Declination

by Gregory Ashe

  “That’s pretty good work,” Shaw said. “You should be a detective.”

  “Don’t encourage her,” North snapped. “Kelso, you know we didn’t kill Marjorie Parrish. Dzeko did. She threw her out a window, and she did it because Marjorie knew too much. We were downstairs in the parking garage. Check the security cameras.”

  “Dzeko told us it was a suicide. And we’ve still got to talk about Taylor.”

  “I already told you, Waggener killed Taylor. She’s playing her own game.”

  “She shot Taylor in the back of the head? Her own partner? What kind of game is that?”

  Shaw opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Barr emerged from the stairwell. Kelso’s dark eyes contracted, the golden discs flaming out, and then she was just a cop again. Together, the two police hauled Shaw and North to their feet and marched them down the stairs.

  As they reached the parking garage, tension coiled in Shaw’s gut. He glanced left up the row of cars; just a clunky Chevy Malibu illegally parked in a disabled spot. He glanced right. No activity at all, just rows of empty cars. Still no witnesses. This was a city with a metropolitan population nearing three million people. Where the hell were they all? He risked a glance at North’s face. Nothing. No signal. No clue.

  The first shot came when they were almost to Kelso’s patrol car, where Anna Dzeko sat in the back seat, staring at them. At first, Shaw didn’t even realize it was a shot. He thought it was some kind of trick. A special effect. He saw the glass explode. Dzeko lurched back, red fountaining from her chest. Then the clap of the gunshot echoed through the parking garage as Dzeko slid down and sank out of sight.

  Barr grabbed Shaw, pulling him sideways. Kelso shoved North, sending him to the ground as she drew her service weapon. A second shot came; Shaw could hear the bullet whine as it passed close to him. Barr swore, jerking on Shaw’s arm as he tried to wrestle his own weapon free.

  Shaw didn’t wait for him. He slipped free and threw himself to the cement. As he rolled onto his back, he saw Barr still trying to get his gun free. Then another shot broke the air, and Barr twisted behind the bullet’s impact. He took one sideways step, and then he bumped up against the trunk of the Malibu. He slumped across the car and then slid down behind it, out of sight.

  Rolling onto his side, Shaw drew his knees to his chest and pulled his hands forward, sliding the cuffs just under the bottom of his feet. Then he pushed himself up and tried to find North.

  North was already on his feet, hands still cuffed behind his back. And North was running. It took Shaw another instant to process what he was seeing: Waggener stood a few yards away, her gaze calm as she shifted her target from Barr to Kelso, who had taken cover behind the patrol car. Waggener watched. She waited. No unnecessary shots. No shouts. No demands. She was fixed so intently on Kelso that she didn’t see North rushing at her until it was too late; Shaw saw the exact moment when Waggener realized, her face twisting in surprise and rage.

  Then North slammed into Waggener, the force of the blow lifting her from the cement and spinning her. She came down hard, rolling across the cement, and North chased after her. He kicked at Waggener’s hand until the gun slid free, and then he caught the pistol with the side of his Red Wings and sent it skittering across the cement toward Shaw.

  “Grab it,” North shouted. “Grab it and get the fuck out of here.”

  Waggener was already getting back on her feet, driving her head into North’s belly. Even from a distance, Shaw could hear the whoosh of air leaving North’s lungs, and North folded at the waist. Waggener kept coming, landing a jab right on North’s chin, and then a sweeping hook on the side of North’s face. North went down hard.

  Shaw faced Waggener, with nothing between them but North’s semi-conscious form. Waggener grinned, and Shaw took note, automatically, again: no gold crowns. But that grin was bad enough. Waggener pulled a blade from her pocket and switched it open.

  “On the ground, asshole,” Kelso shouted. “On the ground, drop the knife and—”

  Ten yards separated Shaw and Waggener, and Shaw had the wild idea that Waggener meant to rush him, to work the knife in Shaw like a sewing needle, up and down, until Shaw’s flesh was just a bloody lace. It was crazy. It was suicidal, because Kelso would shoot Waggener for sure. But Waggener was still going to do it.

