Redirection

by Gregory Ashe

  “North,” Shaw said quietly.

  “No, it’s bullshit. It looks like she’s guilty as fuck. Fact: somebody roofied Tucker in order to frame him the night of the murder. Fact: Jean had a bottle of roofies that aren’t legal in the US. Fact: Jean didn’t have any money of her own anymore; her family was broke. Fact: Rik was divorcing her. Fact: she gets everything now that he’s dead. Fact: we caught her trying to destroy evidence, and she realized she was about to be caught and tried to kill herself.”

  “Is that what you think?” Jadon asked Shaw.

  “Don’t talk to him.” North moved between them. “I’m talking to you. Talk to me.”

  Jadon’s mouth thinned. “Or she’s a deeply unhappy woman who either accidentally or purposefully took too many tranquilizers. She just lost her husband. We don’t know if the divorce papers were executed, so there’s no way of telling if those provide a motive or not. Rik might have taken the flunitrazepam to the motel with him for recreational use. It could be exactly how you said, North. I’m not saying it wasn’t. But there’s a lot of ways it could have played out, and like I told you, I don’t like jumping to conclusions.”

  North managed an irritated grunt. For some reason, that made Cerise laugh, and a flush climbed North’s cheeks.

  “Are you ok?” Jadon asked Shaw.

  “Yeah. I will be.”

  They had reached the automatic doors that led outside. A little red light flashed in the sensor. The doors made a clicking noise and whirred open. The afternoon’s thick, swampy heat came in like a comber, sweat beading instantaneously at Shaw’s nape. Even muggy with humidity and parking lot exhaust, the air seemed fresh and sweet compared to the hospital.

  Jadon stopped. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Anytime.”

  “I meant now.”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “He means in private, dumbshit,” North said. “And the answer should be no.”

  “Come on,” Cerise said with another laugh. “You and I will stand outside, and you can snarl and make faces through the glass.”

  North followed her through the automatic doors, throwing dark looks back. He said to Cerise, “Do you think it’s possible to hit someone in the balls hard enough that they pop? I’m asking for this project I have in mind.”

  “Oh Lord,” Cerise said, and then the doors slid shut again.

  The silence hung for a moment. Then Jadon smiled. “Cute vest.”

  Shaw plucked at the hi-vis polyester. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Jadon’s eyes. “It gave me a rash.”

  With a soft laugh, Jadon shook his head. “Are you really ok?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know that’s hard for you, when people get hurt. When you see people get hurt.”

  “I’ll be all right. I’m getting better. I’m learning how to handle that kind of thing.”

  “Will you call Dr. Farr?”

  “Jadon, I’m fine.”

  The red light on the sensor flashed. The doors whirred open. Cerise’s voice floated in. “I’m just saying, if you didn’t always act so jealous—”

  “I am not jealous,” North barked.

  The doors slid shut.

  “Jeez,” Jadon groaned. “Can we stand over there so the doors don’t keep opening?”

  They moved over to a seating area in the lobby. North was doing some pretty impressive snarling through the glass.

  “God, that makes me feel like I’m wasting my time.”

  “Oh, he thinks possessiveness is a way of manifesting love, but really, it’s this biologically vestigial mechanism for ensuring reproduction of one individual’s specific genetic material, and since I can’t reproduce, well, I mean, yet, it’s kind of pointless.”

  “Uh huh,” Jadon said, eyes vacant, and then he bit his lip. He blurted, “Did you think about what I said? About getting a drink sometime?”

  “Um.”

  The TV in the lobby was tuned to MSNBC. Rachel Maddow was letting the Republicans have it, and Shaw briefly thought he should tell North that he and Rachel had similar head shapes and maybe he’d want to borrow Rachel’s haircut.

  Jadon laughed. “Well, dingbat?”

  “Well, what?”

  “I mean, you guys are broken up, right??”

  “Oh. Yeah. I mean, he botched the whole thing. Really shoddy breakup. It’s not like he’s never done it before because he was always throwing guys out of our apartment and telling them that they were sweet but he had too much dick to give, which made me laugh so hard one time that I got sick, and you should have seen his face when—”

  “Shaw, I’m out on a limb here.”

