by Gregory Ashe
“So we poke around,” Shaw said, “without looking like we’re poking around.”
“Without anybody so much as getting a whiff that we’re looking into the shooting. Agreed?”
It took another moment. “Agreed.” Then Shaw grinned. “But before they make another pass, let’s move the car.”
So they pulled the GTO four blocks away and hiked back. On the front door, they found a note from Ricky. Haven’t heard from you. I’m worried. Call me. Shaw peeled it off, read it, and couldn’t get it to stick to the door again. He ended up folding it and wedging it in the screen door’s frame; he used a little more force than necessary, and the paper ended up a crumpled mess.
North kept his face perfectly expressionless when he met Shaw’s gaze.
“What?”
North showed empty hands and shrugged.
They went around the side of the house. Shaw dug a key out from underneath a cement splash block, and they entered through the back door.
“Guess Jadon didn’t tell Ricky about the hidden key.”
“Don’t,” Shaw said. “It’s not cute.”
They moved through the house quietly and efficiently, the way they’d tossed houses before while looking for skips or searching for clues of infidelity or any of the other petty cases that came their way. North couldn’t help noticing that Jadon had a nice house; aside from the bars on the windows, tastefully hidden on the inside by sheers, the place could have come out of a men’s fashion magazine: lots of slate and leather and wood, lots of hard lines and angles, lots of expensive furniture. Like the expensive suits Jadon wore. Like the expensive haircuts he had. And suddenly, North wasn’t so sure this case had only two possibilities. Maybe the shooting had a third explanation, one Shaw really wouldn’t like.
The spare bedroom doubled as a study. A desk was pushed out from the wall at an angle; paper had spilled onto the floor—missing the mesh wastebasket by a good distance. The normal detritus that accumulated around offices lay mixed in with everything else: paperclips, rubber bands, highlighters, a pair of scissors, a bulletin board broken in half, as though someone had ripped it off the wall—yep, the anchors were still hanging in the plaster—and snapped it in two. Using the back of his hand to lift one of the pieces, North saw that whatever had been on the board, it was now gone.
“It wasn’t here.”
North looked at Shaw.
“The attack. They didn’t do it here. No splatter. No sign that the paramedics were here. I mean, who reported the shooting? Where did he get shot? How did he survive?” Shaw blew out a frustrated breath. “Why don’t we know anything?”
North moved back through the house, taking everything in for a second time, reconsidering. When he returned to the bedroom/office, Shaw had on a pair of gloves and was picking through the wastebasket.
“You’re right,” North said, accepting the pair of disposable gloves that Shaw held out to him. “I don’t think he was attacked here.”
“Look at this.”
North paged through the sheaf of documents quickly first and then slowly the second time. He whistled. “Shit.”
“Still think it was a suicide?”
Not answering, North took a moment to reconsider what he held in his hands: an extensive report on Jadon Reck, his movements, his friends within the police department, his association with Borealis Investigations, his family, on and on. Several pages had been flagged, whether by Jadon or by someone else, where specific police investigations were named and the possibility of wrongdoing on Jadon’s part was raised.
“Maybe,” North said.
Shaw’s head snapped up. “What? You’re kidding, right? I mean, there it is in black and white. Somebody was after Jadon. It might be Internal Affairs. It might be somebody else.”
“Taylor and Waggener?”
“Yes. I know you think I’m stupid for believing that, but yes. Or it could have been another branch of law enforcement. Dzeko, for example. Jadon told us she goes after cops; she’s a cop-hunter. That’s what he said.”
North didn’t interrupt, but he remembered that conversation with Jadon, and he knew Shaw was wrong. Jadon hadn’t said she was a cop-hunter. He’d said Dzeko was a cop-killer.
“It could be the FBI. Christ, it could be a private citizen who hired somebody like us to put together a dossier on Jadon.”
“How did he get this?”
“No clue, North. Absolutely no idea. But he had it. And he knew they were coming for him. Now we know it too.” Shaw steadied himself on the wastebasket, and again North noticed the thinness of his face, the pallor, the raccoon rings. Some of it was from a rough night, but not all of it. How long had this thing with the Slasher been taking bites out of Shaw? A month? Two months, since Jadon got cut up and left as a message? Since Matty? Years? Christ, had this been festering for years and North had been oblivious? “He needs protection. If those cops want to finish him, they’ve got the perfect opportunity. He’s unconscious in a hospital; they could make it look like natural causes.”
“Ok,” North said. “But it could play the other way too.”
“I know,” Shaw said, reaching into the wastebasket to collect another piece of paper—a receipt.
“If he was dirty—”
“No,” Shaw said. “We’re not going down that road.”
North had to bite the inside of his mouth to keep from arguing. “Maybe this freaked him out. Maybe he was already on the edge—”
“Because I dumped him.”
“Because of a lot of things, Shaw. And maybe this was the final straw. It’s a possibility.”
“I said I know. I’m not stupid.”
North sighed.
“The rest of these are utility bills,” Shaw said, gesturing to the papers in the wastebasket. “But he threw away the report, and he also threw away a receipt from a place called Precinct Blue. Have you heard of it?”
