Page 74 of Full Contact

“You were.”

He looked at me over the coffee, and I looked back long enough that the toast nearly burned.

“Whose shoe?” Mark asked.

“Callahan’s. He came in for the game in his suit and couldn’t find his phone. He started unpacking his bag onto whatever surface was nearby.”

“And he forgot.”

“He found the phone in his jacket pocket. Then he went to put his shoes on and he only had one.”

Mark smiled. “What did he do?”

“He stood in the middle of the room holding his one shoe and asked who’d taken the other. He named three suspects. He was very firm about Varga.”

“Was Varga offended?”

“He was offended that anyone would think he’d hide only one shoe. He said it was amateur work, and that if he’d done it, Callahan would be looking for both shoes and his car.”

Mark laughed into his coffee.

“How long before someone told him?”

“I took the picture first. Then Pratt pointed at the refrigerator. He didn’t say anything. He just pointed.”

“And Callahan?”

“He grabbed it, put it on, and told Varga he still had doubts.”

Mark wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“How’s the route?” I asked. “The one Dana finished while Felix was buying water.”

He looked up, surprised I remembered. Dana had climbed on Sunday with Felix, and Mark had been on the phone with her about it, on and off, since Monday.

“Still disputed. She says he owes her a smoothie. She says the bet was whoever finished the route first. He says if nobody saw it, it didn’t happen.”

“Somebody must have seen it.”

“Somebody did.” He scrolled and turned the phone back to me. “She asked the kid at the front desk to take a picture.”

Dana was near the top of a gray wall, one hand clamped on a narrow hold, the other arm stretched out to point at a hold above her head. She was grinning down at whoever was holding the camera.

I enlarged the picture. “How did she get to that one? It’s a long way from the last hold.”

“She doesn’t reach it from there.” Mark leaned in and pointed. “See the small one by her hip? She brings her left foot up onto it, really high, and stands up on that leg. Then the top hold is only a few inches away.”

“She stands up on that?”

“On the edge of her shoe. It’s about the width of a pencil.”

“Did you ever date somebody who climbed?” I asked.

“Briefly. We were very good at finding somewhere to have dinner after the gym. Less good at finding anything to talk about once we sat down. What about you? Anyone from hockey?”

“No. Andrew was a physical therapist, but he didn’t work with the team.”

“Andrew?”