Chapter Sixty
Quinn fills up his tank at the rural gas station.
He definitely doesn’t want to run out of fuel in this expanse of cornfields and desolate roads.
Studying the map he’s spread open on the hood of the car, he traces his finger along the route to Fairlane, Iowa.
He should’ve printed out MapQuest directions before rushing out half-cocked.
He’s been on the road for what feels like forever, but he’s got another twenty minutes before he reaches town.
He’s starting to think this frolic is just wishful thinking.
That he’s so desperate for any lead he’s grasping.
But no. The photo of the man with the eye patch wearing glasses.
The guy is part of a program for ex-cons, someone the Agnesses could’ve hired to help with deliveries to vendors, like Mr. Agbayani.
Someone who wore glasses that wouldn’t need a prescription lens for both eyes.
The only clue police have ever had in the case, the non-prescription lens found at the scene. There’s something here, he can feel it.
Back on the road, he listens to talk radio for a while, but is tired of stories about Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp and Ken Starr and the rest of the sordid mess surrounding the president.
He pops in a cassette and listens to Fuel, his favorite band of late.
He turns up the volume for the song “Shimmer,” sings along loudly to stay alert on this hypnotically uneventful rural road.
The voice in his head, the one telling him that he’s just chasing white whales, is back.
The one that says he’ll never find who took Minnie Agbayani, never be sure who killed his mom, never decipher her Red Flag file.
The one that says he’s just grasping for anything to fill the void that grew exponentially larger after George’s death.
His thoughts swing to that day when the hospice called. Said Quinn should get there right away. George didn’t have much time left. When he arrived, Uncle Pat was already there. He seemed to be having a heated discussion with Nurse Stacey in the hallway outside George’s room.
“Hey,” Quinn said. They both stopped arguing. Stacey looked flustered. Maybe even shook-up.
“Everything okay?”
Pat said, “You wanna tell Nurse Ratched that we need to take Georgie out of here.”
“I told him, I can’t authorize that,” Stacey says. “That I could get fired. I could—”
“Tell you what, sweetie, how about we flip on it.” Pat pulled out his lucky coin. “Heads or tails.”
Stacey shook her head. “I’m not doing this.”
“You mind if I have a moment with my uncle?” Quinn asked. Stacey glared at Pat but retreated.
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked.
“Nobody’s into games of chance anymore,” Pat said stuffing the coin in his pocket.
Quinn held his gaze.
“We can’t let him die here, Q.” Pat looked about the depressing hospice room.
Quinn shook his head again, still not comprehending.
Pat took in a breath, seemed to be thinking how to pitch whatever he had in mind. “If it was your last day on the planet where would you wanna go? Where would you want to take your last breath?”
Quinn doesn’t even need to think about this. “Recanati, Italy. A place called the hill of infinity.”
“Well, don’t we owe something like that to Georgie?”
An hour later, Quinn’s anxiety level at its peak, they pushed George’s wheelchair through the gates of the Henry Doorly Zoo.
The plan was clumsy, but had worked: Quinn distracted Stacey and the staff while Pat stealthily wheeled George out of the hospice.
Pat had secured George’s wheelchair in the bed of his semi, leaving Quinn to fly around whenever he took a turn.
But they made it. And George spent his last moments in the Insect Pavilion.
Quinn doesn’t know if George could see the stick insects, mantids, millipedes, and other creatures, but he likes to think so. And he’ll always be grateful to Pat for that day. He sighs and turns up the car radio again.
At last, he comes up on a sign that reads, FAIRLANE, POPULATION 943.
He makes his way to Main Street, which is literally a single strip with a diner, a hardware store, and some thrift shops.
He parks the car near a phone booth, since his mobile phone has no reception in these parts.
He calls the church, but gets only the answering machine again.
The file didn’t have the couple’s home address.
He decides to drive to the church, which is off Main according to his map.
It doesn’t take long to find it. The wooden church, with its sagging steps and peeling paint, is more worn down than in the photo on the website. The parking lot is empty. He gets out of the car and goes to the front doors, but they’re locked.
Next, he heads over to the diner. It’s lunchtime and the place is busy.
The booths are all taken, but there’s a single space at the counter.
When he takes the seat, an older man wearing a seed cap glances at Quinn for a beat.
The waitress behind the counter, who looks like she stepped out of a 1950s movie, says, “Be with you in a minute, hon.”
She tops off the old man’s coffee and then carries a tray of food to one of the booths. When she returns behind the counter, she licks her finger, flips the page on her order pad, asks what Quinn wants. He orders a burger and fries.
No one seems to be paying him any mind, but he senses all of them are.
Quinn’s father once told him that certain people in this world are underestimated and underappreciated.
Farmers, nurses, and teachers topped Dad’s list. Farmers, Dad said, are shrewd businessmen; the complexity of farming and the family dynamic of the business demands it.
They’re also protective of their communities.
They’re not going to answer a stranger’s questions about the man with the eye patch, not going to just hand out the reverend’s home telephone number or address.
That’s confirmed when the old guy next to him says, “You aren’t from around here, are ya?”
Quinn smiles. “That obvious?”
The man tuts. “Salesmen don’t do so well here, mister.”
Quinn holds up his palms. “I’m no salesman.”
The man holds his gaze, waiting for an explanation of who he is and why he’s in the middle of nowhere.
Quinn considers how to play this. Candor will not carry the day with an outsider, he thinks. “I’m just out of the army,” Quinn says. “I’m touring small towns to find somewhere my wife and I can call home. We’re having a baby in July.”
The old man nods, takes a sip of his coffee. “I’ve lived here my whole life,” the old guy says. “Can’t complain. Well, I can, but I won’t.”
“I’m glad I sat here, then,” Quinn says. “How’s the community to newcomers? Some of the towns I’ve visited were a bit insular.”
“Well, probably ’cause you use words like ‘insular.’”
Quinn smiles.
The guy gives him a sidelong glance. “I suspect a God-fearing man who served his country would do just fine here.”
“Well, I already made a friend.”
The guy doesn’t respond.
“Is there a community church?” Quinn asks earnestly.
“Of course there is.”
“After what happened to me,” Quinn gestures to the scar on his face, “faith was the only thing that got me through.” Quinn doesn’t like using his injuries to manipulate, but might as well get something out of them other than stares, bad dreams, and a limp.
“We got a nice church here. The reverend doesn’t do too much Bible thumping.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by to meet him.”
The guy shakes his head. “He won’t be there on a Friday afternoon. They’re working folk like everybody else.”
Quinn hesitates but decides to go for it. “You wouldn’t know his home address would you?”
The man studies him again.
“Hey, Janice,” the old guy says to the waitress. “This guy wants to know the home address of Reverend Agness. What do you think?”
The waitress eyes Quinn. She then tears a sheet from her order pad, slams it on the counter next to Quinn. “I think it’s time you pay your bill, mister.”
Quinn is flummoxed.
Then the old guy says, “You were right. Insular.”