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 people,” I said. “Why?”
“Just wondering if maybe you were targeted for, you know, who you were.”
“Buckeye fans going a bit too far?” I said.
“Who knows. Heard of weirder things.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Michigan game in a couple weeks. People get strange ideas.”
“Strange,” I said. But he wasn’t half wrong. The insults and heckling always go up the second half of November, right before the big game.
We left it at that because there wasn’t anything else to do. I was the victim of a victimless crime, unless you counted the busted doorjamb and the mess inside. The officer took my essentials and gave me a case number. When he’d gone, I walked next door and knocked on Shelley’s door and thanked her for calling the police.
“Did you lose much?” she said.
“Peace of mind.”
I went inside and cleaned up as best I could. Took me an hour just to get the basics back in place.
It was past nine o’clock when I realized I still hadn’t brought Pete’s equipment inside. Making sure the broken door would at least stay closed, if not locked, I headed out to retrieve it.
Like a lot of people, I love German Village and hate the parking hassles that can come with it. On rare occasions the stars align and I’ll find a space along Mohawk near my house. But more often than not, I end up following a tiresome routine: drive down to Whittier, turn right, turn right on Lazelle and then right again on Lansing where I begin eyeballing empty spots. It could be worse, I suppose. For a guy whose college football past had brainwashed me to suspect all things Michigan, Lansing wasn’t quite as bad a name for the half-alley half-street as, say, Ann Arbor. And it was generally well lit, except for tonight, when one of the lights was out. But it felt, well, just a little lonelier on Lansing compared to Mohawk. It was, as I said, still the city.
After I got to the van, I opened up the rear, lifted out the box, put it on the ground, then reached farther in and retrieved my trusty baseball bat. I shut the door and hit the van’s remote lock. Bat in hand, I picked up the box and had started walking up Lansing to Mohawk when I heard the sound behind me. Then came the voice.
“Hey! Woody Hayes!”
12
“Your lucky night,” the man standing over me was saying. “A burglary and an assault.”
I said, “Maybe we should wrap this up so I can go buy a lottery ticket.”
I was sitting on the side of an emergency room hospital bed in Grant Medical Center downtown. My head felt like someone had massaged it with the claw end of a hammer, my arms ached if I let them relax by my sides and ached even more if I lifted them off the bed, and my left knee did not appear to be working. On my left a nurse was swabbing something cold and stingy on my shoulder. “This is going to hurt,” she said. “A lot.”
“Honesty appreciated,” I said.
“Shit,” I said a second later. “You weren’t lying.”
“I haven’t really started yet,” she said.
In front of me stood Columbus police Detective Henry Fielding. Light reflected off his shiny white bald head, and I was pretty sure his nose, whenever it had been broken, had involved somebody’s fist and not an accidental encounter with an errant door.
“You’re a private investigator now.” A statement.
“That’s right.”
“Ever seen that movie Point Break? Keanu Reeves is an ex–Ohio State quarterback who becomes an FBI agent.”
“‘Quarterback punk,’” I said. “Yes, I’ve seen Point Break. Except I’m not an FBI agent and this isn’t Southern California. Next question.”
“OK.
