Jeffery Deaver

Captivated

Thursday, August 30

“She’s been gone for a month. And two days.”

The man’s troubled expression suggested that he could easily have added the number of hours.

“No contact with you at all?”

“None.” The voice stumbled. He cleared his throat. “No, sir.”

The two men were sitting in an Asian fusion restaurant — self-billed as such, though to Colter Shaw it resembled any other Chinese place. He was having wonton soup, concocted with homemade chicken stock, Shaw believed. It was good. The man across from him in the booth was ringed by a parapet of bowls and plates — some tofu thing, sauces, soup, egg roll and rice. One of the lunchtime combos. The man had taken two bites of the rice and set down his chopsticks.

“I know — in my soul — I know she’s in danger. Somebody’s kidnapped her. We have to do something!” He tugged at the collar of his gray suit jacket. Brooks Brothers, Shaw had seen when the front flaps parted. The cuffs were frayed. Matthews’s shirt was white, the collar yellowing where it met his neck, and was a size too large. His tie was bold green and he sported a matching pocket square. A big gold ring encircled the middle finger of his right hand.

“You’ve gone to the police?” Shaw asked, his voice a monotone, in contrast to Ron Matthews’s oscillating timbre.

“Yes, of course. I called them a day after she didn’t come home. I was worried it was too soon. But the detective said there’s no waiting period or anything.”

In most states you can report somebody missing ten minutes after they don’t show up. But unless it’s a child or there’s evidence of a crime (the standard police term really is the quaintly Sherlockian “foul play”), the authorities don’t jump on board right away.

Matthews confirmed that this was true in his case. “They weren’t gung ho, you know. There are a lot of missing persons, he told me.”

Thousands upon thousands, Shaw knew.

“He asked — you’re probably going to ask me the same thing — if she’d been in touch with anybody. And, yeah, Evie called a friend the same day she was due home. She said she’d decided to travel for a while. She needed to get away. I had to be honest with the cop.”

Always a good plan.

Well, usually.

“But I think the kidnapper forced her to call her friend, to make sure the police weren’t involved. She didn’t call me because the kidnapper would think I’d know something was wrong. And I would. Evie and me, we have this...” Matthews ran his hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I’d just know she was in trouble.”

Shaw took a sip of pungent Tsingtao beer. Another spoonful of soup.

Matthews had been sniping furtive glances at him since the businessman had joined Shaw here. He did so again, taking in Shaw’s short blond hair, lying close to the scalp, his broad but compact build, just shy of six feet. An oval face, complexion light. Eyes blue with gray influence. A few women had said he resembled this or that actor, usually some action-movie hero. Most of them he’d never heard of, since, growing up, he’d seen only two or three movies or TV shows a year — and then not until he was ten or eleven. Now, that sort of entertainment was not a major part of his life.

The clothing he now wore was his usual when on the job: jeans, dress shirt open at the collar — today’s was navy blue — and a dark-checkered sports coat. Respectful, to put offerors and witnesses at ease. On his feet, black Ecco slip-ons. Which were comfortable. And offered good traction. Just in case.

The businessman, of course, was interested in teasing more out of Colter Shaw than just his appearance. But all he got in this department, for the time being, was straight posture, constant eye contact, no smiles or frowns, no small talk, just undistracted attention to every word Matthews said. The message was the intended one: I’m listening and I’m taking the situation very seriously. Matthews seemed to relax into confidence. Like most offerors, he didn’t get that Shaw was sizing him up too.

Shaw asked, “Did she — Evelyn’s friend — tell you anything about where she went?”

“No. She said Evie’d called, and that was it. She didn’t pick up again when I called back, once or twice.”

Or dozens of times. Matthews would have called until the friend blocked his number.

“Tell me how she disappeared,” Shaw said. “Details.”

“Evie went to an artists’ retreat outside of Chicago — Schaumburg — last month. Weekend thing. She went to some retreat almost every month, all around the country.” His lips tightened. “Sunday night, she didn’t come home. She was supposed to but she didn’t.”

“She drove?”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve been married a year?”

“Thirteen months. Was our anniversary July tenth.”

“Phone?” Shaw asked.

“Not in service.”

Shaw asked, “Private eye?”

“Cost me more than I could afford, got me zip.”

With a few exceptions, PIs were great for background security checks and poring over computer records to see if your fiancée had ever poisoned a prior husband or misbehaved more than one usually misbehaves in Cabo. The “investigation” part of the job title — as in, pounding pavement — usually wasn’t a stellar performance.

That explained why, two weeks ago, Matthews had posted a reward — $10,000 — in an Indianapolis newspaper and online for information about Evelyn Fontaine’s whereabouts. Shaw’s business associates in Florida had spotted the announcement and relayed the info to Shaw, who happened to be in Chicago finishing another job.

The $10K wasn’t much for a missing spouse believed to have been kidnapped. But for Shaw, the reward was never about the money; it was a flag flying over a problem that, so far, no one else had been able to solve. The sort he lived for.

Colter Shaw was restless in mind as well as restless in body.

He now asked the standard question: Had anyone else been in touch about the reward? Yes, Matthews said. Some people had contacted him but it was clear they had no helpful information and were simply hoping for a windfall. There’d been no calls in the past week.

This was a pattern Shaw had seen again and again.

Matthews now opened his wallet and slipped out a picture. Shaw had already seen some shots online but this was a far better image: a well-done formal portrait that depicted a woman in her late twenties with a long, sweeping neck and an angular face. Fragile in some ways, confident in others. She was more striking than beautiful. Her dark blond hair was piled high atop her head in carefully plotted disarray. Her eyes were blue but toward the violet end of the spectrum, and her smile was mysterious. Given her profession, Shaw wondered if the crafted crescent lips were an unconscious homage to the Mona Lisa — or, perhaps, a very conscious one.

Shaw nodded to the expensive Mercedes-AMG that Matthews had arrived in. “I looked you up. You own an industrial equipment dealership. How wealthy are you?”

Matthews blinked.

“I need to know if you’re a ransom target.”

Usually such demands come early in a disappearance. But not always.

“Maybe a year or so ago I was. But it’s been tough lately. With all the tariffs and trade wars, our revenues have dropped like a rock. The car’s leased and I’m looking at another operating loan. I could probably scrape together a million. You think that’s it? Somebody after money?”

Shaw kept his eyes on Matthews. “I don’t. And you don’t either.”

He’d finally formed an opinion about Ronald Matthews and Evelyn Fontaine. Matthews’s story didn’t quite add up; his eyes were evasive and he was emotional when he shouldn’t’ve been.

The businessman looked down. His chopsticks were no longer utensils but instead had become fidget sticks. He twirled one between the blunt thumb and the equally blunt index finger of his right hand.

“It’s not quite what I was telling you. Which I guess you picked up on. I just wanted somebody to get fired up enough to find her. I thought if you believed she’d been kidnapped, you’d really get on board.” A wan smile. “I’m a salesman by trade. We spin stories to close the deal.”

“What do you really think happened?”

“I haven’t been the best husband. Oh, not like that. I’m not abusive or anything. I’ve got a temper — my employees’ll tell you that. But I never shouted. Never hurt her. Wouldn’t even think of it. Ever. What I did was, I wasn’t honest with Evie.”

