“That would make me worried about the will,” North said.

  “The whole thing is bizarre,” Shaw said. “So I called Grace Augusta. I explained who we were.” Shaw’s eyes got wide and innocent. “We’re insurance claims specialists. We just need to talk to her about Shep’s policy in person.”

  “Jesus. That’s genius.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And when she figures out the truth in about fifteen seconds, I’m going to let you stand in front of me and take the first blast of mace.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Shaw said. “Come on, I want to ride in the Beamer.”

  Chapter 13

  SHAW HAD DRESSED TO LOOK the part of an insurance specialist: a yellow dress shirt with a brown tie, brown slacks, and brown shoes. He was pretty sure he had bought the whole getup for Halloween one year, but it was now serving a double purpose. He pulled down the visor mirror in the Beamer and checked himself one last time as they drove.

  “You look ridiculous,” North said. North, as usual, did not look ridiculous. He was in an adapted version of his sexy real estate agent disguise: a too-tight button-up, slacks painted onto his muscular legs, a knit tie hanging slightly loose around his neck. Shaw had allotted himself a grand total of two minutes that he was allowed to ogle North, and on the drive over, he’d burned through a minute and a half already.

  “Ridiculously good,” Shaw said. “This is what office people wear, North. You wouldn’t know. You spent the first sixteen years of your life on construction sites.” Shaw wrinkled his nose at the mirror. “You were too busy crawling around in a diaper, holding nails between your teeth, eating lunch on an I-beam a hundred feet up.”

  “Have you been watching Looney Tunes again?”

  “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer,” Shaw said, snapping the visor up.

  They rolled to a stop in front of the Chesterfield Marriott: a tall, tan building deep in suburbia, surrounded by a spacious parking lot. Only a few cars peppered the lot—it was a Tuesday, and, after all, this was Chesterfield. After a quick trip around the building, they cruised the lot until they spotted the car with Arkansas plates.

  “I think that’s an original,” North said. “Probably ’92. Ford Probe.”

  “Oh.” Shaw tilted his head, trying to find an angle where the aquamarine car didn’t look quite so hideous. “It’s probably very economical.”

  “It’s not. Jesus, if she brakes too hard, it looks like that whole side of the car might just fall off—do you see the rust?”

  Shaw blinked. “Do I see it?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Somehow I didn’t notice the red-orange coating that was covering an entire side of the car, even though the rest of the car is aquamarine.”

  “You’re such an asshole sometimes,” North said, shifting into gear. “And it’s teal.”

  “It’s aquamarine.”

  “You’re wearing a canary shirt and stripper pants, Shaw, to pretend to be an insurance agent or whatever you’re playing at. You’re going to be lucky if those don’t just pop off when you shake her hand.”

  “These aren’t stripper pants.”

  Faster than North would have liked, his hand shot toward Shaw, aiming for the hidden snaps that ran along one side of the tearaway pants. Shaw grabbed his wrist; North was stronger than he was, a lot stronger, but North just laughed and let Shaw fight him off.

  “Stop,” Shaw panted. “You’re being totally ridiculous. We’re professionals.”

  “In stripper clothes.”

  “I’m not—we’re not—”

  “Did you see the booster seat? And the car seat?”

  “What?” Shaw was still too busy checking—discreetly—that none of the snaps had come undone.

  “In the Probe.”

  It took Shaw a moment too long. “Oh. Yeah.”

  North laughed again and drove around to the back of the hotel.

  Grace Augusta had agreed to meet them in the lobby, and when they walked into the building, Shaw spotted her immediately. A reception and breakfast area opened up opposite the reception desk; Shaw waved and made a beeline toward Grace Augusta, who rose slowly, her face fixed in what she obviously hoped was the right degree of tragic loss to hide her glee. She was still tan, still tall and thin and beautiful, but she wore dark colors today, and they made her deep blue eyes stunning. A nice bonus for looking the part of someone bereaved.

