“This place smells like nail polish remover,” Susan said.
“Are you going to tell me who you think she is?” Archie asked.
Susan had arranged to meet Archie in the morgue parking lot. He was there, waiting for her, by the time she arrived, fifteen minutes late, which for Susan was early. She didn’t see Henry.
“I just want to be sure,” she said.
The body was under a black plastic tarp, the kind of thing you might throw over an outdoor woodpile. A morgue technician had just wheeled it in. Under her sterile beige smock, the technician was wearing corduroys and clogs and a turtleneck and wool socks, even though it was summer. It was probably always cold down there. Archie nodded at the technician and she unzipped the bag and folded down the thick plastic sheeting.
The dead woman didn’t have a face anymore. Archie had warned Susan about that, but she still wasn’t prepared. The woman’s mandible was slack, so her lipless teeth were slightly agape, her darkened tongue like bruised fruit. The clotted blood remaining on her cheekbones and in her eye sockets looked like grape jelly How medical examiners ever managed to eat, Susan didn’t know.
She looked down and realized that her hand was clenching Archie’s wrist. Her heart was racing and she felt a sort of heaviness in her throat. But she forced herself to keep looking. For something. Some clue. Something familiar.
And then she saw it.
“Oh, God,” she said.
She felt Archie’s wrist pull free and then his hand fold around hers, their fingers interlocking.
He said, “Tell me.”
Susan wasn’t crying. Not really. They were just tears. They slid down her cheeks and onto her mother’s free-trade Peruvian black knit sweater. Her neck felt cold where the tears left salty trails. She shivered. This wasn’t her fault, she told herself. Parker. The senator. None of it. It was a story. She was a reporter. There was a public right to know.
“It’s Molly Palmer,” she said.
CHAPTER
19
Archie stared down at the corpse on the slab in front of him. “You’re telling me that this is your source on the Castle story?” he said. “That the woman we found dead the night before Castle went off a bridge was the same woman who was about to publicly disgrace him?”
Susan nodded.
Archie looked at the corpse’s Halloween skeleton face, her marbled, bloated skin. “How can you tell?” he asked.
Susan reached up and pulled at a piece of turquoise hair. “I finally got ahold of her roommate last night. She said that Molly had taken off, left a note and just left. But first she dyed her hair. She was working as a stripper. And blondes make more tips. But she was giving it up.” She let go of the piece of hair, but it remained twisted where she’d wound it around her finger. “So she dyed her hair red. It’s called Cinnamon Glow. Her roommate found the box in the bathroom trash.”
Victim identification based on hair color. Archie could imagine that meeting with the DA. Vidal Sassoon as an expert witness. “You won’t be offended if I double-check with dental records?” he said. It was crazy. A hunch. Based on hair dye. But he could follow it up. Archie pulled his cell phone out and called Lorenzo Rob-bins. He got his voice mail and left a message detailing what he knew about Molly Palmer. She’d gone to high school in Portland. Chances were someone had X-rays on file. “When was the last time you spoke with her?” Archie asked Susan gently.
Susan shook her head. “I couldn’t get ahold of her. But she was like that sometimes. I knew she was nervous about the story coming out.” She pulled at the sleeves of her sweater. “She was blond. You said the woman in the park had red hair. Molly was blond.”
“Did Molly use drugs?” They wouldn’t have the tox screens for six weeks, but it was looking like an OD.
“Yeah,” Susan said.
So she had red hair. She was missing. And she was a user. “Heroin?” Archie asked.
“She didn’t do this to herself,” Susan said, her voice wavering. “Parker wasn’t drunk.” She laughed sadly. “Parker was always drunk. But he was never that drunk. Never drunk enough to steer off a fucking bridge.” Her hands were entirely lost in the sleeves of her sweater now, her arms crossed. “Molly didn’t take bad heroin. She was an addict. She would have had a source, someone trustworthy.” Susan looked at Archie, her algae-green eyes large. “Someone killed her, Archie. Castle was humiliated. He must have gotten Molly to come down here to meet with him, and given her poison dope or something, and then he took Parker with him off that bridge.”
Fuck. This was all he needed. “I need to see all of your notes on the Castle story,” Archie said. “I need everything you have.”