WE SAT IN SILENCE for a couple more minutes, crunching our toast, drinking our coffee, scratching the heads of Rottweilers, and considering the possibilities.
“That’s a hell of a hypothesis,” Gloria said at last.
“If it’s true.”
“What can we do to prove it?”
“Not sure, exactly. I guess I’ll start by going to Cleveland. That’s where the trail’s leading. Maybe Randall P. Schiff can enlighten me.”
“You’re going now?”
“Once it’s a little lighter.”
“What about the law school connection?”
“I need to figure out how to approach that. Find someone who knew them both, someone I could pose some questions to without raising suspicion.”
“Any prospects?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Unfortunately?”
“The one person I can think of is the last person who’s going to want to talk.”
“Who is it?”
“The judge’s ex-husband.”
I gave Gloria the Snapchat version of Paul and Laura’s breakup. The lasting enmity on both sides—Laura at being jilted, Paul at the hostility of Laura’s demands in the divorce settlement. The toll the split took on the kids—again, nothing I heard directly from Laura. But the facts were well known around the courthouse. Their daughter, Hannah, managed better, according to those in the know. She was now in school herself, at Kenyon College, not all that far from Homer. By contrast Laura’s son—Dan? Dave?—fared worse in the aftermath, struggling to find himself. A Columbus State dropout for now, as far as I knew.
“Sounds par for the course, you ask me,” Gloria said. “How well do you get on with your exes?”
“It’s a mixed bag.” Kym and I had reached a détente of sorts in recent years, united in the mission of trying to civilize a son who was at least as boisterous and ambitious as I’d been. By contrast, Joe’s mom, Crystal, was someone I still wouldn’t turn my back on in a room full of knives. It often felt like she and her husband, Bob, both party-hearty, happy-go-lucky types, didn’t know what to do with quiet, introspective Joe, and so just didn’t bother.
I said, “What about you?”
“Me?”
“You and your ex.”
“Well, hard to avoid Al, being he’s on the job with Mansfield city. Every so often we show up at the same scene. If that happens we talk, but we don’t talk, if you know what I mean.”
I told her I did.
“So how are you going to work it? With the judge’s ex?”
“I’m not sure yet. Ideally I’d do it in person. But I don’t want to lose momentum.”
“I’d volunteer, but I need to stick around. I go on at noon, and after last night I want to keep an eye on things, see if anything changes. Plus, see if I can figure out who might have been coming up from Columbus, like that guy said. And if the powers-that-be suspect something’s up.” She picked up her own phone, sitting beside her plate on the dining room table, checked the time, and looked at me. “Add to that, my daughter’s dropping the kids off in about an hour while she runs some errands.”
“In that case, I better get going.”
“Hayes.”
“What?”
“You get concussed when you were playing?”
“A couple times, yeah.”
“Affect your hearing?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because I just said my daughter’s dropping the kids off in about an hour.”
“Yes, I heard you—”
“An hour, Hayes.”
“An hour,” I said, lightbulb coming on. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“I just did.”
“Yes, indeed,” I said, setting my plate on the coffee table as she walked in my direction.
And so I ended up spending some time prone on Gloria’s couch after all.
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, I was dressed, outside, and in my van at the back of the house. I started up the Odyssey and waited for Gloria to text me from just inside the door where she was watching the road.
All clear
Thanks
All business. It was all right. We each appreciated the other without question. But we also understood the stakes of what brought us together in the first place, and the greater need to find some answers, and soon.
I made my way back toward town, keeping a close eye out for suspicious vehicles and ticked-off raccoons. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Traffic was what you’d expect on a weekday morning as people headed to jobs or early school starts. In my rearview mirror I watched as the wind turbine on the ridge above the Oricks’ house turned lazily, only a late summer breeze available to move the giant blades. It occurred to me that Todd’s father never explained to me what was dangerous about it. No matter. Ten minutes later I was on the highway, headed for Cleveland.