Susan sat down in Parker’s task chair, rolling in small circles, trying to get into his head, to figure out how he’d write the Forest Park murders story, when her knee bumped against Parker’s desk’s filing drawer. Each desk had one. They were always kept locked. Susan kept her key under a mug full of pens on her desk. She had learned that from Parker.
She reached out and lifted up the Hooters’ mug of number two pencils that sat on Parker’s desk, revealing a tiny silver key. Then she put the key in the file drawer lock and turned it. It opened. Inside, toward the front of the drawer, were thickly packed files marked with names that Susan recognized as being connected to stories that Parker covered. She walked her fingers along the files until she came to a large, black three-ring binder that had been jammed in the back of the drawer. There was a label on the spine, and in Parker’s slanted handwriting, the words “Beauty Killer.”
Jackpot.
She pulled the binder out of the drawer, locked it, replaced the key, and carried the heavy binder over to her desk, just as Ian popped his head out of his office and hollered, “I’d like to get some sleep tonight.”
“Almost done,” Susan said. She slipped the binder onto the floor next to her purse, resting one foot on it protectively. Her face was flushed with excitement, but it was dark and Susan didn’t think that Ian could tell.
CHAPTER
13
Archie still wasn’t sure if he’d agreed to let Sarah Rosenberg treat him because he needed the help, or because he wanted an excuse to sit in the room where Gretchen Lowell had drugged him and taken him captive.
This was his Monday morning ritual. No more Sundays at the state pen with the Beauty Killer, but every Monday he spent an hour sitting across from Gretchen’s big wooden desk. In one of her overstuffed striped chairs. He watched her grandfather clock, the time still stuck at 3:30. He looked between the heavy green velvet curtains, out to the cherry trees thick with green leaves outside her window.
Only none of it was Gretchen’s. She had rented the house under a false name from a psychologist who was spending the season in Italy. It had been the last place the police could trace Archie to. But by then, Gretchen had already taken him to another house. The psychologist, Dr. Sarah Rosenberg, and her family came back; the carpet, onto which Archie had spilled his drugged coffee, had been replaced.
“I want to talk about Gretchen Lowell today,” Rosenberg said.
It was their fourth session. It was the first time she had mentioned Gretchen. Archie had admired her restraint. He took a slow sip of the paper cup of coffee he held on the arm of the chair. “Okay,” he said. He felt warm and pleasant, just high enough that he could relax, and not high enough that Rosenberg would notice.
Rosenberg smiled. She was lean with dark curly hair she wore back in a low ponytail, maybe a little older than Archie, though he probably looked older to anyone guessing. He liked her. She was better than the department shrink he’d seen for six months. But then, for some reason, Archie was always more comfortable talking to women.
“I want to talk about the six weeks you knew her before she revealed who she was,” she said.
It was something the department didn’t like to talk about, the fact that Gretchen had infiltrated the investigation for that long before she revealed herself. It didn’t make them look exactly sharp. Archie sighed and looked behind Rosenberg, out the window. “She just showed up one day,” he said. “She said she was a psychiatrist. She ran a couple of group counseling sessions. I also conferred with her about the profile.” He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled. The smell of coffee wafted up from the cup. He brought the coffee because when he didn’t he thought sometimes he could still smell the lilacs. “She seemed to have some insights,” he said.
Rosenberg sat in the other striped chair, where Gretchen used to sit. She crossed her legs and leaned forward. “Like what?” she asked.
A squirrel bolted up one of the cherry trees, sending the leaves rippling. Archie took another sip of coffee and then rested it back on the arm of the chair. “She was the first person who suggested that the killer might be a woman,” he said.
Rosenberg kept a yellow legal pad on her lap and she wrote something down on it. She was wearing black slacks and a green turtleneck and yellow socks the same color as the notebook. “What was your reaction to that?” she asked.
Archie noticed that his left leg had developed a restless bounce. He pushed his heel into the floor. “We had exhausted pretty much everything else,” he said.
“Did she offer individual counseling?” Rosenberg asked.
“Yes,” Archie said.
“Did she counsel you?” she asked.
He inched the pillbox out of his pocket and held it in his fist on his lap. “Yes.”
“Just you?”
“Yes.” If Rosenberg noticed the box, she didn’t say anything.
“What did you two talk about?” she asked.