by Chelsea Cain
“They found four joints in your purse, Bliss.” The two times Bliss had flown through Miami since, she’d been subjected to a body-cavity search while Susan waited in the hall for four hours.
“That was for personal use,” Bliss said. “And it was Jamaican.” As if that made a difference.
“Don’t come,” Susan said. “I’m fine. They say I’m going to make a full recovery. But it may take a few days to get my purse released from the crime scene.” They’d been hassling her for her health insurance card. “When you get fired, do you still have health insurance for a while?”
Bliss paused. “I think so. Why?” Her mother sighed. “Oh, Susan. You didn’t.”
Susan didn’t want to get into it. “I should go,” she said quickly. “This is costing me six-ninety-five a minute. I love you. Go meditate or something. ”
“I love you, too, sweetie.”
Susan hung up the phone and handed the credit card back to Archie.
He took the card and tucked it back in his wallet.
“Tell me again about his parents,” she said.
Archie sat back in the rose plastic chair and folded his hands over his chest. He looked better than he had in days—like he’d actually gotten some sleep. “They cried,” he said. “They came right to the park, before we even got him out of there. They held on to him. I’m not sure they’ll ever let him go.”
“What about Carey? Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Yes,” Archie said.
“I was right about McBee.”
“You and Gloria Larson.”
“Do you think she’ll ever be able to tell us the whole story?”
“Maybe. On a lucid day.” He stood up, one hand pressed against his chest, like it hurt. “There’s still a lot to do,” he said. “I’ll come by later.” He looked around the room, at the roses and lilies that sat on every surface. “Leo Reynolds?” he asked.
Susan glanced over at the small bouquet that Archie had brought, clearly purchased in the hospital gift store. Dyed-pink carnations and baby’s breath in a weird little plastic vase.
“I like yours more,” she said.
Archie did an awkward shuffle with his feet. Then he took a step toward the door, paused, coughed once, and turned back.
“Do you want me to go by and check on the goat?” he asked.
* * *
Archie had left Susan’s room and was headed down the hall to make his way up to the ICU when who should appear but Leo Reynolds himself. He was wearing a dark suit, perfectly pressed and clearly not off-the-rack. Archie had never had anything tailored to his specifications in his life. But he appreciated it when he saw it—the cut of the shoulders, the length of the arms. Archie had first met Leo when Leo was in college, and Archie was investigating his sister’s murder. He’d dressed like that even then.
Leo could afford it. His father had made a fortune importing massive amounts of heroin and coke.
Leo walked over to Archie, carrying a bouquet of plump pink roses. Archie wondered where the hell he was getting all these fancy flowers in the middle of a natural disaster.
“How did you know she was here?” Archie asked him.
“She called me,” Leo said.
Archie hadn’t considered that.
Leo looked around, and then took a small step closer to Archie. “You haven’t told her,” he said. “About me?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t want to ruin my bad-boy reputation,” he said. He rubbed his jaw with his hand, and Archie thought he detected a hint of disappointment. Leo wanted Archie to tell Susan he was DEA. He wanted her to know. Leo was one of the agency’s most valuable assets. An insider who’d wanted out of his family by the time he was in college, who’d come to Archie for help, and whom Archie had sent to the DEA, which had in turn talked Leo into staying. Archie always suspected that Leo hated him a little for that.
“Your bad-boy reputation is intact,” Archie said. Susan could never find out. They both knew that. There was too much at stake.
“I heard you saved her life.”
“We trade off,” Archie said.
“I’m serious about her.” Leo looked down at the bouquet in his hands. “I feel like I should ask your permission.”
Archie liked Leo. It complicated things. Deep cover came with a cost. Leo hated his father, but he didn’t seem to mind the drugs and women and expensive suits. “You have a dangerous life,” Archie said.
Leo met Archie’s gaze. “So do you.”
Archie could feel the weight of something pass between them. “I’m not sleeping with her,” Archie said.
Leo raised his eyebrow.
Archie felt flustered. “I have to get going,” he said.
“Me, too,” Leo said.
They headed in separate directions—Archie to the ICU, Leo toward Susan’s room, the roses tucked under his arm.
CHAPTER
65
One week later
Gloria Larson opened her apartment door wearing a dark blue fleece robe over a light blue flannel nightgown, white socks, and slippers that looked hand-knit.
“It’s good to see you again,” Archie said.
“Wipe your feet,” Gloria said.
It had stopped raining three days before. The floodwater downtown had receded, leaving billions in damage. Archie’s Cutlass had been found four blocks from where he had left it. Patrick Lifton was back in Aberdeen, sleeping in his own bed, playing with his dog, and embarking on what would probably be a lifetime of therapy.
Archie’s and Susan’s shoes were dry. But they wiped them anyway.
“Sit down,” she said. And they took a seat on the couch.
The TV was off. Archie was grateful. He’d had enough local news. Enough aerial shots of floating cars. Enough of reporters wading through water to show how deep it was. Enough hypothesizing about Elroy Carey’s motives.
Gloria set a cup of tea in front of him. “Chamomile,” she said. “Your favorite. Let it steep,” she said. Then she went back for a cup for Susan and set it down in front of her. “Peppermint,” she said.
