The Never Game

Wiley set the pad and pen down on the chest-high loading dock. For a moment Shaw actually believed Wiley was planning to deck him. The detective removed a metal container, like a pill bottle, from his front slacks pocket. He unscrewed the top and extracted a toothpick. Shaw smelled mint.

“Better if you stay on message here, Chief.” He pointed the toothpick at Shaw and then slipped it between his teeth. He wore a thick, engraved wedding ring. He reversed the ritual of the container and picked up his writing implement once more.

Shaw continued with his chronology: Kyle approaching him and the car on the ridge.

“Was it you?” Shaw asked. “In the car?”

Wiley blinked. “Why’d I do that?”

“Was it?”

No answer. “You see that vehicle?”

“I didn’t.”

“Lot of invisible cars around here,” Wiley muttered. “Go on.”

Shaw explained his conclusion that Sophie had been raped and killed and the body disposed of. He went looking for the most logical places where that might have been and ended up here. “I told Kyle to go to Sophie’s house. He didn’t.”

“Why do you think the kidnapper didn’t come after you?”

“Thought I was armed, I’m guessing. Detective, all the doors on the ground level were screwed shut, except one. Why would he leave it open?”

“The whole point, Chief. He came back to rape her.”

“Then why not put a lock on that too, like he did the gate?”

“This’s one sick pup, Chief. Can’t hardly expect people like that to behave like you and me, can we now?” The toothpick moved from one side of his mouth to the other, via tongue only. It was a clever trick. “I suppose you’ll be getting that reward.”

“That’s between me and Mr. Mulliner, a business arrangement.”

“Arrangement,” the officer said. His voice was as impressive as his bulk. Shaw could smell a fragrance and thought it was probably from the ample hairspray with which he froze his black-and-white mane in place.

“At least tell me how you heard about it, Chief.”

“My name’s Colter.”

“Aw, that’s just an endearment. Everybody uses endearments. Bet you do too.”

Shaw said nothing.

The toothpick wiggled. “This reward. How’d you hear about it?”

“I’m not inclined to talk about my business anymore,” Shaw said. Then added, “You might want to get security video from the Quick Byte and go through the past month. You could find a clearer image of the perp — if he was staking it out.”

Wiley jotted something, though whether it was Shaw’s suggestion or something else, Shaw had no idea.

The young woman officer Wiley’d sent to search for “it” returned.

Wiley raised a bushy eyebrow. “What’d you find, sweetheart?”

She held up an evidence bag. Inside was the Walgreens plastic bag containing the rock stained with what Shaw now knew was Sophie’s blood.

“It was in his car, Detective.”

Wiley clicked his tongue. “Hmm, stealing material evidence from a scene? That’s obstruction of justice. Do the honors, sweetheart. Read him his rights. So, turn around, Mr. Shaw, and put your hands behind your back.”

Shaw courteously complied, reflecting: at least Wiley’d dropped the “Chief.”

19

In the sprawling cabin on the Compound, where the Shaws lived, several rooms, large rooms, were devoted to books. The collection came from the days when Ashton and Mary Dove were academics — he taught history, the humanities and political science. She was a professor in the medical school and was also a PI — principal investigator, overseeing how corporate and government money was spent at universities. Then there was Ashton’s flint-hard devotion to survivalism, which meant yet more books — hard copies, of course.

Never trust the internet.

This one too was so obvious Ashton didn’t bother to codify it in his Never rulebook.

Colter, Dorion and Russell read constantly, and Colter was drawn to the legal books in particular, of which there were hundreds. For some reason, on the exodus from Berkeley to the wilderness east of Fresno, Ashton had brought along enough jurisprudential texts to open a law firm. Colter was fascinated with the casebooks — collections of court decisions on topics like contracts, constitutional law, torts, criminal law and domestic relations. He liked the stories behind each of the cases, what had led the parties to court, who would prevail and why. His father taught his children the rules for physical survival; law provided the rules for social survival.

After college — he graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan — Shaw returned to California and interned in a public defender’s office. This taught him two things. First, he would never, ever work in an office again, thus ending any thoughts of law school and a legal career. Second, he’d been right about the law: it was a brilliant weapon for offense and defense, like an over-under shotgun or a bow or a slingshot.