by Chelsea Cain
Archie’s phone rang again.
It was the landline this time. Another bank relic—it was tan, with a cordless handset and a lot of buttons. No caller ID.
“Are you going to get that?” Henry asked.
Archie hesitated. But Archie couldn’t avoid taking calls, not at work, and not during a homicide investigation. He picked up the phone, hoping it would be Robbins with a positive ID of the second victim.
It wasn’t.
“This is Dr. Prescott again, down at the State Hospital,” a familiar voice said.
Archie stole a glance at Henry. Henry was staring at him, his forehead folded with concern. “Uh-huh,” Archie said into the phone.
“I know you said not to call again,” Prescott said.
Archie found a piece of paper on his desk and picked up a pen, like he might take down information. “Uh-huh,” Archie said again.
“She said it was urgent,” Prescott said. “Regarding the body in the park and on the rooftop. Ryan Motley. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Ryan Motley, again.
Archie glanced over at Henry, worried that he’d somehow heard the name through the phone, but Henry appeared to be engrossed in Pearl’s DHS report.
Susan had only said that one of Gretchen’s shrinks had set up her little tea party with Gretchen, but Archie knew exactly who it had been. “A friend of mine said she bumped into you this morning,” he said. If Henry hadn’t been sitting right there, Archie would have put it a lot more colorfully.
Prescott paused. “At her meeting with Ms. Lowell, yes.”
“You and I,” Archie said between his teeth into the phone, “are going to talk later.”
Archie replaced the handset on the receiver. His face felt hot.
“Who was that?” Henry mumbled, not looking up.
Archie couldn’t say, not without telling him everything. That’s how it started. First the omission—then the lie. But it was worth it, if it meant keeping Henry out of the fray. “Your ex-wife,” Archie said. “She wants to get back together.”
“Which one?” Henry said with an eye roll.
There were two quick knocks on Archie’s office door and then Detective Claire Masland breezed in. She was small, with dark pixie-cut hair, and a wardrobe that consisted mainly of jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts. Archie wondered sometimes if she tamped down her girlness to ensure that she was taken seriously as a detective. It wasn’t necessary. Everyone knew she was one of the task force’s toughest detectives. All those years hunting the Beauty Killer, and the only time he had seen her break down was when Henry was near death in the hospital.
Claire slapped a photograph on the desk and Archie and Henry both leaned forward to look at it. It looked like a corporate portrait. A pretty young woman in a fitted blazer smiled confidently at the camera. Her auburn hair was glossy under the photographer’s studio lights. Her skin had the creamy, irradiated quality of a Photo-shop makeover.
“This is Gabby Meester,” Claire said, taking the chair next to Henry’s. “She works at a PR firm in the Pearl District. They found her car in the lot she usually parks in. She never made it inside. Her car door was left open. I just had her dental records e-mailed to Robbins.”
Archie looked at the fresh-faced young woman, whose grisly charred remains were most likely in the morgue. “She was at work early,” he said.
“They were working on landing a big liquor company,” Claire said. “The firm specializes in food and booze promotion.”
Henry adjusted his reading glasses and picked up the photo. Archie was amazed at how much effort Henry and Claire put into remaining professional at work. It didn’t matter. They all knew the two of them were sleeping together. But they remained committed to the charade.
“We’re going to need a list of all her clients, past and present,” Henry said. “What does her husband do?”
“Nice ring, right?” Claire said.
“It’s a rock,” Henry said, handing the photo to Archie.
Archie studied the picture. Gabby Meester had her arms crossed, one hand folded over the opposite elbow. The diamond on her ring finger was the size of a marble and, judging by the pose, Gabby liked to show it off.
“Lawyer,” Claire said with a shrug.
It wasn’t adding up. Archie glanced at the notes on his desk. “You said Kelly made a mint a few years ago selling a software start-up?”
“Yeah,” Claire said. “He gave away most of the money. Everyone we’ve talked to thought he was a saint.”
“How much are we talking about?” Archie asked.
“Ten million,” Claire said. “Give or take twenty bucks.”
Henry grinned. “A PR flak and a philanthropist.”
“The security cameras in the parking lot are fake. But I’m trying to find any ATM footage or other cameras that cover the area between the lot and her office.”
“Kids?” Henry said.
Claire held up two fingers. Archie looked down at the photo again. They were all quiet. It was always harder when there were kids. It shouldn’t have been, but it was.
“Maybe it’s not her,” Claire said. “Might not be her.”
But they all knew better.
Two dead bodies. No leads.
“What about the flower?” Archie asked.
That brought a smile to Claire’s face. “I was hoping you’d ask,” she said.
CHAPTER
18
When they weren’t eating microwave burritos at Formica tables, the task force pushed the tables together and used the bank’s old break room as their conference room. Currently it smelled like someone had tried to microwave popcorn and had burned it.
Martin Ngyun and Mike Flannigan sat across the table. Claire stood next to a dry-erase board that was hung on the wall. Henry was next to Archie, his chair pushed back so he could put his feet on the table.
