Heartsick (16 page)

“How many are you taking?” Henry asked. His hands were on the steering wheel and his eyes were on the windshield.

“Not as many as I’d like.”

“I thought you were going to cut back,” Henry said softly.

Archie laughed, remembering his worst days, a haze of codeine so thick, he’d thought he might drown in it. “I have.”

Henry tightened his fists on the wheel until they went white. Archie could see the scarlet rising on his neck. Henry worked his jaw for a moment, his blue eyes hard. “Don’t assume that our friendship will prevent me from getting you back on medical leave if I start to think that you’re too high to work.” He turned and looked, for the first time, at Archie. “I’ve already done way more than I’m comfortable with for you.”

Archie nodded at his friend. “I know,” he said.

Henry raised his eyebrows.

“I know,” Archie said again.

“This thing with Gretchen,” Henry said between gritted teeth. “These weekly meetings. It’s fucked up, my friend. I don’t give a shit how many corpses she unearths for us. At some point”—he looked Archie right in the eye—“you have got to let it go.”

Archie froze, afraid to show any reaction; afraid that Henry might see how much he cared. Henry was worried enough about Archie. Archie couldn’t let Henry see how important those weekly meetings had become to him. Archie needed Gretchen. At least until he figured out what she wanted from him. “I need more time,” he said carefully. “I’ve got it under control.”

Henry pulled his sunglasses out of the pocket of his leather jacket, snapped them on, and started the car. He sighed and shook his head. “You better fucking well have.”

The custodian was
named Evan Kent. Archie and Henry found him painting over graffiti on the north wall of the main building at Jefferson. The paint was a bad match and the fire engine red rectangle stood out on the faded bricks. The wall had been painted over many times through the years and was covered with dozens of uneven blocks of varying shades that formed a sort of ad hoc abstract painting. Kent looked to be in his mid-thirties, and he was fit, with dark hair and an attentively trimmed goatee. His blue coveralls were spotless.

It was still an hour before classes started, and the campus was quiet. An impromptu memorial had formed at the chain-link fence at the front of the school. Bouquets were twisted into the fence, ribbons hung limp, stuffed animals sat abandoned. Photographs of Kristy were glued onto cardboard signs and decorated with glittery stickers and puffy paint.
WE LOVE YOU
.
U R ALWAYS R ANGEL
.
GOD BLESS
. The eastern skyline was bubblegum pink and the first birds of spring sat dark and plump on the telephone lines, their chattering a distant music. A patrol car was parked on each side of the school, and private security guards stood at each entrance. The lights on the patrol cars were on, to increase their presence, making the school look even more like a crime scene. Just another day of public education.

“I was taking a piss,” Kent said as Archie and Henry approached.

“Excuse me?” Henry said.

Kent continued to paint. The paint-heavy brush made a slapping sound against the bricks. Archie noticed a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on Kent’s forearm. It was new, the color brilliant. “The indecent exposure rap? I was taking a piss after a show got out downtown,” Kent explained. “Maybe not my brightest moment. But I had to pee. I paid the fine.”

“You left it off the job application,” Archie said.

“I needed the job,” Kent said. He stepped back and examined the job he’d done. There was no trace of what had been written, only the smell of fresh paint and a new glistening bloodred rectangle. “I’ve got a philosophy degree, so employment opportunities are not exactly plentiful. And I’m diabetic. Without insurance, I’m spending eighty bucks a week on insulin and needles.”

“Boo-hoo,” said Henry.

Kent’s posture stiffened defensively and he looked at Henry. “Hey, man, health insurance is a real problem in this country.”

Archie stepped slightly forward. “Where were you between five and seven on February second and March seventh?” he asked Kent.

Kent turned to Archie, his shoulders dropping. “Working. I do afternoons at Cleveland. I’m generally on until six.”

“Then what?” Archie asked.

Kent shrugged. “I go home. Or to band practice. Or to a bar.”

“You drink?” Henry said. “I thought you said you were a diabetic.”

“I am. And I do,” Kent said. “That’s why I need the insulin. Look, the day the kid from Jefferson disappeared, my Dart broke down. I had to call my roommate, and he came and gave me a jump. Ask him.” He gave Archie his roommate’s name and cell phone number and Archie wrote the information down in his notebook. “And why don’t you do something about all the fucking media trespassing on school grounds? They’re wigging out the kids. And they don’t get their facts straight.”

Archie and Henry exchanged glances. How did Kent know which facts were straight?

Kent’s face reddened and he jammed a toe into the grass. Then asked, “You going to tell Amcorp about my record?”

“That would be the coplike thing to do,” Henry said.

Kent smirked. “Where were the cops when those girls were taken off the street by some psycho?”

Henry turned to Archie and said loudly enough for Kent to hear, “You like him for it?”

Archie made a show of examining Kent while the custodian stood shifting uncomfortably under the weight of Archie’s stare. “He’s handsome,” Archie conceded. “I could see girls going with him. His age is in the profile range.”

