A Study In Murder

?“He awake? I’m gonna need a statement,” DeStadler ordered.

?“In that case,” Mark groaned, “I’m unconscious.”

?This got a chuckle from the detective, who sat in the chair I had vacated.

?“Went through that digital recording you made,” DeStadler told me. “Good job. You got him to confess to everything.”

?“Thanks,” I replied.

?“We checked on that gun he had. Same make and model as Mark’s. When the forensic guys looked in the barrel of Mark’s gun, they found scratches that could only be made by the same silencer. Both the silencer and his gun were illegal.”

?“Wait a minute,” Mark grunted. “I still don’t understand.” He looked at me. “How’d you figure it out? And how did you get DeStadler to come with you? And that SWAT team—”

?I had to smile. “A bit of investigation to pull together my suspicions, some help from Uncle Louie and my accountant, and a lot of laying it out for the detective.”

?“You didn’t lay it all out for me,” DeStadler mocked jovially. “The financial data is what made the difference. Using the account numbers, our guys and her accountant were able to track down where the money ended up. He put it through a lot of back doors and blind alleys, but we were able to trace it.”

?“What will happen to the money?” I wondered.

?DeStadler shrugged. “It will be returned to all the people that Randall Lawrence stole it from in the first place.”

?“Even Allen Alexander?”

?DeStadler nodded.

?“Well, I guess it couldn’t be a perfect ending,” Mark griped and gazed up at me. I shivered. It was one of those looks that felt like a caress. “I still don’t see how you found Stewart.”

?I exchanged a glance with DeStadler and spoke, “I ran the names on the list through a search engine, see what turned up. However, I got lucky when I picked the correct name first.”

?“But John Stewart’s name wasn’t on it,” Mark recalled.

?“That’s because that isn’t his nam

e,” DeStadler chuckled. “It was his alias.”

?“What?”

?I leaned a little closer. “Remember how I mentioned that the sign at his tobacco booth had the words too close together?”

?Mark looked chagrined. “Vaguely. What about it?”

?“For some reason it stuck with me. I recalled that one of the names on the list was ‘John Yeolde’, and when I looked him up, I found a man with a background in internet security. I was able to trace some old press releases, and when I found a photo, I realized he was the same man who ran the tobacco booth.”

?My point became suddenly clear to Mark. “So all the time we thought it was Ye Olde Mysterious Tobacco Shoppe—” he started.

?“But it was actually Yeolde Mysterious Tobacco Shoppe. He’d had that sign made with his real name. I can only assume he created ‘John Stewart’ and got the business cards with that name when he came up with the scheme.”

?“I guess the strategy was predicated on us actually being at the conference.”

?“No,” I corrected. “He planned to do it anyway. But he was clever. When he saw you were going to be there, he was sure you would be the perfect person to set up for the crime.”

?“How could he know I would come by his booth?”

?“Candy was his point man—uh woman.”

?Mark’s mouth dropped open. “That’s right! She suggested I visit the Marketplace.”

?I nodded. “And I am sure that if you didn’t go to the booth, she might have brought you the pipe later.”