on it. “Okay,” I said. “I mean, I have to, don’t I?”
Koenig said, “You don’t have to do anything. But things are a lot less ugly without a warrant.”
I nodded my head. Words. I needed to say something. What did I need to say? I thought of Karyn, sitting there in the back, thinking all was fine up front because I was here. “I need to tell my boss that I’m leaving. Is that all right?”
“Of course.”
I felt him drifting after me as I headed to the back of the store. “Karyn,” I said, leaning on the doorframe. I could not make my voice casual, but I tried. It occurred to me that I didn’t normally address her by her name, and it felt wrong in my mouth. “I’m sorry. I have to go for a little bit. Um, Officer Koenig — they would like me to go in for questions.”
For one second, her expression stayed the same, and then everything about it hardened. “They what? Are they here now?”
She pushed out of her chair and I backed up so that she could stand in the doorway and confirm that Koenig was standing in the aisle, staring up at one of the paper cranes that I’d hung from the balcony above.
“What’s going on now?” she asked. It was her brisk, efficient voice that she used when she was speaking to a difficult customer; it stood for no crap and kept emotion out of it. Business Karyn, we both called it. It turned her into a completely different person.
“Ma’am,” Koenig said apologetically — this was a natural response to Business Karyn — “one of our investigators has questions for Sam. He asked if I would bring him back for a chat in some privacy.”
“A chat,” Karyn echoed. “The sort of chat that would be better with a lawyer present?”
“That’s entirely up to Sam. But he’s not being charged with anything right now.”
Right. Now.
Karyn and I both heard it. Right now was another way of saying yet. She looked at me. “Sam, do you want me to call Geoffrey?”
I knew my face gave me away, because she answered her own question. “He’s not available, is he?”
“I’ll be okay,” I said.
“This strikes me as harassment,” Karyn said to Koenig. “He’s an easy target because he’s not the same as everyone else. If Geoffrey Beck were in town, would we be having this conversation?”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Koenig said, “if Geoffrey Beck were in town, he would probably be the one we were questioning.”
Karyn sealed her lips shut, looking unhappy. Koenig stepped back out of the center aisle to gesture toward the front door. Now I could see a police car double-parked in front of the store, waiting for us.
I was intensely grateful to Karyn for standing up for me. For acting like I was her business. She said, “Sam, call me. If you need anything. If you feel uncomfortable. Do you want me to come with?”
“I’ll be okay,” I said again.
“He’ll be all right,” Koenig said. “We are not trying to back anyone into a corner here.”
“I’m sorry I have to leave,” I told Karyn. Usually she only came in for a few hours on Saturday morning and then left the shop in the hands of whoever was working. Now I’d ruined her entire day.
“Oh, Sam. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Karyn said. She came over and hugged my shoulders, hard. She smelled like hyacinths. To Koenig, she said — Business Karyn vanishing as accusation slipped into her tone — “I hope this is worth it for you guys.”
Koenig led me down the aisle toward the front door. I was infinitely aware that the woman with the big purple bag was watching me go, cell phone still up to her ear. Her phone speaker was turned up loud enough that we could both hear the woman on the other side of the line say, “Are they arresting him?”
“Sam,” Koenig said. “Just tell the truth.”
He didn’t even know what he was asking for.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
• COLE •
After I left the Culpeper house, I just drove. I had Ulrik’s old BMW wagon, some of the money I’d brought, no one to tell me not to go.
On the radio, I was listening to a song by a band that had opened for us once. They had been such a train wreck live that I’d felt positively virtuous, a difficult feat to accomplish at that point. I should’ve thanked them for making us look good. The lead