“Go on.”

“We met at a gala for the art museum in town. I was a benefactor, she was a volunteer. She came up to me and was all What’s a handsome guy like you doing in an old folks’ home like this? Because, yeah, everybody else was about eighty. We hooked up and started dating. It was so good. Great, at first. She was smart. Funny. And so beautiful. And the... between us... You know...” His voice faded.

Shaw knew he was seeking a euphemism for their fine times in bed. He knew too Matthews would never finish the sentence.

“She was so captivating...” A sigh. “I was, like, hypnotized. Naturally, I’d go to gallery openings and museums with her. I’d send her off to Paris or Florence so she could paint where all the famous painters from the past had. I’d go meet her and she was all Monet painted here, Gauguin painted there. But the fact is, I don’t get art, frankly.” Then in a whisper, as if she might actually hear: “I don’t even like it. I was involved in the museum for the tax write-offs. I could fake it for only so long and then started coming up with excuses for not going with her. It got worse when I had to work nights and weekends to keep the company afloat.

“I’m going crazy, Colter, I miss her so much. I’ve lost twenty pounds this last month.” He tapped his ring. “I had to move it to this finger. It kept falling off.”

He stared at the gaudy piece of jewelry — a class ring, it seemed.

“Salesman, I was saying? Well, you can’t seal the deal if you don’t give your buyer what you told him you would. I didn’t give Evie what I promised.” His voice cracked. A deep breath wheezed between his narrow lips. He masked blotting away a tear by scratching his nose. “I want a chance to pitch my case again. I can sell myself, I can sell our marriage. I know I can.”

Colter Shaw had seen many an offeror break down in front of him. Rewards are offered when a portion of the heart has vanished and there’s absolutely no balm for the pain except replacing the missing piece.

“I should’ve told you all that up front.”

In his decade of making his living seeking rewards Shaw had learned that how offerors described a situation was sometimes very different from what that situation actually was. He’d become a savvy interpreter and didn’t take such fabrication — sometimes intended, sometimes not — personally.

“I’ll help you,” Shaw said.

Matthews smiled once more, deeper this time, with appreciation. “Thank you. Now, what’s the arrangement?”

“I’ll ask you some questions and then try to find Evelyn. That’s it.”

He seemed confused, then asked, “Expenses?”

“No expenses. That comes out of my pocket. If I find her you pay me the ten K. If I don’t I swallow the costs. If a neighbor calls you and tells you where she is, even if I’m on my way to her hotel room, it’s his money.”

The nature of seeking rewards. Financial risks... as well as, often, physical risks.

“Well, okay. Now, questions?”

From his computer bag, sitting next to him, Shaw removed a five-by-seven bound notebook of thirty-two blank, unlined pages. From his inside sports coat pocket he retrieved a Delta Titanio Galassia fountain pen, black with three orange rings around the barrel, and uncapped it.

He opened to the first page and for the next fifteen minutes Shaw asked, and Matthews answered, dozens of questions, the responses recorded in elegant script as small as the tracks of a sparrow, the words perfectly horizontal despite the absence of lines on the paper. Matthews stared at the man’s handwriting. Many people commented on it. He didn’t.

Finally, Shaw believed he had enough to get started. Matthews rose, shook Shaw’s hand, more warmly than when they’d met. He began to speak, but emotion again intruded and he inhaled deeply, a hedge against tears. “Please. Help me, if you can.” He hurried out the door, climbed into the sleek black Mercedes, and a moment later the car sped out of view.

Colter Shaw had driven to Indianapolis in his thirty-foot Cambria Winnebago camper, in which he’d clocked 132,000 miles in the past year and half. He didn’t care for hotels and he hated to fly. The camper was perfect for both transportation and as living quarters. The boatlike vehicle, however, was cumbersome for tooling about town during an investigation itself, and his get-around wheels — a Yamaha YZ450FX dirt bike — made a questionable impression on offerors and disinclined potential interviewees from agreeing to talk to him.

Avis and Hertz were the solution and on jobs he rented a lot of unassuming sedans. Rearview cameras, satellite radios, good mileage. He’d also found people tended to trust you when you showed up in a Ford Escape or a Kia.

After leaving the restaurant, he found a trailer court with inexpensive hookups and clean showers, then he Ubered to a nearby Avis, where he collected a Toyota sedan.

He returned to the court and parked beside the Winnebago. In the RV he printed out the emails of material Matthews had promised to send: a list of Fontaine’s family members, friends, acquaintances and coworkers; galleries where her work was on display and/or for sale; and Matthews’s own phone and travel records around the time that his wife disappeared, the days before and after. The man hadn’t been offended that Shaw considered him a suspect, which was standard operating procedure on a missing spouse job; several times husbands had offered substantial rewards, to flag their innocence, when they themselves had dispatched their wives.

Shaw then called his own private investigator. Mack — an exception to the caveat about the limitations on permissible PI behavior — would conduct criminal background and weapons records checks on both principals in the job. Some of this information wasn’t in the public domain but Mack was unique in the world of private investigation: what was unavailable to most was rarely unavailable to Mack.

Shaw himself followed up on Matthews’s whereabouts on the days around the time Fontaine disappeared, after the workshop in Schaumburg. The records tentatively confirmed that Matthews was in Indianapolis on those days. And while that wasn’t conclusive, for the time being he ebbed as a suspect.

Shaw turned again to the entries in his notebook.

Date: August 30

Offeror: Ronald Matthews, 52, resident of Indiana, 2094 Shady Grove Lane, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Missing individual: Evelyn Maude Fontaine, 29, resident of Indiana, wife of 13 months.

EF: Employed part-time as professor of sketching and painting technique, Indiana Concord College for the Arts, Indianapolis. Fine artist

EF has passport but no overseas contacts; out-of-country travel unlikely.

EF’s sister is in Dayton, Ohio, but the two are not close. Sister claims EF has not contacted her re disappearance.

EF’s funds: unknown. She sells paintings occasionally, though doesn’t make much. Some income from teaching. RM gives her money but less in the past year, owing to financial difficulties. Probably not a large amount saved up.

Website/Facebook/Twitter: minimal personal posting. Mostly about her paintings, links to galleries that carry her work. No internet activity since disappearance.

No ransom demands. For-profit abduction unlikely, owing to RM’s company’s financial difficulties.

EF and RM, former members of Charter Lane Country Club, 10334 Hunter Grove Road, Indianapolis. Quit two months ago to save money.

EF and RM, members of Fitness Plus Health Club, 494 Akron Avenue West, Indianapolis.

RM married previously, divorced ten years ago. Ended amicably. Ex lives in San Diego. They haven’t been in touch for several years.

EF never married previously. Lived with three different men over the course of ten years, each for about eighteen to twenty-four months. Amicable breakups.

No reports of stalkers.

EF owns late-model Jeep Cherokee, gold. Indiana license HNC877.

No known extramarital affairs on the part of either EF or RM.

Weapon in house: Glock 9mm. Accounted for. EF did not take with her. (Mack will verify weapons status.) RM has Concealed Carry Permit.