  “Ms. Rowe,” Shaw said, pumping her hand. “I’m Basil Danforth. This is my associate—”

  North shook her hand. “Will. Will Powers.” Grace Augusta’s deep blue eyes crashed over North, took him in all over for a second time, and then crashed over him again. Shaw figured she wasn’t going to be bereaved for very long, at that rate.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” she said, her words in a neutral Midwestern accent unlike the soft, country twang that Beau still carried. “I knew there’d be paperwork to sort out, but I couldn’t think straight to handle any of it. I’m just so blessed Shepherd left a copy of the policy with his agent.”

  “And that he named you the beneficiary,” Shaw said.

  “Yes, of course. That too. Do you need a pen? I’d be happy to sign anything . . .”

  Shaw had set a battered briefcase on his lap. The words Encyclopedia Brown, embossed on the side, stared up at him, and he heard North swallow a laugh. Folding his arms over the leather, Shaw said, “Before we get to that, we’ll need to cover just a few items.”

  “Of course.” She sat with her back straight, hands clasped, her legs crossed at the ankles. She kept looking at North like she was trying to hook him, land him, and gut him in the next five minutes.

  “Can you describe your relationship with Mr. Collins?”

  “He was my husband.”

  “Oh. Really? I thought I saw—you see the paperwork has to be very specific—”

  “Well, I’m sorry. Not legally my husband. Not anymore. But we still loved each other very much.”

  “So you were divorced.”

  “Hm?”

  “You were divorced?”

  “Yes. I suppose technically, we were. But—Mr. Powers, you look like you might know something about love.” She offered a tremulous smile. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say, about how you can love someone and somehow things just don’t work out?”

  The color bled from North’s face; he tried to smile, and he tried to nod.

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Collins?”

  “Well, we spoke on the phone frequently; he loved talking to his children, you understand, and I wanted him to be a part of their lives even though he had moved away. We spoke on the phone a few days before he died.”

  “But the last time you saw him? In person?”

  “Mr. Powers, you don’t look well. Maybe we could go back to my room? I have some bottled water.”

  “He’s fine,” Shaw said. “But I do need to know about seeing Mr. Collins in person.”

  “He really doesn’t—Mr. Powers, you look like you might pass out.”

  To the contrary, North didn’t look like he might pass out; his color was coming back, and he was smiling again. “Just a headache,” he said. “I’ll be fine. We’ll get through these questions as fast as we can.”

  “Oh, it’s not that,” Grace Augusta said, her eyes still like fishhooks on North. “I don’t want you to hurry and leave.”

  “Ms. Rowe?”

  “I don’t know. It must have been the last time he came down to Arkansas. He does come to visit the children, you know, even though—” Her jaw shut so hard that Shaw thought he heard a click.

  “Even though?”

  She flashed him a tight smile and then turned her attention back to North. “Are you sure about that bottled water? You really look flushed. Oh, dear. You’re sweating.” Somehow, in a series of lingering touches that were really more like caresses, she leaned forward and checked his forehead, his cheek, his jaw, and his throat. Her hand lingered there, her finger practically latching onto the knit tie. “I really think you need a quiet, dark space.”

  Shaw rolled his eyes. “Ms. Rowe, we heard that you visited Mr. Collins—”

  “What is this?” She dropped back in her seat, her gaze finally going to Shaw. “What’s going on? You told me you had a few questions about Shepherd. You told me we just needed to fill out a few forms to get everything moving. But now you want to talk about where I’ve been and when I saw him and what our relationship was like. Why does any of it matter? He left me the money, didn’t he?” She raised her chin, looking down her nose at them. “Didn’t he?”

  North cleared his throat and said, “Nobody said anything about where you’ve been.”

  “This is ridiculous. I’m going to call my lawyer. I absolutely will not be pushed around by a pencil-necked number cruncher and his—his thug.”

  “Ms. Rowe, we know you were at Mr. Collins’s house two weeks ago. And we know about the fight. And if you want us to keep the paperwork moving, we’re going to need you to answer some questions.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Why did you go to Mr. Collins’s house?”

