by Gregory Ashe
Shaw put his hip into the fire door, forcing it open a few extra inches, and said, “Maybe you’ll remember that next time we argue about how many members of Parliament England has.”
“You looked that up on Wikipedia while we were arguing. You didn’t know it off the top of your head.”
“I used my resources.”
“It’s Theseus and Ariadne,” North said. “The labyrinth. The minotaur. Did you know that?”
Shaw just shook his head.
“See,” North said, giving Patrick a friendly clap on the back. “He doesn’t know everything.”
“Maybe not,” Shaw said, following the two men into the warren of connected buildings that would eventually lead them back outside. “But ask North if he knows why she was holding a pinecone.”
Chapter 2
DETECTIVE JADON RECK was coming out of the Circuit Attorney’s office when North and Shaw walked Truck up the hallway. Jadon looked bad; North noticed the raccoon rings, the shaggy hair, the painful thinness in the face mixed with hectic color, as though Jadon might be running a low-grade fever. North thought back to the cuts on Jadon’s chest, made with a razor, spelling out a two-word warning: He’s next. The threat had been delivered to Shaw, and its object had been North.
North tried to focus on all this as Shaw mumbled a hello and looked at the floor, unable to meet Jadon’s eyes. He thought about the bloody lines, the photograph pinned to Jadon’s shirt, the hollow fear in the detective’s eyes. But he also thought about the way Jadon had looked holding Shaw’s hand a few months before, and he had a hard time caring about a few little cuts.
“Who’s this?” Jadon said.
“Truck,” Truck said brightly, trying to offer a hand before remembering the zip cuffs. “I’m non-binary.”
“He’s only recently non-binary,” North said. “The change happened right when we caught up with him, I think. What are you doing here?”
“I’m a detective with the Metropolitan PD,” Jadon said, a dry smile flicking across his lips as his gaze slid to Shaw for an instant. Shaw, in contrast, had fixated on the peeling laminate flooring and didn’t seem to notice. “Turns out every once in a while we arrest the bad guys ourselves, instead of subcontracting.”
“I think subcontractors get a check,” North said. “I just got interrogated.”
Jadon didn’t seem to hear him; his gaze pulled toward Shaw again, this time without wavering. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey!” Truck answered with that same chipper tone.
“Not you,” North muttered.
“Hey,” Shaw said, raising his head just long enough to reveal the blush staining the sharp, perfect symmetry of his features. “I, uh, I haven’t found anything. You know. About the people who hurt you. I haven’t found anything at all, actually. That license plate that I thought was a lead, it’s still a total bust. I can’t find the cop’s widow anywhere. And that photograph you had when . . .” Shaw’s voice died. “I’m still looking, though. I’ll find them, Jadon. I will.”
“Oh,” Truck stage-whispered. “They’re having a moment.”
“Shut up,” North said, giving him a shake.
Jadon laughed softly, raising one hand toward Shaw’s cheek. Then he checked himself; he didn’t turn his head to look at North, but his whole body shifted slightly, as though he were suddenly aware of something he had forgotten. His hand dropped, and he said, “You don’t need to do that. Like I told your boyfriend, sometimes the Metropolitan PD catches one or two bad guys on their own.”
Shaw’s gaze dropped again.
“You look thin,” Jadon said, and this time he did touch Shaw, chucking him under the chin. “Don’t tell me you tried going vegan again?”
Shaw just shook his head; he looked close to tears. North studied the man he loved, taking in details that had somehow eluded his notice until now. Jadon was right: Shaw did look thin. How had that escaped North? And why did it have to be Jadon who pointed it out?
“He tried going pegan, actually,” North said.
“What’s pegan?” Truck asked.
“Paleo and vegan. Lasted about two days.”
“I missed tacos,” Shaw whispered.
Jadon laughed again. His fingers still cupped Shaw’s chin, not stroking, not even moving, but there. And warm, North imagined. And intentional. “Yeah, well, I tried going gluten free and just about shot my boyfriend when he brought home a loaf of sourdough, so I get it.”
