“I can be very persuasive.”
He traced an imaginary circle on the desk with his palm. “She’s in the state pen. Maximum security. She can only see her lawyers, cops, and family. And she doesn’t have any family. And you’re not a cop.”
“We could exchange letters. Like in the olden days.”
He leaned back slowly in his chair and appraised her. “No.”
“No?” Susan said.
“You can shadow me. You can talk to Debbie and the people I work with. I will talk to you about the so-called After School Strangler case. I will talk to you about the Beauty Killer case. You can interview my doctor if you want to. But not Gretchen Lowell. She’s still the subject of a police investigation and asking her questions would be a distraction. It’s a deal breaker.”
“Excuse me, Detective. But what makes you think that, if I did write her, you’d even find out about it?”
He smiled patiently. “Trust me. I’d find out.”
She stared at him. It was not the fact that he didn’t want her talking to Gretchen Lowell that bothered her. He had been through some sort of hell. Of course he didn’t want his tormentor interviewed for some stupid newspaper story. What bothered Susan was a growing certainty that this profile was a bad idea for Archie Sheridan. That he had things to hide, and that she was going to find them out. He should not have agreed to any of this. And if she realized that, then she was pretty sure that smart Archie Sheridan did, too. So why was he letting her do it?
“Any other deal breakers?” she asked.
“One.”
Here we go. “Shoot.”
“Sundays off.”
“Is that when you have your kids?”
Archie glanced over her shoulder, out the window. “No.”
“Church?”
Nothing.
“Golf?” Susan guessed. “Taxidermy club?”
“One day of privacy,” he said firmly, focusing back on her, his hands now gripped in his lap. “You get the other six.”
She nodded a couple of times. She could write this series, and she could write it well. Who was she kidding? She could write it brilliantly. The story was hers. The reasons why could work themselves out later. “Okay,” she agreed. “Where do we start?”
“The beginning,” he answered. “Cleveland High School. Lee Robinson.” He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed an extension. “You ready?” he said into the phone. He hung up and looked at Susan.
“Detective Sobol will be joining us.”
Susan tried to mask her dismay. She had hoped to have Archie Sheridan to herself, all the better to pick his brain. “He was your partner, right? On the first Beauty Killer murder?”
Before Archie could answer, Henry appeared at the door to Archie’s office, stretching his ill-fitting leather coat over his broad shoulders. He thrust a big hand at Susan. “Henry Sobol,” he said. Just a big teddy bear.
She shook it, trying to match his grip. “Susan Ward. Oregon Herald. I’m doing a story on—”
“You’re early,” said Henry.
CHAPTER
14
F red Doud smoked a bowl on the beach. He was hunkered next to a large bark-stripped log that had washed ashore the winter before. Not that his discretion mattered. He hadn’t seen anyone along the mile stretch of beach he’d just walked. He usually came out in the afternoon, but he had a court date later that day. He took one more extended drag off the small glass pipe and then put it back into its leather satchel. He tied the satchel shut, his long, bony fingers fumbling a little in the cold, and hung it back around his neck. He surveyed the skin of his arms, his thighs, belly, knees. It was bright pink, but he didn’t feel cold anymore. He liked winters on the beach. There were plenty of people the rest of the year, but during the winter, he was often the only one. He lived with some college buddies a few miles away on the island, so it was an easy drive. Per beach rules, he wore a robe from the parking area, down the path carved through the blackberry bushes. Then, once he was on the beach, he let the robe drop off his bony shoulders and stepped away from it, au naturel. He never felt freer.
The truth was that he usually turned back at that log, but sometimes, every once in a while, he decided to go farther, to the point where the beach went around a bend and he could see the lighthouse up ahead. Today, when he stood up, reveling in his stoned, naked body, Fred knew that it was one of those days.