“It’s a cop bar in Columbus Square.”
“Why is there a receipt for a cop bar in the trash with that dossier?”
“Because he was a cop, Shaw.”
“I dated him for two months, and he never mentioned Precinct Blue to me.”
North folded the dossier.
“Don’t do that,” Shaw said. “If you think I’m wrong, just tell me I’m wrong.”
“Like how I told you aspartame is not a government-created nanomachine designed to manipulate shopping behavior? Because that conversation went really well, Shaw.”
“This is serious. I’m serious.”
“What’s my favorite beach drink?”
“I don’t know.”
“Which Romantic poet do I like the best?”
“Shelley. No, Byron.”
“Lucky fucking guess. Where did I like to hang out with guys after work, back when I was doing construction?”
“I don’t know.”
North shrugged.
“It’s not the same. I dated Jadon while he was a cop.”
“I was still working construction through college. You and I were together almost every day.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Two months isn’t very long. You don’t know about Precinct Blue; fine. But that doesn’t mean anything for this case.”
“I think—” Shaw began, but the sound of a key in the front door made him stop.
Shit, North thought. Shit, shit, shit.
Voices in the middle of an argument echoed through the house.
“—that dyke bitch can suck my dick.” A voice that North thought he recognized.
“It doesn’t matter.” Another familiar voice. “Say whatever you want. Pitch a fit. Slap the shit out of her if you think it’ll do any good. But she’s putting together enough rope to hang us—all of us. And since Thomas went ahead and died without leaving us any fucking way of getting in touch with his ‘friend,’” the scare quotes were audible, “we’re going to have to figure it out ourselves.”
>
“So we take care of her.”
“I’d like to see that.”
“I’m serious.”
Fingers closed around North’s wrist, and he had to swallow a shout. Shaw, his hazel eyes wide, glanced at the window. North followed his gaze and saw bars blocking their path. Damn it. Tilting his head toward the door, North picked his steps, careful to keep the Red Wings from making too much noise, avoiding the wastebasket and the slush of fallen papers. Shaw went first, disappearing out into the hallway like a greased Houdini. North tucked the dossier on Jadon into the back of his waistband and went after him. The voices were coming from the front of the house; the living room, North hoped. He and Shaw crossed the kitchen silently, but at the back door, North stopped and listened.
“—can’t just do Dzeko like she’s anybody else, all right?”
“I know, I know. She’s got rope. I get it. So we make sure she can’t use the rope.”
“You’re an idiot. Do you want the FBI down here? Do you want that? Fucking idiot, that’s what you are. They’d kick over every rock until they had some answers, and then where would we be?”
“The Feds are fucking morons. They couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag.”
The voices were moving closer. North stepped out into the September heat, pulling the door behind him, and a final exchange drifted out after him.
“We’ve got to take care of her. This has already gone way too far; we can’t just let her string us up.”
“Obviously. And lucky for you, I’ve already got a way to keep her quiet.”
Then North couldn’t risk it any longer, and he shut the door. Then he and Shaw ran. They ran the four blocks back to the GTO, the humid air pasting itself to their skin, and sweat soaked North’s tee by the time they got there. They didn’t speak; North just started the car, and they drove until they were nowhere, some strip mall in South County, with a flashing payday loan sign screaming NO FEES NO FEES NO FEES.
North fumbled with the stereo. Turned it on; Britney was wailing about something toxic. Turned it off.
Shaw took his hand. The color was high in Shaw’s cheeks, his pupils dilated, his pulse thumping, a barely visible flutter, in his throat.
“That was Taylor and Waggener,” Shaw said. “I recognized their voices.”
“Yeah.”
“North, Jadon didn’t try to kill himself.”
Dropping back against the seat, North felt the dossier in his waistband crinkle. He covered his face with both hands.
“Yeah, well,” he said. “You’re making it really hard for me to keep arguing.”
Shaw took his hand, lifting it carefully away from his face, lacing their fingers together.
North adjusted his position, covering just his eyes now with his free hand. He worked some moisture into his mouth. “Dirty cops, Shaw.”
Shaw kissed the back of the hand he was holding.
“We’re fucked,” North said.
“Maybe not. It sounds like they’re worried about Dzeko.”
North dropped his hand and looked at Shaw.
“A cop-hunter,” Shaw said.
Cop-killer, North wanted to say, but it was jammed in his throat.
“We need to talk to Dzeko,” he said.
Chapter 8
AFTER A BRIEF ARGUMENT, they decided finding a payphone wasn’t necessary. North pointed out that Taylor and Waggener and whoever else was involved already knew Shaw and North were looking for the Slasher. And they already seemed to think Dzeko was a threat. One more phone call wasn’t going to change anything.
Shaw called; his heart was still pounding, and he felt feverish, but a good kind of feverish. Three rings. He adjusted his grip on the aluminum case. Six rings. He wiped a sweaty hand on the khakis North had packed for him—khakis, of all the wonderful possibilities—and adjusted the vents, directing the A/C’s cold blast at his face. Eight rings.
“What?” Dzeko said.
