“So what did you learn?”
Her stomach clenched again. She rolled onto her belly, stretched out diagonally across the bed, and pulled a loose blanket over her naked body. “That I’m a bad reporter. I totally let her get to me.”
“You’ve still got a story, though, right? Facing the cold stare of death and all that.”
She was up on her elbows, the joint held over the edge of the bed. A tiny chunk of ash drifted to the floor and landed on one of the Great Writer’s Persian eBay carpets. Susan watched it fall without even the faintest thought of picking it up. “Oh yeah. She gave up another body. Some college girl in Nebraska.” Susan remembered the smiling girl. The peace sign. The arm around her shoulder that belonged to some left-behind friend who had been cropped out of the photograph. She gave herself a mental shake and took another hit off the joint. “They found her buried on top of an old grave in a cemetery off the highway.” The pot was smoothing all the hard edges, and she felt the stress of the day start to bleed from her body. With it went the need for her companion. “Shouldn’t you be getting home?” she asked, raising an eyebrow purposefully at Ian.
He had settled back onto the bed in his boxers, feet crossed at the ankles. “Sharon’s at the coast. I can’t spend the night?”
“I’ve got to get up early tomorrow. Claire Masland is picking me up.”
“She’s a dyke, you know.”
“Why? Because she has short hair?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Go home, Ian.”
Ian swung his feet on the floor and found the rest of his clothes. He pulled on one of his black socks. “I thought I told you to leave the Molly Palmer thing alone,” he said, pulling on the other sock, not looking at her.
Susan was taken aback. Molly Palmer? “Okay,” she said, raising her hands in mock defensiveness. “You got me. I left a few messages for Ethan Poole.”
“I’m talking about Justin Johnson,” he said, an irritated edge to his voice.
It took a minute for Susan to process this. Justin Johnson? And then the confusion lifted and she thought, Holy shit. All this time, she’d thought that Justin had something to do with the After School Strangler case. She had connected him to the wrong story. Justin Johnson had nothing to do with Lee Robinson, nothing to do with Cleveland. “What does Justin have to do with Molly Palmer?” she asked.
Ian laughed. “You don’t know?”
She felt stupid, and stupid for feeling stupid. “What’s going on, Ian?”
He stood and pulled on his black jeans. “Ethan gave Molly your messages. She called the senator’s lawyer. He called Howard Jenkins.” He zipped and buttoned the jeans, then bent and picked his black belt up off the floor and began to thread it through the belt loops. “Jenkins called me. I told him that you weren’t working the story anymore. But apparently little Justin’s mother hired a PI to watch him.” He finished buckling the belt and sat on the edge of the bed. “She thinks he’s dealing pot, see. And who shows up at school to talk to him but Susan Ward from the Oregon Herald. They recognized the pink hair.” He pulled on a black Converse. Tied it. “So now everyone thinks you’re on the story. That it’s all going to break wide open.” Pulled the other Converse on. Tied it. “So the lawyer gets the bright idea of slipping you a note with the kid’s juvie record file number on it. With the thought that if you know he has a record, you might not trust the little bastard’s story.”
“Seriously?” Susan said, trying not to smile. “That guy really was a lawyer?”
Ian stood up, half-dressed, and faced her. “You’re going to get us both fired. You know that, right?”
Susan scrambled into a seated position, forgetting about the blanket, letting it fall around her waist. “What does Justin know about Molly Palmer?”
“He was the senator’s son’s best friend. When they were kids. Inseparable. Molly Palmer used to baby-sit them both. So I’m suspecting he saw or heard something he shouldn’t. You might recognize Justin’s mother’s maiden name. Overlook?”
Susan’s heart sank. “As in the family who owns the Herald?”
“She’s a cousin.”
“Castle really did it, didn’t he?”
“Oh he did it. It’s just not a story that will ever run in this town.” He reached into the pocket of his gray wool jacket and withdrew something and tossed it on the bed.
“What’s that?” Susan asked.
“It’s your nine-one-one tape. If I were you, I’d get back on the story we’ll actually run, and dance with the fella who brung ya.”
Susan picked up the cassette and turned it over in her hands. “Thanks.”