Ajax’s thick eyebrows teased up and down. “Well, it was a monster’s moon. Who knows what happens to Norm after midnight? Maybe he transforms into a werewolf or something.”

“Not funny,” Darrell said.

Ajax shrugged off the reproach. “Okay, well, Norm has no motive that we know of, but that’s different from not actually having one. Like Rebecca says, Kip and Racer were into everything. As for Brink, there could have been something personal between him and Norm that we don’t know about. And I’ll tell you something else. I didn’t see Norm at the movie at the 126 on Sunday night. So where was he?”

Darrell hated to acknowledge that Ajax was right, but in this case, we both knew that somebody needed to ask Norm some questions.

“Okay, go talk to him,” Darrell told Ajax. He looked at me. “Take Rebecca with you.”

My horror must have shown on my face. “Why not do the interview yourself?”

“Sorry,” Darrell replied, shaking his head. “Norm and I are best friends, everybody around here knows that. You guys talk to him first. Find out what he knows.”

Ajax practically hummed with satisfaction at the assignment. He crumpled up his empty bag of chips and hopped to his feet, and he pointed his long finger at me like a gun. “Come on, Rebecca. Chop-chop.”

I waited until he left the conference room, and then I groaned. “Darrell. Are you kidding? Me and Ajax?”

“You’re going to have to learn to live with him sooner or later. You might as well start now.”

That was true, but I did a lousy job of hiding my annoyance. In the office, I shrugged on my coat, then followed Ajax out of the courthouse building, trying to keep up with his long strides. The Christmas snow lingered on Main Street and on the roofs of the buildings, but the day was bright and clear. Ajax slipped Foster Grants over his eyes as he slid behind the wheel of his cruiser. I kept a stony silence as I took the passenger seat next to him. He squealed his car into a U-turn and sped out of town like a Ferrari driver at Le Mans. Somehow I think this was supposed to impress me.

Ajax shot a sideways glance across the car and saw my mouth bent into a sour frown. “Jesus, lighten up already.”

“Lighten up?” I fired back. “Do you really have the balls to say something like that to me?”

“What’s eating you?”

“You know what. What did you say to Ricky? Did you tell him we were sleeping together?”

He chuckled. “Hey, we were just kidding around. Everybody knew it was a joke.”

“Everybody?”

“Sure, the whole gang at the movie. That’s what we do, you know that. We drink, we shit on each other. Hell, Ruby was right there. She heard everything I said, and she knew I was kidding.”