  Then Kelso squeezed off a shot, and the bullet sparked when it struck a wall. Waggener flinched; then she ran.

  “North,” Shaw said, sprinting over to the fallen man and dropping at his side. “North?”

  “Fine,” he said, and then he grunted. “Christ, why did I ever stop boxing?”

  Chapter 29

  WAGGENER’S GUN saved them. North spent hours being interrogated in a small room with a one-way mirror. The air smelled like fish and hairspray, and some of the mirror’s coating had flaked away so that North could see movement on the other side of the glass. Lots of movement. Lots of men and women coming in and out, staring at him, while North nursed a juice box that Kelso had given him and thought about how easily Waggener had handed him his ass.

  Questions about Waggener. Questions about Taylor. Questions about Dzeko. Questions about Marjorie Parrish. Questions about Jadon. North gave minimalist answers; he knew things could go wrong in an interview room. People got strangely clumsy. People fell down and broke their necks. People got caught up in their belts, hanging from the ceiling. It was silly, really, how clumsy people got. And then North thought about Shaw, separated from him, locked in another little room like this, and the tips of his fingers went numb and tingled. North had to think very carefully about the future: the puppy that needed a name, and the way Shaw complained about flavored nut milks, and what it would feel like to run his fingers over that coppery patch of his hair.

  But Waggener’s gun saved them, and Kelso and Barr saved them. Kelso had seen everything at the parking garage. She was alive only because North had intervened—and his shoulder still ached from it. Barr, before he went into surgery, had confirmed what he could. Waggener’s gun, recovered in the parking lot, was loaded with the same type of ammunition that had been used to kill Taylor. And so the police could ask questions. They could yell, bang on the table, demand answers. They could leave North alone, with men and women streaming past the one-way mirror. But eventually, they had to let him go, and he headed out into the darkness and the hum of the sodium vapor lamps. The air was tangled with the smell of gasoline and stagnant water and something yeasty. Beer, he decided, from the Schlafly Tap Room up the street.

  He was sitting on the steps when Shaw came out; he had an enormous chocolate croissant in one hand, and what looked like a gallon-sized thermos of coffee in the other. He was laughing and gave a little wave with the croissant to the officer who had walked him out, and then he saw North and grinned and came over to him.

  “Hey! Do you want a bite of my croissant?”

  North wrapped his arms around Shaw, pulling him tight, smelling the lingering, spiky musk of Shaw’s hair product, smelling his sweat, smelling the coffee on his breath, and then tasting that coffee when he kissed Shaw and kissed him and kissed him again.

  “It’s—” Shaw blinked owlishly, obviously trying to frame a sentence. “It’s got chocolate.”

  North took two huge bites, barely bothering to chew before swallowing. Then he pried the thermos out of Shaw’s hands, unscrewed the cap, and drank.

  “It’s—”

  North made a face. “Hazelnut? Jesus Christ, Shaw. Why don’t you just pour arsenic in it?”

  “Bernie said his brother always drinks it with hazelnut.”

  “Who the hell is Bernie?” North said, looping his arm around Shaw’s waist and tugging him down the steps.

  “Oh, Bernie’s great. He was yelling and waving his arms and he kicked the table and talked about how guys like me made him sick to his stomach. Then I asked him if he’d ever tried lemongrass essential oil for his stomach ulcers, and he didn’t really like that
. But then I said maybe he should try meditating because it can really help with anger management. I even told him about how you were going to try meditation.”

  “Uh huh,” North said, looking up and down Olive and not seeing a cab anywhere. “Meditation.” He gave Shaw another tug, and they started down 20th. “We’re going to have to walk back and pick up the GTO.”

  “Right, meditation. I booked us a hot yoga and meditation weekend with one of Master Hermes’s friends, and I started telling Bernie about that and how it was going to help with how much you say fuck—”

  “I don’t say fuck that often—wait. What about a hot yoga weekend?”

  “Well, it was supposed to be a surprise for your birthday.”

  “I don’t want to do a hot yoga weekend.”

