Susan felt a black wave of tears in her throat and swallowed them. “What happened?” she said. Archie lifted the tape and Susan ducked under it and followed Archie as he spoke.
“It happened at about five this morning,” he explained. “The car was going fast and swerved off the bridge at the crest.” He motioned to where a large segment of the bridge’s cement bumper was clearly missing, the rebar frame exposed like a bone in a compound fracture. A ten-foot segment of chain-link fence was broken and hanging perilously off the side. “Two drivers stopped and called nine-one-one. Search and Rescue were down there in seven minutes.” The two stopped at the edge and stared down at the police barge and Search and Rescue boats that floated on the river below; a rainbow of gasoline shimmered on the water’s surface, marking where the car had gone under. “But both of them were dead,” Archie continued. “The senator and Parker. They pulled the bodies out about an hour ago.” He turned and looked at Susan, and raised an eyebrow. “It was Parker’s car, Susan. You know what the Herald’s crime-beat reporter was doing driving our state’s senior senator around at the crack of dawn?”
Susan’s stomach ached. Why hadn’t Parker told her he was going to meet with Castle? No skid marks. Christ.
“Susan?” Archie said, a slight warning in his voice. “You need to tell me now.”
Susan glanced around at the cops and press corps, none of whom seemed to actually be doing anything. “Somewhere private,” she said to Archie.
Archie raised his eyebrows and then motioned for her to follow him and he led her past two patrol cars and two police vans to a midnight-blue Crown Victoria, where Archie’s partner, Henry Sobol, sat in the driver’s seat scribbling in a notebook. The driver’s door was open, and Archie leaned in and said, “I need the car.”
Henry glanced up, smiling as he saw Susan. “Ms. Ward,” he said. “You’ve changed your hair.”
“It’s called Atomic Turquoise,” Susan said. “I considered Enchanted Forest but it seemed a little too punk.”
“You’re right,” Henry said, climbing out of the car. He hooked a thumb behind his large silver-and-turquoise belt buckle. “Turquoise is more professional.”
He didn’t ask why they needed the car.
Archie opened the rear door and held it for Susan as she slid onto the warm navy blue vinyl backseat of the Crown Vic. Then Archie got in next to her and closed the door.
“Did he drown?” Susan asked.
“It looks like it,” Archie said gently. “The car sank fast. Electric locks. They couldn’t get out.”
Susan twisted a piece of aqua hair into a tight rope. “I need this to be between us.”
Archie looked at her for a moment. “I can’t promise that. It’s not my case. It’s FBI. It’s not even local FBI. If you tell me something that I think is relevant to the case, I’m going to be compelled to share it.”
Susan let it all go in one breath. “Senator Castle had an affair with his children’s babysitter. Ten years ago. She was fourteen. He then conspired to cover it up.”
“Fourteen?” Archie said. “I thought she was older than that.”
Susan was dumbfounded. “You know about Molly Palmer?”
Archie shrugged. “I didn’t know her name. But there have been rumors.”
Susan knew that there had been rumors. There had been rumors for years. But either no one had believed them, or no one had wanted to believe them, because the rumors had never appeared in print. But she didn’t know that the police knew. “And the cops never investigated?” she asked.
“I was always assured that there was nothing to it,” Archie said.
Susan fidgeted out of her sandals and twisted her legs up under her, careful to modestly arrange her dress. “Well, there was something to it. I’ve got a mountain of evidence, including Molly Palmer. They paid her off. They paid off a teenager to keep quiet.” She pulled at her Herald lanyard. “The story was scheduled to run in two days. Parker and I met with Castle’s lawyer yesterday to see if he had a comment. He didn’t.”
“You think Parker met with the senator again?” Archie asked.
“I don’t know,” Susan said. “Maybe. Maybe the senator decided to comment after all. But there is no way that the two of them being in that car isn’t connected to the Molly Palmer story.”
Archie nodded to himself for a minute and then returned his attention to her. “Thank you,” he said. “This is helpful.”
Susan felt her face grow hot. “You’re welcome.”
Henry knocked on the car window, nearly causing Susan to jump out of her skin. Henry waved his fingers at her and then pointed at Archie and then at his watch. Archie saw him and nodded, a tiny, almost imperceptible gesture. Susan glanced at her own watch. It was almost eight-thirty
“Salem?” she asked. She had watched Archie and Gretchen at one of their weekly sessions. It still haunted her.
Archie rubbed the back of his neck and squinted, like he had a sudden pain. “I don’t go down there anymore,” he said.