Chapter 15

The next morning found Evan, dressed in his handyman garb and carrying a dented green tool box, walking into the Red X Pharmacy.  He nodded to the bobby soxer standing behind the perfume counter, as he made his way to the sandwich counter in the back.  Mick, the attendant, asked if Evan wanted anything.  Evan mused for a moment before ordering a coffee black and two chocolate doughnuts to go.  Mick nodded and got to work on the order.  In the intermission, Evan headed to the men’s room and locked the door.  After setting down his toolbox, he unzipped his coveralls, revealing the clothes of a photojournalist – chinos, linen button-up, and hiking boots.  He knelt down and opened the toolbox.  Inside was a small Kodak Instamatic thirty-five millimeter camera and two rolls of film.  He tucked the film in his breast pocket, pulled out the camera, and stuffed the coveralls in the toolbox.  After checking himself in the mirror, he exited back to the counter.

Mick pushed Evan’s order to him, raised one eyebrow, and shrugged his shoulders.  Mick lived by a philosophy that if a customer didn’t want to say anything, he wasn’t going to ask.  Evan picked up the sack of doughnuts and cup of coffee.  “Can I use your back entrance?”  Evan asked.  Mick cocked his head in the direction of the door and Evan smiled in reply. Once in the alleyway behind the Red X, Evan made his way over to Bluestem Lumber.

Evan spent all morning there meandering through the lumberyard, as he put it, hiding in plain sight.  Whenever he was asked what he was doing there, he wouls say he was working on a story for the Gazette.  Whenever he was asked for credentials, he showed a business card that backed up his claim.  This only happened once or twice and no one bothered to ask what the story was about.  If they had, Evan had a story prepared to tell them about how the effects of the war in Korea and Washinton’s trade agreements since the Cold War started affected businesses in Emporia.  The reality is that no one knew the answer to that question, but it seemed like the kind of story the Gazette liked to run on a regular basis.  If he had been asked what the effects were, he was prepared to say that he had no idea, that he was just a photographer on assignment, and that they could read about it in a few days if it made the paper.

This whole ploy was something he learned while in the service – If you’re going to make something up, take it all the way.  Even if not all of the story is asked for, it would not be a waste of time to have devised the whole thing.  Nothing would be worse for a detective to be caught stammering for details he should know off the top of his head.  It never ceased to amaze Evan how much you could get by with, with a believable story delivered confidently.

So, Evan snapped pictures of the warehouse, the loading dock, the stacks of boards in the back of the building.  He interviewed curious workers about the ladders that extended up to the tops of the stacks in all of these locations.  He noticed there were few railings to prevent either worker from falling from heights of ten feet or greater if they slipped or from preventing the wood from falling the same distance on a worker’s head.

The joy that coursed through Evan’s body as he had his chats and took his snaps was electric.  He was focused, he was eagle-eyed, he was clever.  He was all the things he missed since giving up his practice and for the first time in months he remembered what it was like to do what he was good at.  He felt competent.  He felt like a professional.  He felt successful.  At times, a wave of regret hit him as he knew truth would come out eventually.  Katherine would find out in some unpredictable way and he would have to come clean.  He hated deceiving her, but not enough to keep himself from doing it.  Maybe, just maybe, he could dance through the raindrops of deception without getting wet.  If Katherine never found out, what would be the harm?  It was a stupid question, and Evan knew it.  He knew he couldn’t build his marriage on duplicity.  But it was so good to be back doing what he was made to do.

He wrapped up his work, shook a few hands with the guys who’d been a help to his questions and walked back to the Red X, where he reversed his costume change.  This time, after he was back in his coveralls, he sat at the counter and ordered a BLT sandwich and iced tea from Mick.  “You still develop film?” Evan asked.

“Check with Shelly,” Mick said, pointing to the bobby-soxer.  Evan nodded and washed down the last bite of sandwich with the tea.

“Much obliged,” he said, sliding off the stool and heading to the front of the store.

Stopping at Shelly’s counter, Evan dug out his two rolls of film, now safely stowed in their canisters.  “Can you take care of these for me?” Evan asked.

