***
1:05 p.m.
Blow-Dry and Brush-Off
On the hunt for a beauty parlor, we efficiently happen upon the only game in town: X-Plosion Hair Salon, an unlikely storefront sharing a side of road with empty septic tanks and farmland. It's just the kind of place you would go if you were a doe-eyed 25-year-old free to do as you please yet sentenced to live an eternal existence amid the fiery inferno of public damnation. Plus their prices are fantastic.
Inside the ample-mirrored parlor, four stylish ladies — Cindy, Bunny, Mary Ann, and Crystal — are riding out a midday lull, armed with the local gossip and ready to spill it over an Adventure News Eyebrow Waxing.
And spill they do — usually all at once, in a thinly veiled effort to confuse the issue of who exactly is saying what and when. That, and the heady ozone of hairspray combine to elbow virtually all the oxygen from the room.
"You should have been here earlier," says Mary Ann, or possibly Bunny. "You missed the Amish girls who come in here to tan."
But bronze Amish girls are for the workday's end, and this day is just beginning. Through the haze of chitchat and aerosol, one fact is crystal clear: Casey Anthony has not been through for a facial or dye — not even for a mani-pedi.
"People are only saying that because there's a girl who works at Mangia! Mangia! who looks like Casey Anthony," says Crystal, who might actually be Cindy.
"It's been all over Facebook, my daughter says," Mary Ann or Bunny adds.
But the stop is far from fruitless. In fact, it's all becoming crystal clear: For the group's fairer gender, Amish life isn't all 18th-century piety and fresh butter churned in ankle-length surge dresses. Amish girls of Casey's vintage are just the kind of sex-fueled booze guzzlers an undercover tramp would feel at home with. Their rite of "Rumspringa" — an Amish term for sex-fueled booze guzzling — is defined by exactly the type of virtue-free excess Casey Anthony types can't get enough of. It starts with slow-roasting in X-Plosion's tanning beds, but moves on to puffing cigarettes, chatting on cell phones, and riding the countryside late at night with boys in horsedrawn buggies — outfitted with blasting boom boxes and plenty of extra batteries.
For a wild child on the lam, Amish country makes for a fitting if tawdry knockoff of authentic Florida nightlife.
The connection makes even more sense considering the financials, and Casey would know them well: Thanks to the enormous profits of their illicit puppy mills and their Bush-era government farming subsidies, the Amish have ample cash to invest — and what's a better investment than a cable-TV reality show with loads of sex and Dr. Drew? It's all so crystal clear: Anthony is embedded — and almost certainly in bed — with the Amish.
And then, a most fortuitous break: With the Adventure NewsCruiser still perched in the X-Plosion parking lot, a tractor comes into view, motoring along the country road and piloted by a genuine Amishman — the kind of Amishman who plows paydirt by the acre. With a squeal of rubber and a whiff of burnt motor oil, we swing into line behind the vehicle. The chase is on — and this mouse has plenty of fight in him.
As if on cue, the Amishman goes heavy on the throttle, and his metal steed takes off toward oblivion. Twenty-five mph, our speedometer reads, and just minutes later it's veering perilously close to 30. Johan's trying hard to shake us, ducking down side streets and swerving between lanes.
But just as we're about to overtake the tractor, the NewsCruiser sags on the starboard side and dips into the ditch. The tire's been slashed, obviously by an agent of the Amish who didn't take kindly to our tanning-bed interrogation. Looks like we were getting a little too close for Amish comfort. From our dusty perch down the road, we can make out the tractor's driver pointing his beard in our direction, raising a hand in a mocking wave goodbye. Curse you, Old World anachronism.
***
4:56 p.m.
The Pulsating Heart of Newbury Nightlife
"There's no way you can move to a place like Newbury and not have everyone in town know about it," Matt says. "No way at all."
Matt's behind the bar at the Ramble Inn, Newbury's finest liquor establishment. It's late afternoon, the regulars are lining the bar, and the Adventure News Strike Force is drowning its frustration in Bud Light — the nectar of nubile ne'er-do-wells, and the tasty bait on today's hook.
The Ramble Inn is just the kind of shadowy hole-in-the-wall a certain twentysomething fugitive might patronize between Amish sex parties with Dr. Drew. But the ceiling here's too low for table dancing, and Matt says she hasn't been around.
"What you should do is drive by a group of Amish, yell 'Hey Yoder,' and whoever doesn't turn around, that's her," he offers. The sting of missed opportunity calls for the healing salve of whiskey.
The sun's still high now, but morale is low. Word is that Casey blew off a court-ordered visit to Florida today, but the latest rumors peg her whereabouts not in Newbury but Columbus, where her traditional Amish garb won't do her any favors. But without our trusty vehicle at the ready, Columbus might as well be a two-hour drive away.
There's talk among the ranks that it might be time to pack it in and return to Adventure HQ bereft of exclusiveness. After all, there's blogging to be done.
But then along comes Martha, chiming in like a one-woman chorus of angels — the kind of angels that tend bar in village taverns. Which Martha does.
"Oh yeah, Casey Anthony," she says from across the room. "I hear she came here to open a daycare."
As the regulars share in a finely calibrated round of laughter, a clean page is turned over in the Adventure News notebook — yet another confirmation that Casey's got her sights on Geauga's children. Every nugget has been precisely on track. Casey's here, and she's waiting to be found.
So we press on with our hunt, first by ordering two more beers and a bowl of resourcefulness. A special-ed school bus out behind Newbury High School looked primed for hotwiring. A fresh supply of sin-soaked Amish can't be that hard to find.
Before long, the Adventure News Caravan of Awesomeness will be cruising the lonely foothills again, far off the grid, shaking down every shifty beard and bonnet about the lady hiding behind the grain silo. The aroma of horse dung leads the way to our prize, the smell of Pulitzer awaits us when we get there. Or maybe that's just the horse dung.
