Chapter 10: Cafe Society
Clare didn’t see Clench for a few days. She figured he was at the farm, working with his dad. Eventually she found him at the cafe again, eating breakfast.
“So how’s it going?” he asked.
“Everything’s fine. Except that I want to find out more about the boy who tried to snatch the helmet. Actually I know you have his address in Akron, and I want to go up there and talk to him, and his family.”
“Well, we can’t just hand out information like that to the public.”
“You forgot that I found the helmet and I remember where. I can find the house again. It would be helpful if I had the name of the people who live there, and any information you might have about them. Like, should I take the concealed carry class first and then go up to Akron packing?” Clare said impudently.
“Please don’t even think about doing that.”
“So they’re not a gang of dangerous criminals, or a jihad cell?”
At this Clench raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He was beginning to believe that when Clare got an idea in her head, she would not be stopped. Hard headed. Just like his mom. Clare wondered why his crooked smile appeared again.
“I think I’ll get my friend Roxy to get the street address for me. She was with me when I found the trunk with the helmet in it. She could probably get the names too, and maybe a phone number. And I will write a polite letter first.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know … if you get an answer, and if and when you plan to go up there.”
“OK. I can do that much. Uh, you know I do appreciate you grabbing that guy and rescuing the helmet.”
“Just doing my job.”
“One of them. How’s the vineyard coming along?”
“Oh, well, we’re working on an irrigation system now. Actually it’ll be a couple of years at least before we get a usable harvest. So we’re buying grapes just to learn how to make wine.”
“Are you stomping them barefoot?”
“No, I’m just beating the hell out of them with my fists. It’s therapeutic.”
They both laughed.
A few days later Clare found him in the cafe again and told him she was sending a letter to the family.
“Named Ebrahim, right?” Clare asked. “Roxy Barbarino got me the information.”
“Yeah, that’s the name. Did she tell you anything else?”
“She said the father died this spring, Mohammed Ebrahim, and had two children, a son and a daughter. The son is named Ali. The girl is named Adeleh. Which is weird, because my aunt was named Adela. I looked them up. My aunt’s name means ‘noble’ but the Persian name means ‘just’ or ‘equal’, something like that. Oh, and Ali means ‘high’.”
“But did you know the mother’s name is Jennifer? She’s American.”
“I didn’t know that. Roxy said her name was Jannat.”
“Which means ‘Paradise’. She probably changed it when she married Ebrahim.”
“Hm. Well, considering that he’s dead, I’ll rewrite the letter, to Mrs. Ebrahim. Wonder if I should address her as Jennifer or Jannat?”
“You could always just go with ‘J’.”
“Anyway, I explained how I found the helmet, and that someone tried to steal it, and we think it’s someone from her family. Or from her house. I tried to make it clear that I found it in the trash and want to keep it, but I’d like to know why it was thrown out. And what the history of it is. It’s possible that one of the kids threw it out and the mom didn’t know about it.”
“That doesn’t seem likely. It’s the kid who showed up here. I wonder how he knew it was here, though. He would have had to get your license plate number when you picked up the trunk, and track your address.”
“There was that newspaper story too, but that appeared in our paper, and the Akron paper, after the first time he was in town, at least we think it was him. So he traced the license plate number or followed me, but he would have had to hang around where I stayed and where I went till I drove back to Greenline.”
“As I said, keep me posted about what you hear from them, if anything. We contacted Akron and Summit County law enforcement, but they don’t have anything on Ali, and we didn’t want to pursue it. I assume you didn’t plan to press charges. Attempted robbery or something.”
“No, no. I just want to find out about that helmet. Don’t look so worried,” Clare said. “He’s harmless. He was just prowling around and tried to snatch the helmet, no weapons or anything.”
“In my experience teenagers from Iran are not guaranteed harmless. And you’re the one buying the guns.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
Later that week Clare found Clench in the cafe again. He’d think I was stalking him except that I have to eat anyway, she thought. And just about everyone who works in town eats here too.
“Hey, Clench. Anything good on the menu today? Is the chef in good form?”
“Well, he’s consistent. It’s all good.”
Clare ordered coffee and a BLT, and promised the waitress, Jeanette, that she’d order pie later.
“They make their own pies and I think they get discouraged if you don’t order them once in a while,” she observed to Clench.
“Well, you don’t want them to give up on it.”
“I always wonder why the menu says the chicken salad is ‘seasonal’,” Clare said. “Like lobster. Are they wild chickens that just fly in once in a while or what?”
Clench laughed.
“I guess the old boys who come in for lunch don’t like to eat chicken salad in the winter,” he said.
“The ways of your people are strange. Anyway, I got a letter back from Mrs. Ebrahim.”
“No … kidding!” Clench said.
“She said she did throw out the trunk and she didn’t want it back, or anything in it. Of course the helmet was the only thing in it. And no one in her house has been out of town or would try to steal it, she said. As far as she knows. I’d asked if the helmet was valuable or of historic interest and she said it’s of no value to her, and she doesn’t know how old it is. But she has to know something more, or the son does. I still want to talk to her. I could try to find out more about it online or maybe even at a mosque, but that wouldn’t explain about the boy trying to steal it.”
“I wouldn’t get involved with any mosques.”
“What if Ali stole it?”
“Like the Ali Babas?” Clench said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, suppose he stole it, from someone he knew or from a mosque and his mother was afraid to return it.”
“The police and sheriff’s offices up there didn’t mention any thefts up there when we told them about the helmet.”
“I’m going to write to her again but I won’t say I’m making a special trip. That would make her nervous. I’ll just say I’d like to meet her next time I go up to visit my parents.”
“She’s probably already nervous. The police questioned her about Ali, but they got nothing.”
“There are the photos, though, that Jim Rainbolt took.”
“Yeah, we know it was him but since nobody is pressing charges, nothing is going to happen. I mean, there are things we could charge him with but it’s just not that important.”
“Anyway I told her the helmet is in a bank vault,” Clare said, “and I’m sure she’s talked to her son about it, and my letter, so that should keep him from trying it again. He’s really not going to try to rob a bank, even if he was scratching around the back door in the alley.”
“Maybe he thinks a pressure cooker bomb would do it,” Clench said.
Clare looked startled.
“Would it?”
“I don’t know about the bank vault but it wouldn’t do anybody any good. Of course maybe he would want to avoid damaging the helmet.”