“I’m coming to get you,” I said.
“Jerry. Promise me.”
“I’ll talk to you when I get there.”
I hung up.
Pembroke was watching me from across the lobby.
I went over.
“Clark left her a message.”
“When?”
“This morning. At the club where she sings.”
“What does he want?”
“To see her.”
“Where?”
“I’m going to find out.”
“And then you’re going to tell me.”
“Yea.”
He studied my face.
“Don’t make me regret this, Jerry.”
“I’m trying not to.”
* * *
Evelyn had changed back into the red dress.
It was still a little damp at the hem.
Lisa stood beside the door while I told Evelyn about Pembroke. I got as far as Clark’s name before she interrupted.
“You told him?”
“Yes.”
“I trusted you.”
“You told me who shot Musgrove. What did you think I was going to do with it?”
“Help him.”
“I haven’t met him yet.”
She turned away.
I let her.
Lisa looked at me, then at Evelyn.
“There’s something else,” I said. “We opened Musgrove’s safe.”
She turned back.
“There was a letter from Clark. He wrote that he’d killed Danny Price.”
Lisa put her hand on the back of the chair.
Evelyn looked at me for a long time.
“No.”
“He asked Musgrove to help him disappear. The letter’s dated four days before the fire.”
“You don’t know his handwriting.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Then you don’t know he wrote it.”
“I know what it says. And I know he’s alive.”
She sat down again. Her coat was over the arm of the chair. She pulled it into her lap.
“I want to ask him.”
“Where’s he meeting you?” I asked.
“Freelow’s. Two o’clock.”
“Alright.”
“He said to come alone.”
“You can tell him you brought help.”
“He won’t like it.”
“That makes two of you.”
She looked back at me.
I waited.
Finally, she reached for her coat.
“I want you to listen to him.”
“I will.”
“All of it.”
“Alright.”
* * *
I rang Pembroke before we left.
He wanted the address. I gave it to him.
“I’ll have men outside.”
“Keep them outside.”
“You’ve got ten minutes once he shows.”
“Give me enough time to hear him.”
“Ten minutes, Jerry.”
I put the receiver down.
Evelyn had heard my side of it.
“The police?”
“Outside.”
She looked at the door.
“You can still tell him what happened,” I said. “So can Clark.”
She pulled her coat tight.
We went downstairs.
* * *
Freelow’s looked smaller without the crowd.
Daylight came through the high windows. Most of the chairs were still on the tables. A man at the piano kept hitting the same note, listening, then hitting it again.
He looked up when Evelyn walked in.
“Afternoon, Evie.”
“Hello.”
His eyes moved to me.
“Friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
He went back to the piano.
We took a table near the back. Evelyn laid her coat over an empty chair and sat where she could see the door.
I sat beside her.
“Did you meet him here?” I asked.
“Clark?”
“Yea.”
“No. I wasn’t singing here then.”
“Where were you?”
“A smaller place.”
She straightened the coat on the chair.
“He used to come every night.”
I looked towards the piano.
“Every night?”
“Nearly.”
She smiled a little.
“Sometimes he’d be the only one listening.”
The front door opened.
Her hand stopped on the coat.
I knew the face from the photographs.
Clark LeClaire stood just inside the entrance. Dark suit. Short hair. Hat in his hand.
He saw Evelyn first.
Then me.
He came over.
For a moment Evelyn didn’t get up. She just looked at him.
Then she stood, and he put his arms around her.
I stayed in my chair.
“You alright?” he asked.
She nodded against his shoulder.
He held her a moment longer, then drew back.
“You get any sleep?”
“A little.”
“Where’d you stay?”
“With a friend.”
He brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
Then he looked at me.
“Who’s this?”
“Jerry Flint. He’s helping me.”
“Helping you how?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
Clark’s hand stayed on her shoulder.
“I thought I said alone.”
“I asked him to come,” Evelyn said.
“We need to talk.”
“We can talk.”
He looked at her.
“He knows, Clark.”
His hand came away.
“Knows what?”
“About last night.”
I pulled out the chair across from me.
“Sit down.”
He didn’t move.
Evelyn touched his sleeve.
“Please.”
He sat.
She sat beside him.
“Geronimo Flint,” I said.
“I heard her.”
“Then we’re introduced.”
He put his hat on the table.
“What did she tell you?”
“That you shot Musgrove.”
His eyes went to Evelyn.
“She also told me why,” I said.
“Then what do you want?”
“Your account.”
“Arthur reached for a gun.”
“You saw it?”
“I knew what he was doing.”
“That isn’t quite the same.”
“You weren’t there.”
“No. I wasn’t.”
He leaned back.
Across the room, the piano note sounded again.
Evelyn put her hand over his.
