Declination

by Gregory Ashe

  “Maybe we heard about the fire,” North said.

  “You check out every fire in North City?”

  “It’s ghoulish,” Shaw said, squeezing North’s arm. “But it’s his hobby.”

  Kelso huffed an irritated breath. “Why can’t you two be the nice kind of gay boys? Why can’t you be like DaShawn and Terrence? Why can’t you be the kind I can introduce to my cousin? That poor boy needs a boyfriend.”

  “They do her hair,” Shaw stage-whispered to North.

  “DaShawn does my hair. Terrence does my nails. They don’t cause me trouble by showing up at crime scenes where they’re not wanted. And they don’t cause me trouble by asking all sorts of questions that get my sergeant chewing my ass before I can turn around.”

  North felt his interest sharpen, but he tried to keep his expression even. “So they didn’t like you asking about the suicide story.”

  Kelso went quiet. She ran her nails along the GTO’s door; they were trimmed short but elaborately done up, with crystals sparkling on top of the neat turquoise polish.

  “If it wasn’t a suicide attempt,” Kelso said and then stopped.

  North let his gaze go back to the smoldering ruins. Among the police gathered out front, he thought he recognized a familiar set of slumped shoulders.

  “Waggener and Taylor are over there, aren’t they?”

  Kelso’s nails clicked on the chrome trim.

  “And if they’re checking out a burned building less than a block from where Jadon was shot,” Shaw said, “it’s not a coincidence. Where’s Barr?”

  Kelso flicked one nail as though knocking aside the question. “You’re lucky I saw you first. You’re lucky they’re not over here. You’re lucky they’re not hauling you down to the station.”

  “Where’s Barr?” North said.

  “Trying to keep those other jerkoffs from—” Kelso cut off abruptly, fixing an angry look on North as though he’d tricked her.

  “What happened here?” Shaw said. “The burned house, who did it belong to?”

  Another series of clicks as the nails moved over chrome. Sunlight flashed on the crystal studs.

  “The gun,” Kelso suddenly said. “The one that they found with that woman’s prints on it.”

  “Anna Dzeko?” North said.

  “You’re talking about the attempted murder weapon,” Shaw said. “The one they say links Dzeko to the crime.”

  Kelso nodded. Those remarkable eyes with their golden fringe glanced up the block. “They found it in a storm drain.”

  Excitement tightened in North’s belly. He let out a low breath. “That’s pretty remarkable. How’d they find it? There are a lot of storm drains, and anybody with brains would drive and drive and drive and then chuck it on a random street, right?”

  “Anybody with brains,” Kelso said. “But not that lady. She tossed it in that drain right down there. On the same block. She didn’t even walk twenty yards.”

  “That’s still a lucky find,” Shaw said. “Incredibly lucky, actually.” He smiled, and North could see Kelso respond to it, see how Shaw did what he always did: worked his charm without even knowing it, without even realizing he could do it. “Unless it wasn’t luck at all. Unless someone told them where to find it because they saw Dzeko throw it down the drain.”

  Kelso shook her head slowly. “Or because someone told them to say they saw Dzeko throw it down that drain.”

  “Who lives in that house?” Shaw asked. The way he asked it—lives, not lived—broke North’s heart because Shaw was Shaw, because he never stopped hoping, because it hurt him like it was the first time every time. Every damn time.

  One last time, Kelso trailed her nails along the GTO’s door. Then she straightened; she fixed her attention back on the burned-out shell, not looking at Shaw and North as she spoke. “They’ve had us sitting in front of that house for four or five hours now. A woman at that address recently reported information to the police.”

  “What are—” Shaw began, but North squeezed his fingers, and Shaw shut his mouth.

  “We’ve just been sitting out front.” Then those gold-fringed eyes cut back to North. “That’s not what I’d be doing, if I had a choice.” She tapped the hood and said, “You boys better get going before I remember to hold you for questioning.” She reached into her pocket and passed something through the window, and then she walked back toward the line of cops and firefighters.

