Heartsick

by Chelsea Cain

  Susan noticed the police cruisers parked out in front of the large institutional-looking brick school. She easily found a spot to park her car on a side street and walked the block back toward the campus, notebook in hand. There was some local news activity. Charlene Wood, of Channel 8, was standing on the corner, interviewing a huddle of teenage girls in tight jeans and puffy coats. About half a block behind her, a man in a bright orange windbreaker was yammering into another microphone. Several teenagers, presumably fresh from extracurricular activities, loitered on the steps of the school, a nervous energy permeating their practiced insouciance. A uniformed police officer and two crossing guards waited with them for parents or friends or buses or some other vessel of safety. On the other side of the river, the sky over the West Hills was ablaze with deep pinks and oranges, but on the east side it just looked gray.

  Susan traced a line of vehicles up ahead to a police checkpoint, which was set up at the first intersection past the school. She could see a uniformed officer talking to the driver of the car at the front of the line. Then the officer waved the car through and the next car rolled forward. A large placard was set on a metal easel near the checkpoint. On it, Susan could just make out a photograph of Kristy Mathers and the words HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?

  “Thanks for the question.”

  Susan spun around. Archie Sheridan was standing a few steps behind her. He had his badge clipped to the breast pocket of his corduroy blazer and was carrying a red spiral-bound notebook and a paper cup of coffee. He was walking toward the checkpoint.

  “I thought you were very convincing,” she said. “With the speech. You’re very intimidating.”

  Archie stopped and took a sip of the coffee. “A little posturing can’t hurt.”

  “Do you think he’ll see it?”

  He shrugged a little. “Probably. It’s a funny tic about serial killers. They generally enjoy the attention of your profession.” A trio of tall teenage boys walked by, and Archie and Susan stepped aside to let them pass. The boys reeked of marijuana.

  Susan watched Archie for a reaction. Nothing. “I don’t remember the pot I had in high school being that good,” she said.

  “It probably wasn’t.”

  “You going to arrest them?”

  “For smelling like a class C controlled substance? No.”

  Susan surveyed him playfully. “What’s your favorite movie?”

  He didn’t have to think about it. “Band of Outsiders. Godard.”

  “Shut up! It’s French. Your favorite movie is French?”

  “Is that too haughty?”

  “A little, yeah,” Susan said.

  “I’ll come up with something better for tomorrow.”

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  If it was supposed to trick him into reacting, Susan had to admit it didn’t work. But there was a chink. Archie glanced at his shoes so quickly that she would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking so hard at his eyes. He recovered and gave her a wan smile. “We have every hope that she is still alive,” he said without much conviction.

  Susan tilted her head toward the commotion at the intersection. “What’s with the roadblock?”

  “It’s 6:15 P.M. Kristy’s friends say she left rehearsal at this time, yesterday. We’re stopping everyone who drives this route today between five and seven. If they’re driving past here today at this time, chances are they may have been driving past here at this time yesterday. And they may have seen something. By the way, I got a call from Buddy. Sorry I missed our formal introduction.”

  “Buddy? Are you and the mayor, uh, buddies?”

  “We worked together,” he said. “But you know that.”

  “Is that why you agreed to the series? I mean, I know why Buddy the mayor agreed. He wants to be vice president one day. But you must have had every writer in the country calling you wanting to write your story. Hero Cop Saved from the Jaws of Death.”

  Archie took another sip of coffee. “You working on the headline already? I like it.”

  “Why agree to a profile now, Detective?”

  “You’re going to help me do my job.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah. But we can talk about that at that nine o’clock meeting I have been instructed not to miss.” He held up his red notebook. “I’ve got to get back to work,” he said. He took a few steps. “Susan, right?”

  She nodded.

  “You can call me Archie except when it seems like Detective might be more appropriate. Are you a morning person?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” He turned and walked off toward the checkpoint, tossing the empty coffee cup in a public trash receptacle. “See you tomorrow,” he called over his shoulder.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was almost 7:00 P .M . and it was dark and Archie’s ribs hurt. It was all the standing around. Or the humidity. Or maybe just the mind-numbing boredom. Kristy Mathers had been gone for more than twenty-four hours. And after a day of interviews, searches, and dead ends, it had come to this: Their best avenue of investigation was to stand there waiting for something to happen. The overwhelming sense of impotence was hard to bear.

  Archie used his thumb and forefinger to open the pillbox, still in his pocket, and slip out a Vicodin. He knew them from the other pills by touch: the size, shape, the cut mark. He slipped it in his mouth. If anyone saw, it would look like a mint. Or an aspirin. Or pocket lint. He didn’t really care. The bitter taste of stale coffee hugged the back of his tongue. He was wishing he had another cup, when Chuck Whatley, a rookie patrol cop with a freckled face and a shock of unnaturally orange hair, waved Archie over with his flashlight. Dusk had settled, and there was a chill in the air despite the cloud cover. Archie walked quickly from where he was standing at the edge of the hubbub. He felt damp, even though it had only misted. That was how it was in the Northwest: It rained just enough to get you wet, and yet somehow never enough that you could be bothered to don something waterproof or carry an umbrella. Officer Whatley was standing next to a maroon Honda. It had rust around the tire wells and looked mottled where the wax finish had worn off. He stood like all patrol cops stand, with one thumb hooked on his belt, bent over talking to the passenger, periodically looking up excitedly as Archie approached.

