Sweetheart Read online

  That was the cutoff for statutory rape. Sixteen and over, you could consent; under sixteen, you couldn’t. It was one of those laws that depended a lot on context.

  “Fourteen,” Archie said. The context on this one wasn’t very forgiving. “Castle was fifty-two at the time. Susan told me the Herald’s got a tell-all,” he added. “An exclusive interview with the woman.”

  “No crime in it,” Henry said. His eyes were still focused behind them as he slowly directed the car in a perfectly executed Y-turn. Henry had driver’s licenses from seventeen states. He’d moved every year before he became a cop. Just to see more, he’d told Archie once when they were drunk. Archie had never lived anywhere but Oregon. But then, he had only one ex-wife. Henry had five.

  “The statute of limitations back then was three years,” Henry continued. “You could stretch it to six if your vic was especially adorable.” A bored-looking uniformed cop lifted a piece of crime tape to let them drive out of the cordoned area on the bridge. “Now you get six years after the kid tells someone or turns eighteen. Whichever comes first.”

  There was a steel travel cup of coffee on the dash, and it started to slide forward as Henry sped up. Archie reached for it and took a sip of the lukewarm coffee. Castle had a law degree. He’d probably popped a bottle of champagne the day he hit the three-year mark. “Lady Justice appears to not be Castle’s primary fear,” Archie said. The AC started rattling again and Archie hit the dash with the heel of his hand again. The rattling stopped.

  “Yeah,” Henry said with a wry chuckle. “Back when I worked in D.C., they used to call it the ‘Three Dees’: disgraced, disbarred, and divorced. Bad press. That’s what really scares these motherfuckers.”

  “By ‘motherfuckers’ you mean politicians?” Archie asked, taking another sip of the lukewarm coffee.

  “Yep,” Henry said.

  “And what were you doing in D.C.?” Archie asked.

  “I was working for a motherfucker,” Henry said. “Shaved my muttonchops and everything. Then I saw the invoices the public housing contractors were turning in. Ten thousand bucks per urinal.” He shook his head slowly at the thought of it. “That was after I stopped teaching inner-city high school kids and before I became a bush pilot.”

  “When was the motorcycle trip across South America?” Archie asked.

  “After I left Alaska,” Henry said. “Char and I had just broken up. You know, I spent a month with a native tribe when my bike broke down in the mountains. They had this leaf there—if you chewed it, you saw an image of your future.”

  “What did you see?” Archie asked.

  “A white horse, a kid holding a bird, and a big-titted woman with a sword.”

  Archie blinked silently at Henry for a moment. “So obviously you thought, ‘I’ll become a cop.’”

  Henry smiled broadly, his mustache turning up at the corners. “It seemed like a clear omen.”

  Archie just shook his head. Closing the Fremont Bridge had fucked rush hour. I-5 north, 405, even the surface streets had come to a halt. Once they got through the roadblock at the end of the bridge, Henry put the siren on so they could ride the shoulder of the freeway. Technically, they weren’t supposed to use the sirens in nonemergency situations. Henry considered traffic jams an emergency.

  “So you think Castle decided to take the plunge?” Henry said. “Grabbed the wheel. Murder-suicide?”

  “Maybe,” Archie said.

  “You gonna tell the Feds?” Henry asked.

  Archie considered it. “We’ll wait and see what the crime scene techs come up with,” he said. “If it wasn’t intentional, no point stepping on Susan’s story.”

  Henry grinned, and slipped on his aviator sunglasses.

  “What?” Archie asked.

  “You’re nice to her because she likes you,” he said.

  “I’m nice to her because I’m nice,” Archie said. “And she likes me because I’m old—”

  “A geriatric forty,” objected Henry, who was ten years older than that.

  “Old,” repeated Archie. He added: “Powerful.”

  “Bossy,” countered Henry.

  Archie tried, “Commanding?”

  Henry nodded in compromise. They were through downtown now, on the Marquim Bridge, headed back to the eastside. Traffic was better. The sun was out. And Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens loomed on the horizon. Archie always thought they looked strange in the summer, their massive rocky structures oddly naked.