  “I was upset. He’d been . . . he’d been a terrible husband, if you have to know, and he hadn’t been paying child support. Or alimony. And I’m a single mother in Bentonville, Arkansas. Do you know what that’s like? I have three children. Three small children. Even if I wanted to work, even if I had a job in my hands, I’d spend every penny I earned just to keep the kids in daycare. And then I heard Shepherd and his little—” She cut herself off with what looked like a tremendous effort. “We fought because Shepherd owes me that money. It’s mine. And if he didn’t pay it like he should have, when he was alive, then I’m going to get it now.”

  “Mr. Llagas didn’t even know Mr. Collins had a policy with you as the beneficiary—” Shaw began.

  “So that’s what this is about.” The fine lines of Grace Augusta’s body tightened into a stiff, defensive pose. Her head came up. She looked at each of them coldly. “You’re like that. Just like him. Is that it?”

  “Which one of us is the pencilneck?” North asked.

  “Ms. Rowe—” Shaw began.

  A cold smile curved her mouth. “Mike can’t stand it. He can’t stand that Shepherd left everything to me. He couldn’t stand knowing that I had Shepherd’s children. He couldn’t stand that Shepherd wanted to see us, came to visit us. Mike never came. Not that I would have allowed him, of course, but he never even tried. He wanted to live out a fantasy with Shepherd. He thought they were going to have children of their own. Well, if God wanted two men to have children, he would have made the plumbing differently. And now he’s acting just like your people always do: jealous and hysterical and scratching like a Sunday-night cat fight. Well, it won’t work. Shepherd left that money to me. It’s all legal; I made sure of that.”

  “Now what do you mean by that?” North said, stretching out his long legs, the slightly nerdy facade of Will Powers dropping away. “Because that’s a worrisome thing to say when a man was just murdered.”

  Grace Augusta paled and rose to her feet. “If you bother me again, I’ll call the police. Now get out of here.”

  “Mr. Llagas said that you wanted Shep to go back with you. Be a father to your children.”

  Her lip curled again in that icy sneer, and she turned and left. From the reception desk, a woman in an ill-fitting suit was staring at them, her hand on the phone.

  “We’re leaving,” Shaw called to her. “You don’t have to call anybody.”

  Shaw stared after Grace Augusta, thinking of the red fibers found on Shep’s corpse. The red didn’t match Grace Augusta’s dark dress, but of course, she would have brought other clothes. None of the furniture in the lobby was upholstered in red. Shaw made his way to the woman at the desk, who rested one finger nervously on one of the phone’s buttons, the receiver still pressed to her ear.

  “We’re leaving,” Shaw said again. “But I just wanted to see one of the rooms before we go.”

  “Come on,” North said.

  “Do the beds have red quilts on them? Red duvets? Red sheets? Are the chairs upholstered with red?”

  “What?” the woman said, her finger still resting on the button, ready to press at a moment’s notice.

  “Red,” Shaw said. “Red, red, red. Anything? Even a hand towel, a washcloth, a shower curtain.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t—”

  “If I could just look quickly.”

  “There’s no red.”

  “But if I could just check.”

  “No, there’s no . . . red. There’s nothing red. You can check our website. They have pictures of the rooms.”

  “Maybe I’ll just have a very, very quick peek.”

  “We’re going,” North said, grabbing Shaw’s arm and tugging him toward the door. The clerk stared at them and didn’t lift her hand until Shaw lost sight of her as they left.

  The July day hammered down, the heat making the asphalt swim, and Shaw wiped an arm across his forehead, already wishing for the Beamer’s A/C. He pushed the outside world away, diving deep into his own thoughts, for that dark, subconscious place where his best ideas swam deep. He felt slightly cooler. A soft breeze curled along his thighs. He made it ten more paces, still thinking about Grace Augusta, before he looked down. Then he looked at North.

  “See?” North said, holding up the tearaway pants. “Stripper pants. Now you can drive us all the way to jail in your undies as punishment for lying.”

