The Night Season
Page 26
Gretchen leaned close to her attorney. Her hair fell like a curtain between their faces and Archie couldn’t tell if she was telling him something or just tilting her head. After a moment, her attorney stood. “Actually,” he said, “if it pleases the court, Ms. Lowell would like to make a brief statement.”
Even with so few people in the courtroom, the murmur of surprise was audible.
“Go right ahead,” the judge said.
Gretchen pushed her chair back from the defendant’s table and rose to her feet. She moved languidly, relaxed but purposeful, as if she were excusing herself after just paying the tab for lunch at a restaurant.
She walked to the witness box and sat down. She was wearing prison-issue orange cotton pants, an orange cotton shirt over a T-shirt, and flip-flops. The male and female inmates all wore the same clothes. The T-shirts, along with the underwear, were dyed pink, after years of attrition from inmates filching underwear when they were released.
Gretchen looked right at Archie. The pink collar of the undershirt made her look girlish. Her skin glowed. Her perfect, pretty features still made his gut hurt.
“I just wanted to make it clear that I don’t regret anything,” she said. Her blue eyes left Archie and skirted around the court, finding everyone, making each person shift in his or her seat as her gaze settled and then lifted. “You can justify killing anyone, really,” she said. “You just need to give yourself permission. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for a reason.” She looked back at Archie and smiled that beauty queen smile. “I knew you’d come, darling,” she said.
He’d been subpoenaed.
Archie didn’t look away. He reached into his left pocket and rolled a pill between his fingers.
It was smaller than the antibiotics. A single Vicodin. He’d been saving it.
“You ready to do this?” the ADA whispered.
Archie met Gretchen’s stare. The sunlight through the window flattered her, the shirt was small and hugged the curve of her breasts. He showed her nothing. No emotion. No reaction.
Until her smile faded, and her perfect lips fell slightly open.
Then he grinned.
“Absolutely,” Archie said.
EPILOGUE
Heather Jadot was out of shape. Baby bulge. Dylan was six months old, but the pregnancy fat was still there, an extra inch of flesh around her thighs, hips, and belly. All the Spanx in the world couldn’t hide it. Most of the Eastbank Esplanade had reopened. It wasn’t raining. So she didn’t have any more excuses. Dylan was snug in the baby jogger and Vixen was on her leash tumbling alongside them.
She could see the bulldozers on the west side, still working to clear debris. Barges pushing along rafts of detritus had become a common sight in the Willamette. Waterfront Park had been completely destroyed. A capital campaign was already under way to fund a redevelopment effort. Heather had joined the Facebook page.
Her Reeboks hit the pavement as she headed north, alongside the freeway. The concrete pathway had been underwater, like everything else. When the water receded it had left a layer of silt on everything, which had to be pressure-washed with fire hoses. The riverbank, which had never been pretty, was now a mush of dead plants and mud. Garbage came to the surface and clotted the weeds faster than the volunteers could get to it.
Vixen hopped off the path into the grass and skittered down the bank a few feet.
Heather stopped the stroller and pulled on the leash, but Vixen wouldn’t budge.
She was into something. Snuffling around.
Heather could smell something rank. Vixen had already rolled in the remains of a drowned squirrel in the parking lot.
Heather tugged hard and Vixen’s face popped up above the foliage.
“Leave it,” Heather commanded.
Vixen hesitated.
Dylan whined.
“Leave it,” Heather said louder.
Vixen disappeared for a moment and then came bounding up to the path with something in her mouth. Heather drew back in disgust and Vixen dropped it on the pavement.
Heather looked down. It was only a piece of elastic. Like a portion of a man’s suspenders. That was a relief.
Heather nudged the elastic back into the weeds with the tip of her Reebok. She wasn’t going to touch it. Someone else would pick it up.
Everything ended up in the river anyway.
She adjusted her pink baseball cap over her ponytail, set her eyes on the next bridge, and started jogging.
She wanted to get away from that smell.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not exist without the Herculean efforts, persistence, and patience of my editor, Kelley Ragland. You were right about the kid, Kelley. Joy Harris is simply the best literary agent ever. Thank you, Joy. And thank you to Adam Reed and Sarah Twonbly at the Joy Harris Literary Agency. (I am always careful to include the full name of Joy’s agency, because when I was a struggling writer, someone told me that a good way to find an agent was to look in the acknowledgments of books I liked and see who was thanked.) My writing group still meets once a week. They are: Lidia Yuknavitch, Chuck Palahniuk, Monica Drake, Mary Wysong, Diana Jordan, Erin Leonard, Suzy Vitello, and Cheryl Strayed. The writing I’ve read in that room is some of the best I’ve ever read anywhere ever. You guys each inspire me. A big thanks to my film-rights wrangler, Nick Harris at Mosaic. Keep working on that fake British accent, Nick—I think people are really starting to buy it. I launched two new Web sites this past year: chelseacain.com and iheartgretchenlowell.com. It was hard. And it took a lot of people. Thank you to the fabulous Storm Large (always my Gretchen Lowell), Lia Miternique of Avive Design, the team at Dorey Design Group, project manager Karissa Cain, photographer extraordinaire Laura Domela, make-up artist Crystal Slonecker, writer Courtenay Hameister, and copy editor Rob Simpson. Ryan O’Neil and Jake Kelly wrote Gretchen Lowell murder ballads and performed them at readings with me. You can check out audio clips on iheartgretchenlowell.com.
Much love to my husband, Marc Mohan, and our daughter, Eliza Fantastic. And hello to my nephews Jacob Duwa and Luke Duwa, just because I think they’ll get a kick out of seeing their names in this book. (Though they’re not allowed to read it.)
For the big finish, I am thankful every day to have a publisher like St. Martin’s Press, which is populated by so very many smart, lovely people. Special thanks to Andrew Martin, George Witte, Sally Richardson, Matthew Shear, Matt Baldacci, Matt Martz, Hector DeJean, Nancy Trypuc and Tara Cibelli. Also, I’d like to apologize to Talia Sherer, Macmillan’s Library Marketing Manager. I know this book isn’t gory enough for you, Talia. I promise to make up for it next time.
ALSO BY CHELSEA CAIN
Evil at Heart
Sweetheart
Heartsick
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE NIGHT SEASON. Copyright © 2011 by Verite Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cain, Chelsea.
The night season / Chelsea Cain.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-61976-3 (alk. paper)
1. Sheridan, Archie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Ward, Susan (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Police—Oregon—Portland—Fiction. 4. Women journalists—Fiction. 5. Serial murderers—Fiction. 6. Portland (Or.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.A385N54 2011
813'.6—dc22
2010040692
First Edition: March 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-6515-6
First Minotaur Books eBook Edition: March 2011
eading books on Archive.