They sat. Dick looked around. His face didn’t show anything, and he was too polite to say anything. He was an older version of Tucker, with a more patrician cast to his features but the same classically good looks, the same boarding-school coloring. Today, he wore a salmon-colored polo and preppy khaki shorts. He was tan from hours on the back nine. Once, in a moment of drunken bitterness, Tucker had claimed that his father’s proudest moment had been when he birdied on Tea Olive at Augusta. Maybe that explained why, in those first shocked seconds of seeing his soon-to-be-ex father-in-law, North had thought Dick Laguerre had driven all the way down to Benton Park to talk golf.

  “Mr. Laguerre,” Shaw said, “why don’t you tell us what happened?”

  “Please, Shaw. Call me Dick. We’re all adults here, and whatever—” His gaze slid from Shaw to North and back to Shaw. “—unpleasantness might have occurred, I think we can all behave appropriately.”

  The Laguerres, North thought with a sudden smile. The house could be burning down, and Dick and Cathy wouldn’t drop that amiable detachment. What had North expected? For Dick to lose his shit because here North was, with the man he had left Tucker for, and the office smelled like a horny teenager’s laundry hamper? Then the smile died. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Dick, what are you talking about? There’s no way Tucker killed someone.” North ignored the shadow on Shaw’s face. “If the police took him in for an interview—”

  Dick held up a hand. “Not an interview. He was arrested, North. He called our lawyer, and our lawyer called us. Biff is convinced he can get Tucker out on bail, but the earliest he could get a hearing was Monday.” For a moment, Dick looked older, and his hand trembled as he smoothed the hem of his shorts. “Biff says—well, it doesn’t matter. Tucker will be out of that awful place on Monday; that’s what matters. What we have to do now is begin preparing for his defense.”

  “Who do the police think he killed?” Shaw asked.

  “A man named Rik Slooves.”

  Shaw shot a look at North.

  “You know him?” Dick asked. “I understand he used to be a professor at Chouteau, but now he’s some kind of banker or investor or something.”

  “We know him,” North said. He didn’t add that Rik Slooves had fucked every boy he could convince to hold still for five seconds. He didn’t add that Tucker and Percy and most of their other friends had, at one point or another, fallen victim to Rik’s charms. “Why do they think Tucker killed him?”

  “Biff said Tucker was upset. He said Tucker was doing his best to explain, but certain facts remain unclear.” Dick’s smile was worn thin. “I believe that means my son had been drinking and doesn’t remember clearly what happened, but from what Biff was able to gather and pass along, they found Tucker with this man. After he had been—well, you understand.”

  “Mr. Laguerre,” Shaw said, “if Tucker was drinking, and if they found him with the victim, it sounds like—I guess I’m saying, I’m not sure what you’re asking us to do.”

  “I know how it sounds, Shaw. I’m well aware of how it sounds. But my son is not a murderer. I refuse to believe that he had anything to do with this man’s death, no matter what the circumstances suggest. And I’m disappointed—very disappointed—that you’d think anything to the contrary, although I suppose, considering the nature of your relationship, it’s not unbelievable that you’d wish the absolute worst for Tucker.”

  Shaw’s cheeks reddened, and he leaned back slightly.

  “That’s not fair to Shaw,” North said. “And it’s not fair to me either.”

  In reception, the bell jangled again, and Pari called, “I’m back.”

  Dick crossed his legs. His foot beat an empty measure in the air. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “Biff called sometime after three, and as you can imagine, I couldn’t fall back asleep. I’ve spent most of the morning reaching out to friends. They all want to help, but of course, they all have their excuses. ‘You have to let it play out’ is what I’ve heard most often. The most I could get was a promise from an old fraternity brother to do his best to make sure Tucker made bail, although I’m not even sure when he’ll be arraigned. It’s all been…frustrating. But that’s no excuse, and I’m sorry for saying what I did.”

  “You’ve been through a lot,” Shaw said. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this.”

  With a stiff nod, Dick said, “Thank you.”

  “Do you have some reason,” North tried to find the right words, “to believe Tucker was framed? Or that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  “It seems…unlikely that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. From what Biff conveyed, that does not seem possible.” Dick held up a hand to forestall North. “I’ll let Tucker explain that to you. I’m not sure what I want you to do, if I’m being honest. I suppose I want you to find the truth. If we know what happened that night, what really happened, it will exonerate my son.”

  “We’ll—” North began.

  “We’ll need a moment to discuss things,” Shaw broke in.

  North flipped the bail pull on the center drawer a few times. He straightened in his chair. He looked over at Shaw.

  “Just a few minutes,” Shaw said, smoothly but firmly. “If you’d wait in the hall, Mr. Laguerre.”

  “Of course,” he said, standing. “And please, it’s Dick, Shaw. We can drop the formalities.”

  When the door had closed behind him, North said, “We’re taking this case.”

