Dead Center (15 page)

• • • • •

D
INNER TONIGHT IS
more than a little weird
.

Laurie comes over and cooks my favorite,
pasta amatriciana
. We sit at the table, Laurie across from me and Kevin across from Marcus. Quite the little family. I half expect Kevin to say to Marcus, “And how was your day today, honey?”

Laurie and I have always tried not to talk about our work during dinner, but we rarely succeed. Tonight, since the entire team is present, we have no chance at all. Laurie is the guilty party this time, when she tells us that “I got Calvin’s phone records from the night he died.”

“Anything interesting?”

She nods. “And upsetting. He called me at the office.”

“Any idea why?”

“Even before I called you and told you about this case, I had spoken to Calvin and expressed my doubts about Jeremy’s guilt. I told him that he should call me at any time if he needed my help.”

“Did anyone at the precinct speak to him that night?” Kevin asks. He is apparently going to be the designated speaker for him and Marcus, since Marcus’s mouth is processing pasta at an unprecedented rate.

“Apparently not,” Laurie says. “I have to assume that when he found out I wasn’t in, he hung up. The call only lasted about thirty seconds.”

I know Laurie is feeling guilt over not having been there for Calvin that night, and I am as well, even though our feelings are irrational. We had no way of knowing he would call that night, and obviously no reason to have waited around for that call. But the fact that Calvin died while we were enjoying a relaxing dinner is locked in our minds, so we can still feel the pain.

After dinner Laurie goes off to answer a duty call, probably a cheese overdose, and Marcus goes wherever it is that Marcus goes. It leaves Kevin and me to kick around our strategy for finding the elusive Eddie Carson.

“Why don’t you call Sam Willis?” Kevin asks.

“What for?”

“Maybe he can track the kid down on the Internet. Maybe through credit card usage, or something like that.”

It’s a very good idea, made even better by the fact that we have no other ideas, so I call Sam.

“So how did it go?” asks Sam when he hears it’s me. “Was the stuff I got helpful?”

“Very helpful,” I say. “It identified our guy for us, but he’s missing. Any chance you could find him online?”

Sam is uncharacteristically dubious about the prospects for doing so. “Theoretically, I could do it, but it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. I wouldn’t know where to look; I would have to stumble onto it.”

It’s while I’m talking to Sam that I get an idea that could work. I try to get him off the phone quickly, but he asks me about Laurie and how things are going between us.

“They’re fine, Sam, but I’ve—”

“Watch out for yourself, Andy, I mean it. I’ve been there myself.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Sometimes you have to be the one to end things no matter how tough it seems.”

My fear is that he’s going to start song-talking and maybe tell me that “breaking up is hard to do.” I don’t want to be rude, since Sam has been such a big help, but I really want to get off this call.

“Sam… ,” I start, to no avail.

“I thought I told you about her,” he says. “Her name was Margaret… we were both twenty, and I was leaving school to run away with her. She drove me crazy.”

“Sam, can we talk about this some other time?”

Apparently, we can’t, because he continues as if I hadn’t said anything. “Things started going sour, my parents were freaking out that I wouldn’t graduate, and I wanted to break it off, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then one night I couldn’t sleep, and about four o’clock in the morning I got up the nerve.”

I give up. “What did you say?”

“I leaned over and said, ‘Wake up, Maggie, I think I got something to say to you. It’s late September and I really should be back at school.’ ”

“Bye, Sam.”

“Bye, Andy.”

Once I’m off the phone, I immediately dial Cindy Spodek at her house in Boston. Cindy is an FBI agent whom I got to know on a previous case. Her boss at the Bureau was directing criminal activities, and Cindy blew the whistle on him. It took considerable courage, and Cindy had to deal with strong internal resistance afterward. She has persevered, moved to the Boston office, and gotten a promotion. I’ve called on her for a number of favors since, and she’s always come through, albeit grudgingly.

“Hello?” she answers, her voice sounding simultaneously groggy and worried. I check my watch and realize that it’s eleven-fifteen in Boston.

“Cindy, Andy Carpenter. How are you? Am I calling too late? I forgot what time it is back East.”

“Andy… yes. Much too late.”

“Well, the damage is done. I need a favor.”

“That’s a major surprise. Can it wait until morning?”

“I suppose so, but I don’t want you beating yourself up all night over not helping me when I needed you.”

“I can handle the guilt,” she says, at which point I hear a man’s voice say, “Cindy, who is it?”

She answers him with, “It’s for me, honey.”

“What ‘honey’ are you talking to at this hour?” I ask.

“My husband, if that’s okay with you. Remember, the wedding was in May? It’s the one you didn’t come to.”

“Right. But I sent a gift.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Right. But I planned to, which is really what’s important.”

“Hey,” she says, “what do you mean you forgot the time back East? Where are you?”

