Chapter 79

Hand in hand, the Golds walked south on Commercial, turned west on Congress, and stopped in front of their front porch.  It was the first time the pair had seen the front of their house since arriving back.  The house mostly looked the same: gabled roof, holly hedge row, wide porch complete with a butter-yellow steel glider swing.  There was just one thing out of place.  Detective Abrams of the Athens police department occupied the swing.  He stood.

“Morning, Evan.  Mrs. Gold.”  Abrams tipped the brim of his hat.

“Are the police now making social calls?” Evan smiled and gripped Katherine’s hand tightly.

Abrams removed his hat.  “I’m real sorry to have to do this,” he said, coming down the porch steps, “but I’m going to have to put you under arrest.”

Katherine clutched at Evan’s arm and looked, wide-eyed, into his granite face.

“Really?” Evan said.  “Do I get to know why I did?”

“It’s Detective Short,” Abrams said.  “He was found pretty banged up in the wading pool at the park.  Shot in the shoulder.  After it was all over, an eyewitness rushed to the pool to find him face down and bleeding badly.  Good thing the pool was empty.”

“I’m sure it was,” Evan said.  “And you think I banged him up?”

Abrams pulled out his handcuffs.  “From the gun and other evidence picked up at the scene, and the statement Short gave from the hospital…  Assaulting an officer…” Abrams began and left the Golds to finish the thought.  It wasn’t a pretty composition.

“Pretty stupid thing for an experienced detective to be so clumsy.”

“You didn’t do this, Evan.  Tell him you didn’t do this,” Katherine said.

“I’m sure he’d be touched.  He really would.  But it’s not his job to make that call.  All he’s supposed to do is follow orders.”

“Look, Evan, I don’t want to do this.  I’ve always thought you a fair dealer.  But until evidence points another way.”

“Sure, sure,” Evan said.

“I’m realy sorry to have to do this.”

“But he’s been out of town,” Katherine managed.

“Yeah?” Abrams paused.

“We just, uh, we just got in last night.”

The detective eyed Katherine, “You got any proof you were gone?”

Katherine turned back to Evan, helpless.  How could she prove they had been away to an alien dimension?

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Evan said, “the detective is just doing his job.”  He held out his wrists.

Katherine watched in desperation to see the handcuffs wrapped around her husband’s wrists and hear the metallic ratcheting as they locked into place.

“You got a car?” Evan asked.  Abrams pointed at a nondescript black sedan half a block away.  Evan turned to Katherine.  “Now, listen to me.  Kathy.  Call my lawyer.  Don’t panic.  The truth has a funny way of turning up.”

Katherine’s shock kept her tears safely inside until after she saw Abrams’ car pull away with Evan in the back.  Then, she stood on the sidewalk and let the ters flow.  “This is ridiculous,” she told herself.  “You tears are not going to get him out of jail.  You need to pull yourself together.”  What was she to do next?  Evan told her to call the lawyer.  She checked her watch.  Still too early.  Katherine entered the house, sat in her chair and contemplated if she was a skilled detective what might she do with this information.  

“Write down what you know,” she reminded herself and rose to find scrap paper and a pencil.  On the paper she listed what Detective Abrams had said – Short assaulted at Soden’s Grove, gun at scene, other evidence.  Other evidence.  Other evidence.  Katherine pondered what the other evidence might be.  Then she shook her head to free her mind of that.  “I can’t act on what I don’t know.”  Then, one thought stood her up – the gun.  What if the gun wasn’t Evan’s?

Katherine raced down the hallway to her bedroom and began to pull open Evan’s chest of drawers.  She felt under his socks where the gun was kept.  It was gone.  Her heart sank.  This didn’t make sense.  Had someone broken into the house while they were gone and stolen Evan’s gun?  Katherine began to open her mind to the possibility that other items might be missing from the house and pulled open ever drawer in the bedroom, rummaged through every closet, and double-checked every secret stash of valuables.  Everything was there.

Why would a theif break into their house only to steal a gun?  Katherine stood a long time in her living room trying to work out that question with no success.  Still, if someone had broken into their house once, they could easily come back.  It was the thought of a returning criminal that forced Katherine from her home.  As long as the bad guy was free, she didn’t want to be in a place where she could run into him.