“Tell him about Arthur.”
Clark looked at her hand.
Then he looked at me.
“Arthur wasn’t the man people thought he was.”
“Few of us are, Mr. Hale.”
He went still.
Evelyn looked between us.
“What?”
“Martin Hale,” I said. “That’s the name he’s been using.”
Clark took his hand out from under hers.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“At the Tops.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Looking into a murder.”
He stared at me.
I let him.
“Arthur arranged it,” he said finally.
“The name?”
“Everything.”
“Why?”
“I was in trouble. He offered to help.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“Personal.”
“Must’ve been pretty personal. Your wife buried you.”
“Jerry,” Evelyn said.
Clark looked down at his hat.
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So Musgrove gave you a new name.”
“And work.”
“What kind?”
“Whatever he wanted done.”
“Did you want to do it?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m asking.”
He leaned forward.
“I think you’ve decided what I am already.”
“I think you’ve had two years to get your explanation ready.”
Evelyn turned to him.
“Why couldn’t you come home?”
His face changed when he looked at her. His voice did too.
“Because he would’ve ruined everything.”
“What everything?”
“Any chance we had.”
She watched him.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“When?”
He didn’t answer that.
Instead, he looked back at me.
“I told Arthur I was finished. He didn’t take it well.”
“Finished doing what? Frightening the owner of this place?”
Clark looked around the room.
“His assistant heard you refuse,” I said. “You wouldn’t go near her club.”
“People here knew me.”
“You’re here now.”
“Arthur’s dead now.”
Evelyn was watching him.
“He wanted you to come here?”
“To make the owner pay. I said no. He called you instead.”
“To tell me you were alive?”
“To show me what would happen if I refused him again.”
He looked back at me.
“I went upstairs to put a stop to it.”
“Was that before or after you searched his apartment?”
His jaw tightened.
“He had things of mine.”
“The ring?”
“What?”
“You took a ring off him.”
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
Clark saw it.
“He’d taken enough from me.”
“So you took something back.”
“Yes.”
“What did the key open?”
He stopped.
The fellow at the piano got up and went through a door beside the stage.
For the first time since we’d come in, the room was quiet.
“They opened the safe,” I said.
Clark’s eyes stayed on mine.
“When?”
“This morning.”
“What was in it?”
“You tell me.”
“Did you read the papers?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Clark. Look at me.”
He didn’t turn.
“What did you see?”
“Your letter about Daniel Price.”
He looked at Evelyn.
She was waiting for him.
“Jerry told me,” she said. “Did you write it?”
“Arthur made me.”
“Made you write what?”
“What he wanted. I went to him for help. He said there wouldn’t be any unless I put it on paper.”
“Did you kill Danny?”
Clark looked down at his hands.
“We fought. I didn’t go there to kill him.”
Evelyn drew her hand into her lap.
“You thought I was seeing him.”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
“He was helping me.”
“I know that now.”
I leaned forward.
“‘Let her think I’m dead.’ Musgrove made you write that too?”
“All of it.”
“Four days before the fire.”
“He told me it was the only way. Then he kept the letter. Every time I tried to leave, he brought it out again.”
Evelyn looked towards me.
“So he had something on him.”
“Yea,” I said. “He did.”
She turned back to Clark.
“But Arthur’s dead now.”
“I just told you.”
“Then why did you leave me in the alley?”
“I had things to settle.”
“You could’ve come with me.”
“It wasn’t safe.”
“You tried to get upstairs again this morning,” I said.
He sat back.
“Who told you that?”
“The officer who stopped you.”
Evelyn’s hand moved towards his, then stopped on the table.
“You went back?”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“There are things you don’t understand.”
“You said he was the reason you couldn’t come home. What was stopping you this morning?”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?”
He glanced towards the entrance.
I looked too.
Nobody had come in.
“Clark.”
He turned back to her.
“Are the police looking for me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Evelyn drew a breath.
“But you can explain.”
He looked at her.
“You’ll come with us, won’t you?”
“Where?”
“To the police. Tell them what happened.”
“No.”
She seemed surprised by how quickly he said it.
“Jerry can come. He’ll tell them what I told him.”
“Evelyn.”
“If they know I didn’t do it—”
“They’ll put me away.”
“But you said Arthur was going to shoot us.”
“He was.”
“Then tell them.”
He reached for her hand.
“You have to trust me.”
She let him take it.
I checked the clock above the bar.
Then she spoke again.
“What am I supposed to tell them?”
Clark rubbed his thumb over her fingers.
“What you told them before.”
“I haven’t told the police anything.”
“Then keep it that way.”
“They think I killed him.”
“We’ll work something out.”
“What?”
He looked at me.
“I need to speak to my wife alone.”