  “Not to mention,” Archie said, “fucked up and unavailable.” He rolled down the window and dumped the rest of the coffee out the window.

  “Well,” said Henry. “How could she resist?”

  CHAPTER

  7

  Archie stood inside his front door. He’d spent the rest of his Sunday morning at the office filling out reports. Castle wasn’t his case, but he’d been on the scene, and that meant paperwork. Henry had finally insisted on driving him home.

  He could hear Buddy Holly blasting through the house. The air was heavy with the smell of a freshly baked cake, and he heard his son giggling in the kitchen. A lifetime ago, that sound would have made him smile; now it only made him stop, his hand wrapped tight around the pillbox in his pocket.

  Two and a half years ago he had stood outside of Gretchen Lowell’s house. He often thought about that night, reimagining the sequence of events, telling himself to turn around, to walk away, to get back in his car and drive straight home to his family. If he hadn’t gone inside that night, everything would be different.

  But he had gone inside. And Gretchen had been waiting.

  He stood just inside the door for another minute and then finally called: “I’m home.”

  Debbie’s voice called back: “We’re in the kitchen.”

  Archie took his briefcase into his office, still stalling. He didn’t like to leave it out where the kids might get into it. No one should have to look at photographs like the ones he had to look at. His office was one of the extra bedrooms on the far end of the hall. A square, carpeted room with a desk, a fake Eames chair, and a sofa that folded out for the overflow visitors who never seemed to come. On the surface, the office looked innocuous enough. Shelves of forensic pathology books and crime references, a few commendations framed on the wall, a computer, three file cabinets teeming with reports and notes. There was a large closet with an accordion-style birch door. Inside on the back wall was a collage of photographs of every Beauty Killer victim that Archie had closed. Sometimes he would open the door, turn on the closet light, and just sit and look at them. Forty-two faces. Men. Women. Children. He knew every detail of each photograph. They were burned into his consciousness.

  He sat down at his desk and unclipped his holster from his waistband, pulled his weapon out, and emptied the bullets into his hand. They were never as heavy as he thought they should be. He unlocked his desk drawer with a key from his key ring, and set the bullets in a cubby. Then he unlocked another drawer, laid the gun and holster in it, and locked it. This was their agreement when Ben was born. No loaded guns in the house. Even Henry had to lock his gun up when he came for dinner.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small face in the doorway. When he looked, it was gone.

  “Sara?” he said.

  She poked her head around again. “They’re making me a cake for my birthday. I’m not supposed to look.” She grinned and clapped her hands together. “For tomorrow,” she said. She spun around in a little circle, danced in place for a moment, and then ran over to Archie, her dark braids swinging. Sara ran everywhere. She set a chubby hand on Archie’s. “Did you have fun today?” she asked.

  Archie hesitated, trying not to let his face betray his mental state. “I was at work. Work isn’t always fun.”

  She gazed up at him, eyes bright, cheeks glowing. “When I’m seven, will I get to meet her?”

  “Who?” Archie asked.

  “Gretchen Lowell.”

  It took the breath out of him. Like
a fist to the chest. His hand went up to the scar reflexively, like you might cover an old injury in the path of a blow. He could barely speak. “Where did you hear that name, sweetie?” he asked finally.

  Sara, sensing his uneasiness, took a tiny step back. “Jacob Firebaugh gave Ben a book about you.”

  Archie’s heart pounded in his chest. “What book?” He knew what book. The Last Victim. It was a trashy tale of Gretchen’s escapades and Archie’s suffering at her hands. He knew that they’d see it eventually. But he thought he had time.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Did it have a picture of a woman on the cover?” he asked.

  She smiled up at him, two rows of tiny teeth. “I want to meet her. I like her.”

  It was the saddest thing Archie thought he’d ever heard anyone say in his whole life. “Don’t say that,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “You like her, too, don’t you, Daddy?” Sara said. “You used to go and see her all the time. Ben heard Mom and Henry talking.”

