Free 65 Proof by Jack Kilborn Page B

clue.
    Since the door looked old, but the decorative trim around the frame appear new, I decided to remove a section of trim. After a full thirty seconds of searching for a nail to pull, I realized there were no nails holding the trim on.
    How interesting.
    Using the claw end of the hammer, I wedged off a piece of side trim. And in doing so, I solved the locked-room part of the mystery.
    Three gunshots exploded from the floor above, shattering my smugness. I tugged my .38 from my shoulder holster and sprinted up the stairs, flanked by Perez.
    “Herb!”
    Three more gunshots, impossibly loud. Coming from the room at the end of the hall. I crouched in the doorway, my pistol coming up.
    “Jack! All clear!” Herb stood by the stereo, a CD clutched in one hand, the other grasping his chest. “Damn, you almost gave me a heart attack.”
    I put two and two together quickly enough, but Officer Henry Perez wasn’t endowed with the same preternatural detecting abilities.
    “Where’s the gun?” he croaked, arms and legs locked in full Weaver stance. “Who’s got the gun?”
    “Easy, Officer.” I put a hand on his elbow and eased his arms down. “There is no gun.”
    Perez’s face wrinkled up. “No gun? That sounded just like…”
    Herb finished his sentence, “…the gunshots you heard when you arrived on the scene. I know. It’s all right here.”
    Herb held up the CD.
    “It’s a recording of gunshots,” I told Perez. “It was used to get you to break into the house. Probable cause. Or else you never would have gone in—the 911 call talked about a bad smell, but the corpse is fresh and there is no smell.”
    Perez seemed reluctant to holster his weapon. I ignored him, holding out my hand for the CD. It was a Maxell recordable CD-R. On the front, in written black marker, was the number 209. I held the disc up to the light, checking for prints. It looked clean.
    “Maybe this is one of those clues the dear, departed Edward Wyatt mentioned in his video.” Herb said. “You ready to get some lunch?”
    “I figured out how the doors were locked from the inside,” I said.
    We went downstairs and I showed Herb the fruits of my labors, prying off another piece of trim.
    “Smart. What made you think of it, Jack?”
    “The trim is glued on, rather than nailed. Which made me wonder why, and what it covered up.”
    “Impressive, Oh Great One. Did you also happen to notice the number?”
    “What number?”
    “Written on the back of the trim, in black marker.” Herb pointed at the number 847.
    “What did Wyatt say in his recording? About being a sharpie? What’s the most popular black marker?”
    “A Sharpie.” Herb grunted his disapproval. “Wyatt’s lucky he’s dead, because if he were still alive I’d smack him around for making us jump through these hoops.”
    “Are you saying you’d rather be interviewing a domestic battery?”
    “I’m saying my brain hurts. I’m going to need to watch a few hours of prime time to dumb myself back down. Isn’t that reality show on tonight? The one where the seven contestants eat live bugs on a tropical island to marry a millionaire who’s really a janitor? My IQ drops ten points each time I watch that show.”
    I stared at the black marker writing. “Eight four seven is a local area code. The two zero nine could be a prefix.”
    “Almost a phone number. Maybe there’s another clue with the last four digits.”
    We went back to the game of Clue, but nothing was written on or inside the box. Another ten minutes were wasted going through the pile of puzzle magazines.
    “Okay, what have we figured out so far?” I said, thinking out loud. “We figured out the gunshots that brought us to the scene, and we figured out the locked room part. But we still don’t know how he fell to his death in the living room.”
    “He must have jumped off a building somewhere else, and then his partner brought the body here and staged the scene.”
    I rubbed my eyes, getting a