  “What? Why? Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  Commercial break. Denture paste. Shaw had never seen a lady this happy with her denture paste. She was chomping almonds. She was devouring grits. And then out to the golf cart to give the grandkids a ride.

  “Jadon—”

  “Oh my God,” Jadon groaned, but he was grinning. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to reject me again. I’ve barely got any self-respect left. Believe it or not, I used to actually find guys who liked me. Now I only seem to find guys who won’t have anything to do with me, but I can’t get them out of my head.”

  “I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Ricky.”

  “I messed things up.” Then his grin got bigger. “Come on, get it over with and tell me I’m scum and you wouldn’t even bother looking at me long enough to scrape me off your shoe.”

  “That’s not—that’s not how I feel. I think you’re one of the best men I’ve ever met. But.”

  Jadon waited.

  Fresh up on TV, the Golden Retriever. Get cans down from high shelves. Reach the remote without getting up from your seat. Can’t fetch down that shawl? You’ll never have to call your grandson again!

  “I don’t know where things are with North. It’s messy. And I think I owe it to him—to both of us—to see where we end up.”

  “He’s not going to let you go.”

  A smile cracked Shaw’s face. “He broke up with me.”

  “Yeah, well, look at his ape-at-the-zoo routine. I’m telling you, Shaw, he’s not going to let you go. That’s why he couldn’t break up with you. That’s why you had to do it for him. So if you get to a place where you need to end things, really end them, you’re going to have to be the one to do it.”

  Shaw watched North, who was pacing on the other side of the glass. “I know,” he said quietly.

  “If you change your mind, I’d like to take you out for dinner and see if we can pick up where we left off.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll even yell at you sometimes, since apparently I was way too nice to you.”

  Shaw burst out laughing. Then he stretched up to kiss Jadon on the cheek.

  Jadon rolled his eyes, but a smile exploded on his lips. Then his expression changed, and he pulled out his phone. “Reck.” He listened. “What do you mean? Well, how much money? Where did it come from? Damn it. Have the bank manager pull the security footage. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Trouble?” Shaw asked.

  “If this isn’t a mistake, yeah, it’s trouble. If I were you, I’d call Tucker and see what he knows about a recent deposit.” Jadon hesitated as he pocketed the phone. “You’re going to call Dr. Farr?”

  “I’ll be fine. Promise.”

  Jadon smiled at him, and they headed outside. Jadon and Cerise left. North was mauling a gum wrapper with one Redwing, apparently trying to cram the foiled paper into a sidewalk crack. It took almost a full minute for him to look up. A hot, long minute, and by the end of it, sweat gummed the cotton of Shaw’s shirt to his underarms.

  “Well?” North asked, voice gruff.

  “He’s the father. And I’m keeping it.”

  For a moment, relief shone in North’s face. Then a scowl scoured it away. “You really are a
mental defective, you know that?”

  “Do you know what we should do?”

  “Go get your maternity muumuus out of storage?”

  “I actually do have some muumuus, and they’d probably feel lovely in this heat. Once I start to show—”

  North made a high-pitched noise, wheeled around, and headed across the parking lot.

  When Shaw caught up, he told North about the phone call.

  “So we should call Tucker,” North said, “and find out why he’s got a significant chunk of money showing up in his account.”

  “Oh yeah, but I was actually thinking we should go back to Rik and Jean’s house. You know, while Jadon is busy.”

  The sound North made was distinctly satisfied, but all he said was “You’d do that to your baby-daddy?”

  “It was purely physical.”

  “Stop it, Shaw.”

  “I needed a big bull stud.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “That big daddy dick getting me bred.”

  He whirled toward Shaw. “I said it’s not a good joke, so cut it out.”

  Somewhere off in the parking lot, a car started. The breeze shifted, and Shaw caught a whiff of his own sweat, of the hot tar, of the American Crew gel in North’s hair.

  “Did you hear me?” North said.

  “Yeah, yes.”

  “And?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll cut it out.”

