Chapter 17

By the time Evan came home that evening, Katherine had everything prepared. She had coiffed her hair in a perfect flip, decorated with garnet pendant earrings and a matching necklace. For her dress, she put on the one that Evan always complimented—a simple, collared shirtwaist dress with a painted lemon pattern on starched white linen.  Dinner was to be a simple meat-and-potatoes, Evan’s favorite meal, with a side of roasted asparagus.  Katherine and even gone to the trouble of purchasing a Grasshopper Pie from Nessa’s.  The table was set, the candles lit, and Katherine waited for her man to come home.

Evan walked through the door at 6:04.  He greeted Katherine with a peck on the cheek.  “Something smells good,” he said.

Katherine purred as she looked into his eyes.

“You look fantastic.”  Evan noticed the candles and the pre-set dinner table.  “Are we expecting someone?”  Katherine shook her head.  “Why did you get all dolled up?”

“Can’t a wife prepare a special evening for her husband?” Katherine said without a trace of subversion.

“I’ll go wash up.  Only take a second.”  Evan walked down the hall, dumped all of his pocket’s contents on his dresser, and headed to the bathroom.  One look in the mirror and Evan realized this would never do.  He had grime caked into the crevasses of his forehead, jammed into his fingernails, and likely smelled like a pair of old gym socks.  His mind flashed back to Katherine’s stunning beauty, and he was racked with guilt.  In the mirror, he caught the sight of the cash from his pockets.  Every cent of it was gained by deception.

She deserves so much better than me, Evan thought as he turned on the shower.  As he washed the grit and grime from his body, his blood pressure increased.  As he rubbed the soap in his palms the strange mark on his right palm glowed slightly.  His mind turned to Lillian and the strange vision from the man telling him to come to some alien dimention.  How was he to do that?  How could he ever wash himself of the guilt of letting a person die becasue he wasn’t even powerful enough to try to save her?  He’d made a promise and he couldn’t keep it.

Evan rinsed the suds down the drain.  He needed to come clean in his soul.  The fun, if there had ever been any, of going behind Katherine’s back for the thrill of detective work, was paper thin at this point.  If he was honest with himself, he was doing for his neighbors what he couldn’t do for Lillian.  If she was dead, it was on him.

But he couldn’t tell her, could he?  At this point, wasn’t it going to break the marriage?  Things were going so well.  Money was coming in, Katherine was happy, and the work was satisfying.  If he could just get over the guilt.  Evan stepped out of the shower, wishing he could have a second one for his spirit.

Evan put on his best polo shirt and trousers and found Katherine siting beautifully at the table.  The warm glow of the candles brought out the emerald jewels in her eyes.  He was smitten all over again with her.  He sat down and pulled the napkin into his lap.

Before he could say a word, Katherine smiled and asked, “How was work today?”

“Fine,” Evan said, “I guess.”  It was not untrue.  He’d spent the day digging post holes for a new fence the Jensens wanted.  Evan hadn’t done any actual detective work since he was waiting on a clerk at the county courthouse to return some information on a business filing.  The post-hole digger was tempermental, as was the earth it attempted to chew up, but in the end all of the holes were in place.  Tomorrow morning, he would head back over to drop the posts in, nail in the rails, and start on the pickets.  It was neither here nor there to him.

Katherine placed three spears of asparagus next to her baked potato and smiles sweetly at Evan.  “I was thinking,” she said making conversation, “you’ve been doing so much work for the neighbors.  I was wondering, do you ever miss the detective work?  I mean, doing manual labor is probably a lot different for you.”

Evan sawed a bite of steak and placed it in his mouth to give him time to think.  He didn’t know how to answer this question.  He didn’t miss it because he was neck-deep in it.  So, if he says the truth, that would sound out of place given everything else he’s ever said about being a detective.  He could lie and say that he did miss it, which might open a conversation where Katherine mght be okay with him dabbling as a detective again.  If that could happen he could continue to do what he was doing and guilt-free, too.

He sallowed his bite and looked across the table to his wife.  She was stunning.  Her perfect hair, smooth cheeks, and almond eyes broke him.  Who was he kidding?  She would never go for it, and if he really wanted this marriage to work there could be no secrets between them.  Evan wiped his mouth with his napkin and set it by his plate.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he said.  Evan looked down and missed the look of surprise on Katherine’s face.  What was he about to say?  What else was he hiding from her?

“Behind your back,” he sighed, “behind your back I’ve taken a case or two.”

Katherine set down her fork.

“You remember the Harvey’s?  Well, I didn’t want to go over there to start with, but I saw Bill lying there.  They told me his story, and I figured I could help.  I thought it would be a one-time thing, but then she told me about another family, which led to another and another.”  He looked at the wall in frustration.  If he was going to come clean, he should go all the way.  “The problem is, I don’t know how to get out.  Three-quarters of the money I make comes from being a detective right now.  The things you’re able to get to make the house look the way you want is because I’m a detective, because I’m going behind your back.”  He swung his gaze back to Katherine.  “I love it.  I love helping people.  I love seeing the bad guys get justice.  I love powerless people getting their lives back.  I’m sorry I’ve been deceiving you.  I didn’t mean to, but I don’t know what else to do.

Katherine, dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin before resting it across her barely touched food.  This had gone not at all the way she’d planned.  There was a trap she’d set, there was a speech she’d prepared.  He was supposed to come home unsuspecting that she knew anything and she was going to butter him up and eat him whole.  She hadn’t counted on a confession.  It didn’t make the pain of hearing it come from him mouth any less, but she didn’t know what she should do now to increase his pain.

“I know,” was the best she could come up with.  From the look on Evan’s face, it at least did some damage.

Evan’s face was a thousand questions.

“I ran into Sandra Forsythe today.  She absolutely glowed about how proud I should be to have you as my husband.  The help you are to all these people.  They should put a plaque at the courthouse to commemorate your good deeds.”

Evan couldn’t look at his wife.

“What is it with you?  Why do you need to save the world?  Why can’t you live a modest, quiet life like the rest of the men in America?  Why can’t your promise to me be enough?”

There was a tense silence, and neither of them knew what to say to make things better or worse. Evan began to rub his thumb up and down the mark on his palm, and Katherine knew.

“It’s about her, isn’t it?”

Evan looked up.  “Who?”

“That whatever-she-was, the pearl woman,” she spat the word pearl “that that one-eyed freak took away.”  The look of shame on Evan’s face said it all.  As the emotions flushed her face, Katherine scolded herself that she wasn’t going to cry.  She wasn’t going to let Evan know he’d had that effect on her.  Katherine set her jaw and waited for the surge to die down.

“What do we do next?” Evan said softly.

Katherine bit her lip, pushed her chair back from the table, and stood.  “I don’t care what you do next.  Go run to your radient, what was it you said she was, a princess?  Go rescue your princess.  Go be her shining knight.  Go hop on your horse and ride off.  I don’t want to look at you.”

Katherine stormed off to the bedroom and Evan jumped at the sound of the slamming door.  Evan forced himself to stay in his seat.  He wanted to punch a hole in the wall, but he didn’t want to fix a hole in the wall.  He wanted to scream at Katherine and force her to see his side, but he knew that would go nowhere.  He wanted to fly away to wherever the Cassantian Dimension was but knew it was impossible.

Upset, confused, and frustrated, Evan grated his chair back on the oak floor and stomped to the garage.  He needed to tinker.  He needed to think.  He needed a way out.