  Under the streetlight, the maroon Honda looked sequined with rain. Officer Whatley’s eyes were bright. “She thinks she saw something, sir,” he said.

  Archie kept his voice level. “Ask her to pull over so these people can get by,” he told the officer. Whatley nodded and leaned toward the passenger, and the Honda pulled out of the line and next to a police cruiser. The driver’s door opened and a young African-American woman tentatively stepped out. A pair of hospital scrubs hung loosely over her skinny frame and her neat cornrows were held back in a low ponytail.

  “What’s this all about?” she asked Archie slowly.

  “A girl disappeared last night,” he said. “You didn’t hear about it?”

  The skin of the woman’s face seemed pulled too taut, the lines of her skull too evident beneath her flesh. She pulled at her fingers until they popped. “I’m a nurse’s assistant at Emanuel. I work nights. Sleep days. I don’t keep up on the news. Is it connected to those other girls?”

  Officer Whatley broke in, no longer able to contain himself. “She saw Kristy Mathers last night.”

  “Thank you, Officer,” Archie said with a stern glance. “You on your way to work now?” he asked the woman, opening his notebook.

  “Yeah,” she said, still eyeing them uneasily.

  “And you worked the same shift yesterday?”

  She shifted her feet. Her scuffed white clogs snapped against the wet pavement. “Yeah.”

  A few other uniformed officers had gathered around, curious and keyed up at the possibility of a witness. They stood on the balls of their feet, leaning in toward one another, waiting. Archie could feel the woman physically shrink at all the attention. He placed a hand lightly on her s
houlder blade and guided her a few steps away from the small huddle. He tilted his head next to hers, his voice gentle. “And you would have been by here about this same time? You weren’t running late or early?”

  “No. I never run late or early. I’m punctual.”

  “We won’t keep you long,” Archie reassured her. “And you think you saw Kristy Mathers?”

  “The girl in the photo? Yeah. I saw her. Up at Killingsworth and Albina. I waited for her to cross. She was walking her bike.”

  Archie did not allow himself to react. He didn’t want to startle the woman. To pressure her. He had talked to hundreds of witnesses. And he knew that if someone felt pressured, they would try too hard, and their imagination would fill what their memory couldn’t recover. His hand remained lightly on her back. He was steady, unflappable—the good cop. “She was walking it? Not riding it?”

  “No. That’s why I noticed her. My mother used to make me and my sisters do that—walk our bike across busy streets. It’s safer. Especially in this neighborhood. People drive like fools.”

  “So the bike wasn’t damaged. It didn’t have a flat tire or anything?”

  She pulled at her fingers again. “I don’t know. Not that I noticed. Someone took her? Someone took this girl?”

  Archie evaded the question. “Did you notice anything else? Anyone following her? Anyone suspicious on the street? Any vehicles?”

  She shook her head sadly and let her hands drop to her sides. “I was on my way to work.”

  Archie took down her contact information and her license number and let her go on her way.

  A moment later, Detectives Henry Sobol and Claire Masland walked up behind him. Claire was carrying two cups of coffee in white paper cups with black lids. Both Henry and Claire, Archie noticed, were wearing waterproof jackets.

  “What was that?” Henry asked.

  “Witness saw Kristy walking her bike about three blocks from here at”—he checked his watch—“about 6:55 P.M. Her friends say she left rehearsal at six-fifteen. Which begs the question, Where was she for that forty minutes?”

  “It doesn’t take that long to walk a bike three blocks,” Henry observed. “Even walking real slow.”

  Claire handed Archie one of the cups of coffee. “Back to the friends,” she said.

  Archie glanced down at the cup in his hand. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The coffee you asked me to get you.”

  Archie looked noncommittally at the cup. He didn’t want coffee anymore. He was actually feeling pretty good.

  “No,” Claire said. “I had to go eleven blocks for that coffee. And you’re drinking it.”

  “I’m pretty sure I asked for a nonfat latte,” said Archie.

  “Fuck you,” said Claire.

  CHAPTER 11

  The friends were Maria Viello and Jennifer Washington. Maria, Jen, and Kristy had been inseparable since middle school, and high school had not yet soured their friendship. Maria’s house was just a few blocks from Jefferson, so the detectives went there first. She lived in a rented 1920s wooden bungalow surrounded by a chain-link fence. The house needed painting, but the yard was neatly kept and the sidewalk out front was clean of the usual debris of litter that clotted much of the neighborhood. Her father, Armando Viello, answered the door. He was shorter than Archie, with a square torso and hands rough from manual labor. His face was deeply ravaged by acne scars. He spoke English fluently, though with a heavy accent. His wife, to Archie’s knowledge, did not speak English at all. They were probably illegals, a fact that escaped none of the cops who had called on the house in the last twenty-four hours, but did not make it into any of their reports.

