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.”
“Do you smell that?” Susan said, wrinkling her nose. She sniffed the air and grinned. “Dr. Bronner’s.”
“I smell peppermint,” Archie said.
Susan shook her head. “It’s Dr. Bronner’s peppermint all-in-one liquid soap,” she said. “We used it for everything when I was kid. Shampoo. Toilet cleaner . . . This guy was a clean freak.” She started walking toward the TV hutch.
“You’re moving,” Archie said. “I said no moving.”
She didn’t even slow down.
“Check it out,” she said. She reached the hutch and ran her finger along one of the wooden incense trays that lined the shelf above the television.
“That would be touching,” Archie said.
Susan lifted her finger and showed it to Archie. It was clean. “Who wipes down their incense trays?”
There was a photograph on the shelf, too. Archie couldn’t make out the image from where he was standing, just the bamboo frame. But when Susan saw it she inhaled sharply.
Archie was at her side in four steps.