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“What?”

“You said ‘we checked in.’ Who is we?”

“Oh.” I had said that. “Me and Taavi. Taavi Camal. My boyfriend.”

“Can you spell that?”

I did.

“And I assume he wasn’t in Wisconsin the night before.” He didn’t even make it sound like a question.

“No. He’d never even been on a plane before the thirtieth.” The day we’d flown out.

“And he’ll tell me the same thing?”

“I assume so, since that’s what he told me.”

“And has Mr. Camal ever met the elder Mr. Crane?”

“No.” And now he never would.

“The younger Mr. Crane?”

“He has now.”

“But not before this?”

“No.”

“So then why—”

“He came for me,” I interrupted, getting annoyed again.

Smith simply nodded, continuing to make notes on his tablet. I took a couple deep breaths, reminding myself that this was routine. That he had to do this now, so that none of what we did together would be questionable in court.

“I’d rather you find the tickets than I have to call the airline,” he remarked.

I pulled out my phone and texted Taavi to see if he had them somewhere. I had a vague memory of him stuffing a folded piece of paper into his book as a bookmark and thought that might be the tickets. If not, maybe he’d stuffed them in a bag. “I’ll see what I can do,” I replied, trying not to sound as pissy as I felt.

“Would this Mr. Lamotte have had a grudge against the late Mr. Crane?” he asked, then.

“Henry? No. They were good friends. Henry watered his plants.”

“Watered his plants?”

I had to remind myself that Smith didn’t know Gregory Crane, and that nobody had yet asked any of these questions, even though they fucking should have. We were staring completely over—because everyone had either assumed or decided that Gregory’s death was going to be ruled a suicide, nobody had bothered to ask about motives or suspects. They’d just written it off.

I explained about Gregory’s garden, his herbal teas and medicines, the workshops on edible plants he did on the reservation and at regional libraries.

Smith took notes throughout, then scanned over them when I finished, his expression thoughtful. “Do you think this is connected to why someone would want him dead?” he asked, finally.

“I don’t know why someone wanted to kill him. Maybe there wasn’t a reason beyond him being a shifter.” Hate was a powerfully motivating drug.

Smith’s expression was sour. “I’m sure that was a factor,” he replied. “But there had to be a reason whyhiminstead of another shifter Arcanid. Even if it was as simple as living outside the city, there was a reason why their victim was Gregory Crane instead of someone else.”

“You know a lot of other out shifters in Shawano?” I asked him, bringing the conversation back to that.

He drew in a long breath, then sighed it out. “Not a lot, no. But there are more of them in the Menominee community than there are in the city proper.”