Except, according to Mary, Archer was so shaken by the accusations, he stopped going to classes, stopped going to work, stopped hanging out with friends. In March, he dropped out of school entirely. Five months later, a woman’s body was found in Medford with her tongue cut out.
Archer tried to sign up for the Marines, but they wouldn’t take him. Mary wasn’t sure why. Eventually, he started working as a janitor at a high school in Eugene, but according to Mary, he struggled to make ends meet. He kept getting fired and had to move apartments. Many times over the next two years, he called Mary asking for money. She gave him a little bit each time, but each time encouraged him to move back to Bend, where his mother lived. Mary couldn’t say with certainty, but she thought Archer may have lived a few months in Brownsville during the spring and summer of 1968. By 1969, he was back in Eugene. That August, Lydia Rhodes was found murdered, her tongue removed.
Archer’s mother was diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer in early 1970. There wasn’t much the doctors could do to treat it. She was dying. According to Mary, Archer moved to Bend shortly after that to help care for her.
Jimmy paces in front of the wall. Trixie hops onto the couch and lies down. She tracks his motion with her eyes.
August 1970, August 1971, August 1972 are blank spaces on the wall. If girls were killed during those years, Jimmy hasn’t found them yet. Then, in 1973, Archers’ mother died. Mary lost track of him after that.
“I have no idea where he is now,” she said, getting up to collect the coffee cups and carry them into the back of the café. “The last time we saw him was at my sister’s funeral in June of ‘73. He seemed to be doing okay. He had a job, another janitorial position, I think. And he was talking about signing up at the community college, finishing up his degree. He was sad, of course, we all were, but there was some relief, too. She’d been sick for so long, and he was the one who’d been taking care of her. After she died, that was his opportunity to really start over, I think. To really try and make something of himself. A few months later, I tried calling him, but the phone number, the only one I had for him, had been disconnected.”
“Did you try and find out where he went?” Jimmy asked.
Mary shook her head. “He’s an adult now. He’s responsible for himself. He can make his own choices.” She frowned at the sketch still lying on the table, a flicker of worry darkened her eyes, then she blinked, and her smile returned, though it was strained this time, thin and brittle. “I’ve got too much on my plate as it is to keep track of someone who doesn’t want to bother having a relationship with me. I can give you the last address I had for him if you think it will help.”
Jimmy left Crestwood with a last-known address in Bend and a more recent picture of Archer at his mother’s funeral. Mary had unburied the photograph from a stack of old paperwork in the office of her café. Jimmy left with a name and a sinking feeling that all of this could just be sending him straight to another dead-end.
But as Jimmy works over the new details he got from Mary, as he puts the pieces back together and the pattern on the wall emerges, the tightening in his gut becomes one of excitement, not dread. It’s the same anticipation he got when he read Lydia Rhodes’ autopsy report for the first time. His pulse quickens. He can’t sit still. He knows this is the man he’s looking for. He knows with a certainty that he doesn’t bother second-guessing. Archer French is the Ophelia Killer. Now all he has to do is track the bastard down and hand him over to the cops.
That night, Jimmy falls asleep stretched out on the floor, looking at the wall from upside-down. Trixie curls into a ball beside him, snoring lightly.
The following day, Jimmy wakes with a knot in his back that’s hard to work out and a single-minded determination to track down Archer French and make him answer for the things he’s done.
A crisp blue fog blanketed the valley overnight. It’s not like the fog in winter that smothers the sky for weeks, but a spring fog that will burn off by noon, exposing brilliant skies and a butter-yellow sun. Jimmy takes Trixie on a long walk, using the gray obscurity to his advantage. With the details of the world around him smudged, he finds it easier to focus on Archer French. By the time he gets home, he knows exactly what to do next.
He starts in the most obvious place—the phone book. There are no Archer French’s listed in the Salem area, but he spends all of Sunday calling the sixteen other Frenchs listed. None of them know the man he’s looking for.