“McBee’s first name,” Susan said. “Was it Elroy?”
“Elroy McBee,” Gloria said slowly, as if she were trying it out. She brought her gaze back to Susan and patted her on the knee. “You know about the Vanport flood?”
“We know some,” Susan said with a glance at Archie. “But why don’t you fill us in?”
“I was a lot younger then. Twenty-six.” Gloria smiled slyly. “And I was an independent woman, like a lot of us during the war. I worked at the stockyards as a secretary to the president, a man named Williams. It was a big operation back then. Just south of Vanport.” She stopped and gave Archie a careful look. “You said you had an affair?” she asked.
Archie coughed.
She waited.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. He glanced at Susan. “When I was married, I cheated on my wife.”
Gloria patted him on the knee, seemingly satisfied.
Archie pulled the tea bag out of his teacup and laid it on the side of the saucer.
“I was involved with two men,” she continued. “One of them—Elroy McBee—was married.” She nodded to herself. “I was the other woman.” She looked at Archie. “Like your other woman, I suppose.”
Not exactly, thought Archie.
“After a time I broke it off with McBee,” Gloria said. “The other gentleman and I were going to move to California together.” She blinked rapidly. “McBee was angry. And they fought. Ugly things were said. I wanted them to settle down, so I told McBee that I’d meet him the next morning to talk things out. Have you heard of the Vanport Theater?”
Archie shook his head no, and took a sip of tea.
“It sat seven hundred and fifty people, and showed three double features a week,” she said. “We were supposed to meet behind it.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper. “But when I got there, he was dead. I found him slumped against the
wall, head down, legs splayed out. Someone had shot and killed him.”
Archie looked up from his tea.
“I knew that my gentleman friend had to be responsible. He knew where and when McBee and I were meeting, and he knew that McBee would do everything in his power to stop us from going away together.”
“He was a fireman?” Archie asked.
“Yes,” she said, smoothing the robe on her lap. “The gun was on the ground. I thought my friend’s fingerprints would be on it, so I picked it up and I threw it in the storm drain. And I got in my car and I drove to work. I waited all day to hear news that the body had been found. I could barely think straight.”
Her eyes filled with amazement. “But the day passed, it was almost four o’clock and he hadn’t been discovered. Can you imagine? And then I remembered what day it was.”
“Memorial Day,” Archie said softly. “The theater was closed.”
“I didn’t have the day off,” Gloria said. “The stockyards depended a lot on train service, and the dike that protected Vanport also happened to be a railroad bed. We knew there was snowmelt. My boss, Mr. Williams, had men out in cars patrolling the tracks. At four o’clock one of the men came running back to Mr. Williams’s office. He said that the dike had a sixty-foot breach. We all ran to the window, and we could see the railroad bed from there, giving way, water gushing out.”
She reached for her tea.
Susan scooted forward. “You were his secretary,” she said. “You were in there on a holiday. He must not have been able to function without you.”
“That man couldn’t have signed his name by himself.”
Gloria had said that Williams had made two calls that day. But Williams was the president of the company. Used to giving orders.
“Your boss didn’t make the first call,” Archie said.
Gloria smiled to herself. “Of course he didn’t. A man like that, back then? He told me to do it. I had a desk outside his office and I went to it and I picked up the phone. He had told me to call the Housing Authority, which ran Vanport. But then I thought, what if I don’t?” Her hands were fists. “What if Vanport gets washed away, and McBee with it?”
Archie took another sip of tea.
Gloria was sitting perfectly still. “My gentleman friend, you see, he was a porter. And I knew that he was in Seattle by then, not due back until evening. He would be safe.” Her shoulders raised and fell. “I returned to Mr. Williams’s office and told him that I had made the call,” she said. “And we watched for five or six minutes as the dike gave way. Until the breach was a hundred and fifty feet wide. And still we didn’t hear the evacuation siren. And Mr. Williams, he was turning red in the face. He was a good man, you see, and he knew that those people were in danger. And he picked up the phone himself.” She raised her white eyebrows. “I had never seen him do that before. I had never seen him make a call himself. And he called the Housing Authority and he screamed at them. He told them, in very colorful language, that they needed to sound the alarm.”
“What happened to your friend?” Archie asked.
“I never saw him again. I was too afraid of what he’d done, and ashamed of what I’d done. Three children drowned that day. But it worked. McBee was never found. Until last week.”
“Your friend, he was black?” Susan asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s why you wanted to move to California?” Susan said.
“They had just made mixed marriage legal. There had been a big case. Lots of stories in the newspapers. And when it was settled, my friend asked me to marry him. We used to take the trolley to Oaks Park, and that’s where he asked me. On the carousel.”
Archie’s mouth felt dry. “What was his name?”
“I’m sure he’s dead now, Detective. It was a hundred years ago.”
“We still need his name,” Susan said.
“Hughes. August Albert Hughes.”
“I think there’s something you should know,” Archie said.
