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No corrections officers had appeared on camera. No deputies. Nobody besides Gid and the unnamed woman. But Adam Ezell was a deputy sheriff, and he’d worked at the county jail, and the SD card had been in his house. And now Ezell was missing, and two men were dead.
On the other side of the glass, Gid shifted in his seat. He hadn’t been charged, not yet, which meant no cuffs and, more importantly, none of the systemic apparatus designed to break you down, to scare the shit out of you in a way that made you compliant and eager to please. The lawyer with the helmet bob looked like four hundred dollars an hour of being a pain-in-the-ass. All of that was the bad stuff.
The good stuff, though, was that Gid looked like shit. He’d dressed for the occasion—a dark suit, a white shirt, a red tie. His rockabilly hair, though, was greasy and lank, and his eyes had that cartoonish look people got sometimes, when fatigue made them big and droopy. Even under the spray-on tan, his color was bad. He’d kept the cross, and every time he moved in his seat, it swung around his neck like a car air freshener. And Gid must have been having a hard time staying still, because he was moving in his seat a lot.
The door to the observation room opened, and John-Henry stepped into the room. He was in uniform again, and he looked better for having caught some sleep and some food and a shower. North didn’t miss the way Emery’s eyes immediately scanned the blond man. It was clearly automatic, some sort of reflexive assessment. Whatever part of Emery was a cyborg (North put the percentage somewhere between fifty and eighty) was clearly doing a biometric scan or some Terminator-level bullshit like that, and it was equal parts cute and annoying. Not that anything Emery did was cute. Not that North would ever—ever—say any of this where Shaw could hear. And it was equally cute and annoying that John-Henry registered it, that he gave back a tiny smile in response, and that it all happened between the two of them like some sort of secret language that nine out of ten people in the world missed completely.
And meanwhile, the love of North’s life had gotten caught inside his own shirt again.
“For the love of God,” North said as he yanked the shirt down, forcing Shaw’s head through the opening. The fabric was some kind of rustling, silvery nonsense that was probably ridiculously expensive. It buttoned up the side, and the aesthetic seemed to land somewhere between technocop and astronaut’s whorehouse. North had never seen it before, and he was one hundred percent sure it hadn’t been in Shaw’s suitcase when they’d left St. Louis. “Quit trying to bite the tag; there’s got to be a hundred pairs of scissors in this place if you want it off so bad.”
“But—” Shaw began.
“John,” Emery said. “Please.”
“Really quick before I go in there,” John-Henry said, “I wanted to tell you again this was fantastic work. Really, really good. I spent the rest of yesterday having Eric Brey’s attorney feed me bullshit by the spoonful, so when you told me you found this—” He grinned. “It definitely turned my day around.”
“And you brought it to John instead of stepping all over your own dicks,” Emery said drily, “which was an unexpected improvement.”
“What did Brey tell you?” North asked.
“Nothing, unfortunately. I mean, he and his attorney had clearly cooked up the statement together. Eric is a passionate supporter of troubled teen intervention programs, he’s forged many lifelong bonds with the teens he’s helped, he hoped that by meeting privately with Welch he could convince him to turn himself in, he understands he made a mistake, and he is, of course, willing to do everything in his power to make things right. On and on like that.”
“You should have slapped him with aiding and abetting,” Emery said sourly. John-Henry looked at him, and Emery straightened up and mumbled, “But, of course, your best judgment—”
“Uh huh,” John-Henry said. To North and Shaw, he said, “I’m going to interview Gid. Let me know if you see anything I miss. And guys? That was A-plus work. I knew bringing you on was the right thing to do.”
As soon as the door closed behind him, Shaw said, “We should get tattoos. Matching tattoos. The four of us.”
“Jesus Christ,” North muttered. “Why don’t you work on that tag some more?”
When John-Henry stepped into the interview room, he was carrying a laptop under one arm. The lawyer with the helmet bob sat up straight and began her spiel: Mr. Moss was only here because he was a good citizen, because he wanted to do whatever he could to help law enforcement, and because of his moral obligations as a Christian. She talked around that point a number of times actually. North had to give her credit; she never actually came out and said,He’s got a shitload of money from daddy’s megachurch, but she did a fantastic job of painting it into the subtext.
Finally, she left enough of an opening for John-Henry to ask, “Gideon, how long have you been having sex with inmates at the county jail?”
Confusion muddled Gid’s features. Then, for only an instant, North would have sworn Gid looked relieved. He sputtered, “That’s—I didn’t—I never—” His lawyer laid a hand on his arm, and he cut off.
“That’s a serious—and offensive—allegation, Chief Somerset.”
John-Henry placed the laptop on the table and opened it. The video was already queued up, and he played it. The lawyer had a good poker face. Gid, on the other hand, did not. His jaw loosened. Sweat beaded along that rockabilly hairline. He glanced around the small room as though someone might have installed an escape hatch.
“How long have you been having sex with inmates at the county jail?” John-Henry asked again.
Gid opened his mouth, but his lawyer said, “Don’t answer that.”
“That’s a mistake,” John-Henry said. “I’ve got video evidence, and before you start spinning me a story, let me remind you that sexual activity is not permitted between inmates and visitors at the Dore County Correctional Center. On top of that, it’s a violation of the city’s public indecency ordinance.”
The lawyer was quiet for several long moments. “Are you charging my client?”
“Was Adam Ezell blackmailing you?” John-Henry asked.
“Don’t answer that,” the lawyer said again. “This interview—”
“Is this what you were looking for when you broke into Adam Ezell’s house two nights ago?”
Gid’s color had dropped even more, and the spray-on tan looked like what it was: a bad paint job.
“We’re leaving,” the lawyer said, taking Gid’s arm.