EF — no criminal history. (Mack will verify.)

RM — no criminal history, no domestic abuse complaints. (Mack will verify.)

Credit cards in EF’s own name, RM has no access to recent purchase data.

Was at Artists in the Prairie retreat August 1–3, Schaumburg, IL. Organizer confirms she attended and left after last lecture. No knowledge of where she went.

EF’s phone out of service.

EF — no history of emotional/mental problems. No self-harm/suicidal incidents.

No other serious reward seekers have approached RM.

RM states he was in Indianapolis day before, day of, and day after EF’s disappearance. Records tentatively confirm.

RM to provide list of EF’s friends and acquaintances, as well as galleries EF has connection to.

Has supplied.

Shaw put the notebook aside to take Mack’s call. The PI reported that that, yes, Matthews had a concealed carry permit, and only one weapon was registered in his name, the Glock he told Shaw about. Fontaine had no concealed carry or weapons registered to her.

Matthews had a clean record and no domestic abuse complaints or restraining orders against him, as he’d reported.

Evelyn Fontaine had no adult run-ins with the law but did have two juvie incidents, shoplifting, at ages fourteen and fifteen. The first was dismissed after the owner of the art store involved withdrew the complaint. The second went forward but was knocked down to supervised release after she told the prosecutor she’d stolen the paints and brushes to do paintings to sell at street fairs to supplement the family’s income; her father, an alcoholic and drug abuser, in and out of trouble with the law, could never hold down a job.

Shaw recalled Matthews frowning, offended, at the question of whether his wife had ever been arrested. Given that the incidents were fifteen years old and trivial, Shaw decided he had no reason to tell him.

Shaw worked his way from the camper’s narrow banquette, then boiled water and brewed a cup of Santa Bárbara, Honduras, coffee, added a splash of milk and sat back down. He sipped the coffee slowly, considering strategic choices in his search for Evelyn Fontaine.

When Colter Shaw was four years old his father abruptly moved his wife and three children from the San Francisco area to an enclave in the wilds of eastern California. The alternative upbringing that ensued offered some advantages for the boy. The homeschooling — by parents who’d been respected professors at a prestigious university — gave him a fine education without the dreaded routine and confinement of the classroom. The scenery was spectacular. The endless work required to survive on the thousand rugged acres guaranteed that Colter’s restlessness remained at bay.

The flight to the Compound, as it was named by Ashton and Mary Shaw, was more complicated than your typical NPR-subscribing urban couple’s shucking off of society. An aura of threat motivated the move — a threat that might have been real or might have been a hatchling of Ashton’s brilliant but paranoid mind. Years later Shaw realized that the man was essentially an off-the-grid survivalist, less cranked than most but constantly suspicious of outsiders, and a drillmaster when teaching the children how to protect themselves in all circumstances.

Never assume you’re safe. Never leave yourself vulnerable. Never assume someone is coming to your aid. Never be without access to a weapon. And never assume someone is unarmed.

Shaw and his older brother, Russell, referred to their father as the King of Never.

One survival tactic, according to Ashton Shaw, was the science of percentages:

Never approach a task, or assess a threat, without calculating the odds.

The chance of falling through inch-thick ice on a lake in February? Eight percent. The low number meant that carrying a waterproof survival pack was important, but wearing a confining wet suit under your hiking gear was unnecessary.

The odds of getting lost at night on a trail you’ve hiked once before? Fifteen percent. Carry compass, maps, matches, and rations for two days, but not for two weeks.

The odds you’ll outrun a mountain lion? Two percent. The odds you can fight that same mountain lion successfully? Sixty percent. (Or, as Colter’s younger sister, Dorion, pointed out with perfect logic, “It’d be close to a hundred, you carry your .45 with you.”)

The percentages you assign dictate your course of action. Shaw now picked odds as to Evelyn Fontaine’s fate.

Matthews kidnapped/murdered her: one percent.

Matthews hired someone to kidnap/murder her: two percent.

Foul play by a third party, independent of Matthews: seven percent.

Fontaine fled for her own safety because Matthews was a closet domestic abuser: ten percent.

Fontaine, unhappy in a relationship that was stifling both her psyche and her career, left Matthews to live on her own: fifty percent. She didn’t have the resource or income to make this likely.

Fontaine, unhappy in the relationship, left Matthews for a lover: eighty percent. This percentage was higher than the one above because she seemed to prefer to being in relationships, as opposed to being alone, having lived with three men before Matthews. She would also need a second source of income.

Fontaine, unhappy in the relationship, left Matthews for a lover involved in the art world: eighty-five percent. Shaw felt it was clear that things were not going smoothly with a businessman who loved her but was uninterested in her passion. He also assessed it would be a lover of means, not a starving artist like herself.

Based on his analysis, Shaw decided he wouldn’t pursue, for the moment, leads at the couple’s former health club or country club or with neighbors in the posh community where they lived, where Fontaine might have met someone who became a stalker or lover. He’d concentrate on the college where she’d taught, the galleries she was connected to and the few acquaintances in the Indianapolis art scene whose names Ron Matthews could provide.

He triple-locked the Winnebago. (Shaw had received plenty of rewards for helping relocate various fugitives and felons to austere residences for lengthy periods of time; several of these relocated parties had announced “rewards” of their own — on his head. Accordingly, he took security seriously.) Then he piloted the Toyota to downtown Indianapolis to start his search at the college.

Indiana Concord College of the Arts was a typical urban school: architecture blandly nineteen seventies, four stories high, constructed of aluminum and pale yellow Sheetrock, which was grazed and marred thanks to a meager budget for maintenance. The smell was acrid, presumably paints and sibling substances like turpentine, linseed oil and cleansers, as well as darkroom developer, fixer and stop bath solution.

The time was 5:30 p.m., and the adult continuing education classes were just getting started. The students, he guessed, were mostly middle managers, salespeople, administrative assistants and the like, vaguely dissatisfied with their jobs and hoping for new careers in the magical world of creativity. They passed through the grimy revolving door, all of them weary, a long workday made longer yet by their elusive aspirations.

Shaw circulated, stopping students and teachers and asking if any of them knew Fontaine. Unlike a cop, he had no authority to get people to talk to him. When he approached someone he politely introduced himself, displayed Fontaine’s picture on his phone and said she was missing and that he was “helping the family try to find her.” True enough.

The results he got were typical of those on a missing persons job: the majority of people he approached brushed him off but only because — Shaw could tell — he was a stranger with an unusual request, not because they had something to hide. Most of those willing to listen didn’t know Fontaine or, if they did, had no idea as to her whereabouts or whether she was frequently seen in the company of any particular man or woman or might have even had a stalker.

To his question about whether they had any impression of her, those who responded said, uniformly, that she was a brilliant artist who spent every spare moment drawing and painting. She confided to one coworker that she was teaching only for the money; the minute class was over, she fled to one of the studios to paint.

Shaw ducked into a diner and sat at a rickety table, where, between sips of coffee and bites of club sandwich, he called a half-dozen names on the list Matthews had sent him. Four didn’t answer — including the friend whom Fontaine had contacted just after her disappearance. The two who picked up were of no help.