CHAPTER
66
The picnic table at Oaks Park was crooked, lifted by floodwater and resettled at a slight angle. The grassy area under the elms was a field of mud. Across the river, the west side looked scarred where the river had carved away at its bank. But the clouds had cleared. The sky was blue. And the wooden top of the picnic table felt warm in the sun.
Archie watched his son and daughter play nearby, laughing as the mud sucked at their sneakers.
Ben looked up and waved, and Archie waved back at him.
It had been weeks since Archie had seen them. It had been too easy to make excuses.
He had let Susan do the talking, watching his children as she rattled off Gloria Larson’s story to August Hughes. Hughes sat quietly next to her on the picnic table bench until she was done.
“I didn’t kill Elroy McBee,” August Hughes said finally when she was done. “I figured he drowned, like everybody else. I figured it broke Gloria’s heart. That she still loved him.”
Susan’s brow furrowed and she glanced at Archie. “That’s why you never tried to see Gloria again,” she said.
“I didn’t kill him,” Hughes said again. “So who did?”
They both waited for Archie to say something.
“She said she threw the gun down the sewer,” Archie said. “Some of the sewer system is still there. When they built the golf course they reused it for irrigation. I’ve got people looking for it.”
“And if you find it?”
“It will have your fingerprints on it,” Archie said. “Or it won’t.”
It was a bluff. The odds of them finding the gun were next to none, the odds of there being any prints after sixty years were even slimmer.
But Hughes didn’t back down. “Will you tell her I didn’t do it?” he asked.
Susan looked up, behind Archie, toward the parking lot. “Tell her yourself.”
Archie turned and saw Gloria Larson and her daughter stepping out of a car. Another car pulled up beside it and Debbie got out and waved at him. He stood up. His kids ran to their mother.
“I have to go,” Archie said to Susan. “I’ve got something across the river.”
“The hearing, right?” Susan said.
“Today’s the day.”
“Good luck,” she said. She glanced back and forth between August Hughes and Gloria Larson and grinned from ear to ear. “It’s like fate,” she said.
CHAPTER
67
Archie sat on the hard bench in the courthouse hall, his feet on the marble floor, his back against the plaster wall. He emptied his pocket of pills. There were four left. They had worked. His lungs were clear.
Henry had been released from the hospital in time to attend Heil’s funeral. Heil had been cremated, so there hadn’t been a casket. Archie felt relieved. He hadn’t wanted to see him again.
The bench was making Archie’s back hurt and he checked his watch. But it had stopped. He held it against one ear and shook it. It wasn’t ticking. The water damage had finally taken its toll.
The crowd outside filled the park across the street. News vans lined the street. Archie could hear the distant chanting of the crowd, but he couldn’t make out the words. The media had been banned from the courthouse, but there’d be no escaping them outside.
The courtroom doors opened and Archie looked up to see the assistant district attorney. She was wearing a skirt and suit jacket and heels. It was a big day. Archie’s phone rang. He glanced at the ID and held up a finger for her to wait.
It was Robbins.
“Hey,” Archie said, slipping the pills back in his right pocket. “Make it quick.”
“We found the gun,” Robbins said. “It was in an unused portion of the pipe, so it’s been dry for most of the time it’s been down there. There was a partial print. It’s kind of amazing. It wouldn’t have lasted all these years if it hadn’t have been so oily.”
“Was it Hughes?” Archie asked.
“McBee. He sho
t himself. I matched the print to the fire department records. Through the mouth, I’d guess. Bullet lodged in his brain. That’s why we didn’t see evidence of bullet damage to the skeleton. He died instantly. Hand spasmed. Gun landed a few feet away.”
Carey had killed five people in some sort of bent revenge because of a mistaken belief that McBee had drowned. And Gloria Larson had lived with the heavy guilt that she’d cost lives by delaying the alarm.
“Can’t prove it,” Archie said.
“Can’t prove anything,” Robbins said.
Archie paused. “You think Carey’s body will surface?”
“Sure,” Robbins said. “Give it a few months. Someone will fish him out.”
“Maybe in sixty years,” Archie said. He glanced up at the ADA.
You’re almost up, she mouthed.
“I’ve got to go,” Archie said, hanging up.
The ADA smiled. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t wear a tie,” Archie said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Follow me.”
He stood up and followed her to the courtroom entrance. A bailiff nodded at them and opened the doors to Gretchen Lowell’s sanity hearing.
The sun streamed through the tall windows and glimmered on the hardwood moldings and benches.
Archie stopped.
He could see Gretchen sitting at the defendant’s table, her back to him, her blond hair golden in the light. She slowly turned her head and looked at him. She still hadn’t spoken since her second arrest. Not a single word. Her face was unmarred by incarceration. Her skin glowed. She reached up with her manacled hands, brushed her hair behind her ear, and smiled at him.
“You can sit here,” the ADA whispered, ushering him to slide onto a back bench. “Just a few minutes.”
Archie took a seat, and the ADA slid in next to him.
It was a closed hearing, so attendance was limited to witnesses and court personnel.
The judge shuffled some paperwork on his desk. “Ms. Lowell. The court has been notified that you’ve decided not to testify on your own behalf, is that correct?”
