believe. When this breaks, if it does at all, my assessment is that it will be a twenty-four-hour story, ultimately going nowhere and doing no damage.
My plan had been to visit with the local police in the morning and get whatever information I could from them. That no longer seems necessary and in fact could be counterproductive, calling more attention to a story that in no way incriminates Kenny. I’ll ask Pete Stanton to call them, cop-to-cop, and find out what he can.
Now of course we have more time on our hands before our return flight tomorrow evening. I can’t go fishing because I didn’t bring any bait. I can’t go hunting because I left my twelve-gauge at home. I can’t farm the land because I don’t own any land and I never applied for a plow license.
I guess I’ll just have to go to Findlay and check out Sandy Walsh.
* * * * *
WE FIND A HOTEL just outside of Findlay, no expensive minibar or robes in the bathroom, but clean sheets and a television that gets forty-eight channels, including both ESPN and ESPN2.
Adam and I are tired, but we go out to grab a quick bite to eat. I’m forced to grudgingly admit that Laurie’s hometown is not totally without culture when we find a Taco Bell that’s open late. When Adam tells me he can charge it back to the studio, I order an extra grilled stuffed burrito to take back to the hotel.
When I’m traveling, I usually call Laurie before I go to sleep, but I avoid the temptation this time. I don’t want to lie to her about where I am, and I certainly don’t want to tell the truth, so conversation at this point could be a little difficult.
In the morning we have the buffet breakfast in the hotel. I try the fruit, which appears to have ripened about midway through the first term of the Clinton administration. The biscuits are the consistency of something Mario Lemieux would shoot from just inside the red line. But the coffee is good, and I’m able to use the time to tell Adam where we’re going.
It’s the “why” I’m not quite so forthcoming about. I tell him I want to surreptitiously check out this guy Sandy Walsh, but I imply that it has to do with a case. Adam can hang out in town while I do it, and he’s not to say anything to anyone about it when we get back. I think he knows I’m full of shit, but he’s nice enough to just shrug and go along.
Findlay is a small town but considerably bigger than I expected and much nicer than Hemmings. It has a four-block shopping area of treelined streets, where cars park headfirst at an angle. All in all, a nice town… a nice place to have grown up… I’m afraid a nice place to go back to.
I was hoping for a lot worse. I was hoping there would be a sign when we pulled in saying “Welcome to Findlay, Pedophilia Capital of the World.” Or “Welcome to Findlay, World’s Leading Fungus Producer.”
I’m feeling uncomfortable with this whole thing. Laurie’s actions remind me of
I ask Adam, “If Dorothy ran away from home because the dog catcher was going to ice Toto, how come she clicks her heels and goes back? And what happens to Toto when she gets there? Can we assume he gets a needle in the arm?”
He has no idea what brought this on, but it’s about movies, so he’s into it. “You know something, you’re probably right. They should do a sequel,
“You should write it.”
“Maybe I will,” he says, but I can’t tell if he’s serious.
Once I leave Adam in the shopping area, I call one of the rental car offices that Sam told me Walsh owned. The office I reach is the one about five miles out of town. They tell me that Walsh is not there, but at the office in the center of Findlay. It turns out to be a few stores down from where I left Adam. I don’t even have to get back in the car; I just walk down the street and go in.
My plan is to ask for him and then hit him with a diversion I’ve created about my company and its need to rent a large amount of cars in a small time frame. By presenting such a lucrative opportunity, I figure I can engage him in conversation, then see where it goes from there.
I enter the small office and approach the counter, an ingratiating smile on my face. “Hi,” I say to the young woman, “I’m looking for a Sandy Walsh.”
As I am saying this, I can see into the office behind her, where a man is sitting at a desk. He gets up and walks toward me, a little better-looking and in better shape than I would prefer. I was hoping for someone a little more on the grotesque side, with some open, oozing sores on his face.
“Who shall I say is here?” the clerk asks.
I’m about to tell her a made-up name when the man from the office approaches, extends his hand, and says, “Andy Carpenter?”
This is baffling. How could he know who I am? Unless it’s from all those stupid legal cable shows I do. “Have we met?” I ask.
He smiles. “No. Laurie told me you’d be dropping by.”
So I’ve gone through this whole clandestine operation when Laurie knew all along that I’d go snooping around Findlay. Laurie is smarter than I am; the counter I’m leaning on is smarter than I am. “Well,” I say, trying not to appear pathetic, “I was staying in town, and I figured any old friend of Laurie’s is a friend of mine.”
“Let’s go get a cup of coffee,” he says, and we go off to do just that.
Within fifteen minutes of our sitting at a table in the local diner, probably twenty people come over and say hello to Sandy. He has a pleasant word and a smile for each of them; it’s apparent that this is a nice guy. It’s going to be hard to reconcile that with the fact that I hate him, but I think I can pull it off. Besides, I still have an ace up my sleeve, the knowledge from Sam that Sandy is married, though Laurie thinks he isn’t.
We’re chitchatting away about a variety of subjects when I smoothly bring up the subject. “Are you married?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not anymore. My wife passed away about two years ago. We were only married a year.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, but I should add, “that I’m such an idiot.” Sam obviously saw a computer record of the marriage but never thought to check for a death certificate.
He nods. “Thanks. It happened all of a sudden… brain aneurysm. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does.”
Just when I’m positive I couldn’t feel stupider, a woman comes over and gives Sandy a kiss on the cheek. “You must be Laurie’s friend Andy,” she says, holding out her hand. “She told us all about you when she was here.”
Sandy introduces the woman as Jenny, his fiancee. I smile through the pain; I can almost hear Laurie laughing at me from back in Paterson. It flashes through my mind that maybe I shouldn’t go back home at all, that maybe I can avoid humiliation by living the rest of my life in Europe or Asia or Pluto.
But for now I just say my goodbyes, pick up Adam, and head for Milwaukee. I can decide where I’m going when I get to the airport.
I opt for going home, and on the plane I have some time to reflect on what I’ve seen in Findlay. I’m sure it has its warts and problems like any other town, but it seems to be a nice place to live, in the classic “Americana” sense. I understand how Laurie must feel about it and how it must have felt to be ripped away from it.
If those feelings are anything like mine for Paterson, I’m going to be sleeping alone pretty soon. Paterson is a part of me and always will be. I even like its idiosyncrasies, such as the fact that all its famous citizens are number two in what they did. Louis Sabin, a Paterson scientist, invented the oral polio vaccine. It would have been a bigger deal had not Jonas Salk come first. Larry Doby of Paterson was the second black baseball player, three months after Jackie Robinson. Even Lou Costello, perhaps the most famous person from Paterson, drew second billing behind Bud Abbott.
Laurie is at the airport to pick me up when our plane lands. My big-picture plan is to apologize and ask her forgiveness for my surreptitious meddling; it’s the nuances of the apology plan that I haven’t figured out yet. For instance, I haven’t decided whether to include pleading, moaning, whimpering, sniveling, and drooling in the process. I’ll have to see how things go and take it from there, but I’m certainly not planning to let things like dignity and self-respect get in the way.