Katherine packed an overnight bag and tossed it into the backseat of her car.  She had no idea where she would stay, but there was plenty of day left to answer that question.  The clock on her dashboard said it was past ten, which seemed like a reasonable time to her to call the lawyer.  Using a payphone at the Red X’s soda counter, Katherine reached the lawyer, explained the situation, and fanagled a weekend meeting.

When she arrived at his office, she was greeted by Sophie Landis, Evan’s former secretary.  It had been a while since Katherine had seen Sophie, but had to admit that she looked good – not as careworn as when she had worked for Evan.  Still, Katherine had never known how to properly relate to a woman that had been her husband’s confidant from time to time.  Katherine had no reason to be suspicious of Sophie, but it was still an ill-defined relationship.

“Good morning, Katherine,” Sophie said, standing from her desk.  “Sorry to hear about, Evan.  Can I get you anything?  Coffee?”

Katherine clutched her handbag and waved off the offer.  “I’m, thanks, I’m fine.”

“You can go on in,” Sophie said, guiding Katherine thorugh the reception area and into a room with a long conference table.  The meeting room was decorated like a small law library with each wall featruing several bookshelves fileld with volumes of similar-looking spines.

“Sit anywhere you like.  I’ll let him know you’re here.”  Sophie left Katherine alone.  Katherine pulled out her scrap of paper so she didn’t forget a detail.  A moment later, the lawyer entered, reached out his had for Katherine’s and said, “I’m so sorry about Evan.  How are you doing?”

The lawyer looked at her directly and with compassion.  Katherine’s anxiety dropped for the moment, feeling that this was someone who cared about her and not just fixing the situation.  Though the situation was in desperate need of fixing.

“I don’t know how I am.  If that makes sense.  The police only took him away a couple of hours ago.  Evan said I should call you first thing.  Thank you for meeting me on a Saturday.”

“It’s no problem,” the lawyer said, sitting.  “Evan has been a good friend over the years.  I’m happy to help in any way I can.”  The lawyer pulled out a yellow pad of paper and twisted the tip of his pen.  “So, tell me what’s going on.”

Katherine admited that she didn’t know much.  Just that her husband had been arrested for assaulting a police officer and that the police had evidence and a witness that it was him.  “But it couldn’t be him,” she said.

“I’m inclined to believe you,” the lawyer said, “but how do you know that he didn’t do it?”

“We’ve,” Katherine wasn’t sure how to say how she knew without seeming insane, “been… we just got back into town.”

“Where were you?”

Katherine stared at him.  “I can’t say.”

“You can’t say, or you won’t say?”

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

The lawyer set down his pen.  “Mrs. Gold.  Can I call you Katherine?  Anything you tell me is under the sctrictest of confidences.  If you can tell me where you were, if we can establish a good timeline that says you weren’t in town, say, at the time of the assault, that would go a very long way to getting Evan out of jail.”

“I realize that,” Katherine said, “But I don’t know how to tell you where we were.”

“You don’t know how to tell me?”

“It’s complicated.”

The lawyer sighed.  “Okay.” He pushed the legal pad away.  “We can come back to that.”  The lawyer folded his hands together and thought for a moment.  “In that case, I suppose, the first thing I can do is see about bailing Evan out.  I can pay the money today, and you can pay me back on Monday.”

“When would he get out?”

“Today.  It’ll take a few hours to process him, and I have another engagement, but you two should be able to have dinner together and figure out what you’re going to tell me that is both true and will put the right person behind bars.  The police very much don’t like it when one of their own is put in the hospital.  Someone is going to go to actual jail for this.  Let’s do what we can to make sure it isn’t Evan, huh?”

Katherine smiled quickly.  “Thank you.  Do you think I’d be able to see him?”

The lawyer pushed his lips into a frown and said, “Sure.  Just tell them you’re Evan’s wife, and you should be able to talk with him for a few minutes.”

Katherine stood and reached out her hand, “Thank you.  I’m sorry that I can’t be more helpful at the moment.  It’s been a, a, what’s the right word, complex time for us.”  They shook hands, and soon Katherine found herself back in her car.  It was then that she realized that the normal systems of proving her husband’s innocence wouldn’t work.  They had been in another dimension and had no way to prove that.  She would have to be Evan until he got free.  She would have to be his detective.  How does one do that, she pondered.  Then she remembered that she could talk to Evan.

She jammed her key into the ignition switch and cranked the engine over.  Katherine would right this wrong, but she would need a crash course in finding bad guys from Evan first.