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.
Susan glanced over at Archie. “Seriously?” she said, but she typed it in anyway. Declined. “Nope,” she said.
Susan tried a few other words: Alaska. Harley. Woodworker.
Nothing.
“Try ‘Claire,’ ” Archie said.
“Oh,” Susan said. “That’s romantic.”
She typed it in.
Declined.
“Shit,” she said. “It always looks so easy when they guess passwords in the movies. Want to go to the library?”
“I have an idea,” Archie said. He leaned back on the couch, picked up the landline from an end table, and punched in a number. Susan heard Henry’s voice say hello on the other end.
“What’s your Wi-Fi password?” Archie asked him.
Henry muttered something.
“Thanks,” Archie said. “See you tonight.” He hung up the phone. “LynyrdSkynyrd 1,” he told Susan.
“He added a one,” Susan said. “So it would be harder to guess.”
“He is very clever,” Archie said.
“But not as clever as we,” Susan said.
She typed in Henry’s password, got online, and went to Google Earth.
“What’s your plan?” Archie asked.
“The house is on the three hundred block. I could type in every three hundred combination and check street views until we see the house. Or I could zoom into the neighborhood, look for the roof, click on it, and get all the information we need. There. Three-three-three North Fargo.
“You can even see the address there,” Susan said, pointing at the screen, where the numbers on the porch clearly read 333. “Someone covered that address with a new one. Changed it to three-nine-seven. Why?”
“Because the number was important.”
“Again,” Susan said. “I ask why.”
“Because it’s not an address,” Archie said. “It’s a date. March 1997. We only found one victim that month. Isabel Reynolds.”
“She had dark hair,” Susan said. “Like her brother Leo.”
“Yeah.”
“I think I saw her picture on one of the fan sites I was researching.” She thought for a minute, trying to recover the name.
Then she typed in: www.iheartgretchenlowell.com.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Archie said, seeing the URL.
The home page came up. A photograph of Gretchen. Click to enter. “Just wait,” Susan said.
She clicked on the photograph and went to the menu page. The menu items included Fan Fiction, Poetry, Gallery, Merchandise, Chat Room, and Archie Sheridan.
She tried to move the cursor over the Gallery link, but Archie put his hand on her arm. “Click on it,” he said.
She rolled the cursor over Archie’s name and clicked. Photographs came up, pictures of his family. The house they had shared in Hillsboro. There were photographs of Archie’s wedding day, his graduations from college and the academy, photographs of him standing at crime scenes, giving press conferences. A biography.A history of his involvement with the task force. There was even a subpage of Fan Fiction.
“What’s that?” Archie asked, pointing to the fan fiction link.
Susan had been hoping he wouldn’t ask. “People write stories about what they think happened between you and Gretchen,” she said. “When she tortured you.”
Archie scratched the back of his neck. “How many of these sorts of Web sites are there?”
“I found over four hundred,” Susan said. “Here, this is what I wanted you to see.” She clicked on Gallery, and scrolled down until she found the photograph. It was labeled “Reynolds, Isabel.”
It had been taken at the scene. She was curled on her side in the backseat, her arms bound in front of her, her mouth gagged. Her head was bent back, and a black gash marked where her throat had been cut. She had bled onto the seat underneath her head, and the blood had dried and sealed her tangle of brown hair to the vinyl. Her eyes were half open, the lids swollen. Her gray skin was flecked with veins. She looked like something carved out of Italian marble.
She’d been dead a few days. And Jeremy Reynolds had witnessed it. How did you ever get over something like that?