Luke Hodgson was another of the private investigators who found themselves drawn to the case.
Luke's path had been particularly circuitous. In another lifetime he'd been a military chaplain. In another lifetime he'd had both his legs intact. That was no longer the case.
These days Luke hobbled about on a leg and a prosthetic that bothered him the more he put weight on it, whenever he pushed himself on his rounds. He was another visitor from Portland, and although he normally did travel in his beat-up Datsun, a gift from his old man from yet another lifetime, lately he'd also been making due with the young woman who'd recently signed on to work at his office as an intern, Monica, a whole saga itself that would require more attention than some might be willing to lend it, but suffice it to say, she routinely ended up doing the driving for both of them, in her equally fashionable station wagon. Once in Berlin, though, he found himself putting pressure on the stump as he hobbled about town.
Wendy Webster had hired Luke, although he'd immediately dismissed her as a meddler just looking to make a name for herself. No, of far greater interest was Matt White, over whom he quickly set about a surveillance schedule with Monica, the dull, ordinary work of the trade that often got overlooked.
Sitting in the car, he had plenty of time to think. The Meadows case was a mess. Too many had already jumped to all the wrong conclusions, all the seemingly obvious ones, and the narrative had solidified around Bishop and Malkovich over a lot of nonsense Luke had found easy to dismiss. There were a few on the right track, though, as he looked over his notes. The dog sitter, for one, of all people, one of the town's cops, even his own colleague, his sometime rival Perry Shepherd. Roy, though, had been completely wrong, as always.
The business concerning the sword, though, that had certainly interested Luke. His interviews with Kay Poole had been particularly informative. His stump left Luke continually dwelling on his own war experiences. He wasn't so crass as to compare what he'd gone through to the Holocaust, although his personality would've certainly suggested so to many of the citizens he'd talked to. No, Luke had certainly not ingratiated himself in Berlin...
As always, he pressed forward anyway. He knew White was his man. Monica slipped into the passenger seat, holding, depressingly, another paper cup of coffee from that diner, rather than a Guinness. She asked him for updates. There weren't any. White was predictably elusive. That's what they'd said about Malkovich, but they'd been wrong. The relationship Malkovich had actually had with Meadows versus the one White had clearly wanted, which was obvious to anyone paying attention to what he said, when he bothered agreeing to talk at all...
There was bound to be a break in the case. At least Luke could rest easy in the knowledge he wasn't completely alone this time.
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