Heartsick (17 page)

Susan picked up the phone and dialed Ian on his cell.

“I’m in a news meeting,” he answered.

“How do I get a nine-one-one tape?” Susan asked.

“Which one?”

“Gretchen Lowell,” Susan said. “Have you heard it?”

“They didn’t release it. We ran a transcript.”

“I want the actual call. Can I get it?”

Ian made a clucking sound. “Let me try.”

Susan hung up and Googled “Oregon State Penitentiary.” She copied the address of the prison on a piece of paper beside her computer and then opened a Word document. “Dear Ms. Lowell,” she wrote. “I am writing a profile about Detective Archie Sheridan, and I am hoping to ask you a couple of questions.” She worked on the letter for almost twenty minutes. When she was done, she placed it in an envelope, stamped it, and wrote out the address.

She paid a few bills and then drove to the post office and mailed them, along with the letter to the Beauty Killer. Then she drove to Cleveland High School. She wanted to open the next story with some personal anecdote, a memory of her own days at Cleveland. And she thought that going there might bring back some details she could incorporate. But the truth was that she had been avoiding it.

The final bell had just rung and the wide main hallway was thronged with students, cramming items from their lockers into their backpacks, standing in tight groups, making out against the wall, slugging back soft drinks, talking loudly, and hurtling their way out of the building into the light. They moved with the loose-limbed ease of teenagers in their natural setting, something that Susan did not recall ever actually experiencing. The difference between the freshmen and seniors was staggering. The freshmen seemed so young. Which was funny to Susan, because at fourteen she had considered herself very much an adult.

A few of the kids sent sideways glances Susan’s way as she passed. But most didn’t even blink. In their world, pink hair was pretty ordinary. Susan took a few notes for her story, recording details and impressions of the school. Atmosphere.

When she reached the dark brown double doors that led into the theater, she paused for a moment, hand on the door, overcome by a flood of teenage memories. She had left high school behind so long ago; it was amazing to her what mixed emotions the place now conjured. She ran a hand through her hair, put on her best grown-up face, and walked through the doors.

It smelled the same. Like paint and sawdust and orange-scented carpet cleaner.

The theater sat 250 in red vinyl seats that terraced up from a small black stage. The stage lights were on, and a partially built set constructed out of plywood and canvas gave the vague impression of a turn-of-the-century parlor. She recognized the same old Queen Anne sofa that they had used in “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “Cheaper by the Dozen.” The sconces from “Murder at the Vicarage
.”
And the same staircase. Always the same staircase. It just switched sides.

She had hated high school, but she had loved this place. It floored her now to think of all the time she’d spent there, hours after school in rehearsal for play after play. It had been her whole world, especially after her father had died.

There wasn’t anyone in the auditorium today. The emptiness of the place made her feel a splinter of sadness. She walked to the last row of chairs and knelt down to examine the underside of the second chair in from the aisle. There, scratched in the metal, were her initials: S.W. After all these years, her name was still carved into this place. She felt a sudden wash of self-consciousness and stood up. She didn’t want someone walking in, finding her there. She didn’t want any old reunions. It was a mistake to have even come to Cleveland. The story was about Archie, not her. She took one last look around, and then turned and fled back into the hallway.

A voice called, “Ms. Ward.” She recognized it immediately. It was the voice that had launched a thousand detentions.

“Mr. McCallum,” she said.

He looked the same. He was a short barrel of a man, with an enormous mustache and a ring of keys that pulled down one side of his pants, requiring constant adjustment. “Walk with us,” he said. “I’m just escorting Mr. Schmidt to detention.” Susan then noticed the teenage boy walking behind McCallum. He smiled at her shyly, a painful trail of acne making its way up his neck.

Susan hurried along behind. The jostling kids in the hall parted for McCallum, who didn’t break stride.

“I see your byline,” he said to Susan.

Susan cringed. “Oh?” she said.

“Are you here about Lee Robinson?”

Susan brightened and opened her notebook. “Did you know her?”

“Never laid eyes on her,” McCallum said.

Susan turned hopefully to the kid. “You?”

The kid shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I knew who she was.”

McCallum whipped around. “What did I tell you, Mr. Schmidt?”

The kid reddened. “Not a word?”

“I don’t want to see your mouth open or hear words come out of your face until sixth period tomorrow,” McCallum said. He turned to Susan. “Mr. Schmidt has a talking problem.”

Susan was about to fall prey to her own talking problem, when she was distracted by a glass display case in the hallway. “Look,” Susan said, pressing a finger against the glass. “All the Knowledge Bowl trophies.”

McCallum nodded proudly, his chin and neck converging into one. “We won state last year. So they were forced to move a few football trophies to make room in the display case.”

The case was full of trophies, the largest a wide silver bowl with the name of the school and the year engraved in fancy calligraphy. “I really loved Knowledge Bowl,” she said quietly.

“You quit the team,” McCallum pointed out.

Susan swallowed a ball of sorrow in her throat. “I had a lot going on.”

“It’s difficult to lose a parent so young.”

