by Gregory Ashe
“I remember that,” Shaw said. “A little. He…got around, right?”
“You could say that. He and Jean were separated. I don’t think he’d ever been with a guy. All of a sudden, he figures out he’s like gay-boy kryptonite: a hot, rich, older dude. I wasn’t the only one who messed around with him. Percy did too. I think maybe Rufus. But that was before North and I started dating, so it’s not like I should feel bad about it.”
“Don’t sweat it,” North said. “You’ve got plenty of other stuff you should feel bad about.”
“He was separated from Jean,” Shaw said, “but they were together Thursday night.”
“Yeah, they got back together. Obviously. He juked right, hard, playing the whole conservative white male card, talked as long as anyone would listen about the gays destroying our society. And the whole time, he was getting cock wherever he could on the side. The one time I called him on it, he told me it was a career move—plenty of guys he knew did it.”
“No, what I meant was, you were sleeping with him again.”
Tucker sifted his blond hair with one hand. “Look, they’re adults. Jean wasn’t under any illusions. I think they were going to get divorced; in any case, she knew what Rik was doing, and she could have left if she didn’t like it.”
“So that makes it all right,” North said. “She knew he was stabbing her in the back, so that makes what you did perfectly fine.”
“God, Mickster, you are so dramatic sometimes. Isn’t he?” The last bit was to Shaw.
“Don’t do that. Quit dragging him into things.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I don’t feel bad about it. She knew what was happening. She decided to stick around. Rik and I were good together. The sex was fantastic. He didn’t want anything serious. Neither did I. I’m still…working on myself. And, if I’m being totally honest, I’m still hung up on this guy. He’s tough as nails, hot as fuck, and the best thing that ever happened to me before I screwed it all up. And even though it’s hopeless, I still want to find a way to win him back.”
The wash of blood in North’s ears was so high pitched that he mistook it, at first, for the shimmery aluminum chiming of the blinds. He cleared his throat. He realized, with a kind of detachment, that he was clutching one of the bail pulls so hard that his knuckles were popping out. He made himself release it, straighten his fingers, watch the blood rush back into blanched skin.
“Say anything like that ever again.” North stopped. Swallowed. “And I’ll drop this case. Do you hear me?”
“Why can’t I be honest about how I feel? I love you, North, and—”
North was out of the seat before he realized he was moving. He lunged across the desk, swatting the lamp out of his way, and was only distantly aware of the bulb shattering when it crashed to the floor. “Are you fucking deaf? What did I say? What did you not understand?”
“North, come on,” Shaw kept saying, tugging on his arm. “Let’s go outside and cool down for a minute. Let’s—”
Ripping his arm free, North spun on Shaw. “Cut it out.” He took a deep breath. He smoothed his hair down with both hands. “Christ. This is classic you, Tucker. You know that? Fuck everyone else, so long as you get what you want.” The cotton under his arms was damp and chafing. The smell of flop sweat turned his stomach. He brushed his hair down again and shook himself once, all over, like a dog. “Let’s get this over with; tell us the rest of it.”
“I woke up,” Tucker was giving North that scolded-puppy look again, “and he was dead.”
“What time?”
“It was still dark. Don’t make that face. I don’t know; I was still pretty out of it. I definitely wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Where were you?” Shaw asked. “In the room, I mean.”
“On the floor. The driver—” For the first time in their conversation, Tucker’s voice slipped. “The driver was in my hand. That was weird, but like I said, I was out of it. I got up. I’d never felt like that before; I have a history of abusing alcohol—”
North snorted.
“—but I’d never felt like that. I saw Rik, and I knew something was wrong. The way he was lying. He was on the floor, kind of turned away, head and shoulder crammed up against the wall. It looked really uncomfortable. When I got closer, I could see a little bit of blood dried in his hair. And then I realized something was funny about the shape of his head. It—” He made a hollow of his hand. “—was caved in. Then I realized he wasn’t breathing, all that stuff, and I figured out he was dead. So, I called the cops.”
“Jesus, Tucker.”
“I didn’t kill him! Why wouldn’t I call them? I was freaking out; I’d woken up next to a dead man, and I was pretty sure someone might have tried to kill me too.”
North snorted again.
“What makes you say that?” Shaw asked.
“The roofies. He had them out on the dresser.” Tucker shook his head and started over. “After I called the cops, I washed up in the bathroom—”
With a groan, North shook his head.
Tucker’s look was defiant. “—and then I came out again and saw the pills.”
“You know they were roofies?”
“No, but, I mean, they had to be something like that, right? Someone slipped me something so I’d pass out. That’s what I thought, anyway. But then I started thinking, what if they hadn’t just wanted me to pass out? Mix the wrong meds with enough alcohol, and you can die from that stuff. Maybe I was supposed to be dead and out of the way before whoever killed him got there.”
North and Shaw exchanged a look.
“What?” Tucker asked.
“You never did drugs with Rik?”
Tucker fidgeted in the chair and then launched to his feet. He began to pace. “Coke sometimes. I mean, it made the sex even better. And a few times we smoked crystal, but that stuff is hard, and I didn’t want to get into it.”