  “It’s your birthday present. You have to at least pretend to like it. I told Bernie you’d be grumpy, but I also told him you’d probably end up liking it even though you’d keep pretending you didn’t. And then Bernie said his brother didn’t play games like that, and he asked if I like photography because his brother likes photography. And when I said of course I like photography, he said it was a small world, and maybe I’d like to meet his brother if you kept being such a puss about hot yoga. That was his word, North. Puss. I wouldn’t say something like that.”

  “Jesus, God. How much coffee have you had?”

  “Just eight cups, but I—”

  North took the thermos again and held it out of Shaw’s reach.

  “Hey!”

  “Bernie was trying to set you up with his brother, Shaw.”

  “No, he was just—oh.”

  “So congratulations. You managed to turn a police interview into an episode of the gay Bachelor.”

  “I didn’t—he just said maybe I’d like some coffee, and if I wouldn’t mind giving his brother a call, and then he had the croissant, and I—”

  “Ok.”

  Shaw was silent for at least twenty yards. Then he dropped his head. “I think I might accidentally be a sex worker now.”

  “Ok,” North said, trying to fight the hysterical smile that wanted to break out on his face as the clean air swept over them, chilly, heady with the smell of hops and good beer, carrying away the last stink of fish and hairspray from the interrogation room.

  The GTO was still parked in the garage at Dzeko’s apartment building, just a few blocks east on Market. The Caddy was still there too, and in the trunk, where North had dropped it, the microcassette and the player. He pocketed them, locked the Caddy, and looked at Shaw.

  “It wouldn’t help anything,” he said. “Not now.”

  Shaw nodded. But he said, “Someone’s still out there.”

  Rubbing his face, North said, “Yeah. Waggener. But she can’t run forever; they’re going to run her down, and—”

  “No. Someone’s still out there, North. Maybe Thomas Parrish’s mysterious friend. Maybe someone else. I thought about it while Bernie was getting the croissant. Someone had to be helping Parrish and Waggener and Taylor. Somebody else. I know there was. None of them was the one who cut me in the alley.”

  “It might have been Taylor.

  “It wasn’t. The crown—”

  “Shaw—”

  “It wasn’t Taylor or Parrish, North. It wasn’t Waggener.”

  “What does it matter? It’s over, ok? Taylor is dead. Parrish is dead. Waggener will spend the rest of her life behind bars if the cops don’t kill her when they bring her in.”

  “But the other guy, he’s not dead. The friend. The one they couldn’t contact once Parrish died.”

  “Jesus. Fucking. Christ.” North couldn’t believe how much this hurt. Couldn’t believe how much the surprise of it hurt almost as bad as the rest of it all together.

  Shaw lifted his chin. Red bloomed across the sharp symmetry of his features.

  “You’re still going looking for this guy?”

  “Not right away. I know we need time to recover. Recoup. We’ll work the Washington Strategic jobs, and in our downtime, I’ll—”

  “Fine. Have the fucking tape. Have the fucking player.” North pulled them from his pocket and slapped them against Shaw’s chest. “Whoever he is, he’s gone, Shaw. You’re not going to find him. If he’s smart, he’s already out of the country.”

  “We can find anybody.”

  “He’s gone. It’s over, ok?”

  Shaw cradled the cassette player.

  North walked around to the GTO. He opened the door.

  Shaw stood near the Caddy.

  “Come on.”

  Shaw just stood there.

  Slamming the door, North walked half the distance between them. “Come the fuck on. I want to go home.”

  “Somebody found me in an alley. Somebody killed Carl and made me watch. Somebody cut me up bad, North. And whoever it was, he took away my life.”

  “Fuck that.” A tear ran from the corner of Shaw’s eye. North wanted to brush it away. He wanted to hold Shaw the way he had held him on the police station steps. But his hands were on his hips, instead, balled up into fists.

  “It was my life, North. You don’t get to say fuck that.”

  “Fuck that. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. Fuck the whole fucking self-indulgent bullshit you’ve got going on right now. You’re alive. We’re alive, Shaw. That’s unbelievable. That’s incredible. If the price of walking out of here with you, if that price is letting one asshole go, then fine. That’s cheap, baby. I would have paid so much more to keep you safe. And now you want to go out there and . . . and do it all again. Why the fuck can’t you see how lucky we are right now?”