He finished the meal and called the galleries on Matthews’s list to get the hours they were open. Only two still were.

The first gallery was a dead end.

At the second gallery, however, he got answers. More than he bargained for, in fact.

Shaw entered as the owner was just getting ready to close. He was an affable man of fifty or so, wearing a white, loose-fitting Native American embroidered shirt and jeans. He was balding and had gathered his remaining hair, which was brownish gray, in a ponytail. He was large — about six-two — with a round belly but thin legs. On his nose were perched glasses with thick black frames. He was jotting entries in a ledger.

His name was David Goodwin, and, in response to Shaw’s question about knowing Evelyn Fontaine, he nodded broadly. “She’s exhibited here a couple of times. As soon as she gets back, I hope she’ll think about another show.”

Shaw felt his pulse quicken. “She’s missing.”

“You mean she’s not in Muncie?” The man’s lined face frowned.

“Muncie?”

“I haven’t talked to her for a while — two, three months — but I’m sure she said she was planning on spending August at a couple of artists-in-residence retreats. Schaumburg was one. That’s in Illinois. And after that she and Jason were going to a retreat in Muncie... You a friend of hers?”

“Jason?”

“Jason Barnes. He owns a gallery too, Chicago.” Goodwin’s face tightened. “Nice one. Bigger than mine. Of course, he’s Abstract Expressionism. As if that’s ever going to come back.”

“And who is he, exactly?”

“Oh, her boyfriend. Didn’t you know?”

Friday, August 31

Shaw’s eighty-five percent hypothesis was playing out: if David Goodwin was right, Fontaine had found a lover, and one with some means, assuming that his “bigger” gallery made a sizable profit.

As sometimes with domestic conflict situations, which often turn bitter and toxic, he wondered if he should simply step away. He certainly had every right to.

The rustic cabin where Colter Shaw and his older brother and younger sister were raised contained shelves holding close to ten thousand books, including an entire set of law school casebooks and hornbook texts. In his teens, Colter pored over these, fascinated with the drama of life as refracted through the prism of human conflicts that ended up in court.

Most contracts are “bilateral,” each party agrees to perform some obligation to the other. Rewards, on the other hand, are “unilateral contracts.” A party offers to pay a reward, generally to the public, but no one is required to pursue it. The obligation arises only when a reward seeker successfully delivers. What this meant for Shaw was that he was never bound by an agreement to find a missing person or a fugitive. If he wanted to pursue a reward, he did. If he wanted to walk, at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all, he did. This was why he’d never considered becoming a cop or a private eye.

Restless...

But Shaw decided to follow through. And he was now steering the Toyota over the city limits of Muncie, Indiana. His impression was that Ronald Matthews was more or less what he seemed to be: an older man who’d fallen for a captivating woman and was still in love. He deserved an answer to the question tormenting him: Could he sell himself as a new, improved husband, devoted to making the marriage work?

The time was close to noon, the sky turquoise, the temperature in the high nineties. Muncie was a nineteenth-century industrial town, a mini Detroit, battered but not KO’d by the gravitational swing to high tech and the promised land of overseas labor. Holding its own, Shaw concluded.

There was no elevation to Muncie. The buildings were low, the surrounding land flat. Red brick was the building medium of choice. He drove through a decrepit area, where skinny men, all of them white, sat with scorched meth pipes or greasy bottles of malt liquor naked of paper bag shrouds. Seeing the dark Toyota cruise by — resembling an unmarked cop car — they showed no interest, and no one hid liquor or drugs. They weren’t even defiant; they simply didn’t care.

Driving on, he passed the elegant Ball State University. He’d learned the school was named after the five Ball brothers, who’d relocated their glass production company to Muncie in the late nineteenth century, when the city was thriving with newly discovered natural gas repositories. Shaw felt a twinge of nostalgia. He and brother Russell and sister Dorion had helped their mother put up preserved food in Ball canning jars every fall. He hadn’t known that the jars had Midwestern roots.

Shaw’s research disclosed that Muncie had been the core of the Middletown sociological study in the past century, an examination of the typical small American city. Muncie wore the word “middle” proudly.

He parked the rental car in a largely deserted lot on Jefferson, in the Downtown District. He climbed out and began canvassing the locals to find the artists-in-residence retreat that David Goodwin had mentioned. Goodwin had added that as a veteran of many such retreats, he knew they were usually private, not announced online — to make sure only serious artists attended, which explained why Shaw found nothing in his preliminary research.

Shaw began his hunt with the art galleries in this part of town. The first three he browsed were essentially gift shops selling mostly kitsch that was humorous or homey: goofy cats or dogs welded together from nuts and bolts, plaques with inspirational sayings like You can if you try, crystals, cheap jewelry, mugs and a quarry’s worth of ceramics. The framed pieces on the wall were mass-produced prints and photos of rural scenes.

As he’d guessed, none of the clerks — the majority being teenage girls or women in their sixties and beyond — knew anything about a local artists’ retreat.

The fourth shop was more promising for two reasons. First, it looked like a real art gallery, offering for sale well-done paintings, sketches, photography, and sculpture. Second, among those paintings were three by Evelyn Fontaine.

The slim man sitting behind the counter — in jeans, black suspenders, and a pale blue shirt — looked up with a Please buy something smile. “Howdy.”

“Hi.”

The man’s bushy white hair was squashed by a Greek fisherman’s cap and he sported a trim beard.

Shaw gestured to the Fontaine paintings: busy sprawls of paint, in dark reds and purples and blacks. All about four feet square. “I came down from Indianapolis. I heard Evelyn was in Muncie. I was hoping for a show, but there wasn’t anything online. Thought I’d just take a chance and drive down.”

Taciturn by nature, Shaw was talkative on a job; this put the suspicious at ease and made the quiet more inclined to share.

“Evelyn Fontaine’s in town? Really?” The man swiveled and eyed the canvases lovingly. “Quite the talent, isn’t she?”

“Definitely.” Shaw squinted at the center painting. “Oh, it’s a portrait.” His surprise was real; he hadn’t seen the woman’s face at first.

“Takes a minute to spot her, doesn’t it?”

Shaw was impressed.

A stack of information fliers about Fontaine sat on the desk. Shaw picked one up.

Evelyn Maude Fontaine is the founder of the “Layering Movement” in painting. She begins with a realistic sketch of her subject on a blank canvas and then paints over it, following the lines she has drawn, but with variations. Then she applies additional layers, each inspired by, but different from, the one beneath it. Often, Evelyn will paint dozens of layers until she “realizes my vision of my subject.” Her canvases can have as many as forty or fifty coats of paint and weigh many pounds.

Shaw asked if he could keep the flier and, when the man nodded, he folded the glossy sheet of paper and put it in his rear pocket. “It’s an artists-in-residence retreat Evelyn’s at. You know where it might be?”

“Sure don’t. Never heard of any here. They call ’em retreats for a reason, I guess.”

Echoing David Goodwin’s words, though the gallery owner’s voice had a sardonic twinge to it, Shaw believed.

He decided not to ask for a phone number or to leave his for the man to forward. Doing so could spook her.