His next step is to contact the administrators at the University of Oregon. But here, his search grinds to a halt. Everything’s closed for the holiday weekend. So he spends Monday pacing his living room and going back over his notes in case he’s missed something.
First thing Tuesday morning, he calls the university. After confirming Archer French was indeed an undergrad student between 1964 and 1967 but never finished his degree, Jimmy moves on to his contacts in Bend. One high school vice principal, one pastor, and one funeral home director later, and Jimmy confirms French lived with his mother in Bend until she died in 1972. After that, he becomes harder to track, but Jimmy manages to find a forwarding address to an apartment complex in Gresham.
He calls the manager, who says he’s never heard of Archer French, but he only just took over the place. All the records are a mess, and Jimmy thinks this will be where it ends until the manager says, wait, no, here’s something. Archer French. Yes, he lived here for a year and left a forwarding address to an apartment in Corvallis. One August girl. And then he moved on. From there, it gets easier. The closer Jimmy gets, the stronger the scent. In every place Archer French has lived, a girl has died, her body left in the woods, flowers clutched to her bosom, her tongue taken.
On Wednesday morning, with adrenaline and too many cups of coffee churning through his blood, Jimmy grabs his car keys and drives south to Corvallis. He doesn’t have an appointment, but the university soccer coach agrees to see him anyway. She’s a harsh-looking woman with a perpetual scowl. As she pulls the photograph of Archer French close to her face, her cheeks flush red.
“This is him.” She rattles the photograph in the air. “This is the creep I caught in the locker room. I’m sure of it.”
Jimmy takes the photograph to the security office, then the dean’s office. After being sent in circles, Jimmy finally talks with a woman in human resources who recognizes Archer French’s photograph.
“Yes,” she says, digging through the paperwork for contact information. “He worked for us as a janitor for a few months in 1975. We had to fire him.”
“What for?”
“We were getting complaints from some of the girls’ dormitories. He was…lingering. They weren’t comfortable with him cleaning their common areas. When I brought him in to discuss it, he became belligerent, called me some names I won’t repeat. I decided then it was easier to fire him. Yes, here it is. This is the address he gave us to send his last paycheck.”
She writes it down on a piece of paper and hands the paper to Jimmy.
He thanks her and takes the paper. The address is in Salem, but it’s at least six years old. Since then, Archer French could have moved several times, but this is the closest Jimmy’s been so far. He’ll go tomorrow, he decides, take Trixie for company, drive past the address, and see what he can find.
He tells no one his plans. Not Tadd. Not Brett. There’s nothing to tell. Not really. He’s got nothing but a six-year-old address and a gut feeling. Even if he had more to go on, Jimmy still isn’t sure he’d tell them anything yet. He doesn’t want anyone talking him out of what he decided to do long before he ever heard the name Archer French. Neither does he want to write this story with whatever watered-down version of the truth the police will send out in a press release after it’s all over.
For years, Jimmy’s been the only one hunting a monster. He’s not going to quit now, not when he’s so damn close.
Chapter 18
On Thursday morning, Jimmy parks on the street
in front of a gray and white ranch house at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac. The lawn is brown. Weeds grow from cracks in the asphalt. The house looks tired but not entirely dilapidated. A dark blue sedan sits in the driveway, but the curtains are drawn over the windows. No way to tell if anyone’s home except by going up and knocking on the door.
Jimmy gets out of the car. Trixie follows. She sticks close to his side as he walks up the short driveway and circles the sedan, snapping pictures of the license plate and a crust of mud under the front bumper. He peers through the car windows. There are some crumpled fast-food wrappers in the passenger footwell and a small pile of cigarette butts in the ashtray. Otherwise, the inside looks clean. It could be the car the girls described lurking outside their house at night, or it could belong to any number of other people who don’t stalk and murder young women.
“Ready, Trix?” Jimmy mutters under his breath as he bends to tie a rope around her neck. He keeps it loose and gives her a piece of hot dog as a treat. She bumps her nose against his hand, wanting more. He promises she can have the whole package as soon as this is over, then straightens and walks her up to the front door.