  “I don’t—”

  “We’re taking it, Shaw. That’s final.”

  Some of Shaw’s hair had slipped free from its tie, and he blew it out of his eyes. “North—”

  “Unless the next words out of your mouth are ‘I agree completely,’ stop.”

  “Can you hear yourself right now?”

  “Ok, let me get this straight.” North pushed back from the desk. The chair glided across the mat and then bogged down in the shag carpeting. He lurched out of the seat, didn’t know what to do with his hands, and made fists at his sides. “You get to say what cases we take, no matter what I think.”

  Shaw drew his knees up to his chest.

  “When Matty came to us, I didn’t want to take the case, but we did. Because you decided we would.”

  “I—”

  “And when Chuck’s boss went missing, remember that? We took that case because you wanted to, even though I thought it was a bad idea.”

  Fingers laced together, Shaw pulled his knees up tighter.

  “And the Slasher, Shaw. Everything we went through with the Slasher. That was you. And that stupid romance convention. And for fuck’s sake, we spent six hours in May turning over rocks looking for a leprechaun Peeping Tom because your witch friend claimed he was watching her when she celebrated her black Sabbath naked. So fuck what you want. We’re taking this case.”

  Ruddy streaks marked the hollows of Shaw’s cheeks. He lowered his feet slowly. Then he stood. For some reason, North was surprised by how tall he was, as though he’d forgotten or misremembered, or as though Shaw were a stranger to him.

  “Do I get to say something now?”

  “What do you want to say?”

  “If you want to do this, fine. I know I—I know how I’ve done things in the past, insisting I get my way, I recognize that’s been a problem. For us. For how you and I—for the way things ended, I guess. So I’ll support you in this, and I’ll do whatever I can. But can I at least ask why?”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you want to do this? After everything Tucker did to you—”

  “This isn’t about him.”

  “Oh North.” Shaw sounded so infinitely sad about it that for a moment, rage scrambled North’s vision.

  Struggling to keep his voice even, North managed: “It’s not. Tucker’s a piece of shit; I don’t want anything to do with him. But his family was always good to me. They’re decent people, and they’re kind, and hell, Dick treated me more like a son than my own dad ever did.” That slip, and the look on Shaw’s face, made North hurry on. “So I’m going to do it because he’s asking me to do it. And you know what? Even if Tucker is a piece of shit, he deserves justice.”

  “You know what he’s capable of.”

  “Yeah. I do. Better than you, Shaw, actually.”

  “So you know he could have killed Rik. If he’d been angry enough, he could have. The night I saw him—”

  “Stop talking.”

  North didn’t recognize his own voice, the dead quality of it. He did, however, recognize the adrenaline that went through him like a chill, pimpling his skin.

  “You won’t be able to be impartial about this,” Shaw said quietly.

  “Fuck that. And fuck you for saying that.”

  “It’s not just me. No defense attorney worth the name would put you on the stand; a prosecutor would shred your testimony in two questions.”

  “You know what?” North shook his head and headed for the door. “I don’t ask for a lot from you.”

  “North, come on, I’m trying—”

  “So it’d be really fucking nice if everyone once in a while, if it wasn’t too fucking inconvenient, you could show me a little support.” He threw open the door and met Dick Laguerre’s tired gaze. “We’ll take the case.”

  Acknowledgments

  My deepest thanks go out to the following people (in reverse alphabetical order):

  Wendy Wickett, who did a very thorough (see what I did there?) job of helping me with my excesses, who consulted the Sacred Text (Urban Dictionary) and let me know when it had nothing to offer, and who made me smile by pointing out the unexpected educational benefits of this book.

  Jo Wegstein, who helped me gut and rebuild (correctly, this time), the Nonavie lab, who explained the best way to steal a highly valuable biotech intellectual property, and who helped me make sure Ronnie got his comeuppance at the end.

  Tray Stephenson, who offered word choice suggestions, who caught my many typos, and who provided some helpful advice about real-life problems when I sorely needed it.

  Cheryl Oakley, who was the first to write back (always the first!) to tell me that she was angry at Shaw, who helped me tease out the promise of relationship trouble to come in the next book, and who helped me hammer down what exactly was happening in the confrontation with Celia and Francis.

  Steve Leonard, who reminded me of the distinction between extra skin and extra crispy, who kept track of timelines—as he always does!—and who told me not to change a thing, which is what I needed to hear, even though it hurt.

  Austin Gwin, who offered his usual (and always exceptional) insight into the characters, who helped me think about the soft threat buried in the ending, and who gave me more to think about in terms of clarity (and lack thereof) in the resolution (or, again, lack thereof).

  About the Author

  Learn more about Gregory Ashe and forthcoming works at www.gregoryashe.com.

  For advanced access, exclusive content, limited-time promotions, and insider information, please sign up for my mailing list at http://bit.ly/ashemailinglist.

 

 

  Gregory Ashe, Misdirection

 

 

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