Fourth Down and Out. Andrew Welsh-Huggins
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