Evil at Heart (25 page)

           
“What is it?” Susan asked.

           
Archie picked up the envelope, holding it by the edges, and flipped it over so she could see it. There, in what appeared to be the same handwriting as the valentine, was Archie’s name. He held the envelope up to the sky and looked at it. Then he smiled.

           
“Do you have a pen?” Archie asked.

           
Susan reached into the outside pocket of her purse and extracted a black felt-tip. Archie took the pen and slid it under the flap of the envelope and worked it along the glue line until the flap lifted. Still holding the envelope by the edges, he peered inside, then turned the envelope over. A key fell out into his other palm.

           
Susan felt her shoulders knot. She’d played a game once like this in college. A scavenger hunt, where every location yielded another clue. But the object back then had been to find hidden yard gnomes.

           
Archie dropped the envelope into his jacket pocket, closed his fist around the key, and knocked on the blue door. “It’s the police,” he called. “It’s Archie Sheridan. Anyone there?”

           
But no one answered the door.

           
Archie gave Susan a shrug and pushed the key into the lock. “Stay here,” he said.

           
It was dawning on Susan that Archie was a recently discharged psych patient and that they were about to open the door to who-knows-what and that they had no backup, no gun, and no one who even knew where they were. She was not used to being the voice of reason, but this was not a good idea.

           
“Don’t you need a warrant?” she asked.

           
“I’ve been invited,” Archie said, slipping his shoes off.

           
“What are you doing?”

           
Archie lined his shoes up, heel to heel, the way someone might leave his slippers at the end of his bed. “Trying not to contaminate a potential crime scene.”

           
Susan’s throat constricted. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” she said.

           
Archie stood there in his socks for a second, looking like he was deciding what to order off a menu, and then turned the doorknob and went inside, closing the door behind him. The prayer flags on the railing moved gently in the breeze. Susan didn’t know what to do. Wait there, like Archie had asked her? He was crazy. Like, literally. Go inside? That was crazy, too. She glanced down at Archie’s shoes, still laced, sitting side by side next to the terra-cotta pots that lined the stoop. The plants in the pots had hairy, clam-shaped leaves; their insides were an engorged waxy pink, like something fleshy and alive. She looked back up at the blue door, her mouth dry. “Archie?” she called hoarsely.

           
Every plant, in every terra-cotta pot, was a Venus flytrap.

           
C H A P T E R 30

           
Photographs of Gretchen papered the wall. They were cut out of magazines, newspapers, and books, and had been tacked to the white drywall with a colorful array of plastic thumbtacks. The pictures had been cropped carefully, surgically, nothing torn or hurried. It had been done with love. The collage was in the living room. Public space. You saw it the second you entered the apartment. Archie had once tacked up a photograph of Gretchen, but at least he’d had the sense to put it on the back wall of his bedroom closet.

           
He made himself secure the apartment before he returned to the collage. One bedroom. Futon used as a couch. Bed unmade. A bedside table with a glass half full of water on it. A white pressboard dresser.No one hiding in the closet.

           
The bathroom was tiny and free of frills. No one hiding in the shower. A medicine cabinet hung above the sink and Archie opened it. No Vicodin. It was worth a shot.

           
He returned to the living room.

           
And now, at least nominally sure that no one was going to jump out and shoot him, Archie looked for clues. White electrical heating units hugged the baseboards, shiny white venetian blinds hung over sliding vinyl windows. White walls.Gray carpet. It was the efforts at personalization that were interesting. A feather-trimmed dreamcatcher spun slowly on fishing line over the sink. Purple batik draped the couch.

           
The smell of peppermint filled the room. Archie could taste it in his fillings.

           
He stood in the center of the living room and turned around slowly. He spotted the anatomy book on the coffee table first, one of those big full-color hardbacks. Other medical books lined the bookshelves, next to self-help tomes by Deepak Chopra and EckhartTolle. On the mantel, side by side, sat a Buddha, a plaster Shiva, and one of those plastic anatomy models with removable organs. On the walls, on either side of the Gretchen collage, were laminated posters of anemic-looking angels.

           
The general effect was “New Age bookshop meets medical-student dorm room.”

           
It felt desperate.

           
It felt familiar.

           
He let his gaze return to the collage. Gretchen had used accomplices, men she’d seduced into killing for her. He had thought they were all dead.

           
Archie walked toward the pictures. There was no furniture in front of that wall. You could walk right up to the collage. The carpet was flattened there, as if someone had stood in the same spot for hours on end. Archie stood there, too, and lifted his hand up, almost touching Gretchen’s face, but keeping a millimeter between them, to preserve any fingerprints the collagist might have left.

           
He felt the calmness settle on him.

           
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said.

           
He smiled. He could look at her image now without feeling the burning in his stomach.

           
“You’re losing your touch,” he said.

           
The pictures were in black-and-white and in color, on newsprint and glossy magazine stock—Gretchen lovely in every one. Archie knew them all. Gretchen’s face through the back window of a squad car. Gretchen’s mug shot. Gretchen smiling at the crowd that had waited through the night to catch a glimpse as she was transferred to Salem.Part of Henry’s shoulder in one, as he moved her toward the idling prisoner van.

           
What did the collagist see when he looked at her?

           
Then Archie smiled. In every photograph, she was looking at the camera. She was looking at him.

           
The collagist liked that. A man. It had to be a man. Whoever had put up all those pictures wanted Gretchen in control. He felt weak. It was a weakness particular to a certain kind of male experience.

           
Archie shook his head. “You poor fuck,” he said.

           
From behind him, he heard Susan ask, “What are you doing?”

           
She’d let herself into the apartment. He’d been so absorbed he hadn’t heard her open the door. That sort of inattention got you killed in his line of work.

           
“I’m talking to a collage,” he said, “of a serial killer.”

           
Susan looked at him for a moment, and then let her eyes slide around the apartment. “Who lives here?”

           
Archie shrugged.

           
“I was calling you,” Susan said.

           
“I don’t have my phone,” Archie said. His hand went to his pocket, where the phone from Gretchen was, and then he realized that Susan had meant she’d been calling his name. His eyes went to the floor. “Close the door,” he said.

           
Susan pushed the door closed behind her with her elbow. “Those plants on the stoop?” Susan said. “They’re Venus flytraps. Venus was the Roman goddess of love. Known for her beauty.” She flailed an arm in the direction of the collage. “Make you think of anyone?”

           
“I’m drawing a blank,” Archie said.

           
“Are you crazy?” Susan asked. “Are you, like, actually crazy now?”

           
She started to take a step toward Archie.

           
“Don’t move,” he said. “Or touch anything.”