Shell Game – Chapter 34 – Shell Game

Evan entered his apartment and met Mrs. Logan on the steps.

“Good morning,” Evan said and tipped his hat. Mrs. Logan stared at Evan’s bruised face with disapproval.

“I assume the police were here to visit you the other night? I heard all the screaming and scuffling. It was like you were going to come through my ceiling,” she scowled.

“Someone was playing a prank on me,” Evan replied as he made his way past her.

“You know, once you and your wife moved out, this became a respectable building. Now, it’s back to the same old riffraff coming in here at all hours. Who knows what it is you do up there? You’re lucky I haven’t called the cops on you.”

“Thanks for your show of restraint,” Evan said.

“And now you come in here like you just lost a prizefight.” Mrs. Logan turned up the volume as Evan continued up the stairs. “I wrote a letter to the landlord asking him to get you evicted.”

“That’s not fair, Mrs. Logan,” Evan replied as he turned onto his floor. “How will you get your daily dose of gossip?”

Evan unlocked his door and closed it back. He then made the bathroom his next stop. The wound, Evan admitted checking it in his mirror, was impressive; impressive that such a tiny-framed woman could do so much damage to a grown man in the prime of his life. Evan began to wonder if he hadn’t also been kicked in the same place after he was out cold.

He told himself that he was very close to wrapping up this case. He reminded himself that once he wrapped up this case, he might have a shot at fixing things with Katherine. He nudged his tired soul onto the next thing with the hope that this might just be the last crummy case like this he’d ever have to do.

Then, his mind wandered to what he would do once he hung up his detective spurs. He didn’t have many other interests than helping the helpless and had no other hobbies than going to flea markets. But something would come up, he told himself. Something always came up.

Before heading back over Claire’s place, he cleaned up as best he could – shower, shave, and new clothes. Not surprisingly, she wasn’t in. It irritated Evan that his client had the integrity of a lump of pyrite, but then, he figured, beggars can’t be choosers.

The place was pristine. Not only because of Claire’s absence, but it seemed she hadn’t been back either. Everything was where he remembered it, including the open and empty chrome box on the bedroom nightstand.
Evan went back to The Webster and asked the attendant on duty if she’d ever seen a man fitting Eye Patch’s description creeping around the place in the last day. She hadn’t. He thanked the attendant, sighed in frustration, and began to drum his fingers on the counter as his mind churned on the case’s details.

Mike, the house detective, happened to walk by and noticed Evan. “What happened to you?” Mike asked. “You look terrible.”

“You don’t want to know,” Evan said, smiling weakly.

“All’s I know is there are better ways to spend your evenings than the way you tend to, Gold.”

“I’m sure that’s true, Mike, I’m sure that’s true.”

“Any progress on who killed Gabe or that other fella?” Mike asked.

“I’m not sure,” replied Evan.

“Who do you think killed Gabe?”

“I know who killed him.”

“You do?” The look of surprise on Mike’s face amused Evan.

“Jason Charles killed Gabe.”

“Who’s Jason Charles?” asked Mike.

“The other fella,” said Evan.

“So, who killed Charles?”

“According to the police, I did,” Evan said.

“That a fact?”

“Uh-huh. Of course, they also think I killed Gabe. Sort of a two-for-one deal.”

“How they figure that?” Mike asked.

“They think I was mad at Gabe or jealous of something and wanted the business all to myself, so, naturally, I killed him to remove the competition. Then, I go and find the guy Gabe was shadowing and kill him to have the appearance of avenging my partner’s death.”

“That’s sloppy,” Mike said.

“You bet, but it’s keeping me motivated.” Evan’s face brightened. “Hey, you haven’t seen Harold Huber this morning, have you?”

“Let me check the book,” Mike said and signaled Evan to follow him. They looked at the registration book and saw that Harold had come in for the night at around eleven and left his room key with the desk about a little after eight.

Evan’s blood began to churn realizing Harold had entered his suite, slept, got ready, and left the room, all while Evan lay unconscious in his front room. What kind of person walks past someone unconscious on the floor and doesn’t even think to call a doctor or even play the Good Samaritan and drop you off at the hospital?

“Cleaning crew been by yet?” Evan asked, shaking off the irritation.

“Probably not,” Mike replied.

“Mind if I take a look around?”

“I don’t,” Mike said. “I’ll need to come with you, though.”

“Sure,” said Evan, and the two men went up to inspect the room.

In a waste bin, he saw a crumpled-up copy of The Gazette from the day before. He remembered Claire had stopped the taxi driver to grab a copy of the paper, and he wondered if the one in Harold’s room would spill any of its secrets. Evan removed the newspaper from the basket and smoothed it out on the desk. A column had been carefully torn out of the paper. Evan looked around to see if perhaps he could find… and then he saw a slip of newspaper at the bottom of the waste bin. It was the train schedule.

Mike looked on as Evan replaced the schedule into the paper’s torn shape. It fit but not quite. There was still a portion missing.

“Find something?” Mike asked.

“Don’t know. But if this is anything, it’s the only thing here. Mr. Huber is, if nothing else, tidy.”

Mike nodded, and the two men went back down to the lobby, where, after some more chit-chat and a handshake, Evan was back out on the street looking for a newsstand on his way back to the office.

