Page 80 of The Hard Way

Zeus grinned. “According to Hank’s online banking account, whichautofilled—we didn’t even need a password for it—he took out fifteen grand in cash just before the break-in. That’s about right for a B&E. His calendar had a lot of appointments in the days after that withdrawal. Most of them were businesses. We took down the ones that had numbers and called, and they seemed legit. But there were two really vague appointments. One just said ‘Chas 2 p.m.’ It was the only Chas the whole year.”

“Wait—Chas, Chas. I know him. Chas Landers. He’s a handyman. He did handyman work for the bank!”

“Could he do a B&E?”

“Hmm. He’s a little sketchy, but…I don’t know. He’s kind of a lush—he would sometimes show up smelling of alcohol.”

“Was he any good as a handyman?”

“Yeah.”

“He could do it,” Zeus said. “The other appointment just saidZ. It said ‘Z—noon.’”

“Could it be Nancy Zietlow?” I asked.

“We thought so, but there are only threeZs in the whole calendar—two before the B&E and one after, and then they stop. It doesn’t feel like Nancy.”

Since I knew pretty much every family in town, and I was personally acquainted with most of the people who were under forty—at least the ones that had lived in the area two years back—we sat around running throughZfirst names of guys. Zach, Zeb, Zander. Nothing stuck out or at least noZguys who were the types to do crimes for Hank. “If I had a few high school yearbooks…” I said.

“Wait! I know what’ll jog Ice’s memory.” Thor grabbed a bottle of scotch and four little styrofoam cups from the coffee maker area and led us down to the guest living room, setting the bottle and cups onto the table. “During breakfast yesterday, I noticed these.” He went and crouched down at a far bookshelf. “Check this shit out.”

I went over and crouched next to him. It was a row of about twenty phone books—white pages and yellow pages from the five little towns in this area. There were many sets of them stretching back a decade. “I thought it was funny that towns around here still even make phone books. What the fuck is that?”

I pulled out the Baylortown ones. Hank lived in Baylortown, and people in Baylortown tended to know other people in Baylortown. I flopped them onto the coffee table.

“We go through theZs.” Zeus poured the scotch into the cups.

Thor sat down on the couch with the phone book. “I’ll read theZnames aloud to you. I think it’s better if you hear them.”

“Okay.” I downed a cup and laid on the couch with my head in Odin’s lap and my shins in Thor’s lap. He propped the phone book on my calves and began to read theZs of Baylortown.

Zeus sat on the floor in front of us with the laptop open.

I’d stop Thor now and then and ask for an address, because sometimes that helped me remember. There was a Ron Zimmerman who was a notorious bad kid, but then Zeus looked him up on Facebook and found out he was in the army.

“Knowing Ron, that’s probably for the best,” I said.

We Facebook-investigated a few more names, and the guys drank more scotch. Odin had his phone, and sometimes he’d get a Google satellite image of an address that sounded familiar so that I could see the house. Because sometimes you remember people from their houses. .

It was kind of fun being the one who knew things for once. Usually I was five steps behind my guys. I let myself have another shot of scotch and then lay back down, half on Thor and half on Odin. We weren’t turning up any more suspects, but I had a feeling we were on the right path.

I opened my mouth. “More scotch, please.”

Odin dribbled some scotch into my mouth so that I wouldn’t have to sit up. Things were almost feeling normal.

There was one guy, Mark Zebold, whose house had been a big party house in high school and who was a definite fuckup, but then Zeus looked him up on Facebook and discovered he was running a successful microbrewery in Green Bay.

“Zebold? Are you shitting me? Show me his picture,” I said.

Zeus turned to me and held the laptop up like an offering so that I could see Zebold’s face on the microbreweryabout uspage without lifting my head from Odin’s lap.

Because I was feeling lazy like that. And a bit tipsy.

“God, that is him! I can’t believe Mark Zebold pulled his shit together like that. Though I guess for our purposes it would be better if he was a loser.”

“Just as well we rule him out,” Odin said, stroking my hair.

I opened my mouth. “More, please.”

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