Archie glanced at his cell phone lying silent on the coffee table next to a room service tray with a pot of coffee on it. He leaned forward, trying to ignore the pain under his ribs, and poured himself a cup of lukewarm coffee. The heavy white mug felt clumsy and strange in his swollen hand, but no one seemed to notice.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Debbie said.
Archie took a sip of the coffee. It was bitter in his mouth, or maybe that was the Vicodin. He did not want to be on TV. He did not want to indulge what were surely Buddy’s reelection instincts. He did not want to piss off his ex-wife.
On the other hand, if he played it right, he might be able to force Gretchen to show her hand.
“Okay,” Archie said. “Invite her up.”
CHAPTER
31
Charlene Wood sat with her knees together and crossed her feet at the ankles, facing Archie and Buddy, who now sat side by side on the sofa. Buddy had put on his suit jacket. Two young crewmembers wearing KGW caps had erected a background screen behind them, to disguise the location from the few viewers who might recognize the Arlington Founders Suite.
“Are you ready?” Charlene asked. She looked thinner than she did on television, and hungrier.
“Absolutely,” Buddy answered before Archie could open his mouth. Buddy had been caked and powdered and sprayed and now Archie saw him lick his top teeth. It was a trick Buddy had taught him when Archie had taken over leadership of the task force all those years ago, so your lip wouldn’t stick to your teeth when you talked on camera. Archie had thought Buddy had been kidding.
“We’re going to go live,” Charlene said.
Archie looked down at his hands. The swelling had gone down a little bit. But his side still throbbed, despite the four Vi-codin and the two more he’d just taken. He wanted to be higher. He needed to look like he was sick. He was sick.
Now he needed to sell it.
Charlene turned to the camera, tilted her chin down thoughtfully, and lowered her voice. “Thanks, Jim. I’m here with Mayor Bud Anderson and Gretchen Lowell’s so-called last victim, her former pursuer, Detective Archie Sheridan.” She turned to Archie and reached out and touched him lightly on the knee. “Detective, can you tell us what went through your mind when you heard that the Beauty Killer had escaped?”
Archie kept his face composed, irrespective of the ludicrous-ness of the question. “I was sick,” Archie said. “I felt concern for the community.” He wanted to do something with his hands, and settled on folding them in his lap. “Gretchen is very dangerous. She should not be approached. It’s important that she be returned— alive—into state custody so we can finish our work identifying her victims.”
“I just want to reiterate,” Buddy said, “that we are doing everything in our power to apprehend Gretchen Lowell. We will catch her.”
Charlene reached out and touched Archie’s knee again. Debbie was standing behind her, out of camera range, and Archie thought he saw her roll her eyes.
“How are your children after yesterday’s trauma?” Charlene asked.
“They’re well,” Archie said. “Considering. But,” Archie added, and he felt Buddy shift a little beside him, “I’m saddened that this is distracting me from my work investigating who is responsible for the murders in Forest Park.” He looked up, directly into the camera. “If anyone out there knows of a blond woman who has been missing for two to three years, please call your local police precinct.”
Charlene’s eyebrows quirked quizzically at the change of subject, but she was enough of a journalist to at least ask the obvious follow-up. “And the first body?”
“We’ve identified her,” Archie said. The pain in his side had grown to a fire. “Her name is Molly Palmer.”
Archie had called Molly’s parents from the bedroom after his shower. Molly’s father had answered the phone. “She’s been dead to us for fifteen years,” he’d said. They had another daughter, the father explained, a lawyer. Very successful. Two kids. A husband in investment banking. It was always smart to have a spare.
Buddy’s entire posture went rigid. He cleared his throat with a little cough. “To stay on topic,” he said, “I again just want to reassure the public that we are doing everything possible to protect them.”
Archie lifted his hand to his throbbing side, and pressed it against the cloth of his shirt. His stomach turned. He looked up. The camera was still rolling. Buddy was blathering on. Archie tried to steady himself, to brace himself on the edge of the coffee table, to make it look real. It wasn’t hard. The pain and nausea were there— it was just a matter of surrendering to them. He glanced up at the television camera again, waiting for Buddy to pause, to give the cameraman enough time to react. Finally, Buddy took a breath and Archie slipped forward off the sofa onto his knees.
“Oh, my God,” Buddy said.
“Keep filming,” Archie heard Charlene bark.
Debbie was there in an instant, her hands cupping his face. “Archie?” she said. She laid him on the carpet. “Archie?” she said again. She leaned over him, her face just above his, pinched.