  Archie ran a hand over his face and worked to keep breathing. “Do you know where Ben keeps the book?”

  She looked back toward the hall and then whispered: “He hides it.”

  He sat still for a moment, gathering himself. Then he wrapped a hand behind her head and kissed her on the forehead. “Okay,” he said. He held out his hand and she took it, wrapping her fingers around his index finger. “Let’s go.”

  He led her out into the hall, toward the kitchen.

  She stopped, her face concerned. “I can’t go in there, Daddy. My surprise.”

  Archie glanced up at the kitchen. The music. The cake. “Of course,” he said. “Go to your room, okay?”

  She nodded and turned and ran to her room, turning once to peek back at him from behind her bedroom door.

  Archie walked into the kitchen. They were frosting the cake. Ben on his knees on a stool at the island. Debbie standing. She wore a white chefs apron over her black T-shirt and jeans, but had managed to get frosting everywhere, even her hair. She looked up at Archie when he came into the room, and grinned. “You’re just in time for the marzipan flowers,” she said.

  Archie walked over to the white stereo that fit under the cabinet by the fridge and turned it off.

  “He has a copy of the book,” he said flatly.

  The cake was on a lazy Susan cake tray and Debbie rotated it, holding the frosting knife steady across the top. “What book?”

  Archie took a step forward, his hands in his pockets. “The book. Jacob Firebaugh gave him a copy.” Archie didn’t even know who Jacob Firebaugh was.

  Ben stuck his finger along the edge of the glass frosting bowl. “He says you’re famous.”

  “I don’t want you reading that shit,” Archie snapped at him.

  Debbie lifted the knife from the cake. “Archie,” she warned in a low voice.

  Archie pulled his hands out of his pockets and ran them through his hair. “It’s full of violence. Crime scene photos.” The thought of his eight-year-old son reading what she’d done to him made his stomach burn. “Graphic descriptions of torture.”

  “A glimpse into your world,” Debbie said.

  He walked up to her. She smelled like buttercream. “It’s completely inappropriate,” he said. He felt shaky; his body ached for the pills. “He showed it to Sara.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “She’s such a tattler.”

  “Go get it,” Archie ordered him, pointing toward Ben’s room. “Right now.”

  Ben looked at Debbie. It had been like that since Archie had come home. His son always looked to his mother before he did anything. She nodded and he hopped off the stool and disappeared down the hall, still licking his fingers.

  Debbie laid the knife back on the cake and spun the lazy Susan. “If you don’t talk about it,” she said carefully, “they’re going to try to find answers other places.”

  “Not in that book,” Archie said.

  Debbie’s mouth tightened. “They know you were lost. That you were hurt. They were just babies, then.” He could hear her throat constrict, fighting the tears. “But they’re going to have to hear the whole story.”

  Not the whole story. “Why?” he asked.

  “What about your scars?” She set the frosting knife across the bowl and turned to face him. “How exactly do we explain that to them? All those trips to the prison. They remember that. They know you went to see her.”

  “It was my job,” Archie stressed.

  Debbie reached up with a sticky hand and touched his face. “Don’t bullshit me, Archie. I’ve known you too long.” She looked him in the eye. “You went there because you needed to, because you liked it.”

  Archie took a step back and turned away. “I’m exhausted. I don’t want to do this now,” he said, opening a cabinet to get a glass.

  “I just want you to be honest with us. With me.”

  He turned on the faucet and filled the glass with water. “Please, don’t,” he said.

  “I want you to be honest with yourself.”

  Archie slowly lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip and then poured the rest down the drain. Then he set the glass in the sink. Self-awareness wasn’t his problem. He knew exactly how fucked up he was. He would have given anything for a little denial. “I am honest with myself,” he told Debbie. God, he was so tired of this. He resented her for it. For making everything so hard. For making him feel so guilty.

  She wanted the truth? Fine. Fuck it. “I went there,” he said slowly, enunciating each word as if it were a grammar lesson. “Because. I. Liked. It.” In the sink, a cake pan sat soaking next to the glass, the grit of the cake floating in soapy water. “It was the only time of the week I actually felt like I was still alive.” He looked up at Debbie. “I would still go. If I thought that I could get away with it.”

