The house wasn’t hot. Archie could hear a window A/C unit churning somewhere. A print of a painting of Jesus Christ praying in a ray of godly light hung on the wall behind the recliner. A
tapestry of several corgis curled next to each other in the wilderness hung next to it.
Mrs. Beaton picked a wineglass up off a metal TV tray. “White wine,” she explained with a wink. “Doesn’t count.” She pulled a lever and the chair reclined with a
clank. She was so small and the chair was so big that she looked like a child. “If you want something, you’re going to have to get it. It takes me five minutes to get up out of this
chair.”
“I’m fine,” Archie said.
She set her dark gaze on him. “So, you find the son of a bitch?” she asked.
“No,” Archie said. “No. Nothing like that. I just had a few questions.”
Her jaw set and her eyes flicked above Archie’s head, but then an instant later her posture softened. She took a drink and shook her head. “Shoot,” she said. “I’m
just giving you shit.”
The corgi started to snore.
“Can you tell me about the day your husband disappeared?” Archie asked.
“That was almost twenty years ago, son,” she said. “I told the cops everything I knew back then. It’s all in the report. Nothing to add.” Her eyes landed above
Archie’s head again. Same spot.
He turned around and followed her gaze behind him, where a half dozen framed photographs hung on the wall above the couch. Studio baby pictures. High school graduation. The kind of photographs
with a gold photography studio imprint in the corner. A few black-and-white shots of grim ancestors. And a photograph of a woman with a blond bob standing next to a heavy man with a yellow necktie
in front of the house Archie was sitting in. Two skinny teenage girls in matching sleeveless dresses slumped between them. Two Welsh corgis sat at their feet.
“The son of a bitch took off. Left me with two kids and no income. Had to go back to work.”
“Tell me about that day,” Archie said.
She frowned and looked at her hands. The knuckles were swollen from arthritis. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. “Eighteen years ago. He left the office for lunch. Didn’t say
where he was going. Never came back. The son of a bitch never called or wrote, all these years.”
“Did he take anything?”
She snorted. “The car.”
Archie searched for a way to ask the obvious. “Did he pack a bag?”
“Nope.” She leaned toward him. “But he withdrew five thousand dollars from our savings account that morning.”
That hadn’t been in the report.
“Did it from our local branch,” she continued. “I went in when I saw the money was gone, talked to the clerk. She knew us both by sight. Said he’d come in and made the
withdrawal. By himself. Signed for it and everything. No question he cleaned us out, the bastard.”
“Did you tell the police?” Archie asked.
“Why would I? It was his money. He had a right to it.”
Archie picked some corgi hair off his pants. This wasn’t going anywhere. “Did you ever know anyone named Gretchen Lowell?”
She cackled and pointed a finger at him. “I knew it,” she said, jabbing the finger in the air in triumph. “I recognized you. From that old task force. Thought this might have
something to do with that. You being here.” She took a sip of the wine and then set it back noisily on the table. “No. I never knew her.”
“You’ve seen her picture?” Archie asked. Everyone had seen her picture, you couldn’t avoid it, but he had to be sure.
“Sure,” Mrs. Beaton said. “She was on the cover of
TV Guide
four times. I would have remembered someone who looked like that.”
Archie was quiet, thinking. The A/C unit hummed. The dog snored. Mrs. Beaton cracked her knuckles.
Archie said, “Did you have any reason to think your husband might be unfaithful?”
Another snort. “You mean before he cleaned out our bank account and took off?”
Archie nodded.
“He was very loyal to his family,” she said. “He didn’t have any reason to leave.” She fixed her eyes on Archie. “Is he dead?”
“I have no idea,” Archie said. He really didn’t. He didn’t know what Gretchen was playing at. Had she really killed this man? Or had she just read about him in some old
newspaper clipping and sent Archie off to chase his tail? She’d known that Susan would share the recording with him. She’d known that he’d investigate her claim. But as far as
Archie could tell, the case was stone cold.
“Are your children still in town?” Archie asked.
Mrs. Beaton lifted her shoulders in a sad sort of shrug. “Would you stick around if you’d grown up here?”
Archie had not set foot in the town he’d grown up in since the day he’d left for college. “I’ll let you get on with your day,” he said, standing up and brushing the
dog hair off his pants.
