Tall Man Down - 25. Chapter 25

I was in the middle of demonstrating to my design class how hard it was to sometimes explain things. I did this by perverting one of my student’s instructions about how to put on my jacket, and I had it upside down, partly inside out, half over my head, and with my left arm in the right sleeve, when I finally became the monkey who saw the stick, the box, and the hanging bananas all at the same time.

It was like working again for the Japanese designer I’d studied with in grad school. He had that unfortunate, stereotypical inability to clearly pronounce his L’s, and for five minutes one afternoon, over headsets to the theater control room from where he was sitting in the house, he kept telling me to turn off the right switch on the control board. I kept doing that – flashing the light on and off as proof of my ability – until he stomped all the way up to the booth and turned off the “light switch” on the left side of the board.

Oh, that “right switch.”

So in the middle of this lesson on design communication, I finally made sense of my feeling that we’d been looking at this whole thing cockeyed. Understanding that, I came back to reminding myself that the simplest explanation was often the best, and there was only one problem with knowing this – I couldn’t prove a damned thing

Still, once I finished my class, I called Don at the station. Unfortunately, he was busy. I tried his cell, but it went to message, and I wondered if the guys from Boston had shown up, and if he and Owen were meeting with them. I called Pete, but he already wasn’t thrilled to find I’d spent over an hour the night before walking around town. So all he wanted me do was promise to stop interfering with Don’s job.

That wasn’t going to happen, and I’d figure out how to apologize to him later. Meanwhile, I drove the police station.

“I told you he was busy,” I was informed again – politely, especially after I identified myself.

“Could you tell me where he is?”

“No. I really can’t. I’m sorry.”

Still, after thinking about it for a moment, I looked for Don’s car in the parking lot. Gone, so I zipped back to the theater, practically ran to the President’s House, and took the three porch steps in one leap.

The door was open and just inside, I met one of the young cops whose names I couldn’t remember.

“Could you get Don Burris?” I asked, having already spotted his car in the driveway.

“Detective Burris is kind of busy right now,” I was told for the third time. “He’ll probably be busy all afternoon.”

“Not if I talk with him for five minutes.”

That was a lie. He’d still be busy. But differently.

“I really can’t interrupt.”

Don was probably ten feet away, behind a wall or above a ceiling. I could yell his name, and he’d come. But I’d probably get us both in trouble.

I asked the guy to at least tell Don that it was very important that I speak with him – on police business – and maybe something in my intensity moved him because he went to find Don. But only after ordering me to “Stay.”

Arf.

Less than a minute later, Don told me, grinning, “Rick said there was a crazy man out here who wanted to see me.”

Rick was standing just behind Don, looking ready for anything.

“I know what happened,” I told Don quietly.

He seemed to believe me.

I explained.

He believed me less.

“It works out,” I insisted. “Every bit.”

He considered. Then decided.

“Give me a couple minutes to get more time.” And he disappeared down the hall.

For those “couple minutes,” I stood watching Rick stare at me. While I smiled innocently. Then Don reappeared and led me onto the porch.

“Now give me everything you said before. Only slower.”

I did, adding as much detail as I could, as proof. Though so much of it was guessing.

“There’s no way to back this up,” Don finally sighed.

I agreed. “Not unless you alibi the entire town. Plus anyone who happened to be passing through. If you could even identify them.”

No one’s going to believe me.” And he turned back to the house.

Accidentally looking just beyond him, I suddenly asked, “Could you send Rick out here for a minute? And stay to watch. This might be something.”

“Rick!” he called.

And Rick appeared.

“Could you carefully pick that glass out of the thorns,” I asked him. “Without getting your fingerprints on it?”

Rick looked at Don. Don nodded. And Rick pulled a fresh pair of latex gloves out his pocket. He probably soon wished he hadn’t still been wearing his short-sleeved summer uniform, because he kind of bloodied his bare arm on the thorns.

“Unless I’m completely wrong,” I told Don, “that has Catlin’s fingerprints on it. He might have dropped it Monday night when he fell.”

“Tuesday morning,” Don corrected, and I could tell he was beginning to buy in.

“Exactly.”

“Let me talk with the guys from Boston.”

But before he left, he turned to Rick. “Run that back to the station and have it checked for prints. We’ll be right behind you.”

I waited for just a moment, until Don was opening the screen door.

“Do you need me with you?” I asked.

“You bet. You’re not leaving my sight.”

Inside, Don explained to the two Boston detectives that they needed just a little imagination. They laughed, and one of them said, “That'll get us tossed out of court.”

That was fine with me. Though I hoped it would never make it that far.