  North turned a card over in his hand. Officer Diamond Kelso. With a phone number.

  The sound of the intermittent blasts of water mixed with the distant hub of voices, the occasional laugh, an accidental whoop of a siren when one of the uniformed officers hit a switch by accident.

  “If I paid or coerced someone into lying to the cops, telling them she saw something, just so I could be sure the cops would find the gun I wanted them to find,” Shaw whispered, “I’d be worried that she’d change her mind down the road. She might decide to tell a friend. She might even decide to tell the truth.”

  North shifted, wrapping one arm around Shaw’s shoulders, feeling the wiry strength in the other man’s body, the tension in his frame.

  “If I were a dirty cop, if I were trying to set someone up, if I weren’t worried about killing because I’d killed before—”

  “Shaw.”

  “I’d come back.”

  “Shaw, calm down.”

  “After she told the cops whatever I wanted her to tell them, I’d come back. And it would look like . . . it would look like it was just North City happening. Just another random shooting. A knife in an alley.” Shaw worked his jaw for a moment. “Bad wiring in an old house.”

  North ran his fingers along the cropped hair over Shaw’s ear.

  “If I set fire to a house,” Shaw said, “if I wanted to make sure she was dead, I’d have to wait around.”

  North let his hand drift to Shaw’s neck, his fingers stroking pale skin.

  “But nobody would stay in a burning house. So she panicked.”

  “Shaw, that’s enough.”

  “She woke up to smoke and heat. She couldn’t breathe. She was so scared, and she ran.”

  “Stop. You’re just hurting yourself now, so stop.”

  “I’d wait until I saw her come out. And then I’d—”

  North grabbed Shaw’s chin and turned his head so that Shaw met his gaze. Unshed tears glowed with September light in Shaw’s eyes.

  “Enough, baby.”

  Shaw blinked. The tears overflowed and spilled down his cheeks.

  “Let’s go find her,” Shaw said, his voice surprisingly steady even as the tears continued to track down his face.

  North started the car; they backtracked and circled around behind the burned-out house. Kelso had been telling the truth. The alley looked undisturbed, without any evidence that the cops had even bothered to come back here. The gate that led into the yard of the burned house hung open; the tall weeds along the verge had been trampled last night and were still slowly righting themselves.

  “Stay here,” North said. “Please.”

  Shaw ignored him and got out of the car.

  They walked together up the alley. A blind man could have followed the trail: a house slipper discarded fifty yards away from the house; then a matted section of grass, an overturned trash barrel, blood where the jagged rim had cut flesh; more blood dappling the bruised stalks of weeds in the lot of an abandoned home. Ancient steps creaked as North climbed onto the porch.

  The housing authority had boarded up the back door and the windows, but North could see the rust on the nails, and he knew that this door had been forced open a long time ago. Years, probably. But the boards had been left so that someone driving past, someone from the housing authority, could look and feel secure knowing that the building was still closed up. North worked his elbow into the gap between the door and the frame; they couldn’t risk leaving prints here.

  When the door wob
bled open, it squeaked. Inside, the house was surprisingly cool, and North tasted mold and dry rot and urine when he took his first breath. His step sounded too loud when he moved inside. The whole house echoed.

  They found her in the front room, just a few feet from the door. North guessed she had tried to cut through the house. She must have realized, as soon as she reached the alley, that someone was after her. That was why she had run so fast that she had lost a slipper. That was why she had crashed into the trash barrel, fallen, cut herself on the rim, and kept running. She was middle-aged, her skin a light brown almost the same color as the floorboards. She wore a floral-print house dress and a single slipper. The heel of her bare foot was lacerated, with a few loose pieces of asphalt still buried in the soft skin. She had been shot in the back of the head.

