“Don’t thank me. Thank Derek. He spent all day tracking it down for you.” Ian gave his Columbia Journalism School T-shirt a shake, the way he always did, to get out the wrinkles. “I think he likes you.”
Susan took another drag off the joint. “Well, if I ever want to fuck a frat boy ex-football star,” she said, holding the smoke in her lungs, “I’ll know who to call.”
“Whom,” said Ian.
After Ian was gone, Susan sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed. The worst of it was that the Molly Palmer story actually mattered. It wasn’t exploitation. It wasn’t advertising. It wasn’t another disposable feature. It could make a difference. A teenager had been wronged, and the man responsible was going to enormous lengths to cover it up. A man with power. A man elected by a public who had a right to know that he was the kind of man who would take advantage of that power to screw a fourteen-year-old. So okay, yes, maybe she had something personal at stake. And now Susan had somehow both landed the Molly Palmer story and lost it at exactly the same time. Justin was in Palm Springs, or wherever. Molly wasn’t talking. Ethan wasn’t even returning her calls. She wanted to nail Senator Castle. More than Ian even knew. She didn’t care if it got her fired. She was going to get someone, somewhere, to go on the record. She looked down at the cassette tape in her hands. Gretchen’s 911 tape. And that’s when Susan Ward was filled with a sudden desire that was entirely foreign to her. She didn’t care about prizes or prose or voice. She didn’t care about a book deal. She didn’t care about impressing Ian.
She wanted, for the first time in her professional life, to be a good reporter.
She padded over to the living area and, sitting on her bare heels, popped the tape into the stereo. She had read the transcript of the call dozens of times. But it was still thrilling to finally get a glimpse into the real-time moment. She pressed PLAY.
“Nine one one. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“My name is Gretchen Lowell. I’m calling on behalf of Detective Archie Sheridan. Do you know who I am?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Good. Your detective needs to get to a trauma center. I’m at two three three nine Magnolia Lane in Gresham. We’re in the basement. There’s a school two blocks away where you should be able to land a helicopter. If you get people here in the next fifteen minutes, he just might live.” She hung up.
Susan sank back into a seated position on the floor and ran her hands over her forearms, which were scattered with tiny goose bumps. Gretchen had sounded so calm. When Susan had heard Gretchen’s voice in her mind, it had been more panicked, frantic. She was, in effect, turning herself into the police, giving up the ghost. She could have been killed. But she hadn’t seemed concerned at all. Her voice did not bear a single tremor. She did not stammer or search for words. She was direct, articulate, and professional. Her call almost sounded rehearsed.
Archie didn’t ask Henry to go with him to interview Reston. It was Sunday afternoon and he felt bad enough about dragging Henry to the state pen every weekend, though he knew Henry would never let him go alone. He also wanted, if at all possible, to protect Susan’s privacy. So Archie let Henry drop him off at his apartment. He was numb and tired from the pills, so he made a pot of coffee. Then he checked his voice mail for messages. There were none, which meant that Debbie had never called back. Archie didn’t blame her. It was a mistake to talk to her at all on Sundays. He had promised himself that he’d keep Debbie and Gretchen separate, compartmentalized; it was the only way this would work. But he was selfish. He needed Debbie, wanted to hear her voice, to be reminded of his old life. But the phone calls would have to stop eventually. They both knew it. They just prolonged the pain of their emotional entanglement. He would stop the calls. He just couldn’t bear to do it yet.
He called Claire and checked in. There were no leads. The tip line was quiet. Even prank callers took Sundays off. It had been four days since they had discovered Kristy Mathers’s body. Which meant that the killer was probably already looking for another victim. Archie sat alone in his kitchen and drank half the pot of coffee, pausing only long enough to refill his cup. When he felt suitably revived, he took two more Vicodin and called a cab.