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“Inside.”
“Shaw.”
Shaw slipped past Ezell, and a moment later, he said, “Got it.”
“Go on,” North said. “Remember: we’re still moving nice and slow.”
He followed Ezell inside and put the deputy up against the wall, patted him down, and stepped back once he was satisfied Ezell wasn’t carrying anything else. Then he got a look at the space.
They were in some kind of backroom, and a single Coleman lantern hissed quietly as it shed light. The walls were lined with shelves empty aside from scraps and junk: broken Styrofoam containers, dusty reels, a spool of green fishing line, a tackle box turned on its side. Someone had used fingernail polish to paint ROD’S TACKLE on the lid. What appeared to be a refrigerated bait case sat near the door—presumably what Ezell had used to barricade himself inside. The earthy, fungal smell was stronger now, but mixed with an old fishiness that turned North’s stomach.
A single door, its bottom ruined by water damage, opened into what appeared to be the front of the shop. In there, North found a long counter covered in more ads for cigarettes and beer and spinner rods, an ancient mechanical till with its SALE flag perpetually raised, empty aisles formed by gondola shelves and drink coolers that were dusty and full of dead bugs. A pair of doors suggested restrooms, and a quick check revealed both were empty. When North moved back toward the storage room, he spotted what he’d missed on his first sweep: a cluster of cans of what turned out to be spaghetti rings, a half-empty jug of water, another Coleman lantern. The lingering hint of body odor hung in the air, and he spotted the sleeping bag on the floor behind the till.
In the storage room, Shaw was holding his Springfield in one hand, and Ezell’s doughy face was covered in fine drops of sweat.
“He was thinking about being naughty,” Shaw informed him. “So, I told him I’d shoot his balls off.”
“That sounds about right,” North muttered. He leaned against the refrigerated bait case, crossed his arms, and said, “Talk.”
Ezell shook his head. “You don’t understand, man. These people, they’re going to kill me.”
“Or Shaw’s going to shoot your balls off. You have what I believe is called a classic dilemma.”
“He just learned that phrase,” Shaw told Ezell. “Emery—Emery’s my best friend—Emery said it to him the other day when we were arguing about whether North should eat all the parmigiano reggiano with crackers or save it for his salad. We had to hear the whole mental process, all the pros and cons.”
“It was a difficult decision,” North snapped, “and you motherfuckers weren’t any help.”
“Notice that eating some of the cheese and saving some for his salad wasn’t an option.”
“Great. Here we go.”
“And sharing with everyone else definitely wasn’t—”
“I asked! Before I went to the store, I asked if anyone wanted anything, and—no, you know what? I’m not doing this, not again.” He pointed a finger at Ezell, who was staring at them, slack jawed. “Who paid you to kill Dalton Weber?”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Ezell mumbled.
“No, you let Welch do the actual killing. But you were involved.” North waited a beat and said, “All right. We can finish this conversation at the station, and maybe a night in the county jail will soften you up. You’ll have to be in the isolation unit because you were a cop. How about that? All by yourself, nice and safe in one of those little cells.”
“You can’t! They’ll kill me! You’ve got to—I can tell you. And then you let me go, and I won’t be a problem. I didn’t hurt anyone!”
The last few words were delivered in a wail, and tears spilled from Ezell’s eyes. With his round face and his fine blond hair slick against his skull, he looked like a giant baby. A giant baby, North reminded himself, who had helped arrange murder for hire.
“Who hired you?” North asked.
“All I was supposed to do was turn off the cameras, put the girl in the laundry, and leave the cells unlocked.”
“Then you ran,” Shaw said.
“I knew they wanted it to look like an accident, like Welch got me by surprise and overpowered me. But I’m not stupid. I started thinking about it, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized they weren’t going to leave it like that.” He stopped. Then he blurted, “They were going to kill me.”
“Probably,” North said.
Shaw cocked his head as though hearing something, and a tiny crease appeared between his eyebrows, but all he said was “What did you do?”
“I told the sheriff I was sick. I had plenty of leave, and it was a quiet night. He said he’d stay. As soon as I was out of there, I called that son of a bitch and told him he’d better pay up, or I was going to make sure everybody knew what he’d done. I’ve got proof.” Ezell’s face crumpled. “Only it all went to shit. The little bastard turned on me.”
“Names—” North began.
