“Well, let’s go,” she said. Maybe she would get a book out of this after all.
Archie turned around to face Susan, his face so serious and haggard that it successfully wrung the life out of Susan’s momentarily high spirits. “Gretchen is mental. She’s curious about you, but only in so far as how she can manipulate you. If you come, you’re going to have to follow my lead and restrain yourself.”
Susan forced her face into a professional earnestness. “I am known for my restraint.”
“I’m going to regret this,” Archie said to Henry.
Henry grinned, flipped down a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses from the peak of his forehead to the bridge of his nose, and pulled away from the curb.
“How did you know where I live, anyway?” Susan asked as they pulled on to the freeway headed south.
“I detected it,” Archie said.
Susan was just glad that Ian hadn’t been there. It’s not like her apartment had all that many places to hide, and if Henry had seen him, he’d certainly have told Archie. Just because Archie knew she was screwing Ian didn’t mean she wanted him to be reminded of it. In fact, she was hoping he’d forget she’d ever said anything. “Well, it’s a good thing I was alone,” she said. “So I could drop everything at a moment’s notice.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Henry smile.
Archie’s gaze didn’t waver from the file he was reading.
Susan’s face grew hot.
It was an hour’s drive to the prison. She crossed her arms, leaned back, and forced her attention out the window. It didn’t last. “Hey,” she said. “Did you guys know that Portland was almost named Boston? Two founders flipped a coin for it. One of them was from Portland, Maine. The other guy was from Boston. Guess who won.” No one answered. Susan fiddled with the white string fringe around one of the holes in her jeans. “It’s ironic,” she said. “Because Portland is often referred to as the Boston of the West Coast.” Archie was still reading. Why couldn’t she stop talking? She made a promise to herself that she wasn’t going to say another word unless one of them talked to her first.
It was a quiet trip.
The Oregon State Penitentiary was a campus of gristle-colored buildings located just off the freeway behind a wall topped with razor wire. It housed both maximum-and minimum-security inmates, male and female, and had the state’s only death row. Susan had driven by it dozens of times on trips home from college, but she had never had occasion to visit, not that she would have jumped at the chance. Henry parked the car in a space reserved for police vehicles near the entrance of the prison. A middle-aged man in pressed khakis and a golf shirt stood on the steps of one of the main buildings, leaning against the railing, arms folded. He had soft features and a receding hairline and a belly that pressed insistently against his shirt. A cell phone in a jaunty leather case was clipped to the belt of his pants. A lawyer, thought Susan grimly. He stepped forward as Archie, Henry, and Susan climbed out of the car.
“How is she today?” Archie asked him.
“Pissy,” the lawyer said. His nose was running and he dabbed at it with a white cloth hankie. “Same as every Sunday. That the reporter?”
“Yep.”
He thrust a germy hand out to Susan, who shook it despite that. He had a firm, precise handshake, like someone who intended to make good use out of it. “Darrow Miller. Assistant DA.”
“Darrow?” she repeated, amused.
“Yeah,” he said without affect. “My brother’s name is Scopes. And that’s the last crack we’ll be making.”
Susan struggled to keep up as the group moved at a quick pace through the main building, taking corners and climbing stairs with the ease of people who had traveled the wide hallways so often that they had become a body memory. The group encountered two security checkpoints. At the first, a guard checked their identification, logged their names, and stamped their hands. Henry and Archie surrendered their side arms, and moved past the guards without a break in their conversation. A male guard stopped Susan, who was still a few steps behind. The guard was small and wiry, and he stood with his fists on his hips, like an action figure.
“Did you not read your pamphlet?” he asked her with the slow enunciation of someone talking to a child. He was shorter than Susan was, so he had to look up.
Susan bristled.
“It’s okay, Ron,” Archie interjected, turning back. “She’s with me.”
The little guard chewed his cheek for a moment, slid a look at Archie, and then nodded and stepped back against the wall. “Nobody reads their pamphlet,” he mumbled.
“What did I do?” Susan asked when they were moving again.
“They don’t like visitors to wear denim,” Archie explained. “The prisoners wear prison blues, and it might lead to confusion.”
“But certainly their denim is not as chicly torn as mine?”