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“We think we’ve got a line on Maleah Donaldson,” Shaw said. “The potential girlfriend. She wants to know if she can collect the money, seeing as Welch is in jail and, more importantly, owes her money.”
“She didn’t know he escaped?”
“It didn’t seem like it, but she sure seemed like she wanted to talk.”
Emery made an interested noise.
North grinned. “How pissed is that fuck Cassidy going to be when we stomp all over his backyard again?”
15
At four o’clock, a silver Chevy the size of a teacup pulled into the driveway of the house Shaw and North were watching. Shaw resisted the urge to sit up for a closer look; that was the kind of thing—sudden movement, in this case—that got you noticed. Instead, he said, “She’s here.”
As he spoke the words, a Black woman in a pencil skirt and a lightweight cardigan emerged from the Chevy. She went up the steps, unlocked the door of the duplex on the right, and went inside.
So far, so good.
They’d been watching the two-unit brick building for a little over an hour. Emery and John-Henry had been preoccupied with moving forward with the investigation into Gideon. North and Shaw, meanwhile, had spent the day tracking down the missing deputy. Trying to, anyway. If Adam Ezell was still alive, he was doing a damn good job of hiding. Tean and Jem hadn’t been lying about the dead-ends. North and Shaw tried to locate his family, but the closest they got was the same brother Tean and Jem had already told them about—Kingston Ezell. His phone number went straight to voicemail, and his address left them at a run-down apartment building on the outskirts of Wahredua. An online search for assets didn’t turn up anything interesting either—neither Adam nor his brother owned a conveniently out-of-the-way cabin or hunting lodge or, for that matter, so much as an RV. Adam Ezell didn’t have outrageous debts, and there was no sign that he’d been anything but what Deputy Weiss had originally told them: a mediocre deputy who had, somehow, vanished during his shift. By then, it had been time to start the drive to Auburn, and now, true to her word, Maleah Donaldson had arrived home right on time.
“Here we go,” North said as he got out of the car.
When they knocked on the porch, Maleah opened the door on a chain. She looked out at them from the narrow opening, scanning first North, then Shaw.
“I like it because it makes me feel like a cosmonaut.” He plucked at the silver silk. “Plus it’s super comfy when it’s hot.”
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“North McKinney. This is Shaw Aldrich. We’re private investigators working with the Wahredua Police Department.” When Maleah didn’t say anything, he continued, “We’d like to talk to you about Philip Welch.”
“What do you mean, private investigators?”
“Ms. Donaldson, this is important.”
Her breathing changed. She let out a taut, scornful little laugh. “There’s no money.”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“How do I know you are who you say you are? Do you have badges?”
North showed her his ID and his private investigator license.
“I’m going to call the police and ask them.”
“The Wahredua PD,” North said. “That’s who you’ve got to call.”
She nodded and shut the door. The bolt went home.
“Does that seem a little…excessive?” Shaw asked.
“I don’t know. If I were a single woman living alone and someone dressed like a silver scrotum showed up on my doorstep, I’d probably call the police too.”
Shaw considered that. “It does kind of look like a scrote, doesn’t it? Right here where it’s all wrinkly?”
North glared at him.
“What?”
“You know perfectly fucking well.” He was silent for a second and then, because he was North, he burst out, “You can’t let me have one fucking thing, can you?”
