you to do something about it, and that didn’t include losing the laptop as soon as you got it. You don’t get it back, I’m going to make your life very difficult. Understand what I’m saying?”

“One more time,” I said. “Where were you last night?”

“Go to hell,” Hamilton said, and cut the connection.

Hamilton was angry, and probably rightfully so, I thought afterward, nursing my third cup of coffee. But you didn’t need to be a private eye to figure out he hadn’t answered my question.

A few minutes later I had a similar conversation with Doug Freeley. He didn’t swear as much as Hamilton, but he was no less angry.

“All I’m saying,” I tried to explain, “is the same day I meet you, and you explain how important that laptop is, somebody breaks into my house, and then a couple of hours later I’m jumped and the laptop’s gone. I’m not saying you had anything to do with it. But I’ve got to check everything.”

“If you say so,” he said, before hanging up.

He didn’t tell me where he was the night before either.

14

Peeved, I walked from the kitchen to my living room and back a few times to let off steam. Calming down, I studied the splintered jamb on the back door, an unwelcome reminder of the night before, and an even more unwelcome reminder of my unfinished business: how to retrieve the Freeleys’ laptop from an unknown assailant in a city where those kinds of robberies happened all too often and the merchandise was recovered in fewer than 1 percent of cases.

A knock at the door interrupted my attempt at exercising the power of positive thinking. Now what, I thought. Standing before me when I swung the door open was a woman a few years younger than me in a long, dark, padded winter coat, looking all business.

“Andy Hayes?”

“It depends,” I said. “Are you here to beat me up too?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you need beating up?” Her eyes went to the swollen left side of my face. “Oh dear,” she said. “Moot question, I see. Are you all right?”

“I’ll live. What can I do for you?”

She reached into the pocket of her coat, pulled out a business card and handed it to me.

“Special Agent Cindy Morris. Columbus FBI. Nice-looking dog.”

I looked down. Hopalong had nosed his way beside me and was gazing with interest at a squirrel across the street.

I said, “The last government I tried overthrowing was a bunch of clowns on middle school student council. Promise.”

“We know,” she said, her face straight. Then, reading mine, she added, “Kidding.”

“So I owe the pleasure to?”

“Possible for me to come in?”

Inviting an FBI agent into my home was about the last thing I wanted to do, especially after last night. But sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

“Nice house,” she said when we entered the kitchen.

I ignored compliment number 2. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but could you please state your business?” Without asking, I started making coffee. Maybe the caffeine would help my headache.

“Doug Freeley,” she said. “You’ve been talking to him. Why?”

I measured two scoops of whole beans into the grinder and hit the start button. I let it go for twenty seconds or so, then raised my thumb off the button.

I said, “I think this is where I’m supposed to say, ‘Who told you that?’ or, ‘Suppose I have been?’” I filled the Mr. Coffee carafe with six cups of water and carefully poured it into the coffee maker. “But I’ll skip that part and go straight to ‘So?’”

“So that’s of interest to us.”

“That’s nice,” I said. I turned the coffee on. I waited.

“We were just wondering what you might be talking to him about.”

“That’s annoying when you do that,” I said.

“Do what?”

“Talk like the queen. ‘That’s of interest to us. We were just wondering.’ You have an opinion of your own on this, Special Agent Morris?”

She studied my face. I studied hers. She had thick black hair pulled back with a plain black scrunchie, simple gold stud earrings, and the faintest traces of makeup. No glasses, but I was betting contacts. She was athletic looking, and if I had to guess, I’d say she played something like soccer or lacrosse when she was younger.

“Fair enough,” she said. “I’m interested in knowing why you’re talking to Doug Freeley.”

“That’s more like it,” I said. “It’s none of your business.”

She smiled.

I said, “Anything else we can help you with today?”

She smiled again. “No interest in making this easy, Andy?”

“Since I don’t have any idea what we’re really talking about here, no, I guess not. Care to elaborate?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, then.”

“But we, that is to say, I am willing to make a small exception in your case.”

