Chapter 14

While he was still a few houses away, Evan stopped, set down his toolbox, and reached into his back pocket for his work gloves. He’d performed this ritual ever since the events with the Eye Patch and Lillian, every time he went out in public.  This ritual, this covering up of the shimmering mark on his right palm, was one of the excuses he used to justify his new hermit lifestyle. He told himself that staying indoors was easier than the risk of exposing himself as an oddity.

As Evan slid on the glove, he wondered how Lillian was doing.  Not well, he assumed.  A pang of guilt ran through his chest.  He had failed her and there was nothing he could do about it.  How was he supposed to get to the Cassantian Dimension?  Months had passed.  Lillian had asked for his protection, and now, because of him, because of his weakness, she would likely be executed if she wasn’t already.  Evan shook the regret from his mind, picked up the tools, and made his way to Harvey’s front porch.

Before he could ring the doorbell, the front door swung open, revealing a relieved Carol Harvey.  Her hair was pulled back in a fraying bun and she wore a flour-dusted pinafore apron over a floral-patterned dress.  “I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said and pushed open the screen door.  “Come in.  Come in.”

Evan did just that and stood in the entryway, looking at the layout.  It had been a while since he’d been in another person’s home, and it never failed to surprise him how interested he was in how other people arranged their things.  The Harveys were much tidier than he was, but they were also not up on the current trends either.  The living room vaguely reminded him of the house he grew up in during the Depression: simple furniture sparsely laid out.  Just the bare essentials.  The good news, Evan thought, was that there wouldn’t be much to fix, and what there was to fix would be simple enough to do.

“Ever since Bill had his — would you like anything to drink?  I have iced tea and lemonade?”

“I’m good for right now,” Evan said throwing on a gracious smile.

“Well, if you get thirsty later, you let me know.”

Evan nodded.  “What seems to be the trouble?”

Carol put on hand on her hip and with the other patted down her frazzled hair.  “It’s been crazy around here.  You know this house is over, well let’s see.  I think it was built, this whole area of Athens was built not too long after the War.”  By ‘war,’ Evan knew she meant Civil War as international conflicts hadn’t meant as much or scarred as deep as the domestic one had.  He looked around again.  He guessed it was built probably as early as the 1880s, but possibly around 1900.  The house he shared with Katherine was much newer.  Several years before they bought the place, the original house on the lot and been severely damaged in a thunderstorm when a backyard tree almost cut the roof in half.  The people the Golds bought the house from told them the story of how much damage and showed pictures of the damage and the reconstruction.  Evan enjoyed looking at the older construction of the original homes in the area.  ‘They don’t build ‘em like this anymore,’ Evan thought.

“But you know how these old houses can get,” Carol went on.  “And ever since Bill’s accident, he hasn’t been able to do piddly squat.”

“What happened?” Evan asked, trying to be neighborly.

“Well, you know, he worked down at the lumber yard.  Bluestem Lumber?  Down there off U.S. 50?”

“I know it,” Evan said.

“A load of lumber had come in.  Bill’s boss tells him to move it with a forklift, but you know Bill hasn’t been trained on it. ‘We don’t have time to mess with that,’ the boss says to Bill, saying the forklift is easier than a car.  So, Bill, wanting to do a good job, tries his hand at the forklift.  Something went wrong with the load; you’d have to ask him what.  He’s tried to explain it several times, but my poor old brain.  Something happened and the load shifted in some way that tilted the forklift on its side and trapped Bill underneath it.  Well, it messed up his back and hip.  The doctor has him laid up for four more months.  And when we asked Bluestem to help with the medical bills, well, you know how businesses are.  It’s never their fault.  But it was since they had him on a forklift he’d never been trained on.  Don’t you think they should take some kind of responsibility?  I mean at the very least, he was a good worker for them all these years.”

The longer Carol spoke, the more Evan’s old detective heart was stirred.  His mind wandered down the ways he could verify the truth of Bill’s story, catch the boss in his haste, and possibly get some relief to the Harveys.  At the same time, he heard his promise to Katherine not to pick up the detective work again.  “That’s terrible,” was all Evan managed to say.  “So what needs fixing?”

