“What about the kids?”
The effects of the opiates made his skull feel soft, like a baby’s. He reached up and touched the back of his head, feeling his hair beneath his fingers. Ben had fallen from the changing table when he was ten months old and cracked his skull. They had spent the whole night in the emergency room. No, Archie remembered, correcting himself, Debbie had spent the whole night. He had left the hospital early in the morning. There had been a call. They had found another Beauty Killer body. Just one of dozens of times he’d left Debbie for Gretchen. He could remember every one of the crime scenes. Every detail. But he couldn’t remember how long Ben had been in the hospital. Or where exactly the fracture was.
“Are you there?” he heard Debbie’s disembodied voice ask from the receiver. “Say something, Archie.”
“Read it to them. It will help them understand.”
“It will scare the crap out of them.” She paused. “You sound really high.”
His head felt like warm water and cotton and blood. “I’m fine.” He picked up another Vicodin, rubbed it between his fingers.
“It’s Sunday. You don’t want to be high when you see her.”
He smiled at the pill. “She likes it when I’m high.”
The truth. He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
The line was heavy with silence, and Archie could feel Debbie let him go just a little more. “I’m going to hang up now,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. But she was already gone.
When the phone rang a few minutes later, Archie thought it was Debbie calling back, and he picked the phone up on the first ring. But it wasn’t Debbie.
“This is Ken, down in Salem. I’ve got a message for you. From Gretchen Lowell.”
Bombs away, thought Archie.
CHAPTER
30
I t was almost 9:00 A .M . by the time Susan awoke with a splitting headache and a stomach-turning wave of nausea. She had finished that entire bottle of pinot on an empty stomach. Why did she do this to herself? She sat up gingerly, and then staggered into the bathroom, where she poured herself a big glass of water, took three ibuprofen, and brushed her teeth. The Band-Aid on her finger had fallen off during the night and she examined the wound, which had scabbed over into an ugly red crescent. She sucked on it for a minute, the blood coppery in her mouth, until the cut was almost undetectable.
Then she wandered naked into the kitchen, where she put on a pot of coffee and sat down on the Great Writer’s blue sofa. It was too early for the light to make it in through her north-facing window, but she could see the blue sky beyond the building across the street. Long shadows loomed dark on the street and sidewalk below. Sunshine, to Susan, had always seemed ominous. She was halfway through her second cup of coffee when the doorbell rang.
Susan wrapped herself in her kimono and answered the door to find Detective Henry Sobol standing outside. His bald head, freshly shaved, gleamed.
“Ms. Ward,” he said. “Do you have a few hours?”
“For what?”
“Archie will explain. He’s downstairs in the car. I couldn’t find a fucking place to park. Your neighborhood is awash with ambling Yuppies.”
“Yes, they’re ferocious. Can you give me a few minutes to change?”
He bowed nobly. “I’ll wait here.”
Susan closed the door and went back into her bedroom to change. She realized that she was grinning. This was good. This meant a break in the case. This meant more material. She pulled on a pair of tight, distressed jeans and a long-sleeved black-and-white-striped shirt that she thought looked French, and ran a hairbrush through her pink hair.
She grabbed a pair of cowboy boots from her closet, snapped up her digital recorder and notebook, stowed the entire bottle of ibuprofen in her purse, and headed for the door.
Henry’s unmarked Crown Victoria was idling in front of Susan’s building, with Archie sitting in the passenger seat, gazing down at some files in his lap. The winter sun looked almost white in the pale, clear sky and the car shone and sparkled in its light. Susan glanced up in dismay as she climbed into the backseat. Another fucking beautiful day.
“Good morning,” she said, slipping on some oversized dark sunglasses. “What’s going on?”
“You wrote Gretchen Lowell,” Archie said matter-of-factly.
“Yep.”
“I asked you not to.”
“I’m a reporter,” Susan reminded him. “I was attempting to gather facts.”
“Well, your letter and your stories have intrigued her and she would like to meet you.”
Susan’s headache vanished. “Honestly?”
“Are you up for it?”
She leaned forward between the two front seats. “Are you kidding? When? Now?”
“That’s where we’re headed.”