“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
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.
Possibly more problematic is what will happen if we find him. What we know about Eddie is that he was Liz’s ex-boyfriend, that he was probably with her the night she and Sheryl were killed, and that he suddenly left Center City shortly after that night. At the very least that makes him a suspect in the murder, which in turn makes him a suspect in Calvin’s murder. The first two murders were done with a knife, while Calvin’s was apparently done with bare hands. Eddie may wind up being a very scary guy; I should have taken the time to find Marcus.
Halfway to Warwick we pass a lake with a posted sign heralding this weekend’s ice-fishing tournament. It gives me something to do during the drive; I can ponder if there could be anything on this planet more uncomfortable and boring than sitting on the ice with a fishing pole. Do the fish come out already frozen? I think it just might be the one sport that even I wouldn’t bet on.
It starts to snow about fifteen minutes outside of Warwick, and it’s falling fairly heavily by the time we reach the town. We catch a break when the convenience store where Eddie used the ATM turns out to be one of the first things we see.
We park and enter the store, which is empty except for the clerk behind the counter. He’s about fifty, and wears a shirt with the word “Manager” above the pocket, though at the moment he doesn’t seem to have much of a staff to manage.
“How ya doing?” I say, chummy as always.
“Fine, thanks,” he says. “What can I get you guys?”
I take on the spokesman role, since Kevin seems to be eyeing the Sudafed. “We’re looking for a kid, maybe eighteen, nineteen years old, who used that cash machine a little more than two hours ago.”
He looks at me warily, trying to figure out what this is about. “Are you police officers?”
“No. We’re lawyers, and the young man we’re looking for is a potentially crucial witness in a criminal case.”
“How do you know he used this cash machine?”
“We were so informed by the FBI,” I say, hoping that will sound important enough to get him to tell us what he knows, which may well be nothing.
“I don’t want to get in the middle of anything… or get anyone in trouble,” he says.
“Someone is already in trouble. This young man might be able to help… that’s all.”
He nods. “There was a kid in here around that time… he used the machine. He was wearing a Brett Favre jersey.” That won’t exactly make him stand out in a crowd; here in Wisconsin everybody wears a Brett Favre jersey. The clerk continues. “No coat… he must have been freezing to death. That’s why I noticed him.”
My expectation level immediately triples; Eddie left many of his things in his apartment in Center City. His coat could easily have been one of them.
“Did you talk to him?” Kevin asks with some excitement in his voice. Either he agrees with me that we’re getting close to Eddie, or he’s hopeful that Warwick has an ear, nose, and throat guy.
“Yeah. I asked him if he was okay. He didn’t seem right… and it wasn’t just not having a coat. I don’t know what it was… but he was the only customer, and I felt bad for him.” This is small-town Wisconsin at its finest; back East the clerk would have reported Eddie for vagrancy.
