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“I guess he gets a lot of calls from the community,” Shaw said.
North swore as he braked. Their rental was a twenty-year-old Chrysler Sebring the color of used chewing gum, the top permanently down, with no AC. It had been the only option, and it was still costing them almost a hundred dollars a day—Shaw knew because North had repeated these facts, intermingled with a lot of swearing, for the last ten minutes. “Another reason,” North said, “I’d blow my brains out if I were John-Henry.”
“I’m going to try the station,” Shaw said.
“The other reason is being married to Emery.”
“Emery is your friend.”
“Yeah,” North said. “Duh.”
“I’m sorry.” The voice belonged to a female officer, and Shaw had the sneaking suspicion that in a previous incarnation, the woman had hit her stride as one of those animals that lie around all day waiting to pick fights with other animals. Tean would know. Maybe a cuttlefish. “Chief Somerset is in a meeting with Lieutenant Mendez, and he can’t be disturbed.”
“But it’s an emergency—”
“If it’s an emergency,” she said, “call 911.”
“It’s like they train them,” Shaw said, staring at the phone in his hand. “It’s like that’s the only thing they know how to say.”
“Call Emery,” North said. “Oh, and tell him that zinger.”
Shaw blinked. “That you’d blow your brains out if you were married to him?”
With a frown, North tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. “You’re right. I should save that one for when I can see his face.”
“This is the problem,” Shaw said. “You realize that, right?”
“Dumbass, they like me to be mean to them. That was the whole point of last night.”
“No, the whole point of last night was that they love you in spite of—”
“Fine, I’ll call him.”
“No!” Shaw placed the call before North could dig out his phone. Sometimes, Shaw had to admit, he wondered what it would be like to be in a relationship with another adult, but then, he also had to admit he didn’t mind being the mature one.
The problem was that Emery didn’t answer either. Shaw left a message explaining that this was an emergency, a real one, not like the other seven emergencies he’d called about at various points, including the one when he’d gotten trapped in a phone booth. But after a minute, and then another, when he tried again, he still got nothing.
“We’ll talk to him,” North said. “That’s all.”
Shaw nodded, but he thought, And look how well that turned out last time.
They drove across Wahredua to a run-down apartment complex on the outskirts of town. The building had been done in brownish-white stucco with a red roof that was supposed to suggest clay tile. Algae stained the walls in long vertical blooms, and in more than one place, the uppermost layer of textured stucco had flaked away, leaving the walls looking scabby and picked at. North parked the Sebring, which gave an ominous wheeze as the engine died, and they headed in search of Kingston Ezell.
Apartment 1G was a garden unit, and the stairs down looked perpetually damp, the concrete cracked to allow some sort of prickly weed to grow. When North knocked, no answer came. Shaw padded around the building, but there was no sign Kingston might be fleeing. He made his way back and shook his head in answer to North’s unasked question.
“We might have to try the Mosses,” North said as he pounded on the door again. “Maybe the main campus of the Epiphany of Light. If he’s not there—”
The door swung open, and North’s hand swung through empty air. Kingston Ezell stood in the doorway. He was the same man Shaw remembered from the night this had all started, when they’d followed Welch all the way to Auburn and the Mosses’ home. Like his brother, he had a round face, and his hair was blond. But in this part of the world, there were lots of men with round faces and blond hair, and beyond those basic features, the men resembled each other only distantly. Kingston looked older, with his thinning hair cut so short he might have passed for bald. And in the brief time that Shaw had spent with Adam, he’d sensed a different energy—at least in part, Shaw judged, because Adam had been one of those guys who liked wearing a badge.
Kingston still hadn’t said anything.
“Remember us?” North said.
Somewhere above them, in one of the open corridors, a child was singing something fromMoana, and then a woman started to harmonize. Shaw took in more details: the dark circles under Kingston’s eyes, the slight unsteadiness to how he held himself, as though he could barely keep himself on his feet.
“I’m sorry about Adam,” Shaw said quietly.
Kingston blinked rapidly and nodded.