“Sure can,” Shelly said, placing two envelopes on the glass counter.

“What’s the quickest turn around you can do for me?”  Evan asked as he filled out the enevelope.

“Depends,” Shelly said.  “Normal time is two weeks ‘cause we gotta send it out to Topeka.”

“Uh huh,” Evan paused.  “What is the abnormal time?  Can it be done faster?  I’m kinda on a deadline.”

Shelly leaned forward on the counter.  “You could ask my brother.”

“And why would I do that?”

“He’s studying photgraphy up at the University.  He’s always locking himself in a dark room with all thsoe stinky chemicals.  Trying to be one of those National Geographic photographers or something.  Momma keeps telling him he needs something more stable to fall back on, so I think he’s taking some business classes, but his heart is in taking pictures of nature.”

Evan nodded.  “How would I get this film to your brother, and how soon could I get it back?”

Shelly calmy put her hand on the envelopes and slid them to her side of the counter.  “I can get them to him.”

“I bet you can,” Evan said with an impressed grin.  If he was to make a guess, this was not the first time Shelly and her brother had made this little arrangement.  He understood, University was not cheap, and who knows, maybe he was learning a few things in his business classes that were paying off.

“Let’s say, I could have them back in the morning?”

Evan frowned and stuck out his bottom lip, “Well, now, that is a better deal.  How much?”

Shelly and Evan negotiated a price and Evan left the store.  Before heading home, he stopped by the Harveys to update them on what he was able to find.  Not only was the majority of the working areas not up to safety regulations, he was able to get statements from a few of the other employees who either backed up Bill’s story of events with the forklift or told similar stories of being asked to work on dangerous equipment they had never been trained on.  Evan told them he should have his pictures back tomorrow, and between that and the statements, the Harveys should have enough to pique the interest of a lawyer who could help them get the money they needed for medical bills and encourage Bluestem to update their facility.

The Harvey’s were stunned and appreciative.  Bill gave Evan a teary-eyed handshake, but Carol gave him a bear hug and a kiss on the cheek.  He gave them the name of a lawyer he knew who would be happy to hear their case.  Evan told them that when they called the lawyer, they would get his secretary.  “Her name is Sophie Landis.  Tell her I helped you.  I don’t know, but that might grease the wheels a bit.”

Evan made his goodbyes, and Carol walked him to the front door.  “I cannot thank you enough, Evan.”

“Trust me, it’s been a pleasure,” he said.

“That reminds me,” Carol said lowering her voice as if she didn’t want Bill to hear this next part, “Do you know the Wests?”  Evan didn’t.  “Well, I was talking with Beverly the other day.  We get together twice a week to play Bridge with a few friends from the Gardening Club.  You don’t care about that.  Anyway, she was saying,” at this she got even closer to Evan, “she said she had some need of services like yours, too.”

Evan let out a slow breath.  He’d danced over the line in his arrangement with Katherine, he didn’t want to tempt disaster – at least not this quickly.

“Beverly is certain that there is a, well, she thinks there’s a man who creeps around in their yard at night.  She doesn’t know if he, you know, peeps, but it got her rattled.  Her husband hasn’t been able to see any sign of the man, they’ve pulled al the blinds and locked all the doors, but she still thinks he’s out there.  It would put her mind at ease – “

Evan interrupted, “I was only able to help you because of Bill’s condition and your plumbing needs.  Katherine and I – 

Carol interupted back, “Oh, I know, I know, and we got it all worked out.  Turns out Beverly’s husband has vertigo.  He got it in Korea.  The way he describes it is different than Jimmy Stewarts’ prolem in that Hitchcock movie, but still the man can’t get on a ladder.  Anyway, their gutters are bursting with leaves and they need someone to clean them out.”

Carol let that last comment hang in the silence.  She was not going to take no for an answer.  Finally she tipped the boulder over the hill with, “It would mean ever so much.”

Evan closed his eyes and resigned.  “Okay.  Tomorrow.  I’ll drop off the photos, and I’ll… I’ll check in on the Wests.”

Carol beamed.

Evan told himself as he walked home that it would just be one more case and then it would be over.  One more case, he reminded himself, one more case.