Archie stood and leaned over the table, resting on his fists, so that he towered over the teacher. “The thing is,” Archie said. “The fire started in the cabin, Dan. Which makes us think someone had a key. Because why break into a boat to start a fire? Why not just splash some gas on the deck and start the fire there?”
McCallum’s face darkened a shade and he glanced from Archie to Claire in mounting desperation. “I don’t know. But if that fire started in the cabin, then someone broke into the boat. I don’t know why. But they did.”
“When was the last time you were on the boat?” Archie asked.
“A week ago Monday. I took it out for the first time this season. Just down the Willamette a few miles.”
“Anything been disturbed?”
“No,” McCallum said. “It was all the way I left it. As far as I could tell.”
“Who knows you have a boat?” Archie asked.
“Well, I’ve had the boat for nine years. Multiply that times a hundred students a year. That’s nine hundred Cleveland grads alone. Look. I’m not the most popular teacher. I’m tough.” He held up a handful of student papers as if to prove the point. “I didn’t give out a single A in my advanced physics class last semester. Maybe one of the kids got his nose out of joint. Decided to punish me. I loved that boat. They all know that. If someone wanted to hurt me, they might go after it.”
Archie scrutinized McCallum, who seemed to be growing sweatier with each passing minute. Archie didn’t like him. But he’d learned long ago that not liking someone didn’t mean that the someone was lying. “Okay, Dan. You can leave. We’ll take the DNA sample. Claire will tell you where to go.”
McCallum stood and gathered up all of his students’ papers and stuffed them into a scratched soft leather briefcase. Claire opened the door. “Wait for me in the hall for a minute, will you, Dan?” she said. He nodded and shuffled out.
Claire turned to Archie. “We don’t have any DNA to compare his to,” she said.
“He doesn’t know that,” said Archie. “Take a swab and let’s make sure we’ve got a car on him from the time he leaves school at the end of the day until he’s home in bed.”
“It was a boat fire, Archie.”
“It’s all we’ve got.”
Susan sat in her car in the parking lot and dialed Justin Johnson’s cell phone number.
“Yo,” he answered.
She launched right into her rehearsed explanation. “Hi, J.J. My name’s Susan Ward. We met in the Cleveland parking lot. My car was booted, remember?”
There was a long pause. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he said. And he hung up.
Susan sat looking at the cell phone in her hand.
What the hell was going on?
CHAPTER
25
S usan had changed her outfit three times before heading to Archie Sheridan’s apartment. Now she stood face-to-face with him in his doorway, wishing that she’d gone with another look entirely. But he’d seen her, and now it was too late to go back to the car. “Hi,” she said. “Thanks for letting me come over.” It was just after eight o’clock. Archie was still wearing what Susan presumed were his work clothes—sturdy brown leather shoes, wide-wale dark green corduroys, and a pale blue button-down over a T-shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. Susan glanced down at her own ensemble of black jeans, an old Aerosmith T-shirt worn over a long john shirt, and motorcycle boots; her pink hair pulled up in pigtails. The look had worked well when she had interviewed Metal-lica backstage at the Coliseum, but for this it was all wrong. She should have gone with something more intellectual. A sweater, maybe.
Archie opened the door wide and stepped aside so she could enter his apartment. It was true, what she had said to him on the phone: She needed the interview. Her story was due the next day and she had a lot of questions for Archie Sheridan. But she also wanted to see where he lived. Who he was. She tried not to let her face fall when she saw the empty environment he lived in. No books. Nothing on the walls. No family photographs or knickknacks picked up on vacation or CDs or old magazines waiting to be recycled. Judging from the sad-looking brown couch and corduroy recliner, it looked like the place had come furnished. No personality. At all. What kind of divorced father didn’t display photographs of his children?
“How long have you lived here?” she asked hopefully.
“Almost two years,” he said. “Sorry. Not much material, I know.”
“Tell me you have a television.”
He laughed. “It’s in the bedroom.”
I bet you don’t have cable, Susan thought. She made a show of glancing around the room. “Where do you keep your stuff? You must have useless crap. Everyone has useless crap.”
“Most of my useless crap is at Debbie’s.” He gestured gallantly to the couch. “Have a seat. Are you allowed to drink during interviews?”