“Your boyfriend?” North said. The words sounded wiry and high, but North barely noticed. Jadon still had his fingers on Shaw. Still touching him.
Something in North’s voice must have penetrated because Shaw raised his head, lifting away from Jadon’s touch, and Jadon dropped his hand to his side. Shaw stared at North, blinking reddened eyes, but curious now. As though he had seen something North had been trying to hide.
“These guys are boyfriends,” Truck announced loudly enough for most of the people west of the Mississippi to hear him. “They’re hot. North is the mean kind of hot, like he’d probably want to choke me out while he fucked me. Shaw is the sweet kind of hot. I bet he lets North choke him out. Do you, Shaw? I would. But I’d take his watch in the morning. Do you even wear a watch, North?”
“Yeah,” Jadon said, eyeing North up and down. “He does look like he’d like to choke a guy while he bottoms out. Good call, Truck.”
“First of all,” Shaw said, “he only ever—”
“No,” North said. “Nope. No way.”
“I was just going to—”
“Absolutely not. Bye, Jadon.”
A grin danced in Jadon’s darkly sandy eyes; North thought again about those fingers chucking Shaw under the chin, the way they lingered. He thought about the noise wood makes when you snap it in winter.
“I’m not quite done with our friend the CA. Just stepped out for some coffee. Maybe I’ll hang around and watch the city’s finest private investigators do their job.”
“Oh, they’re not the finest,” Truck said. “Do you know Eddie Belfiore? He’s so hot, and he runs this bail-bond business, but sometimes he takes investigative work, and one time he ran me down because I took a judge’s driver’s license, and Eddie had me in the back of his Dodge and just bent me over the middle seat and—” Ze glanced at them and shook his dark curls. “I, um, forget what happened. But he’s really good. Better than these two guys. Sorry, Shaw.”
“It’s ok, Truck.”
“Sorry, North.”
“That really stings, but I think I’ll live.”
“You will,” Truck said, trying to pat North’s arm with his hands still cuffed. “You’re such a good detective, North. You’re, like, almost the best.”
“Thanks. That means a lot, Truck.”
Truck opened his mouth, obviously encouraged by the response, but before he could say anything else, the door to the CA’s office opened. The woman who looked out was small, severe in a black suit and with minimal makeup. Her olive skin looked sallow in the fluorescent lighting, and her dark hair was pulled back too tightly, giving her face a strained look. North had dealt with Anna Dzeko a few times, and he always walked away from the encounters thinking of the first time he’d ever heard her name: in a story about a barroom brawl, and the two men who had been hospitalized after they tried to assault Dzeko. North understood how they felt; he always felt like he’d walked away from ten rounds in the ring after talking to Dzeko. But she paid, and she kept throwing jobs their way, and that was what mattered.
“Whatever you think you’re pulling here—” she began, waving a three-ringed binder at Jadon. Then she took in North and Shaw and Truck, and an icy mask descended over her fury. “He’s the one?”
“Go on, Truck,” North said. “Tell her all about how you wore the officer’s badge.”
Dzeko flicked a small hand. “I don’t care about that. Do you know how many homes he’s robbed? Homes owned by police officers, by the way. Did he s
ee—”
“I’m not a he,” Truck said.
“What?”
“My pronouns are ze and hir.”
“What is this, some kind of joke?”
“No,” North said. “Donkey dick doesn’t know how to make jokes. He’s only good for one thing, really.”
“Ze’s only good for one thing,” Shaw corrected.
“Thanks, Shaw,” Truck said. “I knew you’d understand. Because of your hair.”
Jadon started to laugh, and Shaw touched the bun of chestnut hair pulled to the back of his head. “I don’t—I’m not—”
“Donkey dick,” North said, giving Truck another shake. “Ms. Dzeko doesn’t care about the badge, although I think the Metropolitan PD would like it back. She wants to talk to you about the break-ins. Shaw and I told her that wasn’t your thing. Not your style. But we also told her you probably knew who was behind it. Tell her all about that, get deposed, and you can walk out of here.”