“This is Shaw Aldrich, from Borealis—”
“What?”
“My partner and I need to talk to you. In person.”
“I don’t have time for this. Do you know what that lunatic did after you left him in my office? That son of a bitch spilled coffee on everything, and when I came back with paper towels, he was going through my desk. That’s the last time I listen when you start spinning a sob story—”
“It’s about Jadon Reck.”
The line went dead for ten seconds; the icy rush of the A/C was the only sound in Shaw’s ears.
“What do you know about Reck?”
“That’s what we want to talk about.”
“This is a sensitive case. Stay out of it. You don’t have any idea what you’re getting yourself into or what you might mess up—”
“I know that I just heard two members of the Metropolitan Police talk about how they’re going to handle you. They had that conversation inside Jadon’s house.”
Another ten seconds, cold and dead, dragged past. “I can talk to you tonight. I’ll text you a time.”
“At your office?”
“God, no. Do you have any idea who we’re dealing with? Somewhere they can’t find us. I’ll let you know.”
“Dzeko, I really think we should—”
The call disconnected; Shaw lowered the phone.
“That sounded like it went really well,” North muttered, but he was busy tapping at something on his phone’s screen.
“What are you playing? Angry Birds?”
“Peter and Paul invited me to their stupid anniversary party. I’m telling them no.” North dropped the phone on the seat and looked up. “So?”
“You but not me?”
“Both of us. And I already told them no.”
“But—”
“What did Dzeko say?”
“She’s going to meet us. Tonight. Late. At a place of her choosing.”
“Jesus, Shaw. Why didn’t you suggest we wear trench coats and come up with code names and get together in a parking garage?”
“I look good in a trench coat.”
“You’d probably wear culottes underneath it.”
“I didn’t even think you knew what culottes were.”
“I don’t.”
“Did the other guys wear culottes when they were mixing cement?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“They probably didn’t want to get their clothes dirty. Culottes would be perfect if you kept getting your pants dirty.”
North shifted the car into gear, pulling away from the curb. “I don’t own culottes. I don’t know what culottes are. I just said it. It’s just something I’ve heard, ok?”
“Just something the guys talked about, right? Like, they’d be talking about hardhats and steel-toed boots and then one guy would start talking about his new velour capris and another guy didn’t want to be outdone so he’d talk about his recycled hemp culottes. Like that, right? Just something you’ve heard.”
“Keep going.”
Shaw was fighting a grin. “I just think it’s cute, you guys talking about clothes.”
North’s head came up sharply, eyes locked on the rearview mirror. “Shit, no way.”
“What?” Shaw asked, craning to look back. “Are the cops—argh!” North’s knuckle connected with his thigh in the perfect spot, and Shaw’s thigh cramped in a major charley horse. “North!”
“Yeah, baby?”
Shaw struggled to find words as he massaged his aching leg. “Ouch!”
“Yeah?”
“That hurt.”
“Good.”
Shaw continued to massage his thigh vigorously, so that North would have a very good idea of how bad the cramp was, but North just drove them east with a lazy grin.
“It seems awfully convenient,” Shaw said, “that Jadon would leave that dossier in the trash for us to find.”
“If he was planning on killing hi
mself, maybe he didn’t care about the dossier anymore.” Before Shaw could argue, North added, “Or maybe it’s bait in a trap.”
“So you think this is a setup too? You agree that Jadon didn’t try to kill himself?”
The roar of the convertible’s passage almost swallowed North’s answer. “I think it’s less likely now.”
“But you agree we should keep looking.”
“Absolutely not.”
“North, you heard Taylor and Waggener. They were inside Jadon’s house, talking about how they could silence a politician who might be able to put them in prison. Then I call Dzeko, and she’s almost as freaked out as we are. Why are you holding back on this? What am I not seeing?”
“If you’re right, and dirty cops attacked Jadon, then you’re not seeing how dangerous this is, Shaw. If we keep looking into this, we’re asking for the same thing Jadon got.”
“But we’re North and Shaw. We’re not Jadon; we’re smarter, and we’re better. That’s not going to happen to us.”
North just shook his head. “Washington Strategic means a real chance for us—”
Panic flickered in Shaw’s chest. “My day’s not over yet.”
“What?”
“We agreed I got one day to investigate. It hasn’t been a full day. I want to talk to Dzeko. And I want to visit Precinct Blue and see if anyone remembers who Jadon met there.”
“You want to walk into a cop bar while you’re on the trail of some dirty cops?”
“I just want to ask about Jadon.”
A moment passed with only the rush of wind and the hum of the GTO’s engine. “What’s the time stamp on that Precinct Blue receipt?” North asked.
Shaw found the receipt in his pocket. “7:37.”
“So he probably got there, an hour before that? Maybe more if he wanted to check out the place first, make sure it wasn’t a setup?”
“Yeah. Maybe even a couple of hours.”
“So, let’s say he gets to the bar at 5:30.” North checked the clock on the dash. “We’ve still got almost five hours. Let’s head back to the office and see if we can find anything else about the shooting. There might be something in the Post-Dispatch by now.”