“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.
Now, sitting in an interview room in the sterile lockup attached to the Joint Major Crimes Task Force, Colter Shaw was summoning up what criminal law he knew. He’d been arrested more than a few times in his career. Though he’d never been convicted of any crime, the nature of his work meant he occasionally butted heads with the police, who, depending on their mood and the circumstances, might haul him in front of a booking desk.
He massaged his right arm, which had taken the brunt of deflecting the tumbling Sophie Mulliner, and calmly, in an orderly way, prepared his defense. This didn’t take long.
The door opened and a balding man, slim, in his fifties, walked inside. His scalp was shiny, as if it had been waxed, and Shaw had to force himself not to look at it. The man wore a light gray suit, with a badge on his belt. His tie was a bold floral, the knot perfectly symmetrical. Colter Shaw had last worn a tie . . . Well, he couldn’t exactly remember. Margot had said he looked “distinguished.”
“Mr. Shaw.”
A nod.
The man introduced himself as “Joint Task Force Senior Supervisor Cummings,” a mouthful that spoke more about the man’s nature than about the job description. “Fred” or “Stan” would have painted him better.
Cummings sat across the table from Shaw. The table, like the benches, was bolted down and made of sturdy metal. Cummings had a notebook and a pen. Shaw couldn’t spot the cameras, but they’d be here.
“The detention officer said you wanted to talk to me. So you’ve changed your mind about waiving your right to speak to us without an attorney.”
“I didn’t change my mind. I wouldn’t speak to Detective Wiley, with or without an attorney. I’ll speak to you.”
The lean man digested this, tapping the end of the Bic against a notepad. “I’m at a disadvantage here. This happened pretty fast and I don’t have all the facts. There’s something about a reward that the victim’s father was offering? You’re trying to get that?”
While Shaw preferred “earn,” he nodded.
“That’s your job?”
“It is. And it’s not relevant to our conversation.”
Cummings processed once more. “Dan Wiley can be a difficult person to deal with. But he’s a good officer.”
“Have there ever been complaints against him? Women officers, for instance?”
Cummings gave no response. “He tells me that you stole evidence from a crime scene. With the evidence missing, it would have looked like you were the only one who found the girl. And that meant you’d be entitled to the reward.”
Shaw had to give Wiley credit. Clever.
“Now, what we’ll do—and Detective Wiley’s on board with this—is knock down the obstruction to tampering. Misdemeanor. You forget about that reward and leave the area—you live in the Sierra Nevadas, right?”
“That’s my residence.”
“We’ll do recognizance. And you can walk now. The prosecutor’s got the paperwork ready.”
Shaw was tired. A long day—from Molotov cocktail to murder—and it was only 6 p.m.
“Supervisor Cummings, Detective Wiley arrested me because he needs to steer this whole ship in a different direction. If I don’t pursue the reward and I leave town, it doesn’t look like Wiley screwed up and a civilian solved his case.”