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“I think what North is saying,” Shaw said, “is Big Ag—”
“Jesus Christ,” North said under his breath.
“—and Big Vet and Big, um, Bird—”
“Thank you all so fucking much,” North muttered.
“—have made it possible for lots of people to have access to those drugs,” Shaw finished with a victorious note, “not only trained and licensed veterinarians.”
“My point,” North said in an aggrieved tone, “is why are we surprised Yesenia was probably killed by someone at the conference?”
“Because—” Tean wanted to say, These are my people. But that would have sounded childish; the logical part of him knew, better than most, that anyone could commit murder under the right circumstances. But it was one thing to believe that some random Missouri hick could kill two women; it was another thing to believe that someone at the conference, someone who was educated, someone who shared, at least at the most general level, Tean’s values—someone like Tean, in other words—could do something like this. “Because of the local connection,” he finished lamely. “Those men, the ones Emery knows.”
“The Rangels,” Emery said, “will work for anybody. I want to take another look at the owner of that cat sanctuary; I know you talked to him, but he seems like our most likely suspect.”
“I’m not sure he is,” Tean said. “He had every reason to want Yesenia alive.” And then Tean had to explain, for the rest of the group, how Yesenia’s wildlife safari would have benefited the cat sanctuary.
“I’m part cat,” Shaw said in the tone of someone imparting crucial information. “Or I was a cat in another life. Oh, Jem! Maybe you can contact my, um, inner cat? Astral cat? A regression! Maybe you can do a regression!”
“You sleep all day, knock things over so I’ll have to pick them up, and you love putting your leg behind your head and trying to lick your own balls,” North said. “You’re already a fucking cat. What the fuck is a regression going to do, make you shit in a box?”
“Actually, I was reading an interesting story about litter boxes in schools—”
Emery was making that growling noise again, but Theo, in a slightly rushed tone, said, “I don’t think we have anything to add, so Auggie and I are going back to our room.”
“But why kill Una?” Auggie asked. “Isn’t that the question we should be asking? I mean, either the killer followed her out to the chicken ranch—”
“Poultry farm,” Tean corrected absently.
“—or they lured her out there. Actually, that seems more likely—she wouldn’t know this area well, but if the killer knew who she was, if he posed as someone else from Birds Aren’t Real, it wouldn’t have been hard to convince her to vandalize the chicken ranch.”
“Poultry farm.”
“Good questions, Auggie,” Theo said. “Can we go now?”
“Either way,” Auggie said, “the killing must have been premeditated. There’s no way Una and the killer were both randomly wandering around the same chicken ranch, and the killer just happened to drug her and bash her head in.”
“Excuse us,” Theo said, and then, voice flat, “I want to talk to you. In private. Now.”
Auggie looked miserable, but underneath the misery, Tean caught traces of grim resolve. The two men moved to the back of the room, and their conversation began in heated whispers that weren’t quite loud enough to make into words.
“He’s not wrong,” Emery said. “Why kill this woman? She was paranoid, hyperfocused on Yesenia in connection with these conspiracy theories, and she had a history of socially transgressive behavior. She’d be an easy patsy. If your theory is correct—” He glanced at Tean. “—why not frame her instead of your friend?”
Tean shook his head. “Maybe he or she doesn’t know the people at the conference well. Maybe framing Missy was convenient.”
John-Henry shook his head. “Whoever did this, they broke into Missy’s hotel room to plant that evidence. Unless he was wandering the halls with a bloody poncho and she just happened to leave her door open, it wasn’t convenience. The killer chose to frame Missy; the question is why.”
“Who cares why?” North said. “We need to focus on what’s important.”
“My Emerson and Shaw story. I mean Shawn.”
“Good Christ,” North said in an undertone. More loudly, he continued, “Someone killed that woman tonight. The best reason is because she was a threat. So, that’s one avenue of investigation—figure out what she knew, or what she had, and why that made her a threat to the killer. There’s also the people at the conference. Our suspects, although that makes it sound like we’re playing a game of Clue, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’ve played Clue,” Shaw said. “One time, Emery and I played all night—”
“No,” Emery said, “we didn’t.”
“We played it while you were dreamwalking—”