I tell her about being in Findlay and about taking on the case. All she really cares about is that Laurie and I are in the same town. “So what’s going on with you two? Are you back together?”

“You really want to know?” I ask, sensing an opening.

“Of course,” she says.

“So listen to my favor, and then I’ll tell you about me and Laurie.”

“You’re a shithead,” she says, defeated.

“You got that right,” I say, victorious. “Now tell ‘honey’ to go back to sleep while you help your friend Andy.”

I proceed to explain our need to find the elusive Eddie, and ask her whether she can utilize the FBI computers to do so. I know from past experience that if they are tracking someone, they can find out on a moment’s notice whenever that person does something that enters a computer anywhere, like using a credit card.

“Are you insane?” she asks. “You think you can use the FBI as your own private investigative agency?”

“You won’t believe what’s going on with Laurie and me,” is my response.

“You think I have nothing better to do than track down your witnesses?” she asks.

“Our life is like an episode of
The Young and the Restless,
” I say.

She thinks for a moment. “It better be. What’s the guy’s name?”

I give her the information, and she agrees to get on it starting tomorrow. “Now tell me about you and Laurie,” she says.

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” I ask.

Suffice it to say that she doesn’t feel it can wait, and I spend the next hour describing our situation, stopping every thirty seconds or so to answer questions.

Cindy, like everyone else, has always liked Laurie, and her final question is, “So where is this going to wind up?”

“I wish I knew,” I say, understating the case about as much as a case can be understated.

• • • • •

T
HREE 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.

“Do you know if he lives around here?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “He doesn’t. He asked me if there was a cheap place he could stay. He was afraid the roads would get closed because of the storm.”

This is rapidly approaching “too good to be true” territory. “Did you recommend a place?”

He nods. “Two of them. The Days Inn out on Route 5 and the Parker Motel.”

“Where’s that?” I ask.

He points. “Four blocks that way, then make your second right.”

Kevin and I both thank him and head for the door. Just before I leave, I stop and ask, “By the way, how big was this kid?”

“Maybe five eight, a hundred and forty-five.”

I allow myself a quick sigh of relief; between us, Kevin and I should be able to handle someone that size. Unless, of course, he has a knife. Or a gun. Or an attitude.

The proximity of the Parker Motel makes that the likely first choice for us to try, so we drive the four blocks and park in front of the office. The two-story place is a borderline dump, and the fact that the sign advertises vacancies is not a major shock.

We enter the small office, which basically consists of a counter and a display with flyers advertising the tourist attractions in the area. There’s a coffee machine, which looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since the invention of decaf.

There’s a girl behind the desk, maybe twenty-one years old and incongruously perky for these surroundings. “Hi, I’m Donna. Welcome to the Parker,” she says. “Snowing pretty hard out there, huh?”

The office is mostly glass-enclosed, allowing her to see “out there” quite easily, so I assume the question is rhetorical. “Sure is,” I say, trying to keep up the banter level.

“You need a room?”

I explain that we’re looking for a guy named Eddie Carson, most recently seen wearing a Brett Favre jersey and no coat. Since the FBI mention worked so well in the convenience store, I trot it out again.

Donna’s brow furrows in worry, but she’s nothing if not cooperative. “I think I know who you mean… but we’re not supposed to give out room numbers.”

“I’ll tell you what,” I say as I write Cindy’s office phone number on a piece of paper. “Call this number. It’s the Boston office of the FBI. Just ask for Agent Spodek, and she’ll tell you what to do.”

There is as much chance that Donna will call the Boston office of the FBI as there is that she will put on a bikini and go outside and catch some rays. But the offer has its desired effect, and she looks up the room number in her register. “He’s in room 207. Second floor, back towards the parking lot.”

“Thank you,” I say, and Kevin and I go outside. We start walking around toward where the room is when I see a car leave the parking lot at as high a speed as the snow-covered pavement will allow.

“Uh-oh. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

We move more quickly toward the room, and my bad feeling is confirmed. The door is open, and no one is inside. Eddie must have been watching our arrival and put two and two together. We should have been far more careful, and by not being so, we let him off the hook. Simply put, he outsmarted us, which doesn’t exactly qualify him for a Rhodes scholarship.

A few items of clothing are strewn on the floor, and a toothbrush and toothpaste are on the bathroom sink. Poor Eddie keeps having to leave places in a hurry, and his possessions are dwindling by the moment.

Kevin leans over the balcony and looks in the general direction that Eddie’s car went. There is no way we are going to catch him, and the idea of trying holds little appeal for either of us.

For the most part the trip here was a fiasco, and the ride back is going to be an endless one. But one good result is that what we suspected is now a virtual certainty. Eddie either did something bad or knows something important, and it is more crucial than ever that we find him.