Ian looked over at her and jabbed a thumb for her to come.
“Duty calls,” she said to Derek, and she got up and walked down the carpeted aisle between desk clusters to his office. It had a window, but it just looked out onto the news floor. There were bulletin boards covered with feature clips, so he could call writers in one by one and go over every word of their stories until you wanted to cry or stab him in the neck.
She’d already decided she was going to quit if they didn’t run it. Or stab him. Whatever impulse took hold hardest. Probably the stabbing.
He motioned for her to sit and she flung herself down on a chair.
“We’re running it,” he said. “But we’re going to have to make some changes.”
Susan pulled at the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “Changes?”
Ian grabbed at his little ponytail. “The senator was an institution in this state. He was beloved. We have to present the story within that context. He had an affair with a teenager. And that was very bad judgment.”
Susan could feel the story slipping away from her. Bad judgment? Yesterday it had been the story of the century. “It wasn’t an affair,” she said. “She was fourteen.”
“Whatever,” Ian said. He clicked his computer mouse, and a Word document sprang to life on his monitor. “I’m going to take a stab at reframing it. I’ll run the edits by you. We’re planning on running the story. But not in Monday’s tribute edition. It just doesn’t seem appropriate.”
Appropriate? “Parker was my editor,” Susan said.
She watched as Ian highlighted a sentence in her story and hit delete. “I know this is hard for you,” he said.
“Parker was my editor,” Susan said again. Behind Ian, pinned on the bulletin board, were photographs of Castle through the years, looking puffy and self-important. Someone had scribbled headline ideas on pieces of paper and pinned them up next to the pictures. STATE MOURNS FAVORITE SON. SENATOR DIES IN CRASH. CHAMPION OF POOR DIES IN BRIDGE CALAMITY.
None of them mentioned Parker. He would be lucky to make the lead.
Ian picked up the telephone on his desk and hit the nine for an outside line. Susan saw right through the gesture. He didn’t really need to make a call; it was just his clumsy signal that the meeting was over. “We’ll need contact info for your source,” he said distractedly, “for Molly Palmer.”
“No problem,” Susan said.
She stomped back to her desk, sat down on her task chair, and spun around slowly. Someone had left another bouquet on Parker’s desk, a bundle of purple carnations and baby’s breath. They were wrapped in green tissue paper and tied together with a black ribbon. Emblazoned on the ribbon were the words REST IN PEACE.
Susan dug her cell phone out of her sweatshirt pocket and punched in a number.
“I have to get out of here,” she said into the phone. “Do you still want some ink on your Jane Doe?”
“I’m at the park right now,” Archie Sheridan answered. “Can you meet me?”
Archie sat on the damp ground, just yards from where a girl had been murdered. The weather had changed—the sunny day gone, replaced with a sad drizzle. The park smelled like death. Rotting logs, fallen branches, spoiled blackberries. Archie brushed some dirt off his pants and closed his eyes.
This is where it had all begun. Archie and Henry had responded to a call about a dead woman in the upper park. She was just a kid. Scalped. Burned. Badly mutilated. That was thirteen years ago. The Beauty Killer’s first victim. Archie’s first homicide.
Archie glanced down at the paperback next to him in the dirt. Gretchen looked back at him. He didn’t know why he had brought it, why he hadn’t left it in the car, why he hadn’t thrown it in the nearest gas station Dumpster. He knew one thing: This Jacob Firebaugh kid was going to get an earful.
There was a sudden rustling behind him on the hillside. Ferns bending under feet, earth sliding, vines snapping. Archie jerked back to alertness, opened his eyes, and in an instant found the gun on his hip, resting his hand lightly on the leather holster. He turned around and found a kid standing a few feet above him on the hillside.
The kid was maybe twelve, still panting from his trip down the hill, the ferns vibrating behind him. He was delicate looking, with pale skin and dark hair and a mouth full of glittery braces. He wore an Oregon Ducks T-shirt and a pair of knee-length shorts heavy with pockets and snaps, and his calves were straight and tiny, birdlike. He was carrying an old Peanuts metal lunch box. “Are you a detective?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Archie said, pulling his hand away from his gun.
The kid sat down next to Archie, folding his legs Indian style, the lunch box on his lap.
Archie picked up the copy of The Last Victim and moved it to his other side, away from the kid. “Can I help you?” Archie asked.
“I’m okay,” the kid said.
Archie tilted his head at the crime tape that surrounded them. “This is sort of a crime scene.”