Mrs. Beaton’s eyes narrowed and her mouth formed a crooked smile. “Why are you here, really?” she asked.
“Just following up on a tip,” Archie said. “It’s probably nothing.”
She didn’t move. She sat dwarfed in the chair, the wineglass still in her hand. The walker was still positioned in front of the chair. Two pink tennis balls had been affixed to the
walker’s front feet.
“I’ll let myself out,” Archie said. He stepped over the dog. It growled and pawed at something in its sleep.
CHAPTER
A
rchie immediately recognized
the beat-up Saab taking up two spots in the parking lot of the Hamlet Inn. He pulled up
next to it. Susan was sitting on the hood eating a sandwich.
“Thought I might run into you here,” she said with her mouth full. “I talked to the manager.” She swallowed and licked her fingers. “The woman who ran the place
back when Beaton disappeared is dead. This guy is pretty useless. He was in diapers back then.” She held up half of the sandwich. “Want some?”
Archie took the sandwich and sat down next to Susan. The hood of her car was hot. Vehicles zoomed along Highway 30, the last gasp of rush hour. On the other side of the highway were train tracks
and a few dilapidated buildings.
“Nice view, right?” Susan said dryly. “How was the wife?”
Susan had a way of showing up at all the wrong places. “You following me?” Archie asked.
“I looked her up when I got to town, and I saw your car in front of her house,” she said with a shrug. “What’s with that color, by the way?”
Archie took a bite of the sandwich and chewed it. “Didn’t ask,” he said.
“Did you learn anything?” Susan asked.
She was barefoot, her flip-flops on the pavement, her dirty feet on the hood of the car, and she was wearing a T-shirt from Portland’s old 24 Hour Church of Elvis. The late-day sun made
her orange hair look like some sort of radioactive halo.
“What?” she said.
“Are we partners now?” Archie asked.
“I gave you the recording,” she said.
Archie didn’t want her harassing the elderly. “Leave the woman alone,” Archie said with a sigh. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“Think Gretchen did it?” Susan asked.
Archie peered at the sandwich in his hand. “What is this?”
“Tempeh, mustard, and sprouts on whole grain.”
Archie worked his tongue on a seed caught between his teeth.
“I don’t get it,” Susan said. “Why go through the trouble of cutting up the body? Why not just meet him somewhere in the middle of nowhere and then leave him there? If he
thought he was getting laid, she could have talked him into going anywhere. Why this place? It wasn’t for the romantic ambience, believe me.”
She had a point. Gretchen said it had taken five trips to get Beaton’s body out of there. Where? To his car? It had disappeared with him. She had brought supplies. She had planned the
murder. She would have planned the disposal of the body.
Archie heard the whistle before he saw the train. The tracks ran along all of Highway 30. They’d been there before the highway was, supporting the port towns that had grown up along the
Columbia. Trains carried supplies, hauled lumber. They were lifelines.
All that luggage, I needed a porter.
The train rumbled past, a blur of primary-colored freight cars.
“I think I know how she got rid of the body,” Archie said.
CHAPTER
S
usan listened as
Archie laid it all out for Henry and Claire. Susan’s interview with Gretchen. Her story about
killing James Beaton. His visit to St. Helens. The four of them were crammed into Archie’s office. Archie was in the chair at his desk, and Henry and Claire were sitting in the chairs that
faced the desk. There were no more chairs, so Susan perched herself on the desk’s corner. The office door was closed. The blinds were drawn. This was serious.
Henry rubbed his face. Then he dropped his hand and looked at Archie. He slowly scratched the stubble above his ear.
He didn’t look pleased.
Susan squirmed. She could feel tempeh stuck between her teeth.
She saw Claire glance at Henry.
Then Henry rubbed his face again, and leaned forward toward Archie. “What are you doing?” he asked. His voice was quiet, entirely calm, totally controlled. Susan could barely hear
him. It was a bad sign. Susan had a feeling that the quieter Henry got, the angrier he was. “You know we have another case,” Henry said to Archie. “Two murders. A. Serial. Killer.”
“It’s related,” Archie said quickly. He nodded at Susan. “Tell him the name she gave you.”