Jadon was watching the conversation with undue interest, North thought. It was a little tiresome. Even a little irritating. It was maybe even a little fucking annoying.
Truck was making a whining noise in his throat, his eyes going to Shaw. “Nobody would rob cops, right? It’s probably a misunderstanding. Nobody would be stupid enough to rob cops. I wouldn’t be dumb enough.”
“That’s saying something,” North said.
“Shaw, make him be nice.”
“It’s a pretty good deal,” Shaw said. “Ms. Dzeko’s got lots of stuff that she can charge you with, and you don’t want to go back to prison. Just talk to her.”
“No way,” Truck said, shaking his head. “No, sir. No way.”
“Just tell her what she wants to know.”
Truck hesitated. “But I’m not talking about the cop, though. He was really nice to me. He let me wear his badge.” A hard glance at North. “He didn’t call me donkey dick.”
“That’s what you are, though,” North said, giving him a shove toward Dzeko. “Try not to sit on your balls.”
“Why is he cuffed?” Dzeko said.
Shaw sighed and shook his head.
“Ask him,” North said.
Truck turned his face into his shoulder, his curls swaying with the movement.
“He likes it,” North said after a moment dragged past. “A little too much.”
Staring at the men collected outside her office, Dzeko shook her head and said, “Fine. Whatever. Get in my office; I need to talk to you, and then we need to get you deposed. Reck, don’t move your ass. We’re not finished.”
And just like that, Truck and Dzeko disappeared into the office, and North, Shaw, and Jadon were left alone with the peeling laminate and the smell of lavender floor polish and the overhead thrum of the fluorescents.
“She’s a cop-killer,” Jadon said, jerking his thumb at Dzeko’s closed door. “That’s the word at the station, anyway. She’s been in office, how long? Ten years? Didn’t care about police corruption enough to blow her nose with an IA report. But now she’s got a real challenger in the upcoming election, and she’s got to put on a big show. Bad time to be a cop.”
“Bad time to be a dirty cop,” Shaw said.
With a sour smile, Jadon shrugged. “I don’t think that part matters to her.” He jerked his thumb at the office again. “She had you guys pull in Patrick Monaghan?”
“You know Truck?” North said.
“I’m on the LGBT task force,” Jadon said with a roll of his sandy-dark eyes. “Work that task force for two days and you’ll get a complaint about Patrick. He’s a frequent flyer down at the jail, but half the guys, maybe more, end up not pressing charges. I’d like to see something serious stick to him; I don’t buy the whole babe-in-the-woods act.”
“He’s a nice guy,” Shaw said. “He’s just really simple.”
“He’s an absolute idiot,” North said. “Trust me: it’s not an act. But he doesn’t deserve to sit in a cell because he likes to pick up pretty things after he’s banged away a trick’s problems.”
Jadon’s expression was thoughtful. “You really think so?”
“That he bangs away their problems? I don’t have firsthand experience. Maybe you should find out for all three of us.”
“Ricky would kill me,” Jadon said, and North caught the slight tic of Shaw’s head at the new name. “But I was talking about the other part. You don’t think a crime, any crime, deserves punishment?”
“It’s like punishing a kid who doesn’t understand what he’s doing,” North said. “And why am I defending that donkey dick?”
“But he’s an adult. Legally. And he’s responsible for what he does.”
Shaw shrugged. “Most of the time, it’s only a few hundred dollars. It’s not like he robs them blind.”
Jadon fixed Shaw with a long look. Then he said, “The way I see it, you can have justice or you can have mercy. You can be strong or you can be soft. You can’t have it both ways, not when it comes to the law. Anything else, you’re just bullshitting yourself and playing favorites.”
North slung an arm around Shaw’s shoulders, pulling the other man to his side, close enough that, North hoped, the message was clear. “Well, our work is done. For today, anyway.”
“How’s the agency?” Jadon asked.
“Good,” Shaw said, looking directly at Jadon with a clarity that surprised North. “Really good, actually. We’ve got a big client on the hook. It could change the whole operation.”