He did ask, though, “You know Jason Barnes?”

“Who?”

“Evelyn’s friend. Owns a gallery in Chicago. Shows Abstract Expressionist works.”

This amused the man.

As if that’s ever going to come back...

“Nope. Sorry.”

Shaw hit the remaining galleries in town, not expecting to have much luck. But that proved not to be the case.

At the last gallery on Jefferson, the fifty-something, frizzy-haired woman behind the counter said she’d heard that Fontaine was at an informal retreat about ten miles outside of town, someplace on Route 83. The attendees were calling themselves the Creative Commons. And, yes, another artist named Jason — last name unknown — was with her.

Shaw returned to the Toyota and from his computer bag in the trunk retrieved a McNally folding map of the area. He paused on the blistering sidewalk and looked over the deserted streets. He noted a corner bar that seemed to be open; the neighborhood was so deserted, it was hard to tell.

Colter Shaw had grown up without internet, TV, or even a movie house closer than twenty hard miles from the family cabin. Radio for listening was all right, though discouraged. Transmitting was forbidden, except in emergencies, as his father said that skilled radio trackers, known as fox hunters, might be trying to track you down — a warning that unsettled the children not because of any threat but because it was another sign of their father’s progressing mental decay. But on trips off the Compound to visit family in Seattle and Austin, Shaw discovered movies. His uncle introduced him to the gritty film noir crime genre, which became his favorite.

This bar — fatigued, dingy, accessed through a mightily squeaking door — was a perfect set for any classic noir. Smoky without smoke, dim, abraded, the space was inhabited by a half-dozen well-worn men and two women of retirement age and about the same number of men in their mid-twenties or early thirties, on lunch break from their construction jobs, having a beer or a shot, or both. Like the street people Shaw had driven past, everyone here was white.

Perching on an unsteady stool, Shaw ordered an IPA brewed in Muncie and bean-free chili. Unfurling the map, he studied Route 83, a winding road about fifteen miles long, ending in a small town to the west. He noted some spreads that might make for good retreats.

But he wasn’t going on the final leg of the search just yet.

As he sipped good beer and ate excellent chili Shaw decided it best not to simply tell Matthews where his wife was, collect his reward, and move on. A wife who disappears without warning, a husband distraught at her absence — and who owns a Glock? Colter Shaw recognized the potential for disaster, even if unlikely — say, five percent? He would have Matthews drive down to Muncie without saying exactly where Fontaine was. After Shaw frisked him — never assume someone is unarmed — they’d proceed to the retreat. Shaw would stay near while Matthews pitched his case to Fontaine and have his phone handy to dial 911, if necessary. Or, if things turned dire, he could intervene himself.

Shaw paid for the meal and walked into the embracing damp heat, making his way to the parking lot. When near the Toyota he stopped abruptly.

A flat tire.

Odd, with rentals. Wheels were the first things that companies inspected before they let a car off the lot.

Then Shaw had another thought: How was it that the owner of the last gallery knew about the Creative Commons and that Evelyn Fontaine was there, while the Greek fisherman — who was selling her work — didn’t even know the retreat existed or that she was in town?

This coincided with the sound of feet moving up fast behind him.

Before Shaw could turn they were on him, two huge men. Their hands closed on his arms, and he was dragged into a nearby alley.

“Did you tell him?” Evelyn Fontaine’s voice was a ragged whisper. “Did you tell Ron where I am?”

Shaw, Fontaine and young Jason Barnes were not in one of the derelict buildings downtown — which, Shaw reflected, would have been a perfect film noir setting where a snitch is tortured to death. Instead, the venue was the comfy Java Joe’s.

“No, I didn’t,” Shaw told the artist.

Fontaine’s intense lavender eyes held his blue. “I hope so. I really do. Or I’m dead.”

As the photo in Matthews’s wallet had revealed, she wasn’t a beautiful woman, despite her husband’s insistence; her face was long, the angles of jaw and cheeks severe. But that face reminded him of a Roman empress’s, her hair was an exotic, calculated tangle, her figure both willowy and voluptuous, and the charisma hinted at in the photo was more than present in person. She had an intense air about her. And those round violet eyes...

Evelyn Fontaine was indeed captivating.

She was wearing close-fitting tan-colored jeans and a gossamer cornflower-blue blouse. A half pound of thin wire bracelets encircled her wrists. Her earrings were silver nautilus shells. She wore dusky eye shadow as her only makeup.

How Shaw happened to be here at the moment: Tony, the black-suspendered director of the gallery displaying her canvases, had called Fontaine just after Shaw left. It turned out that, concerned Matthews might come looking for her, she had alerted Tony and other acquaintances in town to look out for strangers asking about her.

“Then I asked some friends from the Commons to invite you to come talk to us.”

Shaw frowned. “They’re artists?”

The young men who had grabbed him were huge, with grips so tight that Shaw didn’t bother to resist, worried about dislocating an arm.

“Sculptors,” Jason Barnes said, by way of explanation.

Ah. Of course. “And my tire?”

“I’m sorry, Colter.” They were on a first-name basis now. “We didn’t want you flying out of town without us having a conversation.”

The twin Michelangelos were gone, since Fontaine’s initial concern was dispelled: that Shaw was a thug hired by Ron Matthews to beat her bloody or even kill her. Shaw had explained about the reward and she’d researched it — and Shaw himself. She’d concluded all was legit.

He now explained his decision to set up a meeting in public, to avoid any altercations.

“No! You can’t say a word!” Fontaine said, eyes widening. “You can’t let him know I’m even in the state.”

“The man is a sociopath,” Barnes said.

Fontaine continued. “He seems normal on the surface. But he’s a sadist.”

Barnes asked, “Did he try his tricks with you? Did he cry? Did he say he’d never hurt her? Did he tell you how he was going to change?”

Yes, yes and yes.

Barnes was handsome, with long dark hair and a faint accent. His complexion too suggested Latino heritage, despite the Irish-inflected name. His age was around thirty-five, Shaw estimated, but he could pass for younger. Five-nine or — ten, with a slim build. His pleated black slacks and shirt of rich gray were stylish: SoHo or Michigan Avenue, not the J. C. Penney’s couture otherwise evident at Java Joe’s.

A lover of means...

Shaw sipped his coffee and then cupped the mug. “I ran a background check on Ron. Nothing turned up. No convictions or arrests.” He looked Evelyn Fontaine over closely. “What you’re telling me now, you could be saying it just because you don’t want the hassle of being confronted by a man you left for someone else.”

“What?” Her smooth brow tightened with confusion. But only momentarily. “Oh, no, Colter, we’re not together.”

“Somebody told me he’s your boyfriend.”

Barnes laughed. “Oh, Jesus, we’re just friends... I’m gay... She needed help escaping from him. I’m a huge fan of her work. I wanted to help.”

“I left Ron to save my life,” Fontaine said. “Not for another man.” She rested her hands on the black-laminated table between them. While every other physical aspect of the artist was smooth and elegant, her fingers were blunt, her nails clipped short to the quick, the skin stained with paint. “I don’t know how many times I almost called the police. But I couldn’t. He said if I did, if I told anyone, he’d break my fingers.” She closed her eyes briefly. “My painting hand.” In a whisper: “Once, he even said he’d blind me.”