Before he can knock, the door swings open. A man wearing a white tank top and gray sweatpants glares out at them.
“What the hell are you doing creeping around my house?” His voice is gruff.
“Is this your dog?” Jimmy gestures to Trixie. “She was running loose, and I’m checking with all the neighbors to see if anyone recognizes her.”
The man opens the door wider to get a better look at Trixie, who stares up at him expectantly. Her tail whips the air.
The angles of the man’s face are sharper in person, but Jimmy is certain this is Archer French. The man in the sketch. The man who spent a summer in Crestwood. The monster, who for seventeen years, hid in plain sight.
“She doesn’t have a collar,” Jimmy says.
Archer crouches in front of Trixie and holds out his hand. Trixie sniffs his fingers, then flattens her ears and backs away. Archer shakes his head. “I’ve never seen her before. Good looking dog, though.”
He stands up again and moves to shut the door. Jimmy realizes the flaw in his plan. Though he’s come up with a way to get Archer to open the door, he now needs an excuse to get inside.
“Could I use your phone?” The words fall out in a rush. “I can’t really take care of her. My apartment doesn’t allow dogs. And I’m a little allergic. Could I use your phone to call animal control?”
Tension spreads across Archer’s shoulders. His ice-blue eyes narrow to thin slits. Jimmy almost walks it back, almost says, it’s all right, never mind. There’s still time for him and Trixie to tuck tail and go home, call the police and tell them to come and do their damn jobs. Except then, he wouldn’t get the story. He would be at Rausch’s whim when it came to details, and the details are everything.
You’d be famous, Slim Jim, Rausch had taunted him. Isn’t that why you do this? Why you go to so much trouble? You can’t say no to that front-page story.
Jimmy always believed his work to be more honest than that, more respectable. He tells the truth. He fits the pieces together until it makes sense. He exposes the dark underbelly of society in an effort to keep the rest of them safe. That’s what he thought he did. But now, standing here on Archer French’s front porch, lying about Trixie, pretending to be someone he’s not, he’s not so sure anymore. Maybe he’s exactly the kind of man Rausch described. A man willing to risk everything for the most important byline of his career.
He already knows what the headline will be: INSIDE THE MONSTER’S LAIR.
“It’ll only take a minute.” He smiles at Archer.
Archer’s tongue moves over the sharp point of his incisor, his lips curling into a sneer, but he steps back and opens the door wider, inviting Jimmy and Trixie inside. “Let me find you a phone book.”
Trixie doesn’t want to go in. She digs in stubbornly and pulls back on the rope, trying to wriggle free of it. For a second, Jimmy senses her fear through the tension of the rope. For a second, he hears Brett’s voice, an echo of warning, Don’t do anything stupid. He’ll be careful. In and out. A few minutes, that’s all it will take. He just wants a quick look around. He wants to find something concrete, something he can bring to Rausch. These are the lies he tells himself as he steps into Archer French’s house. A gentle tug, soothing words, promises of extra hot dogs, and Trixie follows him inside.
Archer French is a hoarder. The front part of the house is filled with stacked boxes like he recently moved in and hasn’t had a chance to unpack yet. The air is stale with the smell of cigarette smoke. There are newspapers and magazines stacked in neat piles along the walls, and clothes, empty yogurt tubs, and canning jars tucked in between everything else. Hanging on one wall are collectible teaspoons. There’s a lot of stuff in this house, but there are paths through the chaos and items grouped together by similarities. Purses with backpacks. Half-burned candles next to a bowl filled with matchboxes. The way Archer moves through the house, it’s clear he knows where everything is. If Jimmy were to ask him for a specific item, he’s sure Archer would be able to find it within seconds.
Jimmy stays in the living room while Archer disappears into the kitchen off to the left. A drawer opens. A loud thump as a heavy phone book drops onto a countertop.
“Have you been living in this neighborhood for a while?” Jimmy asks.
“A couple of years now.”
“You like it out here?” He moves slowly through the living room, lifting trinkets, setting them down again. Trixie sticks close to his side. She sniffs the legs of chairs, noses a pile of magazines.