Kent’s cheeks colored.

Henry widened his eyes incredulously. “You think he’s handsome?”

“Not as handsome as you,” Archie reassured him.

“I have work to do,” Kent said, picking up his bucket of paint and his brush.

“One thing,” Archie said to him.

“Yeah?” Kent said.

“The graffiti. What did it say?”

Kent looked at each of them a minute. “‘We’re all going to die,’” he said finally. He stared at the ground and shook his head. Then laughed and looked back up, his dark eyes flashing. “With a goddamn smiley face.”

CHAPTER

20

S
usan sat at
the Great Writer’s blue desk near the window, watching the pedestrian lunchtime traffic go in and out of the Whole Foods that was catty-corner to her building. The first story was written and sent. She hated this part. She hated waiting for the affirmation from Ian, but she craved it. She hit
REFRESH
on her E-mail display. Nothing. She was filled with a sudden overwhelming certainty that he hated it. He abhorred her pathetic attempt at literary journalism. She had blown her one shot to write something big. They would probably fire her. She couldn’t even bring herself to reread it—sure that she would see every typo, every passive voice, every lame excuse for a sentence. She hit
REFRESH
again. Nothing. Catching the time on the monitor, she scrambled to the Great Writer’s velvet sofa, curled up, and turned on the midday news. Archie Sheridan’s face filled the screen and a crawl announced that this was a special report. He looked tired. Or was the word
weary
? But he had shaved and brushed his dark hair and his lined, hangdog face held a certain authority. She longed to feel that in control.

She watched Archie grimly confirm the death of Kristy Mathers, and then the screen switched back to a pair of daytime local news anchors who bantered in trepidation about the human monster at large and then segued right into a special report on the sudden dearth of rain in the Willamette Valley. The press conference had been at ten o’clock, which meant that it had been over for almost two hours. She wondered what Archie Sheridan was doing now.

The phone rang, and Susan nearly tripped trying to get to it before the third ring, when the voice mail would pick up. She saw the caller ID and knew immediately who it was.

“I love it,” Ian said without introduction.

Susan felt the morning’s tension bleed from her shoulders in an instant. “Really?”

“It’s great. That juxtaposition of walking in the dead girl’s steps at Cleveland and then finding Kristy Mathers’s body—it’s exactly what we wanted, babe. There’s not much about Sheridan in here. You’ve hooked us: Now I want Sheridan dismembered, so we can see his beating heart.”

“That’s for next week,” Susan said happily, pouring herself a cup of cold coffee and putting it in the microwave. “Leave the assholes wanting more, right?”

“The assholes?”

Susan laughed. “The readers.”

“Oh,” said Ian. “Right.”

Susan dressed for
the day in cowboy boots, jeans, a Pixies T-shirt, and a red velvet blazer. She put a reporter’s notebook in the front right pocket of the blazer and two blue Bic ballpoints in the left. She even blow-dried her pink hair and put on makeup.

When she was ready to go, she opened her notebook to a poorly scrawled list of names and telephone numbers that Archie Sheridan had given her. She paused, wondering for a moment what he would think of that first story when it ran, then quashed her anxiety. He was a subject. She was a writer. One story down. Three to go. She dialed the phone.

“Hi,” Susan said brightly. “Is this Debbie Sheridan?”

There was a slight hesitation. “Yes?”

“I’m Susan Ward. With the
Herald
? Did your husband tell you I might be calling?”

“He mentioned something.”

She didn’t correct the husband thing, thought Susan. She didn’t say,
You mean my ex-husband. We’re divorced. I’d have the marriage annulled if I could, the son of a bitch.
Susan wrote the word
husband
in her notebook, followed by a question mark.

She forced a big smile, hoping that Debbie could hear it in her voice. It was an old phone interview trick that Parker had taught her. “Well, I’m writing a profile about him, and I was hoping to ask you a few questions. Just to flesh him out a bit. Give the piece some personality.”

“Can you—can you call me back later?” Debbie asked.

“Sorry. You’re at work, aren’t you? Is there a better time I can call you back?”

There was a pause. “No. I just need to think about it.”

“You mean talk to Archie? Because I asked him, and he said he didn’t mind if I spoke to you.”

“No. No. I just don’t like going over all those memories. Let me give it some thought.” Debbie’s voice warmed. “Call me later, okay?”

“Okay,” Susan agreed ruefully.

She hung up, and immediately dialed the next number on the list before she lost her nerve. Archie’s doctor was unavailable, so Susan left her name and cell phone number with his receptionist.

She heaved a deep sigh, sank back down at the Great Writer’s desk and Googled Gretchen Lowell. Over eighty thousand links came up. She spent a half hour skimming through the interesting ones. It was astonishing how many Web sites were dedicated to the exploits of serial killers.

Susan was staring at an on-line case study recounting the Beauty Killer case investigation when something caught her eye.
Gretchen Lowell called 911 to turn herself in and call for an ambulance.