  “I’m not wearing ‘undies,’” Shaw said, covering himself with his hands. “And I believe I might be committing a felony right now.”

  “Well, you should have thought of that before you lied.”

  Chapter 14

  AT THE CITY JUSTICE CENTER, where Chuck was being held temporarily, no visitors were allowed on Tuesdays.

  “I don’t want to bother him,” Shaw said, bouncing his phone on his palm.

  North studied the thin man. “Too bad.”

  “Maybe we can just—”

  “Nope.”

  Shaw let out a huge sigh. He was still bouncing the phone.

  On the next bounce, North grabbed the device out of the air and said, “Just ask. If he says no, he says no.” Then he pressed the phone into Shaw’s hand and wrapped Shaw’s fingers around it.

  “Can’t you call Uncle Ronnie?”

  A flicker of discomfort ran through North; his fight with his father, about Ronnie’s insistence that North call as soon as possible, had left North uneasy, and he didn’t like the reminder. “Don’t be a chickenshit,” was all he said.

  Rolling his eyes, Shaw unlocked the phone and made the call. As he set the phone to his ear, he muttered, “I’m not a chickenshit.”

  “Not now, you’re not.”

  “Prick.” Shaw stuck out his tongue. Then, with a new scowl for North, he said, “Oh, hey, babe. No, I didn’t mean you. Sorry.”

  Twenty-five minutes later, Jadon Reck was walking with them down the City Justice Center halls as a correctional officer led them to a private interview room. The long row of plexiglass partitions was empty aside from them, and the correctional officer rolled his eyes and glanced at them and at the empty room and stuck his thumbs in his belt and blew out long, irritated breaths.

  “St. John’s wort,” Shaw said.

  “What?” The correctional officer squinted at him. He had thick folds of flesh around his eyes.

  “It’s a plant,” Shaw said. “It’s amazing. I think I’ve got some at home if you want to try some.”

  “What?”

  “It’s great for mood. That’s why I thought you might like it. It’s really good for depression and anxiety, and it might even help with irritation, although you’d probably want a tincture of chamomile to help with that. I think Master Hermes made one for me. Hold on, let me call him and double check.”

  As Shaw patted himself down, the correctional officer’s eyes had disappeared deeper into the folds. “What?”

  At that moment, Chuck appeared in an orange jumpsuit on the other side of the partition, and North took Shaw by the elbow and guided him toward the plexiglass. Chuck didn’t look good, although North imagined that for almost everyone, being charged with murder and thrown into jail would do some serious damage to your self-care routine. As Chuck sat opposite them, she touched the listless blond strands of her short hair and looked ready to cry.

  “It’s all right,” Shaw said. “It’s going to be all right.”

  North elbowed him. Discreetly. But hard.

  “This is a nightmare. This is an absolute nightmare.” Chuck squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Is Pari here? Please tell me she’s here.”

  “Sorry,” North said. “This visit is about trying to figure out what happened.”

  “I don’t know.” The words exploded out of Chuck so forcefully that spittle flecked the plexiglass. “That’s all they’ve been asking me. That’s all my lawyer will ask me. What happened? What happened? Jesus Christ, if I knew, I wouldn’t be in here.”

  “When’s the arraignment?” North asked.

  “They said it was going to be today, but an hour ago, they said there was some sort of backlog, and so they pushed it to tomorrow.” She pushed at the listless hair. “You know what I think? I don’t think there’s any fucking backlog. I think they made a mistake and they don’t know what to do about it.”

  Jadon shook his head. “I’m not trying to be an asshole, but that’s wishful thinking. They’ll get you arraigned, and they’ll do it in a reasonable amount of time so nobody can come after them. Let’s not make a defense plan based on wishful thinking.”

  “Somebody’s trying to frame me. Somebody’s trying to set me up.”

  “What does that mean?” Shaw said.

  “The drugs. I don’t do drugs. I don’t do coke. Shep made that clear from the very beginning; our kids have enough problems with substance abuse. They don’t need to see adults touching that crap.”