by Gregory Ashe
A wild smile ran across Shaw’s mouth in flickers, but he didn’t trust himself to talk.
When North spoke again, his voice had heat in it. “Is this about the way that asshole handled you yesterday?”
“No.”
North gave a little half-shake of his head. Just one.
“I put a knife in his throat,” Shaw said. “I can handle assholes like that.”
“I know you can.”
He ran his thumbs again; Shaw liked the gentle scruffing, the way it made his scalp feel. Then one hand dropped, and he pinched Shaw’s tee, lifting the fabric for display.
“It’s practical,” Shaw said, wondering why his throat felt so thick, why his voice felt like it might break.
“Practical,” North said.
“This case is serious. It’s the most dangerous one we’ve ever worked.”
“And that means you’re going to be practical.”
“Why shouldn’t I be practical?”
North bit his lip. Then, with that familiar smoking rumble in his voice, he said, “Baby, what’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Last night wasn’t nothing.”
That sense of wrongness, of a fundamental change in the laws of the universe, overwhelmed Shaw again. He had to close his eyes because it made him dizzy, and the dizziness made him sick. North’s fingers moved slowly over his cropped hair, the gesture comforting, and somehow that was worse than if North had yelled or demanded answers or told Shaw he hated him.
Shaw started to cry. Just a few hot tears, really, leaking out in spite of his best efforts to stop them. He felt North drop the piece of the tee that he held, and a moment later, North’s hand was cupping the side of his face, catching tears and brushing them away.
“I’m sorry,” Shaw said, eyes still shut.
“I don’t want you to be sorry, Shaw. I want you to talk to me. I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know.” A sob worked its way through Shaw. “I don’t know, I’m sorry, I really don’t know. It’s like everything’s wrong. Everything except you, I mean. And I can feel everything being wrong. I can feel how it’s all going to happen again. I don’t want to feel like me anymore; I don’t want to feel helpless.”
A hundred rapid heartbeats thrummed through Shaw’s chest before North answered. “What’s going to happen again?”
Shaw shook his head. The tears were spilling freely now, but he couldn’t open his eyes, he couldn’t stand seeing how much he had hurt North.
“Matty?” North asked. “Marvin Hanson? The Slasher?” His voice thinned again. “Tuck?”
“No. I don’t know.” Shaw struggled to take a deep breath. “The Slasher, I guess. I mean, he’s out there, North. I know they arrested Roman Stroud. I know they convicted him. I know he was in Potosi for years, and I know he’s dead now. But he wasn’t the Slasher. I can’t prove it yet. I can’t make you believe me. But he wasn’t the Slasher. The Slasher is still out there, and either he’s the one who tried to kill Jadon, or the same people who covered up for him last time are the ones who did it. I know it. I can’t make you believe me, but I know it.”
“I believe you.”
Shaw’s eyes were puffy and stinging; they felt like they weighed a ton. He forced them open anyway, and found North looking down at him, the expression on his face familiar—a mixture of fierce intelligence and compassion and strength that normally hid under the ironic mask—and yet, in spite of its familiarity, shockingly new, the way it was every time Shaw glimpsed it again.
“You do?”
“I believe you. But believing you isn’t enough, Shaw. We’ve got to have proof. And we’ve got to be careful. We’ve got to be critical. If we go at this the way we have been, we’re going to get shit results because we’re making assumptions, we’re jumping past the evidence.”
“I know it’s Taylor and Waggener. I mean, that’s what Jadon told us, remember? He said they had come up together. They had a history, along with the other cop. Thomas Parrish—the one who’s dead now. We’ve been looking for his widow. I think that’s who they were talking about yesterday when they said Thomas died and they couldn’t get in touch with his friend. I think they were talking about the Slasher.”
North adjusted his grip, tilting Shaw’s head back so they could look eye to eye. Then he said, “I want to say something, and I don’t want you to interrupt me. All right?”
“All right.”
“I want you to fly out to Seattle today and start working the Washington Strategic job.”
“No way. North, I can—”
“I asked you not to interrupt.”
Shaw bit his lip. He was practically vibrating with the need to talk, but the expression on North’s face was so hard and closed that Shaw felt a dark flutter go through his gut.
“I want you to go to Seattle. This is a big client. This is our chance to be something more than a dime-store operation in a Midwestern city. And it’s more than that, Shaw. You’re too close to this. You were too close to Matty’s case when he came to us, and that ended badly. Hey. Look at me. I’m not saying that to hurt you or embarrass you. I’m stating a fact. You were too close. And now you’re too close to this. I’ll stay here. I’ll work this. I’ll tell you everything I find; if it looks like I need you to come back, you come back. But I work it the way we’re supposed to work cases.”
Carefully, Shaw peeled North’s hands away, folding them in his own, squeezing them. “No.”
“Shaw, you can’t—”
“Please, North. No. Please. I can’t. He took something from me. He took my life away. I can’t go. If I go, I’ll . . . I’ll never get it back.”
“Get what back?” North asked, frustration making the words sharp.
