Archie grimaced through the pain. “You’re starting to piss me off,” he said.
The masked man reached out and put a hand on Archie’s shoulder and steadied him. “Exhale,” he said gently. “If you relax, I think you’ll like it.”
“You didn’t get this from Gretchen’s playbook,” Archie said.
“I’m improvising.”
“Let me see Jeremy,” Archie said.
The masked man squatted down next to Archie’s head again. “He understands you,” he said, his nylon-smashed features nodding thoughtfully. “I think he can help you if you let him.”
“I was thinking more the other way around,” Archie said.
He fiddled with some of the rigging above Archie’s head. “You have a lot in common.”
“Let me see him,” Archie said. Archie had always liked Jeremy. He was a weird kid. A quiet kid. He’d been kidnapped by Gretchen Lowell. He’d most likely witnessed his sister’s torture and murder. Archie had always believed Jeremy’s claims that he didn’t remember what had happened, because Archie had hoped Jeremy didn’t remember, because remembering something like that, remembering Gretchen, that would fuck you up epically. “Take off your mask and let me see you, Jeremy.”
Jeremy peeled off the nylon stocking and dropped it on the concrete floor.
“You’re in a shitload of trouble, kiddo,” Archie said.
C H A P T E R 44
Susan took a gulp of lukewarm coffee out of a cracked Ziggy mug and clicked through another set of booking shots on the computer.
“Anything?” Claire asked.
“Do you have any pictures of just their teeth?” Susan said.
“Believe me, if that guy’s in the system, the teeth will pop up as an identifying characteristic.”
The Beauty Killer Task Force offices were in an old bank that the city had provided when Archie Sheridan had come off medical leave to hunt the After-School Strangler. The last time Susan had been there, it was because Gretchen had escaped from prison, taking Archie with her.
It was two in the morning, but you’d never know it from the activity level. They were all there, every detective on the force, even the front-desk receptionist. International maps papered the walls, with pushpins marking every sighting, every crime that could possibly be related to Gretchen.
The task force at the Herald may have grown bored and
dark-witted over the last few months; but the real Beauty Killer Task Force was hard at work.
There were three photographs tacked on top of the maps. All three appeared to be booking photos—one was of a young woman, two were of middle-aged men.
“Who are they?” Susan asked.
“Our victims,” Claire said. “All three were homeless. The man on the left was named Abe Farley.” She stood up and walked over to the photographs. Abe Farley had a long salt-and-pepper beard and a weathered, haggard face. “Fifty-six,” she said. “Last seen December 2004. That was his head rolling around at PittockMansion.” She touched the middle photograph. This man had shoulder-length light-colored hair and a long regal face. “Jackson Beathe,” she said. “Last seen March 2005.Sort of handsome, huh?” Claire took a step to her right. “The woman with him on the Rose Garden bench was named Braids Williams.” Slender and dark-skinned, she smiled from her photo. “She disappeared in 2006. Cause of death is still pending, but it looks like the two on the bench were stabbed.”
Susan looked at the three faces, lives reduced to snapshots. “How did you identify them?”
“They were missed,” Claire said. “Family.Friends.Social workers. Missing-person reports were filed. We had dental records.” She turned back to face the photographs and raised a hand to tenderly brush against the face of Braids Williams. “Someone stabbed them, removed their eyes, buried them for a few years, and then dug them up. The eyes they kept in a jar of formaldehyde.” She lowered her hand and turned back to Susan. “Braids Williams’s eyes went into Fintan English. The others were dumped in the rest-stop toilet.”
Henry stood in the doorway. His sleeves were rolled up and he carried a stack of papers in his hands. “Gretchen didn’t kill the homeless,” he said. “It wasn’t near scary enough.”
“So it wasn’t Gretchen,” Susan said.
“I’m not ready to rule out anything yet,” Henry said.
“We’re going through his computer records now to see if Hay—the orderly—was visiting any Gretchen-related sites,” Claire said. “Could be he’s involved in this group.”
Susan’s face ached. The EMTs had irrigated the hole in her cheek and bandaged it up, but no one had offered her any painkillers. She reached up and gingerly touched the white gauze.
“Try
www.iheartgretchenlowell.com,” Susan said. “That’s the site the freaks at the warehouse were using.”