“It’s quiet. And people mind their own business.” There’s tension in Archer’s words, a warning.
Jimmy stops in front of a coat rack. A heavy wool coat hangs from one hook. There’s mud on the sleeves, and one of the buttons is missing. Rausch asked him about a coat last year, had searched his closet looking for one similar to this, like something a Navy man might wear. Or someone who worked on a fishing boat. Jimmy runs his thumb over the torn threads where the button used to be, remembering how Rausch told him Cherish’s killer wasn’t as smart as Ted Bundy because he’d left something behind. In the last seconds of her death, she must have grabbed on to his coat and torn off the button. To the very end, she fought.
“Please don’t touch my things.”
Jimmy is so engrossed in his own thoughts, he doesn’t hear Archer approach until he’s standing right behind him. Trixie doesn’t warn him either. She’s found something interesting to sniff and paw at under the coat rack. She turns her head, trying to jam her whole face into the small gap between the feet of the coat rack and the floor.
“Sorry.” Jimmy drops the coat. “I’ve never seen a jacket like this before. Where did you get it?”
Archer doesn’t answer. He nudges Jimmy aside and tugs on the jacket sleeves, arranging the coat to whatever mysterious specifications he has. He brushes his hands over the lapels. After a few seconds, he turns to Jimmy and juts his sharp chin toward the kitchen. “Phone’s in there.”
Jimmy tugs on Trixie. Trixie tugs on a bit of fabric she found under the coat rack and out slips a pale yellow T-shirt. Jimmy reaches down to take it from Trixie’s mouth. She lets go without a fight. Jimmy has only a few seconds to examine it before Archer French grabs it. Their hands brush momentarily. Archer’s fingers are cold. Something predatory flashes in his eyes, a dark hunger that is quickly tamped down. Archer wads up the shirt in his hands, smiles, and in a sickly-sweet voice asks, “Do you want to call animal control, or should I?”
Jimmy says nothing about the brown stain he saw on the shirt right before Archer snatched it away, the splatter of dried blood ringing the torn collar.
He follows Archer into the kitchen, where the other man pulls open a slatted door beside the fridge and tosses the T-shirt into a laundry basket sitting on top of a washing machine. Archer closes
the door again and gestures to a black phone sitting on a nearby counter. A phone book lies beside it, open to the phone number for animal control.
“They’ll probably put her down,” Archer says. “That’s what they do to strays, you know. You’d probably save yourself a whole heap of trouble if you took her out to some field in the middle of the night and shot her yourself.”
Archer holds Jimmy’s gaze when he says it, as if he knows Jimmy’s full of bullshit, or at least strongly suspects he’s up to no good.
Jimmy glances down at Trixie, who’s sitting on his foot now, panting. She looks up at him, and in her muddy brown eyes, he sees all the ways this could go wrong. But he’s not ready to leave, not when he’s so close to snagging the biggest story of his life. Face-to-face with a serial murderer, this is his chance to learn what turns a man into a monster.
Jimmy flashes a smile at Archer and gives an embarrassed shrug. “Any chance I could use your restroom? I think I drank too much coffee this morning.”
Archer takes a second to answer, and in that space of time, Jimmy almost changes his mind. He’s being given a chance to walk out of here alive, and he’s not sure he’ll get another one after this.
Archer points his finger down a darkened hallway off the kitchen that seems to extend forever. There is no end that Jimmy can see. It’s a yawning black hole, alive with shadows.
“Second door on the right,” Archer says.
Once Jimmy’s eyes adjust to the dimness, he can see four doors, two on either side of the hallway, and all four are closed. Slivers of light scratch the floor, daylight slipping through the windows and creeping across the carpet. He moves toward the second door on the right. Trixie trails after him with her nose pressed to the floor, snuffling and sniffing. Jimmy ducks into the bathroom, which is crammed with buckets, toilet paper, and bottles of bleach lined up against the wall.
The Ophelia Killer Page 13