“Really responsible,” North said.
“I’m telling you, we never did anything like that stuff. I don’t know why Rik had the pills. I don’t even know if he gave them to me; I honestly don’t remember anything after getting to the motel. But I never would have done that kind of combo. I needed something to pick me up, not something to stop my breathing.”
“What about the alcohol?” Shaw asked.
“Yeah, Dr. Farr has helped me see how my dependence on alcohol, my abuse of it, has affected the most important relationships—”
“Oh, right, I forgot how fucking weird it is that you wanted to see the same shrink as Shaw. She must be helping you a ton—is that why you had how many of those gin and tonics at lunch?”
“I meant,” Shaw cut in hurriedly, “have you ever blacked out from drinking before?”
“Yes,” North said.
“No,” Tucker said.
“You surely fucking have. I put you to bed enough times to know.”
“Not like Thursday night! Yes, I abuse alcohol, and I’m in a program, and I’m going to make reparations to the people who matter most—”
“For fuck’s sake, you self-absorbed cunt—”
“Everybody shut up!” Shaw’s shout echoed in the silence. “Tucker, if you’re serious about how you feel, then read the room and realize now isn’t the time. North, if you think he’s baiting you, then quit letting him do it. God damn it, I forgot why I hated being around you two freshman and sophomore years.”
In the reception area, music swelled: “Leja Re” began to play loud enough to drown out everything else. Apparently Pari was sick of listening to them too.
Shamefaced, Tucker offered a half smile to North.
North dropped back into his seat and rubbed his forehead. Then, with a scowl for Shaw, he said, “You weren’t always a treat yourself. Don’t think either of us forgot your six-week voyage into plastic-wrap fetish. I had to cut you out of that fucking stuff once. You think I wanted to see your sausage squeezed flat? Chris
t, I get triggered every time I walk by a meat case.”
Tucker burst out laughing, his face surprised, and clapped a hand over his mouth. When he pulled his fingers away, he was grinning. “I actually did forget about that.”
“What about the golf club?” Shaw asked.
“The murder weapon?”
“Can you describe it? Anything distinctive—”
“It was mine.”
Shaw stopped. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I spent enough on them to know—ask him. It was a driver, a Callaway.”
When Shaw glanced over, North nodded. “He’d know. He made me drive that fucking van an extra six months so he could have a new set of clubs.”
“I did?” Tucker rubbed his chin. “Yeah, I guess I did. God, I’m sorry about that.”
“When did that go missing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I haven’t golfed in weeks. A couple of months, maybe. I’ve been down.” A flush climbed under his perfect tan. “Actually, because I’m trying to be honest—Dr. Farr says that’s important—I’ve been depressed. I’ve been taking medication for it, but it’s still affecting my daily life in a lot of ways. Golf’s one of them.”
North shifted in his seat. He ran his thumb around the desk’s corner. “Do you still keep them in the car?”
“Never took them out.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been struggling,” Shaw said. “If there’s something—”
“Someone broke into our house. My house. The house.” Tucker gave a flustered shake of his head. “A couple of weeks ago.”
“Wait, what?”
“I just remembered: someone broke in.”
“Did you call the police?”
Shaking his head again, Tucker said, “Nothing was missing. I came home. The back door was hanging open. I thought maybe I’d forgotten to lock it and the wind had forced it open; it’s an old house, and that kind of thing happens.”
North nodded.
“But once I was inside, I started to think someone had forced it, because I was pretty sure I had locked it. I always lock it. And it wouldn’t have been hard to force—like I said, old house; it’s pretty easy to pop the latch out of the strike plate. I was already inside, though, and the TV was there, my iPad, even the alcohol. I checked because I thought teenagers might have been looking to score. Nothing was missing, so I figured I was wrong. For the next few days, I kept an eye out, but I never found anything missing.” He spread his hands. “I mean, the clubs were in the car; there’s no way they got them that day. Please tell me I didn’t fuck up.”
“They could have taken the spare fob for the Beamer. It’s something you wouldn’t even notice was missing until you needed it. When was the last time you looked for it?”
Tucker shut his eyes, and some of the color drained from his face. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He pounded a fist on the arm of the chair. “I am such a fucking idiot.”
“We don’t know if that’s what happened,” Shaw said. “We won’t know until you can get back in your house and see what’s missing. We’ll also need to check the police record from the search to see what they took, but that’s going to have to wait until they’ve finished.”
“They released the property,” Tucker said, rubbing his eyes.
“What?”
“They’re done. I can go home. Biff told me when they were processing me out. But since there’s a maniac out there who either wants me dead too, or at least wants me framed for Rik’s murder, I’m not exactly eager to take up bachelor life right now.”
“Let’s press pause on the Poor Tucker show for a minute,” North said. “You weren’t killed. That’s pretty important. Whoever bashed Rik’s head in could have done it to you. Instead, you just had some convenient sleepy time.”
“What does that mean? Convenient? What the hell are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying—”
“Nothing,” Shaw said. “We don’t want to exclude any possibilities, that’s all.”
“No, I’m saying that I think you’re full of shit. I think you killed Rik, took a roofie as a weird kind of alibi, and now you’re trying to pass the whole thing off onto a mysterious third person.”
