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North nodded.
“Is there a problem?” John-Henry asked. “I understand if you don’t want to—” He didn’t quite look at Shaw, but he didn’t need to; North could feel the pull, the way Shaw was acting on all of them like a dark gravity. “If you need to think about it first.”
“No,” North said. “We’ll do it. I just wanted to hear both of you admit we’re hot shit first.”
“I never said—” Emery began.
Before he could finish, though, raised voices came from the bullpen: the words were indistinct, but the volume and tone suggested anger.
Emery, looking out the window, grimaced. “Brother Gary and Red Alvin.”
“Problem?” North asked.
“The sheriff’s department’s on-call clowns.”
“They’re detectives for the sheriff’s department,” John-Henry said. “And they’re not going to be happy when they find out I’m directing the investigation. You might want to clear out while you can.”
“Can you call over to the jail?” North asked as he stood. Shaw didn’t move, so he caught Shaw’s elbow and helped him to his feet. “We’ll start there.”
John-Henry nodded. His eyes moved to Shaw. “North—”
“We’ll be fine,” North said.
He led Shaw out of the office, and instead of heading for the entrance, they broke right toward a fire door across the bullpen. He had a glimpse of two men arguing with a pair of uniformed officers—one man wore a white suit like Matlock, and the other, in a track suit, looked like death warmed over. John-Henry had been right: they didn’t look happy, and North figured they were going to be even more upset by the time the night was over.
“Come on,” he said, joggling Shaw’s elbow. “We’ve got a murder to solve.”
3
North got Shaw settled in the GTO, and then he started driving back to Emery and John-Henry’s house. The streets of the small town seemed impossibly empty; in St. Louis, there was always the low-grade thrum of traffic. Here, though, they passed intersection after intersection, the lights all switched over to red blinkers, the streets like hollow places in the darkness.
Shaw stirred, blinked, looked around. “Where are we—North, no!”
“North, yes.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re most definitely not fine. You’re going to call Dr. Farr—”
“It’s the middle of the night!”
“—and I’m going to stay with you until I’m sure you’re ok—”
“I’m fine! North, stop!”
“—and then I’m going to make Tean babysit you and Jem bully you until I can drive you home.”
“No!”
North kept driving.
“Hey, are you listening to me? I said no. North, stop the car right now or—or I’ll drive us into that Chick-fil-A!”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would! I’ll wreck your car.”
“Nope. You won’t even eat Chick-fil-A because you don’t believe in giving your money to anti-LGBTQ organizations, so there’s no way you’d sacrifice all your morals now and use their building to wreck my car.”