“My life. I don’t know. Whatever he took from me. I’ve got a chance to find him. To face him. To make him pay for what he did to me, to Carl, to all those other people. I can’t walk away from that.”
“I’m not asking you to walk away from it. I’m asking you to let me work it. Objectively.”
“No.”
“Shaw—”
“No. You can send me to Seattle. But I’ll get on the next flight back.”
“You’re not being rational about this.”
“I don’t want to be rational.”
“You’re not being practical, then.” North laid scorn on the word practical, and his eyes cut to Shaw’s clothing.
That stung, but Shaw took it and kept going. “The only thing you can do to stop me is tie me up. Handcuff me to a radiator. Throw me in your trunk. Even then, I’ll keep trying to get loose and to go after this son of a bitch.”
“You don’t get it, Shaw. You’re not you. Last night—”
“I’m sorry about last night. I said I was sorry.”
“I don’t give a fuck if you’re sorry. I don’t want to be with that person, the one who was with me last night. I don’t think that guy wants to be with me either. The guy who fucked me last night, Shaw? As far as that guy’s concerned, I was just a piece of meat. If that’s who you’re going to be, if that’s where this is taking you, I won’t go there with you. I won’t watch the man I love disappear. I can’t.”
Shaw stood; North took a step back, and the puppy yipped and circled North, growling. Shaw could see now, the fragile shield North carried to hide his wounds. He should have seen it earlier, but he had been too deep inside himself. He caught North’s hands again.
“I won’t. You’ll be with me; you’ll make sure I don’t.”
North shook his head, but he didn’t say anything.
“Whatever you say,” Shaw said. “I’ll do it. If you think we’re going the wrong way, I’ll drop it. You’re the smartest, strongest, best man I know. You’re the only one who can help me do this.”
North shook his head again, but when he spoke, his voice had taken on its familiar rumble. “And the best detective.”
“Of course. The very best detective I know.”
“And the handsomest.”
Shaw stepped in, hooking one arm around North’s waist. “The very handsomest.”
“And the best kisser.”
“Really?” Shaw said, eyes wide. “I didn’t remember that.”
North kissed him.
“Right,” Shaw said, his voice a little wispier than he would have liked. “But just for the sake of science, maybe—”
North kissed him again.
This time, when the kiss broke, Shaw had to take a moment to make sure his feet were on the ground. “That’s right,” Shaw said, catching the edge of the desk. “The best kisser. I remember now.”
North made a noise in his throat, somewhere between a growl and a laugh, and moved to his desk. “Don’t forget again.”
“No,” Shaw said, still not trusting his legs entirely. “No, I don’t think I will.”
“And Shaw? You are growing your hair out again.”
“Oh. Yeah. Of course.”
“And if you ever even think of cutting it again without telling me first, we’re going to have a very different kind of conversation.”
Chapter 13
NORTH SAT AT HIS DESK, painfully aware of Shaw next to him: the slight whiff of spikiness from Shaw’s hair product whenever Shaw moved, the tight jeans that hung low on Shaw’s hips, the glimpses of Shaw’s flat abdomen when he turned at the waist and his tee pulled up. If asked point blank about the changes to Shaw’s appearance, North would have told the truth: he wanted Shaw’s long hair back; he already missed the crazy clothes. But telling the truth was one thing. It didn’t stop North from boning up every time he glimpsed the buzzed hair or the new clothes.
Currently—nominally—North was digging through recent articles on the Post-Dispatch website, looking for information about an officer-involved shooting, or temporary traffic reroutes over the last few days, anything, really, that might point to what had really happened with Jadon.
But as North typed and clicked and read, most of his brain was busy somewhere else, processing the conversation that had just happened between him and Shaw. North hadn’t gotten everything he wanted, not even close. But at least they’d talked about last night. At least North felt like Shaw, the real Shaw, was still there, even if he was going through something that North didn’t fully understand. North just wished he didn’t still feel trouble in his gut. He wished he could do what Shaw said: tie him up until the real Slasher was caught, or at least until they knew who had attacked Jadon.
Replaying the conversation with Shaw again and again, pressing on the moments where the real Shaw had been clearest, lingering in the spots where shadows and blips had made North wonder how much Shaw was still hiding, how much turmoil still churned under the surface—after what felt like an eternity of this, North finally dragged himself back to the present and started working in earnest.
He had to start again because he didn’t remember anything of what he’d read, but over the next hour, he began to make progress. What North needed—what he knew he needed—were answers about Jadon’s shooting. He knew that some sort of official report existed, but his only inside source at the Metropolitan Police was currently in critical care, and he might not make it through the next few days. The experience at Precinct Blue had confirmed something that North had suspected: no cop was going to talk to him about Jadon Reck. One reason might have been that they were trying to protect Jadon. But they might be closing ranks to protect someone else. Or they might be looking for a culprit themselves. Or they might just hate nosy detectives. North sighed; there were a lot of reasons.
North clicked through to another article. He had abandoned his search for indirect clues about Jadon’s shooting and was now digging into a substantial archive about stories of corruption in the Metropolitan PD. Many of the stories were the usual fare—a depressing list of accusations of blackmail, robbery, sexual harassment, and racial profiling, along with even more serious charges about the use of force in several prominent shootings. The article that made North pause, though, had nothing to do with the Metropolitan Police.