“Oh, my goodness, listen to me prattle on.  You came here to work and here I am chewing your ear off.  It’s right down here.”  Carol led Evan down a short, narrow hallway, then turned into the main bedroom.  There lay Bill stiff as a board.  “It’s the master bath,” Carol said.  “Sink and commode back up as soon as you look at them sideways.  “I’m sure it’s just a clog, but everything we’re able to try hasn’t helped, and we can’t afford a proper plumber.  So when Katherine, you’re wife is so sweet.  She said, you were very handy.

“Carol,” Bill said from the bed.

Carold turned and waved off her husband, “Yes, I know.”  She leaned into Evan, “I talk too much.”  She winked at him and smiled.

Evan turned to Bill.  “Carol told me about the accident.  I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad, except I can’t move.  Doc says to look out for bed sores, but the pain is like fire whenever Carol needs to adjust me.”

Evan took a step closer to Bill.  “And Bluestem said they won’t help?”

Bill scoffed and then grimaced at the pain the effort caused.  “I don’t know what I expected.  Made it out to be my fault.  Like I got on the dern thing without permission.  Not only are they not helping with the medical bills, but they’re charging me for the damages to the lift.”

Evan looked at Bill’s condition and then to Carol’s frazzled demeanor.  It wouldn’t be the most fun case he ever took on, but it was for causes like this that he got out of police work and into private investigation.  To help the desperate and the powerless.  He thought back to all of the turmoil with Eye Patch and the murder of his partner.  Yes, that was what the movies and dime store paperbacks said detective work was, but looking at Bill Harvey incapacitated unleashed the guard dog deep inside him.

“Okay,” Evan said, setting down his toolbox.  His eyes shifted from Bill to Carol and back.  “Are you telling me the absolute truth?”

Bill’s face tightened, “Are you calling me a liar?

Evan held up is hands.  “I used to be a private detective.  What you’re telling me sounds like, well, you already know, it sounds like you’re being taken advantage off.  Probably to cover feelings of guilt.  Regardless, I might be able to help.  I’m not a lawyer, but I can get the information you can take to a lawyer and, if what you’re saying is what happened, we can get you the help you need and Bluestem to take the proper responsibility.  So, I’m asking if this is what happened, becasue I don’t want to walk down this road under false pretenses.  It’s happened before, and it always make my job harder.”

Bill looked at Evan without blinking.  “Are you telling me the absolute truth?” Evan repeated.  Bill gave a short nod.  Evan nodded back.  “One more thing.  I made a promise to Katherine a while back to get out of the detective game.  So, this would have to be off the books.  No one can breathe a word of this, understood?”  Evan checked and both Carol and Bill nodded.  “She finds out and this whole thing goes up in smoke.  So, I’m going to fix your plumbing today.  I’m going to see what I can see about your beef with Bluestem and if there’s any money left over from the settlement, you can pay me then.”  Evan checked and both Harvey’s were on board.  He nodded.  “Another thing, come up with a long list of things to fix around here, so I need to come by often.  They don’t have to be real things, but they certainly can be.  I hate to see a good man flat on his back.  Do we have a deal?”

Bill looked at his wife, who, with tears in her eyes, looked back at her husband.  “Deal,” Bill said.  Evan smiled.

Over the course of the afternoon, Evan worked on Harvey’s plumbing and peppered Bill with questions.  As the clog got looser, the case got stronger.  So, when Evan put away his tools, he flushed the toilet and ran water down the sink with no blockages he had a smile on his face a broad as the prarie.  He told Bill to keep getting better and Carol that he would see them again soon.  Evan skipped down the veranda steps and walked home, planning how he was going to approach the good people of Bluestem Lumber to get them to do right by their employee.

Evan strode through his front door.  Katherine greeted him on his way to the garage.  “How’d it go?”   Evan wrapped his free arm around her waist and gave her the biggest kiss he had done win weeks.  “That good!” Katherine said staggering backwards after Evan released her.  He winked at his wife and set to put his tools away in the garage.  Katherine smiled, more proud than ever that she knew best how to set Evan down the road of the proper American husband.