Chapter 10

The ride back to Chicago was different in many ways from what Peaches and I had gone through only hours before.

The general atmosphere was different, for one thing. Ronnie sat there, with those skates on her lap, stroking them and humming. She was staring out the windshield and not saying much. That was OK, though. Most people try to fill a silence when they're together, but this silence was comfortable. In fact, I'd say the atmosphere in the car was just plain comfortable. The ordeal was over and we hadn't had to face the dragon lady.

It was about to get a lot less comfortable.

I had decided to take I-75 north to I-80, instead of going back on I-70, because I didn't want to have to deal with rush hour traffic in Indianapolis. I had been this way on this case before, and I knew that you could take Highway 33 from Wapakoneta northwest through Decatur to Fort Wayne, which was a shortcut, since I-75 fades way east before you get to I-80.

We were about ten miles away from Wapakoneta when she turned to me.

"You've spent a lot of time and money on this case," she said.

"Uh huh," I replied.

"So ... how much do I owe you?"

I drove on for another minute or so. I knew what I wanted in payment, but I couldn't ask for that. She'd call me a dirty old man, and probably slap the crap out of me.

"I guess maybe I could use a web site after all," I finally said.

She hugged those damn skates to her chest and stared out the windshield again.

About ten miles north of Monmouth, an 18 wheeler hauling hundreds of wooden crates filled with live chickens had jackknifed and gone over. Both lanes and both shoulders were full of truck, pieces of wood with nails sticking out of them, and chickens, most of which were no longer among the living. The ones still alive were not happy, and were running all over the place.

It was obvious we weren't going north for a while. Traffic was backed up both in front of us and behind us. Eventually we did what some other people were doing, which was make a U-turn and look for an alternate route.

But I didn't have a map in the car.

I bet you didn't know it, but you can actually cross the entire United States using only county roads. You'll drive a lot more than three thousand miles, but you can do it. It also takes a lot longer than if you stick to interstate highways. I knew that we needed to go north and west, and that if we did that, we'd eventually cross a major highway going into Fort Wayne.

So I just took the first road headed west and off we went on a little adventure.

You know how if you're going down a strange road and it seems like you're not seeing what you expected? You sometimes think, "Just a little further and I know I'll find it." Well you women might not know about that phenomenon, but the men do. And maybe seventy percent of the time it works out.

Of course the other thirty percent, it doesn't, but the odds ARE in your favor. I mean surely people in eastern Indiana want to go west occasionally ... don't they?

It took over an hour and a half before she broke.

"We're lost, aren't we," she said.

"No we're not," I said. "We're going west. Chicago is west of here."

"You have no idea where we are, do you," she said.

"We're in Indiana, south of Fort Wayne," I said confidently.

Two hours later we were still on two lane roads. Some of them were gravel.

"I have to get home tonight," she said. "I told people I'd be back by nine at the latest."

"Just call your boyfriend and tell him not to worry," I said. I saw an overpass up ahead with two cars whizzing along going perpendicular to us.

"I don't have a boyfriend," she said.

"Well call whoever and tell them you might be a little late then," I said.

"We should have been back by seven," she said, accusingly.

"I can't help it if our progress was interrupted by a truckload of chickens," I complained.

"We should have crossed a major road by now."

"I know that!" I snapped.

I stopped before going under the overpass. There was no on ramp. The road we were on kept going west. There was one of those confidence signs up at the end of the overpass that had the shape of the state of Indiana on it and the number one. I really wished I could get up there, but there was no way. There were fences on both sides of the road.

Thirty minutes later the sun was in our eyes. We were on a road that had road signs on it at each intersection, so I knew we had to be near some fairly large city. The signs said we were on "S County Line Rd W." Two miles later, still going west, the signs changed to "W 1200 N."

"See?" I said triumphantly. "We're getting close to a city. The roads are numbered here.

Not two minutes later, she started laughing. "Figures," she said between giggles.

"What?" I saw buildings up ahead.

"Didn't you see the sign?"

"What sign?"

We rolled into a little town that had a total of five or six streets.

"Welcome to Zanesville," she said, laughing. "Population six hundred and two."

Zanesville, Indiana is about two miles east of I-69, which goes north ... and east, damn it ... to Fort Wayne. But from Fort Wayne, Highway 30 takes you to Gary. Gary is, for all intents and purposes, a far flung suburb of Chicago. Everything within a hundred miles of Chicago is really a far flung suburb of Chicago, whether it's in Indiana or Illinois.

We'd lost about three hours, but now we were back on good roads and could make time.

In Columbia City, I saw the first detour sign. An hour later (which should have taken fifteen minutes), we stopped in Warsaw for gas. The attendant said the construction went forty more miles, clear past Plymouth.

I got back in the car. I was bushed. We didn't make it five miles before there was another detour. I swung wide to let a truck behind me go on. I hate it when a big truck is right on your ass.

"You want to drive for a bit?" I asked.

"I don't drive," she said.

"Say what?" I stared at her. She was twenty-four. Whoever heard of a twenty-four year old woman saying she didn't drive? Maybe in New York City, if she had been born and raised there, but that wasn't the case.

"I never got a driver's license," she said. She didn't sound defensive at all.

"I'm going to need to stop for a little while," I said. "I need a nap or we're going to end up in the ditch."

"I made a call while you were getting gas," she said. "Things are covered at home. I told them I might not get back until tomorrow morning."

"We'll get you there sooner than that," I said. "I just need a power nap, then I'll be fine."

The problem was there was no place to pull over. The detours were all on narrow roads and the main highway had cones all over the place. I suggested taking a cross road north, but Ronnie vetoed the idea firmly.

It was dark by the time we got to Bourbon.

"I could use some bourbon about now," I said.

"No you couldn't," she said.

"I was kidding."

"No you weren't. Pull in there!"

She pointed and I saw the neon shape of a long-legged bird standing on one leg. In the middle of the bird's body was a sign that said, "Crane Motor Inn." Half of the vacancy sign hanging from the crane's mouth was dead, and the only letters that were lit were "ancy." It made me a little ... antsy ... and the faded, chipped paint on the walls of the line of half a dozen rooms didn't make me feel any more relaxed. There was only one car in the parking lot, in front of the room at the end of the building.