“Nice of you.” I opened the cupboard and examined my collection of coffee mugs. After deliberating a moment, I chose a commemorative DEA mug for myself and a similar ATF mug for my guest.

“Take anything in it?” I said.

“Black is fine,” she said.

She continued, “This isn’t rocket science, Andy. I’m guessing you know where Doug Freeley works. You can probably figure out why we might have an interest in him. And conversely, why we’re interested in why a private detective is talking to him.”

“Freeley works for American Financial Health Care. He does something with health care companies and bills. He lives in a darn nice house in New Albany, just like a zillion other white-collar success stories. What am I missing?”

“Other than why you were at his house the other day, I’m not sure.”

I took a slug of coffee, burning my tongue in the process. But my head felt better almost as soon as the coffee went down my throat. “Back to my original answer,” I said. “But since you’ve been nice enough to pay me a house call, I’ll throw in a bonus response: it has nothing to do with American Financial.”

She sipped her own coffee. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe what you want,” I said. “It’s the truth.”

“So it’s pure coincidence that our, ah, my interest in Doug Freeley dovetails at almost the exact same time with your interest in him?”

“First of all, I’m guessing that your interest predates mine. Secondly, I have zero interest in Doug Freeley. I did talk to him recently, as your predator drones detected, and while I can’t promise it was our last conversation, it may have been our second-to-last. He’s tangentially connected to a case I’m working on, and he’s certainly not the object of my investigation. For extra credit, I’ll add that his son is involved in the case. And that’s way, way more than I have any obligation to tell you.”

“Tangentially,” she said.

“Triple word score,” I said. “You can look it up.”

“What happened to you, anyway?” she said, gesturing at my face.

“I had a disagreement with someone.”

She lifted an eyebrow.

“I got mugged last night.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’ll live to investigate another day.”

She took another sip of coffee. “I was hoping we could work together. Maybe cooperate.”

“Really,” I said. “Tell me more.”

“I was hoping you could tell me your interest in Doug, and that might help what we’re doing. And I do mean, we.”

“Sounds like a one-way street. What do I get out of this cooperation?”

“The satisfaction of helping your government?”

I laughed out loud.

“How about, a subpoena-free week?” But she was smiling, sort of, as she said it.

“If that’s the way you want to play it, be my guest.”

“It’s not. But my options are dwindling.”

“I’m not sure I agree.”

“No?”

“I’ve only seen one option so far: make me tell you everything about what I’m doing, while telling me squat about what you’re up to. So here’s my counteroffer: come clean about your investigation into Doug Freeley and American Financial Health Care, including when you expect the first indictments, and I’ll reconsider my position.”

“Of course you know I can’t do that.”

“Give me a break. You’re the FBI. You can do anything.”

It was her turn to laugh.

I said, “Since neither of us is willing to punch the other’s dance card, do you mind if we call it a day? I’m a little achy from last night and I have a lot to do. None of it involving Freeley, by the way.”

“Nothing I can do to make you reconsider?”

“Other than make me a better offer?”

She put down the ATF mug. “Thanks for the coffee,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

I walked her to the door. As I opened it, I said, “Soccer or lacrosse?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You move like an athlete. You played a sport at some point.”

“How private investigator-ly of you,” she said. “Field hockey, in fact.” She added: “I wielded a mighty stick.”

I was about to smile and concede her quip, when she narrowed her eyes and gazed at me. “Of course, we all know what sport you played. And I do mean ‘we.’”

I shut the door a little too loudly behind her.

15

I sat at my kitchen table for a few minutes after she left, steaming. What the hell was that all about? How had this case moved so quickly from a run-of-the-mill sex video extortion case to a concussion and the FBI at my door? I needed Cindy Morris like a hole in the head, and in fact I nearly had that anyway, thank you very much.

Now I was even more peeved than after Hamilton called, and had to do something. That turned out to be taking Hopalong to Schiller Park, where we spent most of the time at the casting pond while Hopalong sniffed for carp. I can’t say if I felt physically better or worse by the time we got back, but my head, pounding or not, was a little clearer.