Page 68 of The Best Trick

I tried to act cool, but secretly I was thrilled to have been the one to catch on to that first.

“So wheredoeshe live?” Zeus asked. “And is that where Doris is living?” He checked his watch. “See if he left the shop. If not, we could double back and follow him.”

Odin got on the phone to call Harold’s shop. He asked whoever it was on the other end if they could give him a quote for repairing his violin. After a brief conversation, he hung up. “Harold’s not at his store. He went home for the day.”

“Damn,” Zeus said. “I really want to search his place—his real place.”

Odin sunk into the couch. “Is it possible he was in on the instrument appraisal scam?”

“But he wasn’t in on it from the start,” I reminded him. “Ferdinand said that when Harold found a wrongly appraised instrument at Wilson’s shop, he got in Wilson’s face.”

“Did he make Wilson cut him in?” Odin asked. “And now is he worried about being exposed? That would be a motive for him to dognap Doris.”

“Sure would,” Zeus said.

“Don’t forget, he wanted to direct our mind to the gambling,” Thor said. “Maybe to throw us off the scent.”

“Wait,” I said, mind reeling. “I just realized something that’s super weird!”

My guys all turned to me. I smiled and held up my pointer finger. “Remember how Clarice seemed to have packed up all of Wilson’s stuff? And she had a stack of pictures in the corner, and she gestured to them when she talked about Wilson, as if to suggest that those pictures belonged to him?”

“Yeah, I definitely got that sense,” Odin said. “And those bags of men's clothes on the stairway. His stuff was outta there.”

“Exactly. She was totes through with him and cleaning out his stuff. But what picture did she keep on the wall? Did you notice anything in her house that she left up that was very distinctly his?”

“The UFC picture in the foyer,” Thor said.

I nodded. “Right. No way was that hers.”

“She left up that one picture in a place of prominence,” Thor said. “Like she wanted us to see it.”

“And you asked about it,” Odin said. “Would she have said something about it if we hadn't asked? I’m thinking yeah. She wanted to talk about it.”

“Right?” I said. “Seriously, if you’re dumping a guy and erasing him from the home, the first thing that goes is the biggest and most prominent picture of a sport he loves that you don’t care about.”

“Nice work,” Odin said. “She leaves that one picture. She was quick to supply all of those details about his obsession with the UFC. And she’s the one who mentioned gambling first. She was like, ‘does he have a girlfriend? A gambling addiction?’”

I smiled at Odin. Things were getting interesting.

“Question,” I said, because I was on a roll! “Why would both Harold and Clarice be so interested in making sure we know Wilson's a big gambler?”

Odin beamed at me. “I say we ask Clarice.” Everybody agreed.

We headed to Wilson’s shop, thinking to surprise Clarice. Zeus parked across the street. You could see her inside, standing behind the counter with an employee.

“Who’s going in?” Thor asked.

“Hold up. Got an idea.” Odin pulled out his phone and called Clarice on her cell. After a bit of chat where she was obviously asking about the case—always something a guilty party does—he asked whether we could come into the shop and ask a few more questions.

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m in my car on my way to the dentist.” She agreed to speak tomorrow at the shop, and they hung up.

“Super-spy sleuth skills, activate!” I teased Odin.

Moments later, she hurried out the door and got into her car.

We pulled out and followed her at a discreet distance. She got onto the expressway, heading west and then down the coast.

“Quite a ways to go for a dentist,” Odin said after we’d been driving for what seemed like forever. Finally she pulled into the driveway of a beautiful, well-kept Craftsman in an extra-swanky part of Manhattan Beach. It had grand french windows and a perfectly manicured lawn.

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