Fontaine fled for her own safety because Matthews was a closet domestic abuser: ten percent.

The percentage strategy often requires real-time readjustment.

Shaw said, “He’s a convincing liar.”

A bitter laugh from her. “No one knows that better than me. But that’s how sociopaths are. They believe in their own delusions.”

Shaw asked, “Divorce?”

She answered in a determined voice. “As soon as humanly possible. I’m talking to a lawyer but I have to be careful. I’ll need someplace to live that’s safe before I file. Next time” — she cocked an eyebrow — “I don’t want anybody finding me.”

Evelyn Fontaine now placed her hand on Shaw’s forearm and closed her trembling fingers around it. “Don’t tell him you found me. Please, you have to help me.”

Shaw thought of Matthews’s parting prayer:

Please. Help me, if you can...

Barnes said, “The reward he’s offered — ten thousand? — we’ll pay you that. Plus, a thousand extra.”

“No,” Shaw said. “If I walk away, I’ll walk because I choose to.”

She gave a wan smile. “Just our luck to find a bounty hunter with a conscience.”

“I won’t say anything to him until I check out what you told me.”

“I’ve got proof. I took selfies of my black eyes and cut lips. And he whipped me once with a lamp cord. And medical reports.” Her hand hadn’t left his arm, and now more pressure was applied. “Come back to the retreat, Colter, I’ll show you. It’s all on my computer... And I’ll give you a tour. You ever been to an artists’ retreat?”

“No.”

She smiled again. “It’s a magical place, really. You into art?”

“Only Abstract Expressionism,” Shaw said.

She slipped a glance his way, one of broad disbelief.

“I live for it,” he said.

Her visage morphed into a smile. “Don’t have a clue, do you?”

Ten minutes later they were in Fontaine’s Jeep Cherokee. She was behind the wheel.

It was just the two of them; Jason Barnes had agreed to remain behind and find the two sculptor thugs; together they’d changes the rental car’s tire.

Shaw was watching the scenery move from urban to burb to rural. This happened quickly.

Fontaine asked, “You must have some interest in art? What’s hanging on the walls of your house? Prints from Pottery Barn? A street fair watercolor?” A glance toward him. “Maybe your kids’ finger paintings?”

He gave no response to the last question, which he assessed to be about something other than art, and said, “Maps, mostly nineteenth-century and earlier. I collect them.”

They passed an idyllic scene: a farmhouse surrounded by six-foot-high stalks of Jubilee sweet corn. The image might have been right out of the nineteenth century, if not for the satellite dish and the Prius.

Fontaine mused, “You know, there’s a place in town where you can make your own pizza. I mean, you really make it, not just order it the way you want it. There’s a big oven and you have the spatula. You want, they give you a chef’s hat. A bunch of us from the retreat went there the other day... Pizza and beer. You like pizza?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“We’re artists, Colter. You’d think we’d sit around eating charcuterie and crusty bread and drinking absinthe. But don’t we bleed like everyone else?”

Then the smile vanished and her hand went to her eyes, wiping moisture. “Goddammit... I loved him. I did. He was so different in the beginning. Then the bad stuff poked through. And I told myself it was just a fluke — he was upset about work, he’d had a fight with a creditor — but the only fluke was him being nice. Didn’t take long to find his real nature.”

She sniffed, wiped her nose with her sleeve.

They drove in silence for about ten minutes or so. Route 83 hardly lived up to the designation “route.” It was an uneven road, the asphalt more cracked and potholed than not, with no shoulder to speak of.

Her eyes swung his way briefly. “How’d you find me?”

“Legwork. I put together a list of people who knew you. David Goodwin was on it.”

“Oh, Dave, sure.” She scoffed. “Me and my big mouth. I told him I had some retreats planned. That was my mistake... So, you just go out and find rewards and get them?”

“Or don’t get them. But, yes, that’s the program in theory.”

“You’re kind of the cowboy, aren’t you? You know Frederic Remington?”

On living room wall of the cabin Shaw’s father had mounted a print of Remington’s arresting painting Friends or Foes? (The Scout). The canvas depicted a lone Blackfoot on horseback peering through a cold winter evening at a distant settlement. It was one of Shaw’s favorite paintings. He told Fontaine only that he was aware of the artist. After a moment: “Good of Jason to help you out.”

“He’s been a lifesaver in this whole thing. His gallery’s doing well.”

“For Abstract Expressionism...”

“Do you ever smile when you’re being funny, Colter?”

No answer required.

“Not my style,” she continued. “But we didn’t bond over art. It was... personal.”

“How long’ve you know him?”

“Not long. Met him at a retreat in Schaumburg. He’d gotten out of an abusive relationship a year ago and we compared notes. His lover was just like Ron. I mean, it’s funny. I don’t think of gay people being abusive. That’s sort of reverse prejudice, isn’t it?”

Fontaine turned off 83 onto a dirt road. “Where the retreat is, up ahead, the land used to be farms. But when Muncie was booming — a hundred fifty years ago — there were factories here. All abandoned now. A nonprofit arts council leases the land and hosts retreats. Mostly painters, but writers and poets too. You can stay for a month or two, cheap, and work on your masterpiece. It’s been heaven for me. I don’t have to worry about coming home. Worry about the insults. Worry about the fist... Did you see his ring?”

Shaw nodded.

“It was like brass knuckles. He gave me a hairline fracture.” She rubbed her cheek. “Right here.”

Shaw glanced at his phone, which seemed to make Fontaine uneasy.

He reassured her. “It’s not Ron. Another job.” As he sent some texts, he said, “He’ll want to hear something soon, but I can keep him at bay a little while longer.”

“Thank you, Colter. Really.” Then her eyes brightened. “Can I show you what I’m painting now?”

They pulled onto a wide strip of grass, bordered by trees and shrubbery, and parked. Shaw could see a narrow river and low concrete dam over which the current flowed in a smooth, gentle arc.

Fontaine shut the engine off, and they both climbed out of the car. They walked to the river. A breeze stirred ripples, and geranium petals floated nonchalantly past. Ducks paddled by, while a larger waterbird, starkly white, lingered in the shallows. Shaw didn’t know what it was. He and his siblings had learned a great deal about wildlife on the Compound but only from the perspectives of surviving it, preserving it or cooking it. This stately creature wasn’t made for the casserole pot.

She guided him between an eastern arborvitae and a towering box elder, then along banks thick with foliage. Shaw recognized black chokeberry, sedge, and Brazilian waterweed, a troublesome invader that got a toehold in the U.S. when water from dumped household aquariums made its way into storm drains. Waving hypnotically along the banks was a thick growth of pale bluejoint grass, for which Shaw had a fondness, as he’d once spent three hours in a wide strip of it hiding from a pack of wolves.

“Pretty,” Shaw said, looking about. “So, you’re doing a landscape.”

“Landscape?” She frowned. “No, no, no, Colter. Come on this way.” Fontaine led him along a trail, into a grove where the trees grew thicker, the shrubbery more tangled. Their destination, apparently, was a low brick structure, vaguely visible through the vines and the trees’ late-summer paling green leaves. “I don’t do pretty. This is what I’m painting.”