  She stood hugging her arms, her freckles like dark stars. “You can’t see her. If you want to stay with us.”

  Archie smiled. “There it is,” he said.

  “What?” Debbie said.

  “The ultimatum,” Archie said. “You know how I like those.”

  He heard Ben’s voice say, “Here.” Both Debbie and Archie turned to see Ben standing at the entrance to the kitchen, the thick paperback in his hands, Gretchen’s lovely face smiling seductively on the cover.

  Archie turned and walked over to him and took the book from his hands. He bent over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” he said into his ear. “I’m sorry I yelled.” He smoothed his son’s hair and walked past him toward the hall.

  “Where are you going?” Debbie asked.

  Archie spun around. “It’s Sunday afternoon,” he said. “I thought I’d go to the park.”

  Debbie’s eyes were full of tears. “You shouldn’t drive.”

  Archie kept walking. “I shouldn’t do a lot of things.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  There were flowers on Parker’s desk. A pot of African violets, a bouquet of yellow tulips, and a bouquet of some fleshy pink flower that Parker would have hated. One of the HR ladies from the third floor had brought that one up.

  Neither of the bouquets was in water. They would just sit there and wilt and die and rot. What good that was supposed to do anyone, Susan couldn’t figure. Someone dies, so you kill something beautiful?

  The Herald building was downtown. It had been built a hundred years ago and then fallen victim to an unfortunate renovation in the 1970s. The floors were gutted, cubed, and affixed with fluorescent lights and drop ceilings. Susan’s desk was on the fifth floor. The view was impressive, which was about the only nice thing you could say about the place. It was too quiet for Susan’s taste, too corporate, and, no matter what the temperature outside, too cold.

  Sundays at the Herald were usually Siberia. Anyone important was at home. The Sunday paper was printed. Monday was light. Things were run by one senior editor who drew the short straw and usually spent the day at his desk pla
ying solitaire or surfing the Internet for gossip sites and blogs. There was a lot of sitting around. No one knows more Internet gossip than newspaper people, whether they admit it or not.

  This particular Sunday was an all-in day. A sitting senator was dead. Parker, one of their own, was dead. They had an evening edition to get out, and a Web site that required a breaking story every few minutes to compete with the TV news. Most of the news department had come in, copy editors, features. But there were also the übereditors, the assistant editors, interns, HR people, receptionists, and the TV critic who planned to write a story about how TV was covering the story. Everyone wanted to get in on the action. The worse the tragedy, the more you wanted a piece of it. That’s what separated reporters from regular people.

  Susan pulled a hooded sweatshirt she kept in her desk drawer on over her black dress and rested her head in her hands. Molly Palmer had flaked out and wasn’t returning Susan’s calls. She dialed her cell again. Nothing. They were planning coverage of the senator for the next day’s paper. It would be a huge pickup day. Castle’s photo on the front page. A huge, bold headline announcing his death. That was the kind of newspaper that people still bought and Susan wanted her story to be featured.

  Susan leaned back in her desk chair to see if Ian was out of his meeting yet. The door to the conference room was still closed. Ian had been in there for an hour with Howard Jenkins and an assembly of Herald bigwigs planning the Castle coverage and deciding the fate of her story. She had thought she’d earned some capital with her series on Archie Sheridan and the After School Strangler. But in the end, it was all newspaper politics. And without Molly to confirm her story to the paper’s fact checkers, the Herald was waffling.

  Susan punched in Molly’s number again. Nothing.

  Fuck. Molly was not exactly a willing subject. She’d only agreed to meet in person twice. And getting ahold of her was always a pain in the ass. Molly would turn off her phone and forget to turn it on for days.

  Susan had already made a three-foot-long paper-clip chain and worked six tiny braids into her blue hair. Now she unhooked the paper clips and put them back in their cardboard box and pulled the braids out and then rebraided them.