  Armando Viello stared gravely at Archie and the others through the battered aluminum screen door. The porch light flickered and then went out.

  “You were here this morning,” Viello said.

  “We have some new questions,” Archie explained.

  Armando opened the door and the detectives walked in. It was a brave thing, Archie thought, to know you could be deported but let cop after cop inside your house anyway, on the off chance it might help find someone else’s missing kid.

  “Maria is in her bedroom,” Armando said, heading down a short hallway in his stocking feet. Dinner was cooking in the kitchen, something spicy. “You want to talk to Jennifer, too?”

  “Jennifer’s here?” Claire asked.

  “They’re studying. They did not go to school today.” Armando rapped on Maria’s bedroom door and said something in Spanish. In a minute the door opened. Her elbow-length straight black hair was pulled into a ponytail and she was wearing the same purple velour sweatpants and yellow T-shirt that she had on when Archie had interviewed her that morning after his less than inspirational staff meeting.

  “Have you found her?” she asked immediately.

  “Not yet,” Archie said kindly. Kids were often overlooked in police investigations. The thinking was that they made bad witnesses, but Archie had found that they noticed things that adults didn’t. As long as they were interviewed appropriately, assured that they didn’t have to know the answers, so they wouldn’t make up what they thought the interviewer wanted to hear, kids as young as six could offer valuable observations. But Maria was fifteen. Teenage girls were unpredictable. Archie had never communicated well with them. He had spent most of his teen years attempting to start conversations with girls and flubbing miserably. He hadn’t really gotten much better. “Can we talk to you some more?” he asked Maria.

  She looked at him and her eyes filled with tears. Well, you’ve still got the magic touch, thought Archie.

  Then Maria sniffled and nodded. Archie looked at Claire and Henry and then the three followed Maria into her bedroom.

  It was a square yellow room with a single-paned window that looked out into the window of the bungalow next door. A paisley twin-size sheet was tacked up in place of a curtain.

  Jen Washington sat on the bed, under the window, holding an old and well-loved stuffed alligator on her lap, a relic of childhood. Her hair was styled in a short Afro and she wore an Indian-style shirt and jeans with beaded fringed cuffs. She was a beautiful girl, but the lack of any spark dampened her prettiness.

  They had all been in the high school auditorium together. Jen was painting scenery for the play. Maria was in charge of props. They had all auditioned. Kristy was the only one who had been cast. So she was the one who had left early. The one who was, by now, most probably dead. But Archie didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want them to see it on his face.

  Maria walked over to the bed and flung herself down on the Mexican blanket beside Jen, who laid a skinny arm protectively across Maria’s calf. Archie walked over to the wooden desk next to the bed, flipped the desk chair around, and sat in it. Henry leaned back against the door, arms folded over his chest. Claire perched on the Mexican blanket on the corner of the bed.

  Archie opened his red notebook. “Did Kristy have a boyfriend?” he asked softly.

  “You already asked us that,” Jen said, twisting the alligator. She glared at Archie with contempt. Archie didn’t blame her. Fifteen was too young to find out how fucked up the world was.

  “Tell me again.”

  Jen glowered. The alligator looked bored. Maria adjusted herself into a cross-legged position, pulling her long ponytail over her shoulder and absentmindedly wrapping it around her fingers. “No,” she said finally. “There was no one.” Unlike her father, she had no trace of a Mexican accent.

  Claire smiled conspiratorially at the girls. “No one? Not even someone maybe that her parents might disapprove of? Someone secret.”

  Jen rolled her eyes. “No one means no one.”

  “And you’re sure that Kristy left rehearsal at six-fifteen?” Archie asked.

  Maria stopped fidgeting with her hair and looked at Archie, certainty flashing in her dark eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Why?”

  “Someone saw Kristy a few blocks away almost forty minutes
later,” Archie explained. “Any idea what she might have been doing?”

  Jen lifted her arm from Maria’s calf, sat up, and shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “But you didn’t see her ride off, right?” asked Claire. “You just saw her leave the auditorium.”

  “Right,” Maria said. “They finished blocking all her scenes. Ms. Sanders let her go.”

  “And no one left with her?” Archie asked.

  Maria shook her head. “Like we said. All the actors got to go once their scenes were blocked. Kristy went first. Most of us had to stay until seven-thirty. But you talked to all them, right?”

  “No one saw her,” Archie said.

  “So what was she doing all that time?” asked Jen, staring hard at the yellow wall. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Does she smoke?” asked Claire.

  “No,” Maria said. “She hates it.”

  Jen examined the plastic eyes of the stuffed alligator, scratching at an invisible imperfection on the hard black plastic of its pupil. “Maybe she had trouble with her bike.” She shrugged, not looking up.

  Archie leaned forward. “Why do you say that, Jen?”

  Jen smoothed the matted green fur of the alligator. “She’d been having trouble with the chain coming off. It was a shitty bike. She had to drag it home a couple of times.” A single tear rolled down her brown cheek. She wiped it away with her sleeve and shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s probably a stupid answer.”