Finding no stands with yesterday’s paper still around, Evan bounded into his office and called the train depot.

“Yeah, got a question,” he said when he got someone on the line, “I’m expecting a shipment coming into town in a couple days… From out west… doesn’t matter what it is… I’ll have to call you back with that information. My question is, my shipment comes in; what happens to it after you unload it? … Yeah. Is there a… uh huh… uh huh… And it’ll be kept there for how long? … Thank you very much… yes, I’ll let you know that as soon as I have the… That’s right… That’s right.” Oh, by the way, I have a business associate coming by — a woman. Name is Claire… yep. That’s her. Did she manage to talk to anyone? Interesting. Perfect. Good for her. Thanks, buddy, for your…,” the call ended abruptly.
Evan looked at the handset before returning it to its cradle and picked it up again immediately. He dialed the police headquarters and asked for Detective Abrams.

“This is Abrams. Who’s speaking?”

“Evan Gold.”

“Evan! Good to hear from you. What do you need?”

“Listen, I know I’ve not been that cooperative, but I want you to know we’re working from the same side,” Evan said.
“Sure, sure,” Abrams said in a comforting tone.

“I wondered if we could meet up for lunch. Maybe we could compare notes and find the truth to these murders a little faster without us tripping over each other.”

“That sounds fine,” said Abrams. He and Evan worked out a time and place to meet. Evan hung up the phone again and immediately picked it back up, this time dialing the District Attorney’s office. Evan chatted with the secretary on the other end of the call and set up an appointment for just after lunch. He then made one more phone call to his lawyer.
“Hey, I need you to know what’s going on,” Evan said.

“What’s going on?” asked the lawyer.

Evan filled him in as best he could.

“Anyway,” Evan continued, “I’m meeting with the DA later on today. I figured you should know in case something gets out of hand and I don’t make it back to a telephone because I’m locked behind bars.”

“Got it,” the lawyer said. “If I don’t hear from you by, say, this time tomorrow, I’ll do some sniffing around to see if I can find you.”

“Just call for me at the DA’s office around four. That should work fine.”

“Fine. Fine,” said the lawyer, “I’m writing it down. Four o’clock.”

“If all goes well,” Evan said and then chuckled. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to buy you lunch soon and tell you all of the gory details.”

The lawyer also laughed. “Good. You know I love details. Oh, by the way,” he said, “we can talk over this more later if you like, but your wife came by to see me.”

“Yeah?” Evan asked.

The lawyer laughed, “You don’t have to play dumb. She told me you sent her down, Evan. You want to know what she said?”

“What did she tell you?”

“I can’t tell you much. She’s now a client.”

“Good. Do you think she killed Gabe?” Evan asked.

“Based on the story she fed me, I don’t. There’re details she’s not telling me, you know how it is, but the impression I got from the story was she’s worry-free as far as murder goes. As for as her and you getting back together, well, you need to mind your p’s and q’s. Maybe get her a gift or something.”

“I gave her a gift.”

“You did? What?”

“A very nice-looking pearl.”

“Is it bigger than a marble?” The lawyer asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, I don’t mean to get your hopes up, but she was wearing an oversized pearl on a necklace when I met with her.”
Evan smiled. “Thanks. That’s good to know,” he said and hung up the phone for good.

At just that moment, Sophie returned.

“You’re here!” she said.

“Where else would I be?”

“Don’t get me started,” Sophie said and began to set her things down. “I just got back from talking to my cousin. Do you want to know what he thinks of your tall tale?”

Evan sat in one of the lobby chairs and signaled for Sophie to continue.

“Well, the bottom of the page is, he doesn’t think it’s likely. He explained it with lots of chalk figures on the blackboard, but my mind glazed over. Apparently, we live in a closed system, whatever that means, and all we see is what we get. He thought maybe in the future we could get quickly from one planet to another – maybe even one galaxy to another (he reminded me Alan Shepard and John Glenn are only the first pioneers in space) – but he was quite firm in his belief that there was no other dimension, regardless of what the science fiction books say.”

“Interesting,” was all Evan said. Then he knitted his brow together and said, “I guess you stared a little too hard at all of his facts and figures.”

“Why do you say that?” Sophie asked.

Evan pointed to her face and said, “You have a little dust on your nose.”

Sophie was taken aback and dug in her purse for a mirror. She saw the mark on her nose and wiped it off. “Silly, this is black. Chalk dust is white. Some detective you are.” Then she thought a moment. “Of course, I don’t even know where it came from.” Then, “You know what? This must be some of the soot from the fire.”

“Fire?” Evan sat up. “At the university?”

Sophie said, “No. Didn’t you hear the alarms? There was a fire burning at the train depot. Probably still going, if you like watching that kind of thing.”

“I was just on the phone with them,” Evan said and remembered the abrupt ending.

“The depot?” Sophie asked.

“Well, maybe it was,” Evan checked his watch, “a half-hour ago at this point.”

Sophie shrugged her shoulders.

“Do you know where the fire was at the depot since you walked right by it?” Evan asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but it seemed to be that area where shipments are dropped. You know the area I mean?”

Evan slumped down in his seat. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”