The horror and hurt in Tucker’s face were so deep that, after a moment, North looked down at the desk. He played with the blotter, lifting it and then letting it fall again.
“How can you think that about me?”
“It’s your MO,” North mumbled. “You get wasted. You get rough. You get angry, and then you get out of control.”
Shaw touched his arm; North pulled away.
“I would never—” Tucker must have stopped to swallow because he made a weird noise. North kept his eyes down. “Mick—North, I deserve that. From you, I do.” Tucker stood, and North looked up to see that his expression had gone waxy; he was steadying himself with one hand still gripping the chair. “I think—I think maybe someone else should look into this stuff. It’s not fair to you, not after everything I put you through.”
“Maybe—” Shaw began.
“No,” North said. He cleared his throat and tossed a pad of paper at Tucker, who caught it by reflex. “Write down every bank account, internet account, password, and login. I’m doing this. And if you killed that son of a bitch, Tucker, I’m going to nail your balls to the wall.”
Chapter 6
THEY DROPPED TUCKER AT his parents’ house, a redbrick Ladue monstrosity. Then they headed south to I-64 and headed east, back into the city. The sky was eye-wateringly blue, with a scattering of lonely clouds scudding along. Glass and chrome glittered in the sunlight. Sound walls with innocuous designs rose on either side of them, turning the highway into a concrete shaft, and North couldn’t escape the feeling of a slaughterhouse chute.
In the seat next to him, Shaw was talking on the phone. “All right. Please be nice to him. Please. I know you will, but sometimes I think the two of you let this whole friendly rivalry thing get out of hand.” He sighed at whatever he heard, and then he said, “Here he is.”
North accepted the phone. “Well?”
Jadon Reck was a detective on the Metropolitan Police’s LGBT task force. He was also Shaw’s ex-boyfriend. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sure things are hard right now.”
“Yeah, fine. What do you have on Tucker?”
“You know, I’m doing you a favor here.”
“So quit talking about it and do it.”
“I get that you’re under a lot of stress right now, and I get that having your ex-husband charged with murder has got to be incredibly difficult, but you don’t have a lot of friends on the force, and you’re doing a good job at getting rid of the ones that are left.”
“Really, Jadon? Do you get it? Because—”
Shaw took the phone, whispered, “Hold on a minute,” and slipped it under his leg—presumably to muffle what came next.
North swore for a few minutes.
When he’d finished, Shaw put the phone on speaker and said, “He’s going to apologize now.”
“I’ve got things to do today,” Jadon said.
“I. Am. Sorry.” North glared at the phone. “There. Is that enough?”
“Look, I don’t have time for this. The only reason I’m talking to you about Tucker’s case is because the new circuit attorney, Fiegler, is pissing me off.”
“Pissing you off how?” Shaw asked.
“She’s trying to railroad this.”
“Rik’s murder?”
“Yeah. She’s made it a hundred percent clear that Tucker killed Rik, and now it’s time to find a story that a jury will swallow.”
“But that’s—” Shaw looked at North. “That’s unethical. And probably illegal. And wrong.”
“That’s the politics of being a prosecutor. In not so many words, she said that the LGBT task force has made people believe that the city is soft on LGBT criminals. Sh
e’s taking a hard line on any LGBT offender, and even though Cerise and I have argued with her about this, we don’t have any recent high-profile convictions to back us up. Not ones that we handled entirely on our own, anyway.”
“Entirely on your—oh.”
North grimaced. “That bitch is mad because Borealis solved your cases first?”
“Don’t say bitch,” Shaw whispered.
“The bottom line,” Jadon said, “is that she thinks Tucker did it, and that’s the angle we’re supposed to follow. It’s classic homophobia: she’s got Tucker painted as the obsessive gay stalker who murdered his lover when this nominally straight, married guy decided to go back to the loving arms of heterosexuality.”
“And what do you think?” North asked.
“I think the whole thing is weird. Tucker definitely took benzodiazepines; they showed up in the hospital bloodwork. The responding officers’ report says he seemed drugged when they got there. He didn’t have blood spatter on him, but he admits to cleaning up in the bathroom, and the spatter was infinitesimal anyway—there’s only a tiny bit on the murder weapon because the blows didn’t lacerate the scalp. The worst things he’s got going against him are that he was found at the scene, and his prints are on the golf club. Plus he’s got a history of substance abuse and violence. It’s not a home run for murder two, but what they’ve got is scary enough that I think they’re trying to get him to plead to voluntary manslaughter.”
“Shit.”
“Pretty much.”
“Call us if you get anything else.”
“Please,” Jadon corrected as North reached over to disconnect the call. “You have to say—”
“I don’t think he was done talking,” Shaw said.
“He’s done now. Jesus Christ, they’re trying to frame him? What the fuck is going on?”
On one knee, Shaw balanced the notepad where Tucker had written his various accounts and passwords. Then he picked up his phone and began tapping at the screen. “The police aren’t trying to frame him. Someone else might be, but the police are trying to get an easy, attention-getting win.”
“It’s basically the same thing.”