  North put out an arm to stop Shaw from coming any closer, but he didn’t need to. Shaw had stopped just inside the house. The color had left his face; he looked so pale that North worried, for a moment, that Shaw might faint. But he only shook his head and said, “I hate this city. I hate this whole fucking world.” And then he plunged back into the September light like a man falling off the edge of the earth.

  Chapter 23

  SHAW SAT IN the GTO, his face pressed against the vent, letting the slow leak of the air conditioner wash his face and neck. He closed his eyes and kept seeing the woman with one bare foot, the slight stubble on her calf where the house dress pulled up, the cut on her arm where she had fallen against the trash barrel. He thought of Jadon, who had been shot and almost killed by desperate men and women. He thought of Anna Dzeko, who had been framed for the crime. But he kept going back to that bare foot, to the pieces of asphalt cutting into the tender sole.

  North didn’t say anything when he got in the car. He just eased the GTO forward, and they drove for fifteen minutes before North pulled off again. Shaw looked up long enough to see where they were—a strip mall parking lot, with a shrimp-fry place that had a flashing sign of a shrimp wagging its tail, and a physical therapy office and a dentist and a CBD store. Then he put his head back down.

  “I’m going to call in the body from a payphone,” North said.

  Shaw tried to nod, but he felt too tired.

  When North came back, the GTO rocked slightly under his weight, and his hand came to rest, hot and sticky, against Shaw’s neck. His nails scratched lightly at Shaw’s nape.

  “Do you think that CBD store has weed?” Shaw asked.

  “You want to have another full-blown paranoid panic attack?”

  “I won’t drink any Coke, I swear.”

  North’s nails just scratched lightly.

  “They’re going to get away with it,” Shaw said; his eyes stung, but the cold air from the vent helped dry them. “They’re covering their tracks. They’ve got Dzeko framed. As soon as someone decides to take the guards off Jadon’s room, they’ll get in there and they’ll finish him off. And then it’ll be over. They win.”

  “What are we? Chopped liver?”

  “This world is so fucking terrible. I hate this world. I hate everything.”

  North’s hand slowed. His fingers settled on Shaw’s neck, the touch firm, reassuring.

  “Quit being such a pussy.”

  “North!”

  “What?”

  “That’s sexist.”

  “Quit being such a wuss, then.”

  “I’m not a wuss.”

  “Crybaby.”

  “I’m not a—”

  “Bellyacher.”

  Shaw sat up, throwing off North’s hand. “You’re an asshole.”

  “Squawker.”

  “Dick.”

  “Whiner.”

  “I’m not a whiner. You’re a whiner. When you stubbed your toe in my dorm room freshman year, you whined about it for three weeks. I had to hear about your toe every day for three weeks.”

  “I broke my toe, Shaw. I didn’t stub it. And you’re a whinger.”

  “You can’t use that one. That’s a Britishism.”

  “Sniveler.”

  “I’ve never sniveled in my life.”

  “Not true,” North said. “At the end of season two of Buffy, right after she stabs Angel—”

  “That’s not fair! She loved him and she had to do it to save the world! Of course I was going to cry. You cried too!”

  “But I didn’t snivel.”

  Shaw realized he was smiling; he realized North was smiling. He tried to figure out what had just happened. “You can’t bully me into being happy.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I’m mad. I’m mad at the world.”

  “I know. It’s very serious. You’re having a crisis of faith.”

  “I’m railing at the injustices of the universe.”

  “I know. High drama. Very impressive.”

  Shaw felt his smile fade. “It’s not fair. She didn’t deserve that.”

  “Nothing’s fair, baby.”

  “How do you do it? How can you . . . how can you keep going when it hurts this much?”

  North looked like he might say something. Then he just smiled a tight smile, a smile that wasn’t anything like his usual one, and he shook his head and ran his fingers down the side of Shaw’s face.

  “We’re going to fix this, right?” Shaw said. “That’s what we do. That’s why we got into this business.”

  “We’re going to try.”

