Everything remained dark and judging from the thunk of his landing and the surrounding aroma he’d be willing to bet he was back in a dumpster. Somehow the familiarity gave him comfort. What is it with dumpsters and this guy.

“Hello Shadow Guy?” he whispered.

Nothing, not a sound.

“Hmm, well I guess he assumed I’d be ok. I am a hard boiled detective after all,” he thought trying to convince himself.

Then convincing turned to pondering. And people said he wasn’t a deep thinker.

His first case has morphed into a multitude of problems, mysteries really.

Mystery sounded much better than problem. It seemed to have less stress associated with it.

The first mystery was where was he going to sleep tonight after this clean sneak.

It was pretty clean he thought. He left nothing behind. He even cleaned his finger prints off the doorknobs and other obvious places.

It’s too damn cold to sleep outside without warmer clothes, and a blanket, and a fire and a roof….

The next mystery is who the heck was after him? He thought he had that narrowed down a bit. All the people that would be upset at him originated with that little issue about missing merchandise and he knew who was at the beginning of that line.

The third mystery was , wait, there is a fourth but that can wait.

The third is the question that started this whole adventure in the first place.

His first case. Is Mr Steven Simpson stepping out on the missus? He’ll just need to get in touch with the trustafarian that followed him so he can verify his place of employment and possible after work activities. The fourth and not the least important is who or what the heck is this shadow guy? For now he’ll assume he is a good guy because he’s saved his bacon a few times.

Now he had to get down to brass tacks. He could probably find a flop house who’s proprietor he did not recognize. Not a guarantee that he won’t get rousted but it’s too cold to expect a guarantee. There was still a one lingering thought in the back of his mind.

“Who is that shadow guy?”

It was time to find a safe warm place to sleep. He was getting too familiar with dumpsters.

Just north of downtown Boulder, there exists a bike/walking trail meandering through an underpass festooned with a mural. The mural is an homage to the nature around it. In one corner of the mural appeared a new addition out of place with the rest of the mural. Surrounded by mountains was a lone silhouette, a shadow perhaps, of a figure sporting a fedora.