Epilogue

"I've tried to reconstruct my notes and I just know I've almost figured out, but we're running out of time!" She said with an armful of papers leaving behind a scattered trail as she returned back into my office. "The gallery opens tomorrow at noon. We simply must solve the mystery before then!"

I knew I should just give her money back and move on, but something held me back like a three-point seat belt after narrowly avoiding a deer dashing across the road and hitting the old oak tree instead. I couldn't just hang up the magnifying glass with an unsolved case sullying my perfect record. Well, maybe my record wasn't exactly perfect, but it seemed wrong to quit on a loss.

Words of agreement passed my lips unbidden. There I was, committed to solving this last piece of the puzzle overnight, no matter what it took. We ordered some pizza, turned on the radio, and locked in for a long night of combing through clues and files we'd already seen so many times I could recite them by memory. There had to be something we were missing, because nothing made sense. It was like traveling to a far away event, only to spend the entire time holed up in a room running ourselves ragged in endless mental circles.

The clock seemed to tick louder and louder as the minutes stretched and the hours raced by. I almost nodded off at my desk until she reminded me: "No sleep 'til the case is solved!"

And then it happened, like a flash of lightning calling back to the first scene in a cheezy detective film that was filled with more cliches than a rom-com movie marathon. That "a-ha" moment that simply didn't make sense, until it suddenly did. It all came together like a shelf of alphabetically sorted detective novels that fell on the ground in just the right order.