“If we land them,” North said.
Jadon smiled. “That’s great.”
It was the smile that did North in; Jadon, the dumb fuck, wasn’t getting the message. So North laid his hand on Shaw’s belly, low, possessive, pressing just enough to pull Shaw’s shirt tight and reveal the slender musculature of his torso. The smile on Jadon’s face grew brittle and flaked away. Then, and only then, did North let himself grin.
“It’s great seeing you, Jay,” North said.
Jadon ignored him. “Bye, Shaw. Eat something, will you? And stop stressing about . . . what happened. It’s not your responsibility; I’ll figure it out.”
Shaw looked like he was struggling with what to say, but North tugged and said, “Let’s get out of here before Truck—”
A crash came from inside Dzeko’s office, and the door flew open. Dzeko emerged, dripping with coffee, and pointed a furious finger at Shaw and North. Through the open doorway, North could see Truck trying to pour a cup of coffee with hir hands still cuffed behind hir back; the remainder in the pot was spilling steadily across Dzeko’s desk.
“Yep,” Shaw said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 3
AT THE BOREALIS OFFICE, the dog was barking. A gift from a client who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—pay his bill, the puppy, barely eight weeks old, had turned Shaw’s life to hell. Shaw paused outside the brick building; the September sun painted his back, and the day was still hot enough to shimmer above the asphalt and turn the tar patches tacky. Benton Park, on the south side of St. Louis, was rough without being desolate—a rusted-out bike was chained to the stop sign at the end of the block, for example, but the bike hadn’t been stripped for parts the way it would have been in another part of the city. Down the street, the sound of traffic announced the main thoroughfare on Gravois. From the other direction came the whine of a weedwhacker; judging by how the small motor struggled, Shaw guessed that Ulises was trying to do his whole front yard with the string trimmer again. Maybe he should just walk down there and offer to help.
The dog was still barking.
“He’s not going to vanish,” North said, “no matter how long you wait.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Come on; I’m sweating.”
“I like you sweating.”
“You are being a coward. Open the door.”
“Maybe we could get a hotel room tonight. You said you wanted decent air conditioning.”
; “Shaw,” North said.
Shaw put his hand on the door, but he still didn’t open it.
From inside came another series of yips, and then Pari’s voice, almost as high-pitched as the dog’s: “Absolutely not. Don’t you dare. That shoe is worth more than your mangy life. Put it down. Put it down!”
“Before she kills him, please,” North said.
“You said you didn’t care if he died. You said you’d throw him in a wood-chipper if he chewed on your boots.”
“I said I’d kill him myself if he chewed my boots. I don’t want Pari killing him. Door, please. Now.”
Shaw pushed it open and stepped inside. The outer office of Borealis Investigations was essentially a waiting room: two padded chairs with duct-taped upholstery; a large desk with a computer for Pari, the nominal secretary; and several filing cabinets. A door at the back led to the kitchen; another door led to Shaw and North’s office; and a third door, at the end of a hallway, led to the garage.
Currently, Pari was facing down the puppy. The little dog growled and barked and shook his head; his mane of white fur partially hid the shoe he was chewing, but it was obviously Pari’s and also obviously very expensive. Pari, poised awkwardly in only one shoe, looked like she was considering darting forward to rescue the mangled piece of leather. For a woman who had been viciously attacked and stabbed only a few months before and who had lost both romantic partners, she looked like she was doing surprisingly well—but, like Jadon, she was showing the wear of recent events.
“It’s not worth it,” Shaw said. “He got one of my Birkenstocks, and then he punctured an artery when I tried to take it away.”
“You’re looking pretty good,” North said, shouldering past Shaw, “for someone who supposedly suffered massive blood loss.”
“Ok,” Shaw said. “Maybe it wasn’t an artery. But he’s still a menace.”
“That shoe,” Pari said, her voice rising, “is the exact same color as the shell in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.”
North squatted in front of the growling Löwchen. He held out his hand. “Drop.”