  They drove back to Ladue, their pace slowed to a crawl by rush hour traffic, and they didn’t speak to each other except after North had finished another screaming match with Tucker.

  “Thirty thousand dollars showed up in Tucker’s account this morning.”

  “What? How?”

  “Tucker says all the bank can tell him is that it was an overnight deposit. Cash. And, of course, he claims he has no idea where it came from.”

  “Could his parents—”

  “No way they’d do something stupid like that. If they wanted to give him money, they’d write him a check. No need to try to hide it. Besides, this makes Tucker look even worse. I can already hear how they’ll spin it—this is the payoff for his part in the murder, he was an accomplice, that kind of thing.”

  Shaw shook his head. “Wouldn’t the bank have called him? That’s a lot of money, especially for a cash deposit.”

  “They called him,” North said grimly. “This morning. He got the voicemail after he was bonded out.”

  “Wait, so he knew about it when we talked to him at his house?”

  “Yes. He, quote, ‘didn’t want to bother us.’”

  “Damn it. Does he not know how serious this is?”

  North settled in behind the wheel, his face locked in that expression that meant he wasn’t going to say anything else.

  Ladue was a Nice community where Nice people lived. Shaw had grown up around people who lived in Ladue. He had gone to school with kids who had lived in Ladue. He had gone to birthday parties with real ponies and magicians and bounce houses and Olympic-sized swimming pools. Rahul Narain, whose dad was a neurologist and whose mom was an orthodontist, had a treehouse with air conditioning. And its own garage. So, when people talked about Ladue, Shaw could hear the capital N in Nice, and he knew what it meant: slate roofs and copper flashing and crushed brick driveways and Daddy sucking the pool boy’s cock while Mommy did rails in the en suite bathroom. Early evening, all the Audis and Teslas were making their way down quiet, tree-lined streets to complete the day’s routine: drinks, dinner, drinks, drinks.

  Shaw heard his own thoughts and tried to pump the brakes. It was just that thing with North. It was just how weird it had been, how quickly North had turned on him, how awful things had gotten so suddenly.

  They parked two blocks away from the Slooves’ home and walked back. A Honda minivan rolled past, the driver twisted fully around in her seat as she screamed at someone—presumably kids—in the back. North took Shaw’s arm and tugged him up onto the grass; the minivan still came within about six inches, and the woman never noticed. When Shaw looked at North, North grimaced and dropped his hand.

  Instead of the front door, they went around back. The paramedics had pulled the French doors shut, but nobody had had a key, and the nature of the emergency meant that nobody had time to look. When Shaw tried the doors, they wobbled open, and an arctic blast of cool rolled out, carrying the smell of garbage that needed emptying. Shaw took a step, and North caught his shoulder, snorted, and moved into the lead. As he passed Shaw, he slapped a pair of disposable gloves against his chest, and Shaw pulled them on.

  The kitchen was painted the same French country blue, with a few square miles of marble countertops and the newer kind of black stainless-steel appliances. Copper pans hung over the range. A wreath of fuchsia hydrangeas offered a splash of color. The microwave beeped, and when Shaw glanced over, he was surprised to see END flashing on the digital screen. A few seconds later, the microwave beeped again. He depressed the door release button with his knuckle, and the door swung open, releasing the fragrances of steamed masa and cumin. Two tamales sat on a plate. One had exploded, spraying the pork filling across the otherwise spotless interior.

  “Still hot,” Shaw whispered.

  North nodded.

  The microwave hadn’t been running when they were here with Jean. And since Rik was dead and Jean was in the hospital, somebody else had decided to warm up a snack.

  North’s hand moved to his jeans’ pocket, and he pulled out a can of pepper gel. Then he started forward again.

  The rest of the house was what Shaw expected from the few glimpses he’d gotten. It had cream-colored walls with thick, white molding, glossy hardwood floors, and a pleasant scent—once they left the kitchen—that reminded him of tropical fruits. In every room, someone had artfully placed chests and accent tables and mirrors to create the appearance of abundance without making the space feel cluttered. Everywhere, the furniture shared the inlaid mahogany and gilded bronze and mother-of-pearl details of the Louis XVI aesthetic.