She laid her hand flat on the glass. The trophies were polished to a shine and her distorted reflection stared back at her a dozen times. When she lifted her hand, a faint greasy palm print marked where it had been. “Yeah.”

“That’s harsh,” the kid said.

McCallum looked at the kid and raised a finger to his lips. “Not a word,” he said.

The physics teacher spun back to Susan and jabbed a thumb at a brown door across the hall. “This is us,” he said. He held out a thick, hairy hand. Susan took it. “Ms. Ward,” he said. “I wish you the best in your future endeavors.”

“Thanks, Mr. McCallum,” Susan said.

McCallum walked the kid over to the door and opened it for him. The kid waved limply at Susan as he was led inside.

“Sorry about bailing on Knowledge Bowl,” she called after them, but the door had already shut.

“You’ve got to
be kidding me.” Susan stood with her hands on her hips, examining her old Saab. It had been booted. The metal device was firmly affixed to her left front wheel. She squeezed her eyes shut and emitted a low growl. She had parked in a reserved teacher spot, sure. But it was after school. And she’d been fifteen minutes. She shuffled around for a few minutes, collecting herself.

“Booted, huh?”

Startled, Susan looked up to see a kid leaning against the hood of a boxy orange BMW parked a few spaces behind her. The kid was nice-looking: a mop of longish hair, clear skin, tall. But the car was beautiful, one of those old 2002 models from the 1970s. It was shiny tangerine, unmarred; the chrome details twinkled elegantly. The vanity plate read
JAY
2.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” he said. “From my dad. To make up for leaving my mom for the real estate lady.”

“Did it help?”

“It helped him.” He nodded at her car. “You have to go inside to the admin office. Pay a fine. Then they’ll call one of the custodians to unboot your car for you. You better hurry. There’s a basketball game, so the office is closing early.” He pushed away from the car and took a few steps toward her. Looked at the ground. Then up at her again. Squinted. “Listen. You wanna buy some weed?”

Susan took a small step back and glanced around to see if anyone was within earshot. There were cops everywhere. Two patrol cars were parked on either side of the school. Plus, Susan had noticed a man sitting in a sedan in front of the school, not thirty feet from where she now stood. Was he a cop? A dad waiting to pick up a kid? This was exactly how innocent reporters got themselves arrested. “I’m a grown-up,” she whispered loudly.

His eyes traveled up to her pink hair, then down at her Pixies T-shirt, the cowboy boots, the beat-up car behind her. “You sure? It’s from B.C.”

“Yeah,” Susan said. Then, more definitively: “Yes.” She looked back at the boot on her car. Why did these things always have to happen to her? “The admin office?” she said.

The kid nodded.

“Thanks.” She turned and marched toward the building, passing the man in the sedan, who had produced a
Herald
and was suddenly studying it. Definitely a cop, Susan decided. She climbed the wide front stairs, pushed open one of the front doors, turned down the hall, and found the admin office. But the door was locked. “Seriously?” she demanded aloud. “Seriously?” She slammed the door with the flat of her hand. The impact made a dull, loud thwap. Susan cried out and pulled her stinging hand to her chest.

“Can I help you?”

She spun around to face a custodian who was wheeling an enormous green plastic garbage bin through the hall.

“You can take the fucking boot off my car,” she said. The custodian had slick dark hair, a goatee, and what they used to call a “matinee idol” profile. The Cleveland custodians hadn’t looked like that when Susan had gone there. In fact, he was almost handsome enough to distract Susan from her frustration. Almost.

His dark eyes widened. “That’s your Saab in the teachers’ parking lot?”

“Yeah,” Susan said.

“Sorry,” he said with an apologetic shrug. “I assumed that it belonged to a student.”

“Because it’s crappy.”

He grinned. “That, and the Blink 182 bumper sticker.”

Susan looked at the floor. “That was on there when I bought it.” “Anyway, we have a zero-tolerance policy on the teachers’ spaces. Otherwise, the students would all park there.” He was still grinning at her. “But I guess I can cut you loose.” He pulled out the biggest ring of keys that Susan had ever seen. “Come on,” he said, and he started down the hall toward the front door of the building, leaving the garbage bin pushed against the wall. He stopped in front of the Knowledge Bowl trophy case and pulled a white rag out of his pocket and rubbed it on the glass. She caught a glimpse of a colorful tattoo on his arm: the Virgin Mary. He smiled at her and shook his head. “Handprint. It’s like cleaning up after toddlers sometimes.”

Susan busied her hand in her hair, on the off chance that he might be able to match her palm to the greasy print, and then hurried to catch up with him. “So, do you like being a custodian?” she asked, wincing even as the question left her mouth.

“I love it,” he deadpanned. “Though it’s just something to do while I work my way through my doctorate in French literature.”

“Really?” Susan said brightly.

He opened the front door and let her pass through. “No.”

A cold wind was picking up, and Susan struggled to jam her hands into the tiny pockets of her velvet blazer. “Did you know Lee Robinson?”

He seemed to bristle. “Is that why you’re here?”

“I’m doing a story for the
Herald.
Did you know her?”