Evil at Heart (30 page)

           
Archie pulled at his ear. “Jack is responsible for importing most of the heroin that comes through the West Coast.”

           
“You don’t have to make fun of me,” Susan said.

           
“I’m serious.” He reached for the stereo. “Do you mind if I change the station?”

           
She swatted at his hand. “I like this song.”

           
Archie sighed and sat back.

           
They were through First Addition now and on the stretch of 43 that wound alongside the river, connecting Lake Oswego and John’s Landing. “He’s a drug dealer?” Susan said.

           
“He’s the drug dealer,” Archie said. “The rectangle at the top of the org chart.”

           
Susan asked the obvious question. “Why don’t you arrest him?”

           
To the left, beyond the old-growth cedars and mountains of En glishivy, were some of Portland’s fanciest houses, and beyond them, up the hill, the bucolic campus of Lewis and ClarkCollege. The truth was that Susan had applied there as an undergraduate, but hadn’t gotten in.

           
“His daughter was murdered,” Archie said.

           
“So he gets a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card?”

           
“He’s smart,” Archie said. “It’s not like he’s in OldTown palming rocks to crackheads. He’s well insulated.”

           
Susan looked over at Archie. He was losing it.

           
“What?” Archie said.

           
“You just got a gun from a crook,” Susan said, her voice rising. “You’re trying to help his crazy son, who may or may not have been involved in cutting some poor hippie’s spleen out.” Plus there were other bodies—a head, for Christ’s sake. “Possibly more.”

           
Archie was quiet for a moment. “He was there,” he said softly.

           
Susan glanced over at him. He was facing the passenger window, looking at the river.

           
“Jeremy,” Archie said. “We found him in the car. Gretchen took them both. We found him in the passenger seat. The girl was in the backseat. He was thirteen years old.”

           
Another secret. They’d had a witness. Someone who’d seen the Beauty Killer. Someone who could identify her, long before they even knew that the killer was a woman. And they’d covered it up. “Why didn’t she kill him?”

           
“Why didn’t she kill me?” Archie said. “Why does she do anything?”

           
The significance of all this was dawning on Susan. Archie wasn’t the only one. Gretchen had let someone else live, too. “People think you were the only one of her victims who survived.”

           
“We kept him out of the papers,” Archie said. “The shrinks said that he was in a fugue state. He didn’t remember anything that happened.”

           
“Did she ever confess to it?” she said.

           
“No,” Archie said. “It was one of the files I couldn’t close.”

           
He glanced at the car’s digital clock. It was almost lunchtime. “Don’t you have a story due?” he asked.

           
C H A P T E R 36

           
Susan dropped Archie off at Henry’s two-story Craftsman, and waited until he waved to the patrol cops in the car out front and went inside. Then she called Ian to check in. He was eating at his desk—something he only did when they were swamped—she could hear the wet smack of his chewing. It made her stomach growl.

           
“Where’s the psych-ward story?” he asked.

           
Ian had two other reporters covering Courtenay Taggart’s murder. He didn’t need her interviewing the orderly’s neighbors and cold-calling Taggart’s family.

           
Susan dug under her seat for a bag of potato chips. “I thought I could pursue the fan angle,” Susan said, opening the bag. “Did Derek post the Fintan English story?” She put a chip in her mouth. Kettle brand salt-and-vinegar flavor. Her car was full of them. They gave them away with the sandwiches at the bakery she went to for lunch, but she always got full before she got to them. There were bags under her seat, in the backseat, in the trunk. If her car ever broke down and she was stranded in the woods, she’d feast for days, but get very thirsty. “This is big, Ian,” Susan said. “Gretchen Lowell might not have anything to do with this. It’s her fans. That’s why they’re dumping bodies places where she’s already committed crimes.”

           
Ian paused a beat. “Today’s headline says BEAUTY KILLER STRIKES AGAIN,” he said. “We stick with that until we know something different.”

           
Susan sputtered and then spat out a mouthful of chips. “You’re telling me not to investigate the fan-club angle?”

           
Ian lowered his voice. “I’m telling you to do your job and get me thirty inches on the psych-ward murder by the end of the day.” She heard him get up and close the door to his office. “Gretchen sells papers. Our newsstand sales have doubled since last week.”

           
“Psycho copycats will sell papers,” Susan said. “If we break the story, we’ll get the paper’s name all over the world. That’s good for ad sales, right?”

           
“Psycho copycats sell papers,” Ian agreed. “For a couple of days. Then no one cares. Psycho copycats do not have Gretchen Lowell’s legs. I need a few more days of rates like we’ve been having. All of our jobs are on the line, Suzy.” Susan flinched at the “Suzy.” “But if I can show these numbers, I can save some of us,” Ian said. “I’m talking about major layoffs. Management has a list. And you and I are both on it.”

           
He hung up on her.

           
Susan looked at her phone for a moment and then threw it in her purse.

           
So she was supposed to do reporter grunt work on a story they might be getting wrong, instead of investigating the angle that might actually reveal the truth. Meanwhile, Archie Sheridan had a gun and he was going to do something. She didn’t know what. But he was going to do something. He was going to help that kid.

           
She got out of the car, walked back to Henry’s house, and knocked on the door.

           
Archie answered, holding a phone, like he was just about to make a call. Susan only vaguely noticed that it was not the phone that Jack Reynolds had given him.

           
She held out her bag of Kettle chips. “Want a chip?” she asked.

           
Archie put the phone in his pocket. “You came back to ask me that?”

           
“I want to help,” Susan said. “I don’t know what this means, but it’s not the right address. I mean, that house shouldn’t be there.”

           
Archie looked confused.

           
“Three-nine-seven North Fargo,” Susan said. “The house where I found the body. I looked it up on Google Earth and that address doesn’t exist.”

           
Archie glanced behind her at the patrol car. “Get in your car and pick me up around the block. I’ll go out the back.”

           
Susan held up her laptop. “Or we can just go online.” She rolled her eyes and walked past him into the house. “You are so old.”

           
C H A P T E R 37

           
Susan sat down on the couch and put the laptop on Henry’s coffee table. The coffee table was made from a massive piece of driftwood that had been sanded, shellacked, and put on legs. Issues of American Rider magazine, Popular Woodworking, and Harper’s sat on top, along with an empty bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale. There were posters of Alaska on the wall, and framed photographs of a biplane, a fishing vessel, and Henry Sobol, looking thirty years younger, standing in a group next to Jimmy Carter.

           
Susan opened the laptop and checked for Wi-Fi networks, feeling only a little nervous when Archie sat down right next to her. The only network that came up was called “ northstarwarrior.” That had to be Henry. But the network listing had a padlock next to it.

           
“His Wi-Fi is password protected,” she said.

           
“Try ‘LynyrdSkynyrd,’ ” Archie said.