  A muttered word from somewhere ahead made North freeze. Then he began moving again, not looking back, and Shaw felt the familiar surge of confidence. This was what they were good at it. This is what they were made to do. And the fact that North knew it too, that North didn’t even have to look to make sure Shaw was on the same page, made Shaw grin fiercely as he followed.

  They found him in an office with built-in bookshelves painted white, a gas fireplace, and a bay window looking out on the covered swimming pool. He was standing at a desk—more Louis XVI—rummaging through papers. Tall and well built in the chest and shoulders, he couldn’t have been much older than twenty. His skin was the color of sand, a light brown that was almost yellow, and his long hair was styled in a twist-out. Clothes told some of the story: ripped black jeans with a white stripe on the sides; a marled Navy Pier t-shirt with holes near the hem; Jordans, the white leather cracked and dingy; a simple gold chain that he slid beneath his collar when Shaw’s attention focused on it.

  “Who are you?” North asked.

  The young man tossed down the papers. “Who am I? Who the hell are you?” His eyes focused on Shaw. “And what the hell are you wearing?”

  “I asked you first,” North said, “and I’m the one holding the pepper gel.”

  His eyes cut to the canister in North’s hand, then back to North’s face. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Do that.”

  “I want you out of my house. Get out of my house!”

  “Buddy, I still don’t know who you are, and you’re pissing me off. So let’s try one more time—”

  Then Shaw put it together, and he pushed North’s hand down, lowering the canister. “He’s their son.”

  Chapter 12

  IT WASN’T EXACTLY SMOOTH sailing, but somehow Shaw managed to calm everyone down and keep both North and the young man from calling the police. He even got them to move into the kitchen, hoping that the c
hange of scenery would defuse things further. The only thing that made Shaw hold his breath was when the young man—Rik’s son—retrieved his tamales from the microwave. North had his phone out and, although he was trying to be discreet, he was clearly taking pictures of this guy. If the guy noticed, though, he gave no clue—he just sat at the island with his tamales. Shaw propped himself against the range. North pocketed his phone, crossed his arms, and stood near the French doors.

  “You can have something if you want,” the young man said, nodding at the fridge. “They’ve got a lot.”

  “I want your name. How about we start with that? North McKinney, Shaw Aldrich, and now you fill in the fucking blank.”

  Sighing, Shaw opened the fridge and began his search.

  “Will,” the young man said. “Well, it’s actually Willem. Because my dad’s family, they’re crazy about this whole Dutch ancestry thing. I mean, look at me? Do I look like a Willem? Do I look Dutch?” Shaw glanced over his shoulder; Will was gesturing to his twist-out, grinning, and then took another bite of his tamales. “My mom’s from Cameroon. Do you know my mom?”

  “We’ve met,” North said flatly. “Where is she? I’d like to talk to her too.”

  “In the hospital.” Will chewed, swallowed, and added, “I don’t have time to sit here like this. I need to hurry up and get over there.”

  “That’s funny,” North said. “We were over there with her, and we didn’t see you.”

  Will’s chewing slowed. He set down the fork, and it clinked against the plate. “I think it’s about time you tell me who you are and why you’re in my house.”

  “It’s not your house,” North said. “And I’m not sure you are who you say you are. In fact—”

  “Cheese time!” Shaw announced, producing a plastic-wrapped cheese plate. He unwrapped it, carried it to North, and held it out. North looked at it, obviously torn, and after a moment snatched it from Shaw. Shaw asked Will, “Crackers?”

  He glanced around. “I don’t know, man. I’ve got no idea where they keep stuff.”

  Shaw found crackers on his first try, in the butler’s pantry. “I don’t have a naturally psychic affinity for carbs and dairy,” he informed Will as he passed the box to North, “but I’ve developed a small ability over time. Mostly because I’m always finding things for North. Sometimes I have to use my gift to find things in the weirdest places. Like one time, there was a box of crackers behind all the bags of frozen vegetables in the freezer.”