It was times like these, all of them sitting around the table, when Archie felt the weight of Jeff Heil’s death the most. He knew that Flannigan blamed him for his partner’s death. Archie had sent Heil into the arms of a serial killer, with no backup. Heil’s safety had been Archie’s responsibility, and he had failed. His guilt was only compounded by the fact that he was so grateful that Susan had survived, which in some way made him feel all the more culpable for Heil’s murder. If one of them had to die, he was glad it had been Heil. And Flannigan knew it.
Claire cleared her throat.
Archie looked up from his thoughts. They were all staring at him, waiting.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m listening.”
A photograph of a lily had been printed out from the Internet and stuck to the dry-erase board with a magnet. Six white petals, with a splash of wine color at the center of the trumpet-shaped bloom. The wine hue was so delicate and precise it looked like someone had dabbed pigment at the base of each petal and then hand-drawn fine lines outward, and then repeated the process so many times that the lines together formed a color that looked almost solid.
It looked like the lilies they had found at the crime scenes.
Claire uncapped a marker and turned her back on them, and wrote something on the dry-erase board.
When she stepped back there was a word next to the photo.
Centerfold.
Archie stiffened.
Henry glanced over at him, and then looked back at Claire. “Seriously?” Henry asked.
“That’s what it’s called,” Claire said.
“I guess Playmate was taken,” Flannigan said with a laugh.
Gretchen had been called a lot of things. Beauty Killer. Queen of Hearts. The Serial Killer Centerfold. But Archie was feeling guilty about lying to Henry and had Gretchen on the brain.
Claire continued. “It’s an Asiatic lily. As opposed to an Oriental hybrid.”
“Meaning?” Archie asked. The longer he studied the lily in the photograph, the more the wine color looked like blood.
“The Asiatics bloom about a month earlier t
han the Orientals,” Claire said. “It’s August. These things bloom in late spring or midsummer. This is a specialty bulb. You’re not going to find this for sale by the stem at New Seasons. We’re looking into local licensed nurseries and I’ve been in touch with the Oregon Flower Growers Association.”
The scars on Archie’s chest itched. He rubbed at his shirt with his hand.
Ngyun said, “I’m working my way through online suppliers to see if this particular bulb was shipped to anyone local.”
“Have we looked into getting warrants?” Archie asked.
Ngyun shrugged. “No one’s asked for one.”
“Should we release an image?” Claire asked the table. “Ask the public for help?”
So far they had kept the lily out of the press. It was important that they withheld a detail, something known only to the killer and the police. “Not yet,” Archie said.
Henry cringed and adjusted his leg. He hadn’t been to physical therapy in weeks, and Archie knew it.
“What?” Henry said.
“You okay?” Archie asked. The room was quiet.
Henry scratched his jaw and smiled. “Sure,” he said. He looked at Archie for a beat and then turned back to the group. “Lilies symbolize purity and chastity,” he said.
There was a beat of nervous silence, and then Ngyun said, “Look who’s been on Wikipedia.”
“It’s the language of flowers,” Henry said. “Different flowers symbolize different things.” He grinned. “You learn this stuff when you’ve been married five times.”
A flower named “Centerfold” symbolizing chastity.
“Interesting,” Archie said.
Archie noticed Flannigan looking at him strangely from across the table. “Are you okay?” Flannigan asked.
“Yeah,” Archie said. “Why?”
Flannigan hesitated.
“You’re bleeding,” Claire said.
Archie looked down at his chest. Spots of red stained his white shirt.
His scars were bleeding again.
“Jesus, Archie,” Henry said.
“It’s nothing,” Archie said quickly, covering the blood with his hand. “It’s the heat.” He pushed his chair out and stood up. “Keep working.”
CHAPTER
19
Archie pulled into a no-parking zone in front of his building and put his official police vehicle tag on the dash. His office was only a half dozen blocks from his apartment and he could have walked, if it hadn’t been a hundred degrees, if he hadn’t been expecting Susan, if he didn’t have bloodstains on his shirt.
He got out of his city-issued Taurus and climbed the old loading dock stairs up to the entry door to his building. The hallway was stuffy and dark and Archie pushed the elevator button six times, even though he knew it wouldn’t make the elevator go faster.
Beads of sweat ran down the inside of his shirt, mingling with the blood.
The doors to the old freight elevator opened and Archie stepped inside and pressed the button for his floor. It was a slow, creaky ride up. The elevator’s metal walls were coated with a lifetime of grime. Archie could taste the dirt in the air. But it was still preferable to the stairs.
The elevator came to a stop with its usual cervical-snapping jerk.
And when the doors opened Archie found himself face-to-face with his downstairs neighbor. She was wearing a tangerine-colored bikini. Nothing else. Even her feet were bare.
Archie shrank back into the elevator. “This isn’t my floor,” he said.
The bikini left little to the imagination. Her breasts pressed against the orange triangles, revealing the outlines of her nipples. Her stomach was tan and flat.
Archie swallowed hard and looked at the floor, trying to find something, anything, to distract him from her young, tan body.
“Hi,” she said.
Her toenails were painted light blue. She wore a small silver ring around the pinkie toe of her left foot.
She stepped into the elevator beside him. The doors creaked shut. She didn’t press a button.
“Want me to hit a floor for you?” Archie asked her feet.