He had arrived at the article by clicking through a web of related links, and it wasn’t until he had read the short piece—barely more than a paragraph—that North realized it didn’t mention the police. It did, however, make him pause.
“Shaw,” he said, “listen to this: ‘A local man was found shot to death inside his car on the north side of the city last night. Lavern Nieman was a social worker who helped reintegrate a subpopulation of people who had committed crimes upon their return to society. First responders report that the shooting was a suicide, but Nieman’s husband has expressed concerns, citing Nieman’s right-handedness and an inability to explain what Nieman might have been doing in that part of the city.’ That’s it. No follow up.”
“A subpopulation of people who had committed crimes?” Shaw said. “That’s a mouthful.”
“It’s a nice, PC euphemism for felons. But the subpopulation, that makes sense in light of the fact that Nieman had a husband.” North typed and clicked some more. “Here’s his obituary; Christ, this just happened a few months ago. Look, the obit mentions awards and recognition from the ACLU, PrideSTL, The Trevor Project, on and on.”
“So he was helping gay felons reintegrate?” Shaw rolled his chair across the uneven floorboards to look over North’s shoulder; the spiky musk was stronger now, distracting. “How many gay felons are there?”
“Maybe not just gay felons. But LGBT people. Maybe other marginalized populations. People of color. Women.” North shrugged. “Lots of possibilities.”
“And he was shot in his car. Do you think Jadon was abducted from his car?”
“I don’t know; his car wasn’t at his house when we went there, was it?”
“I didn’t see it.”
North frowned at the screen.
“You think it’s the same people?”
“I don’t know. It’s a weird coincidence—two shootings that might have been meant to look like suicide. But there’s nothing else about Nieman; if it really was murder, why wasn’t there a whole series of articles?”
“The same reason nobody is talking about what happened to Jadon,” Shaw said, his hand coming to rest on North’s arm, the touch electric. “How’d you find this?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I just kept clicking articles. They were about the police, but then somehow I ended up here.”
“It doesn’t say anything about the city cops, though.”
“I know. I think . . .” North clicked back, checked something, and pointed. “Same reporter. I thought it was just linking me to more articles about the police, but it must have thrown in some of her other work too.”
Shaw squinted at the screen. “Hilda Coker. She writes about the police?”
“A lot.”
“And she wrote about Nieman being shot in his car, supposedly a suicide?”
“I guess so.”
“That’s not a coincidence.”
“We don’t know what it is.”
“It’s not. North, we’ve got to talk to her.”
“It’s one shooting, Shaw. We don’t know that it has anything to do with Jadon; we don’t even know that Jadon was in his car when he was taken.”
“But it’s weird.” Shaw’s hand tightened on North’s arm as he rested his chin on North’s shoulder, still looking at the screen. “You know it’s weird.”
“It’s really fucking weird.”
“Let’s go talk to her.”
North wiggled free of Shaw’s grip, grabbed Shaw’s chair, and wheeled him back to his own desk. “You’re staying here.”
“North!”
“You’re going to keep reading about this stuff. See what else you can turn up.”
“I should go with you.”
“No, you
shouldn’t.”
“You can’t keep me in the office for this whole case just because—”
North held up a finger, and Shaw—to North’s eternal amazement—went quiet. “Number one: I absolutely can make you stay in the office because you agreed to work this case however I said. But that’s not what I’m doing. Because, number two: you need to look into Jadon’s life. That means anything you can find on social media. It probably also means talking to his new boyfriend.”
“Oh.” Shaw wilted a little. “That might be better—”
“Nope. No way.”
“But you—”
“Not a chance.”
“But he—”
“Looks exactly like you. I know.”
“He doesn’t look exactly like me.”
North kissed the top of his head. Then he kissed him on the lips. “I know, baby. You’re much cuter.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I want you to text me if you leave the office. I want to know where you are.”
“North, I’m not a child, I shouldn’t have to—”
The puppy yipped and scurried after North; he caught the puppy and set him in Shaw’s lap. “And take care of the dog for me, will you?”
“Hold on. I’m a detective too. I’m the one with the license. I should be—”
“Be safe,” North shouted as he ran down the hallway. Behind him, he heard the puppy begin to growl, and North let a grin break out on his face. It would do Shaw some good to finally encounter an animal that didn’t fall for his magical hippy aura.
As North stepped out into the garage, he heard Shaw’s voice behind him.
“Stop it,” Shaw said. “I’m the one you’re supposed to like, not him. He doesn’t even want to give you a name. I just want to pet you.”
The last thing North heard before he pulled the door shut was Shaw’s yelp.
Chapter 14
THE POST-DISPATCH occupied a pale brick building with glassed-in arches along the main floor. It looked busy, but it was 2018, and North guessed that even a major newspaper like the Post-Dispatch wasn’t as busy as it had been twenty or thirty years ago. He found street parking on the next block, hiked back to the office building, and walked in through the main entrance.