“You can get one at the courthouse,” Cummings muttered, then looked coyly at Shaw. “Course, they’ll charge you fifty cents a page.” He cocked his head. “From me, it’ll only cost you a quarter.”

—

Shaw piloted the Winnebago to Watkins, the site of the medium-security prison where Jude Sterling was incarcerated.

The place was a nondescript, one-story facility, gray and sterile, outside of which flew two flags: one American and one Ohioan. Shaw had a familiarity with prisons—the inhabitants often being good sources for information on his reward jobs. He called older ones “brick-and-bars” and the newer ones “windows,” referring to the ubiquitous inch-thick impenetrable glass. Watkins was one of the latter.

Shaw sat in the pungent interview room, musty, for five minutes before Jude was brought in. The narrow-faced boy was six-one, and skinny. He had shaggy reddish hair, his father’s shade. His complexion was pale, and that pallor was accentuated by the orange jumpsuit, which was too big for him.

His dark eyes were cautious.

Shaw introduced himself with a smile. He needed the boy at ease and had to show he was on Jude’s side. They were not allowed to shake hands, and the boy nodded and sat with a jingle of cuffs.

“Your father and mother’ve offered a reward to see if anybody can maybe find some evidence or a witness that you’re innocent.”

Shaw was looking at the back of the boy’s hand. “What’s that?”

Jude held it up and shrugged. “Wasp Man.”

It was a drawing of a creature—a man from the waist up, below that, a wasp, a superhero, Shaw guessed. It was well done.

“Superhero?”

“Not from The Avengers, or anything. I made it up. It’s not a tat. I drew it.”

“It’s good.” Shaw remembered his aptitude for art and his love of comics.

The boy stared at the drawing. He made a fist and straightened it out.

“I know some things about what happened in January, Jude. I’d like you to tell me your side.”

In fits and starts, backing the narrative up and pushing it forward—and with stops for Shaw’s questions along the way—the young man told his story.

Twenty minutes later he sat back.

“What do you think, sir?”

“You’ve given me a lot to work with.” He rose.

There was motion outside the window in the door and Jude and Shaw looked up. A guard was walking with a compact, dark-complexioned prisoner, who stared at Jude with a cold grin and fierce pinpricks of black eyes.

Jude startled Shaw by shivering—not in fear but in rage. He shouted, “Asshole!” The guard wagged a take-it-easy finger toward Jude and he sat back, calming. Was this the prisoner he’d had the dustup with?

He calmed. “Can you get me out, mister?”