“You already did,” she said. “I’m getting off on six.”
His floor.
The elevator groaned and started moving.
He glanced up at her. She was carrying a towel and a pink plastic spray bottle.
“Did a tanning salon open on my floor?” he asked.
“Roof access,” she said. Her eyes traveled down his shirt. Her brows jumped as she registered the blood. “That’s a pretty ferocious cat,” she said.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Archie allowed her to step out first, trying to avoid letting his attention drift to her almost bare backside.
The door that led to the roof was down the hall to the left, but she didn’t head off that way. She waited for him, and then turned and said, “Will you tie this for me?”
She was holding the triangles of her top to her chest and she turned around to show him that the orange straps that tied together at her midback had come loose. There was no avoiding looking now. Her back was the color of butterscotch, and the bottom part of the swimsuit hugged the firmness of her, a slight shadow marking the cleft of her rear. Above the cleft, over her tailbone, was a tattoo, about the size of a sugar cube. Drawn in simple black ink, an outline of a heart.
Archie felt heat surge in his groin. He looked away, around her, down the dim hallway, his apartment doorway just ten yards away.
“I better not,” he said.
She turned around to face him. “It’s just a swimsuit,” she said, smiling. Her eyes were blue. Her cheek dimpled on one side.
Archie cleared his throat. “It’s an extraordinary swimsuit,” he said.
Her smile broadened. “Thank you for noticing.”
Her hand was still holding the swimsuit top in place. She had a French manicure. Between the nail care and the expensive highlights, she was spending a lot of money on upkeep, for a college student.
“Where did you say you were going to graduate school?” Archie asked.
She looked at him for a moment, and then padded forward on her bare feet, until she was right in front of him. He could smell the coconut of her suntan oil and the sweetness of her perfume. Her breasts were inches from his chest. She looked up at him, lips parted slightly, and for a second Archie thought she might lift her mouth to his. They were so close he could feel the warmth of her breath feathering his chin. “You’re the detective,” she said.
Archie tried to think about baseball, but nothing baseball-related came to mind. She didn’t move, didn’t step back. The air temperature in the few inches of space between them felt like it had gone up ten degrees. Archie felt a trickle of sweat wind its way across his forehead, behind his ear, and down the back of his neck.
“I don’t have a cat,” he said. “I have some old scars that get irritated by the heat. I scratch at them, and they bleed. I came home to change my shirt.”
She tilted her head slightly. She had pierced ears but wasn’t wearing earrings. “You should put on a blue one,” she said. “You’d look nice in blue.” She stepped back, and then walked off in the direction of the roof access door, the orange strings of her bikini top trailing loose behind her.
Archie exhaled.
The tattoo was still very black, he noticed. It had been a recent acquisition.
CHAPTER
20
By the time Susan rolled up to the task force offices, she had spent an hour and a half on I-5 in heavy traffic, with no A/C, in the heat of the day. She was so sweaty she glistened, and her left arm was sunburned from having her elbow out the open window. She looked in the backseat for a hat to cover her sweaty, matted hair, and after some digging found a white Panama with a black band. This was why it paid not to clean out your car.
She still wasn’t ready to go inside.
Archie was in there, and he wouldn’t be happy with her. He would look all disappointed and fatherl
y. He was only twelve years older than she was, but had a way of making those twelve years seem like a century. She could already hear his voice, lecturing her. I’m not angry with you, just disappointed.
“Gathering your courage?” she heard Archie ask.
She jumped.
Archie was standing outside her window. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt and corduroy pants. The man did not know how to dress for the weather.
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked.
“I just got back from an errand,” he said. “You need to get your A/C fixed,” he added, squinting up at the blindingly blue sky. “It’s only going to get hotter.”
He didn’t seem that mad at her.
A couple of uniformed cops she didn’t recognize walked by and nodded at Archie. He tapped the roof of her car with his palm. “Let’s talk in my office,” he said. “Now.”
Susan’s heart sank. He just wanted to get her alone before he laid into her.
Fine, then. She deserved it.
She got out of the car. Her skin made a Velcro sound as it peeled off the vinyl seat.
Her T-shirt was sweat-sodden and her scalp itched under the hat, but she followed Archie into the bank, past the uniformed cop at the front desk, past the detectives’ desks. She was careful to keep her eyes forward, careful to avoid seeing the desk where Heil had sat. She wasn’t sure if it would be worse to see it empty or to see someone else sitting at it. Just a few years before, she had only seen one dead body—her father’s. And he had died of cancer. Working on the crime stories for the Herald, following Archie around, she had seen more. But Jeff Heil’s death haunted her the most. Maybe because they had been together, and she knew that it could have been her.
It had not been easy. She’d had nightmares for two months after the flood: dark waters, creatures she couldn’t see, Heil’s limp corpse sinking beneath the surface. Bliss had fed her ginger tea, played Deepak Chopra audiobooks day and night, and convinced Susan to float in a sensory deprivation tank for three hours a week. Now, even with the anxiety gone, Susan still avoided that stretch of Division Street. She still kept her eyes on the bridge when she crossed the river, careful not to let her eyes wander down to the water below.