They broke from the tree line, and she pointed to a wreck of an old, two-story building. He squinted at a weathered sign above the loading dock. “Samsons’ Manufacturing,” he read aloud. “Founded 1889. Wheelwrights.”

“I like gritty, hard, incongruous. Industrial Revolution meets Norman Rockwell. Oliver Twist meets Pride and Prejudice.”

Shaw pulled out his phone and took a picture. “I’ll compare your painting to the original. I read about the layering, how the final painting is just a reflection of the first sketch.”

“You did? Really?” Her voice was soft, as she stared at the structure intently. “Inside’s even better. Come on.”

They climbed the stairs to the loading dock, mindful of the rotting wood. She followed Shaw through the open doorway and he found himself in a large, dimly lit factory space, aromatic of mold and of chemicals he couldn’t identify. As his eyes grew accustomed to the faint illumination — from a gap where a skylight used to be — he saw that the area was largely bare except for some ancient machine mounts, gears, and narrow-gauge rails for transporting gondolas.

As they walked, Shaw looked out a window — also missing its panes — to a weed-filled parking lot. He stopped walking. He saw a car.

Ron Matthews’s black Mercedes.

Shaw saw something else too. Eyes now accustomed to the dimness, he looked at the two other occupants of the factory. One was Matthews himself, gagged and bound with duct tape. His red face was distorted by fear, eyes wide as he desperately sucked air through his nostrils. The other man, crouching over Matthews to check the gag, was David Goodwin, the gallery owner who’d directed Shaw to Muncie. His eyes wide with shock and dismay.

Shaw ignored him for the moment and turned to see what he now guessed he would: Evelyn Fontaine, holding in a latex-gloved hand her husband’s black Glock, pointed at Shaw’s chest.

And the odds that Evelyn Fontaine was conspiring with David Goodwin to murder her husband: one hundred percent.

“The hell’s he doing here?” Goodwin said in a furious whisper.

“It’s all right, dear,” Fontaine answered calmly.

Goodwin stammered, “But, Evie... I mean, it’s not what we talked about.” The words trickled out cautiously. He was afraid of making her mad.

Shaw noted that the two of them were ignoring Matthews, who was moaning and thrashing on the floor. Shaw now saw that his arms and legs were not duct-taped directly on the cloth, nor was the tape applied to his mouth. Goodwin had first wrapped the man with what looked like plastic wrap, presumably so that no suspicious adhesive from the tape would be found by the police.

Cable TV had taught the world how to beat forensics.

“We need to add just another piece or two,” said Fontaine, the voice of reason. “Otherwise, it won’t work.”

Goodwin shot a contemptuous nod toward Matthews. “I said I’d help. After all he did to you. But this guy?” Now Shaw got the nod. “No, Evelyn...”

“It has to be done right,” she said, untroubled by his distress. “Unless you want to go to prison forever.”

“But, honey, you didn’t... you didn’t say anything.”

Fontaine’s plan was impressive; Shaw had to give her that. After convincing Goodwin to help her kill Matthews, they would wait for a fall guy — a PI, or, as it turned out, a reward seeker named Colter Shaw — to search for the “missing” Fontaine. In the course of the investigation, he’d find Goodwin, who would direct him to Muncie. Goodwin would then kidnap Matthews — and steal his gun — and deposit him in the Samsons’ factory. Fontaine would then trick Shaw here, as well.

To the police, the ensuing double homicide would have a simple explanation: Matthews, enraged by his philandering wife, had come to the retreat to kill her. Trying to protect the artist, Shaw had been fatally wounded, but grabbed the gun and killed Matthews before dying.

Tidy.

“She’d need a third party to pull the trigger,” Shaw said to Goodwin. “A wife killing her husband? She’d be suspect number one, even if she claims abuse.”

The poor, balding man looked horrified. “Isn’t there some other way? There has to be.”

“Dave, come on. You’ve already kidnapped Ron. And Shaw knows everything now. We can’t exactly let him live, can we?”

“But... I just didn’t...”

“You’re being used, Goodwin.”

Then, to Shaw’s dismay, another voice was calling, “Evie? You in there? Did what you asked. I’ve got Colter’s car outside. What’s with the Mercedes?”

It was Jason Barnes. Fontaine would have told him to bring the rental to the Samsons’ factory. And it was obvious why.

We just need to add another piece or two...

Barnes would be the second piece.

Ignoring the gun, Shaw shouted, “Jason, run! Get out of here. And call the cops!”

“What?” came the amused voice.

“Don’t do it,” Shaw said firmly to Fontaine. “It’s pointless now. I’ve—”

Barnes entered the factory, and before he could even squint to adjust his eyes to the dark, Fontaine shot him twice in the head. He dropped like a wet rag.

Shaw closed his eyes briefly. No...

Goodwin gasped. “My God. What’ve you done?”

Like a lecturing high school teacher, she said, “You’re in the jam jar all the way now, Dave, so let’s be strong. Can you be strong?” Still keeping the gun pointed at Shaw, she stepped to her husband and wiped her right hand on his and his sleeve. She’d be transferring the GSR, gunshot residue, to him, to make the police believe he’d been the shooter. It was the first thing they look for.

Cable TV, again.

Goodwin gasped, “But how... How could you do this?”

“Because,” Shaw said, “the script called for Ron to kill the man he thought was her lover, to make it credible.”

Evelyn Fontaine was clearly growing impatient. “Let’s get this over with, somebody might’ve heard the shot.”

Layering... The whole plot was like one of her paintings, the truth hidden, distorted, under coats and coats of pigment. Russian nesting dolls came to mind.

She now crouched once more, getting into a position from which to shoot Shaw.

Well, can’t wait any longer, Shaw thought. He spoke firmly. “David Goodwin and Evelyn Fontaine have just murdered Jason Barnes and are about to murder Ronald Matthews in the Samsons’ wheelwright building outside of Muncie, Indiana. Off Route 83. The time is approximately three p.m. on August thirty-first.” He didn’t mention himself as the other potential victim, not wanting to clutter the narrative.

With quick glances toward each other, the two remained motionless, a frown weighing down Goodwin’s face, while Evelyn’s was wary.

Shaw explained, “I knew before we got here this was a setup.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped.

“Goodwin, you told me you hadn’t spoken to Evelyn since June but you also knew she and Jason were going to the retreat in Muncie.” His eyes swung from Goodwin to Fontaine. “If she met Jason only a month ago, in Schaumburg, how could you know about him?”

Fontaine blinked and turned toward Goodwin, who looked stricken. “You did what?” she raged. “Why did you say anything about Jason?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”

Shaw said, “I knew something seemed off. Felt like I was being played. Those texts I sent? And the picture of the factory? They went to my private investigator on the East Coast, who forwarded everything to the county sheriff here. They’re on their way now.”

Goodwin muttered, “Oh, Jesus. What’ve I done?”

“Shut up,” Fontaine snarled.

“We’re screwed,” Goodwin whispered. “Don’t you understand that?”