  “The Slasher—”

  “No. No more bullshit about the Slasher, Shaw. That’s over. That’s done. It was seven years ago. Move on with your fucking life, ok? Jesus Christ, just move on. Every time I turn around, every time I look for you, the fucking Slasher is right there, right in between us. Every time. Every spare minute you’re thinking about him. When we’re out on a hike. When we leave a restaurant. When we drive on a dark street.” North swallowed, but something was lodged in his throat. “When we’re together.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Yeah, Shaw. When we’re together. He’s right there, isn’t he? I love you. I want to be with you. But unless you’ve got my arms tied behind my back or I’m stock-still like a statue or you’re holding my hair like I’m a fucking dog, you can barely stand to have me touch you.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Yes. It is. It’s all because of the Slasher. Because you got so hung up on him, on what he did to you, that you don’t realize you’ve got a good life. A great life. And you’re going to throw it away. You’re going to get yourself killed because you can’t just let this go.”

  “Stop, North. Will you just stop?”

  “No. You don’t realize that other people have shit too. I’ve got shit. Or maybe you don’t care. Maybe it doesn’t bother you that I feel like a fucking monster every time I touch you and you close your eyes and start hyperventilating. Maybe it doesn’t bother you. Maybe you liked hurting me, is that it? You liked it?”

  Shaw was crying steadily now. “I hate you.”

  “Fuck, baby. Hate me; at least that’s honest.”

  Shaw turned away, clutching the tape player to his chest, and walked toward the exit.

  “Run away,” North called. “Like you always do. Run away, Shaw. That’s right. Run away.”

  The last North saw of him was Shaw slipping out of the parking garage, his shoulders hunched, his face lost in shadow. Then North turned, roared, and kicked the Caddy until the side panel dented in and he didn’t have any more breath and he had to slump, dizzy and hurting, across the Caddy’s frame.

  Chapter 30

  THE MINUTES AFTER Shaw left the parking garage took on a nightmarish dimension for North. Up didn’t feel like up anymore. Colors seemed oversaturated. He stood next to the Caddy, staring at the damage he’d d
one to the paneling, with a sense of vertigo like he might start falling. Only he wouldn’t fall down. He’d fall off in some other direction. Maybe fall straight up into the sky.

  Then he realized Shaw wasn’t coming back, and he jogged to the parking garage exit and spotted Shaw with his ridiculously short hair waiting at the crosswalk. The light changed, and Shaw went south. North cut across the street. He tripped three times; a horn blared, and a falafel truck swerved, missing him by inches. North gave the guy the finger and kept going. He tripped again, crossing the grass in the park, and this time he went down, cracking his chin on a tree root. He scrambled up and kept going. It wasn’t until he stood at the edge of the park, watching Shaw move to the queue of taxis, that he realized he was bleeding. He rubbed the split skin on his chin, looked at the red glazing the back of his knuckles, and laughed. He’d gotten through how many gunfights today, but he didn’t get hurt until he got into a fight with his boyfriend. It was the kind of joke nobody else would find funny, but he laughed again and wiped his knuckles on his shirt.

  Shaw got into a cab. North watched until the cab faded into two red pinpricks. Then the night snuffed out the taillights, and North tripped his way back to the GTO. He started it. He drove halfway to his house in Southampton. The cut on his chin stung worse and worse. On Hampton, he kept going north, passing his street, and instead he followed Chippewa west toward Lindenwood Park.

  The blondie brick house on Winona still had the blue-gray glow of television flickering behind its curtains. North parked and went around the side of the house. Jasper and Jones were perched on the back steps; Jasper licked his paw when he saw North. Jones stood, arching his back. When North opened the door onto the sunroom, they darted inside, vanishing into eddies of cigar smoke.

  North crossed the sunroom, waving his arms to clear the air. The little fan lay on its side tonight, chugging desperately as it tried to circulate the smoke. “Dad?” he called.

  An answering grunt came from the living room.