FOUR
At eleven the next morning I meant to be heading an hour south of Columbus to the prison in Chillicothe. I wanted to get Brad’s side of the story, hoping that fifteen years in prison made him reconsider his own unhelpfulness. But as I drove I saw the exit for Belmont, and I decided to take a brief detour. Belmont was one of the city’s farthest-flung suburbs, way out on the southeast side. According to the sign that greeted me as I veered off the highway, it was also the wildflower capital of Ohio. I’d lived in the state for my entire life and this was the first I had heard of such a claim. But it didn’t look like Belmont had much else to pride itself on. It was seventies suburban sprawl personified, the ranch architecture, the cul-de-sacs. The Outerbelt divided it in half; everything on the east side of the freeway was the good side of town and everything to the west was the bad part. The east side had the bigger houses and the high school, a few narrow blocks that passed for a downtown, a mall called the Shops at Wildflower Glade, and a string of medium-nice hotels and chain restaurants. The west side had a skate park and a railroad crossing and a UPS sorting facility. There weren’t any wildflowers to be seen, but then again, it was November.
The gas station where the Sarah sighting occurred was on Clover Road, the main drag through the city. I stopped there and went inside and asked the kid behind the counter if the security cameras worked.
“What cameras?” the kid said.
I pointed. There were four cameras that I could see: one in each corner of the rear of the store, one above the door, one behind the counter.
“Oh,” he said. He looked embarrassed now, as if the thought of his every waking move being captured on film had never occurred to him.
“Yeah,” I said. “So do they work?”
“Hang on.” He disappeared through a door marked Private and then reappeared a moment later. “Yes,” he said, “they work.”
“Do you think I could take a look at the recorded footage?” I said.
He went behind the door again. When it opened, the kid had a young woman with him. “Can I help you?”
“Hi,” I said. “I was hoping to get a look at your security cameras.”
They both stared at me. They were probably eighteen or nineteen. I took out my license and told them who I was. “Just for one day, a couple weeks ago. I’m looking for a woman who was here, and I was thinking maybe your cameras would show her or if she was with anyone.”
“Are you,” the boy said, “a cop?”
“She’s not a cop,” the girl said quickly.
I gave them the most responsible smile I could manage. “I work with the cops all the time.”
“She has a badge.” The boy’s eyes flicked toward my license on the counter.
“That’s not a badge.”
“Should we call Dave?”
“No,” the girl said.
“Is Dave your manager?” I said. “Maybe I could talk to him.”
They both looked at me, stricken. No one wanted Dave involved.
“Do you have a picture of her or something?” the boy said. “We could probably look at a picture.”
I tapped my fingernails lightly on the counter. I did not have a picture, unless you counted Sarah’s old yearbook photo, which was obviously going to make canvassing difficult. “Well,” I said, “I was hoping her picture is on your security tape.”
The girl shook her head. “We’re not supposed to let anyone in the back.”
I didn’t press it. Instead I bought a cup of tea for the road and sat in the car, thinking. Tracking down someone who hadn’t been seen for fifteen years had many challenges, but especially the fact that I didn’t have a photo to flash around. So I called Catherine Walsh at her studio at home. Her husband answered. My instinct was to hang up, but I was calling on business for a change. “May I speak with Catherine, please?” I tried to sound polite and artistic.
Her husband thumped the phone down and a few beats passed before Catherine came on the line.
“Is this Catherine Walsh, the world-renowned professor and artist?” I said in my polite artistic voice. “I have some pressing business to discuss with her.”
Catherine sighed. “Roxane, we have caller ID.”
She didn’t sound happy to hear from me.
“Aren’t you curious about the pressing business?” I said.
“I’m kind of in the middle of something.” Such as, her life. “Or is there actually business?”
“I need a sketch artist,” I said.
“Really.”
“No expense spared.”
“And what would I be sketching?”
I filled her in briefly on Sarah Cook.
“I don’t know,” Catherine said, but her tone was warming up the tiniest bit. “Sounds intriguing but I’m not sure it’s a good idea right now.”
“I can just give my client your info and have her call you,” I said. “And you can set it up with her directly. You wouldn’t even have to see me. It might be easier that way, although less fun.”
“Indeed,” Catherine said. “Okay.”
“I’ll have Danielle get in touch.”
“Okay.”
Neither of us said anything but neither hung up.
Then Catherine finally spoke. “Is there anything else?”
I hadn’t seen her since my father’s funeral. She’d surprised me by coming, since she had decided the previous fall to go back to her husband again. Meanwhile, I went back to a few men and women myself, and now there was just a sense of unfinished business between us. “Nope,” I said. “Thanks.”
After we hung up, I called Danielle and left her a voice mail with instructions. Then I drove down 23 with Elliott Smith playing on the stereo of my car, an old blue Mercedes 300D from five years before I was born. I’d gotten it a few years ago in trade when a used-import dealer needed help figuring out who was stealing parts from his shop and I needed a new car. Someone had taken good care of it—the vehicle had forty thousand miles on it when it came to me. Now it had over a hundred. The old-fashioned odometer showed only five digits, so it looked like it only had three. It drove like a car was supposed to, smooth and fast and sturdy. I loved my car. I spent more time in it than in my apartment.
The Chillicothe Correctional Institution sat near the Scioto River on a few acres that could have been mistaken for a small liberal arts college if not for the barbed wire and the watchtowers and the metal detectors and security checkpoints. My letter from Donovan & Calvert cut through a bit of the usual administrative bullshit, but the prison system was still a bureaucracy and I still had to wait for well over an hour in a beige room that felt like the loneliest bus terminal in the world.