They all looked at her. She had been working on getting the tempeh out with her tongue. Now she felt a slow bloom of heat rise from her chest to her cheekbones. The tempeh would have to wait.
“Ryan Motley,” she said.
She saw Henry’s eyebrow twitch.
“Give him the flash drive,” Archie said.
Susan froze. Her whole face felt hot now. She was perspiring.
Flop sweat.
She’d used the term, but she’d never actually experienced it.
Archie was impassive, looking at her, waiting.
“Huh?” she said.
“I’m not stupid, Susan,” Archie said matter-of-factly. “Give it to him.”
She could deny it. But one look at Archie’s face told her she wouldn’t get away with it. She slumped and dug into her purse, and then held out the silver flash drive she’d
stolen from Archie’s desk. “Here,” she said, hanging her head.
Henry snatched it from her. “You showed her the flash drive?” he said to Archie.
“I took it,” Susan mumbled.
“What?” Henry said.
She sat up straight and said, loudly, “I took it from his desk.”
“So you looked at it?” Archie asked her.
Susan hesitated, confused.
“What’s on it?” Henry asked.
“What do you mean, you took it from his desk?” Claire said.
Susan didn’t understand. Why were they asking her what was on it? She had taken the flash drive from them. The thing had been in Archie’s possession for at least three months. Then
she realized that she had completely misunderstood. Archie hadn’t decided the murdered children weren’t worth looking into. He didn’t even know about them. “You two
haven’t looked at it,” she said in amazement. “You haven’t opened the files at all.”
Henry glanced at Archie. “Have you?” he asked Archie.
“No,” Archie said.
“Rewind,” Claire said. “Someone tell me what the fuck is going on.”
At least Susan wasn’t the only one in the dark.
Archie exhaled slowly, and then sat forward and folded his hands on his desk. It was quiet. Archie kept his eyes on his hands. “Gretchen gave me the flash drive a year ago. She said that
she hadn’t killed any of the children we’d accused her of murdering, that she had had an apprentice who’d gone rogue. He acted alone. She said his name was Ryan Motley and that I
needed to find him and then she gave me that.” He shot a furtive glance at Henry. “Henry and I agreed not to pursue, to not even look at it. Henry said—and I agreed—that she
was trying to manipulate me. Us. That it was a game. We agreed that she was lying.”
Claire shot Henry a we’ll-talk-about-this-later look.
The silver flash drive glinted on the desk.
“She
is
lying,” Claire said.
“That’s what we thought,” Archie said.
“No,” Claire said. She sat up in her seat a little, and held her shoulders back. “I was at some of those crime scenes, remember?” she said. Her voice had an edge to it
that Susan had never heard before. “I saw what she did to those children.”
“She was never convicted of murdering a single one of those kids,” Archie said. He gave Henry an I-could-use-your-help-here look, but Henry just shrugged.
Claire was sitting on the edge of her chair now. “She was never convicted of killing a lot of the people she went all Mengele on,” she said. “We went for convictions on what we
could prove.” She pointed at Archie. “That was your idea. Get her behind bars and then get her to confess to the other murders.” Archie looked back at her, composed. Susan knew
that face. He could take it on and off at will. Claire crossed her arms. “If anyone had asked me, I’d have said to euthanize the bitch,” she said.
Henry was studying something on the floor. Susan was hoping that Claire didn’t yell at her.
Archie unfolded his hands and placed his palms on the desk. “She confessed to twenty-one more murders,” Archie said calmly. “None of them children.”
Claire leaned forward. “This is revisionist bullshit,” she said.
Archie looked up. Henry looked up. Susan tried to take up less space on the desk.
“Some sick PR play,” Claire said. “
She didn’t kill any kids. She’s mentally ill. Not to blame for her actions
.” She squeezed Archie’s hands.
“So, what? We’re supposed to understand? It’s suddenly no big deal? There is no Ryan Motley.”
Henry gave Susan a you-should-leave look, but she ignored him.
“Can we just entertain this?” Archie asked.
Claire exhaled and turned back to Henry. “Why are you just sitting there?” she asked him. “We can’t trust his judgment when it comes to her.”
Susan thought Henry looked tired. He crossed his legs, lifting the one that still gave him trouble and placing it on top of the other knee. “What’s on the flash drive?” he said
to Susan.