“He’s bluffing.” To Shaw: “Let me see your goddamn phone. Unlock it and give it to Dave. I want to see the texts. Now!”

Shaw, eyes on the Glock, carefully offered the unit to Goodwin, as Fontaine stepped to the side and raised the gun toward Shaw’s head, moving closer, though still keeping a safe distance from him.

Goodwin eased in. “Are you covering him?”

“Get the damn phone.”

Then both Fontaine and Goodwin cocked their heads when sirens wailed in the distance.

That tiny distraction was enough for Shaw. He grabbed Goodwin’s arm and spun him around, a shield, then charged forward. Goodwin was a big man but weak; he didn’t resist. Together, they plowed into Fontaine. The gun discharged, the slug hitting the wall above them, sending a faint rain of red brick granules down upon them.

In a smooth sweep, Shaw yanked the gun from the woman’s hand. He backed quickly away, dropped the magazine a few inches, to make sure there were rounds in the weapon, and snapped it back into place. He then lifted the black, boxy pistol toward them.

Shaw blinked as an unearthly wailing scream poured from Fontaine’s throat. “No, no, no!” The petite woman had dropped to her knees on the floor, rocking back and forth hysterically.

He supposed that the bullet had in fact struck her. Keeping the muzzle aimed her way, he carefully circled so he could find the wound and assess how serious it was. But he saw no blood.

She looked up at him, and her violet eyes were those of the rabid wild dog that had made its way onto the Compound one March. Fontaine held her hand up toward him and raged, “My finger! Look what you did!” It was the index digit of her right hand, which had been on the trigger.

Her painting hand.

“You broke it,” she howled. “You broke it, you broke it, you broke it...”

“I surely do apologize, sir,” the sheriff was saying.

He was a solid, calm man of about fifty, and, with an impressive mustache, he looked like a Texas Ranger, or at least what central casting thought a Texas Ranger should look like (Shaw enjoyed Westerns too, in addition to noir).

They were in the parking lot of the wheelwright factory.

Samsons’ Manufacturing...

Did the plural apostrophe signify father and offspring? Or siblings, à la the Ball Brothers? Whatever the family configuration, Shaw bet that never in a million years would they have guessed that their products would morph into the thousand-dollar Pirellis mounted on the Mercedes-AMG, presently quarantined by yellow police tape in the front drive of their establishment.

Shaw asked why the apology.

“We didn’t get here as timely as we hoped. Our dispatcher got your private eye’s call? With the information about the old Samson place? Delia’s a peach, she is. Could be a deputy herself but for the joints. Arthritis. So anyways. The units she called were the nearest, but they weren’t near, if you see what I’m saying. They were off on some wild-gander chase, a meth deal gone bad. I say ‘gander’ because the granddaughter always correcting. Have to be attentive to such things nowadays.”

He then grew somber. “Weren’t in time for that poor fellow, Barnes. He just walked in, wrong place, wrong time, hmm?”

“No. Evelyn asked him back, knowing she was going to kill him. It was part of her plan.”

“My word.”

“How’s Ron?” Shaw asked.

Matthews was presently in the back of an ambulance parked at the other end of the lot.

“That man is not a happy one, I will tell you. Learning his pretty little love puppy was going to kill him? But physically he’ll be right as a turkey that can still gobble on Black Friday... So, Shaw, I looked into you. Seems you’ve done this sort of thing before. What’re your thoughts? She wanted to kill him ’cause Matthews was abusive? I checked and didn’t find a single report.”

“No. She spun that story to trick Goodwin and Barnes into helping. And to get me to trust her. Femmes fatales generally seduce with sex; she went for sympathy.” He then offered a hypothesis about the insurance. “All she cared about, more than anything else, was painting. The rules didn’t apply when it came to that.”

He told the sheriff about the juvie cases — stealing art supplies, when she was a kid.

“Anything to sustain her. Living with Ron was okay when he was rich. But Matthews’ company was going under. No more trips to Paris. She hated working even part-time and he’d probably want her to go to work full. That’d interfere with her vision.”

“Vision? Heaven forbid,” Foote said sardonically. “What about Goodwin?”

“Pawn.”

“She had her hand on his tiller, you might say?”

Shaw liked this man. He nodded. “Guarantee she’ll turn evidence and blame him for the whole thing. But you’ve got your witness.”

“You.”

“And the forensics. And you can get a psych workup. I’ve had experience with sociopaths. She’s a classic example. She lived with three other men. She might’ve been thinking of trying the same thing with them — a meal ticket — but I’d guess they wanted prenups or just saw through her.”

The actual motive, however, was one for the prosecutor to wrestle with.

Foote spotted the state police crime scene van pulling up and excused himself.

Shaw spotted Ron Matthews stepping from the ambulance and walking up to the yellow tape surrounding his car, in whose trunk he would have spent a harrowing two hours after Goodwin kidnapped him.

Shaw joined him. Neither spoke for a moment. Matthews stared at the sedan.

“You know the AMG story, Colter?”

“I don’t.”

He was a camper-and-motorcycle guy pretty much exclusively.

“Started in the sixties, the company did, making racing engines. Founded by Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher. That’s the A and M. The G is for Grossaspach, Aufrecht’s hometown. Mercedes bought them. I always aspired to sell them. I could’ve gone places with a Mercedes dealership. Was my favorite car in the world.”

Colter nodded. He had nothing to add, knowing he was listening to the ramblings of a man talking himself through the first moments of grief.

“I’m dumping it,” Matthews said then. “Getting something different. Can’t afford the lease anyway. Colter, be honest. You think Evie had... had this in mind all along?” He couldn’t bring himself to say “killing me.”

Shaw didn’t share his earlier thoughts. “That’d be quite the elaborate plan.”

“I suppose it would be.” He took a kernel of comfort from Shaw’s words. The man wiped away a tear, making no bones about it this time. Then cleared his throat. “I owe you that reward. The ten.”

“There’s no hurry.” Which meant two things. First, there was no hurry. And, second, yes, you do owe me that ten, even if things didn’t turn out like you’d hoped.

“What’s next for you?” Matthews asked.

Shaw had personal business in Berkeley, California. Some unfinished matters about his father. But he said only that he was going to the West Coast for a while.

“We went to the Getty once,” Matthews said, “Evie and me. California, Malibu. Flew there on a whim on a private jet. They had one painting I liked. Out of everything, only one painting. Can you believe it?” A sigh. “My father sold lawn mowers. Reconditioned. I moved up to forklifts and platforms. Your father? He into this reward thing too?”

Colter Shaw, a man who rarely smiled, smiled now. “No.”

Matthews wiped his brow with his sleeve. He seemed to notice for the first time his clothing was torn and filthy.

Shaw said, “I’m not leaving till the morning. I can give you a ride back to Indianapolis.”

“Could use that, thanks.”

“My rental car’s around here somewhere.” Shaw scanned the weedy lot and spotted the Toyota, parked beneath a maple whose leaves were dusty and going late-summer pale.

“Don’t know if you’re interested,” Shaw said, “but I could use some food.”

“I guess.”

“Chinese?”

Matthews uttered a faint laugh. “Sure. Let’s try it again.”