  Shaw blew out a breath. “What do we do now? If there was a witness to what happened to Jadon, she lied, and now she’s dead. Whatever physical evidence we might have hoped to find has already been taken by the police—or destroyed. We didn’t find anything at Jadon’s house that might help us except evidence that someone was trying to silence him. We don’t even know what they were trying to keep him quiet about.”

  “We know some stuff,” North said. “We know it’s connected to Waggener and Taylor, and through them, to Parrish. We know with Parrish dead, and his friend out of the picture—”

  “The Slasher.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it was someone else. With Parrish dead and his friend out of touch, Waggener and Taylor are panicking. They already used Jadon once to send a message. And we can guess that it’s all tied up with the Slasher stuff, although we’re still not sure how.” He frowned. “Coker told me that a massive internal affairs investigation was underway right before the Slasher stuff began.”

  “What?”

  “She’s been reporting on the Metropolitan Police for years. She said she knew something big was going down—maybe even filing charges, dragging dirty laundry into the light. Dzeko was running for Circuit Attorney in a special election, and she had put police corruption on her platform. Coker thought something really serious might have happened between the IA and Dzeko, some major prosecutions. But then the Slasher killings started, and they drew so much attention that things dried up. She didn’t exactly say this, but I got the impression that she thinks someone higher up ordered the IA stuff postponed while the department tried to keep the city from blowing up with terror.”

  “We know from what happened with Shep Collins that Taylor and Waggener were willing to take money to look away while drugs were moving through Iris and the LGBTQ kids. Maybe they did the same thing when they were in Vice. Maybe they knew IA was breathing down their necks. Maybe they needed a distraction.” Shaw took a breath; his skin was hot and tight and clammy. “Jesus, is that it? It was all just a distraction? Me, I was a distraction? Carl? Carl’s death, that was just a distraction?”

  “Maybe.” Shaw could see North trying to weigh his words. “I’m not trying to make what happened to you any less serious—”

  Shaw made a gesture of cutting through the words. “Just say it, North. I know that’s not what you meant.”

  For a moment, North furrowed his brow. “If the killings were meant to be a distraction—or even just a stopgap—then they worked. For whatever reason, IA never re
sumed its investigation, and no charges were ever filed, although Coker claimed they should have been. And if the killings were just a . . . a strategic move, then it would explain why they needed a fall guy like Roman Stroud, someone they could pin the killings on even if there really wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. And it would explain why, if the real Slasher is still out there, he’s never killed again.”

  “Because he’s not really a serial killer,” Shaw said. “Because he doesn’t have a drive to kill. He’s not dormant. He’s not going to kill again. He just killed those people because it was part of a plan. We know something else too.”

  “What?”

  “We know that Waggener, Taylor, and Parrish were all in Vice together. And we know Waggener and Taylor are too stupid to come up with something like this, so that means either Parrish was the brains, or this mysterious friend was. And that means we’ve got two stupid people trying to cover up a complicated plan. And stupid people do stupid things.”

  A bus whipped by, and the air from its passage threw up dust and a sno-cone wrapper, flattening the paper against the GTO’s window. A horn blared down the block, and then the shrimp-fry shop’s door opened and a group of men came out, laughing, jostling each other, talking with the easy enjoyment of guys with nothing to worry about.

  “What the fuck did Jadon find?” North said, his hands riding the molded plastic bumps of the steering wheel.

  Shaw shook his head. And then he remembered.

  “Holy shit.”

  “What?”

  “Holy shit.” Shaw scrabbled for his phone.

  “What?”

  “Jadon. He had this app, Ricky said it was because he was drinking, but I think it wasn’t just for that. He told Ricky I might show up.”

  “You think Jadon was leaving you bread crumbs?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You said he told Ricky you might show up.”

  “I don’t know, North. I don’t know. But look at this.” Shaw clicked on the screenshot he had taken of the tracking app. “The last two weeks, everywhere Jadon’s been. What do you see?”