Heartsick

CHAPTER 25

Susan had changed her outfit three times before heading to Archie Sheridan’s apartment. Now she stood face-to-face with him in his doorway, wishing that she’d gone with another look entirely. But he’d seen her, and now it was too late to go back to the car. “Hi,” she said. “Thanks for letting me come over.” It was just after eight o’clock. Archie was still wearing what Susan presumed were his work clothes-sturdy brown leather shoes, wide-wale dark green corduroys, and a pale blue button-down over a T-shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. Susan glanced down at her own ensemble of black jeans, an old Aerosmith T-shirt worn over a long john shirt, and motorcycle boots; her pink hair pulled up in pigtails. The look had worked well when she had interviewed Metal-lica backstage at the Coliseum, but for this it was all wrong. She should have gone with something more intellectual. A sweater, maybe.

Archie opened the door wide and stepped aside so she could enter his apartment. It was true, what she had said to him on the phone: She needed the interview. Her story was due the next day and she had a lot of questions for Archie Sheridan. But she also wanted to see where he lived. Who he was. She tried not to let her face fall when she saw the empty environment he lived in. No books. Nothing on the walls. No family photographs or knickknacks picked up on vacation or CDs or old magazines waiting to be recycled. Judging from the sad-looking brown couch and corduroy recliner, it looked like the place had come furnished. No personality. At all. What kind of divorced father didn’t display photographs of his children?

“How long have you lived here?” she asked hopefully.

“Almost two years,” he said. “Sorry. Not much material, I know.”

“Tell me you have a television.”

He laughed. “It’s in the bedroom.”

I bet you don’t have cable, Susan thought. She made a show of glancing around the room. “Where do you keep your stuff? You must have useless crap. Everyone has useless crap.”

“Most of my useless crap is at Debbie’s.” He gestured gallantly to the couch. “Have a seat. Are you allowed to drink during interviews?”

“Oh, I’m allowed to drink,” Susan assured him. The coffee table, she noticed, was covered with police files. All gathered up and stacked in two neat piles. She wondered if Archie was one of those people who was naturally neat, or whether he just overcompensated. She sat on the couch and reached into her purse and pulled out a dog-eared copy of The Last Victim. She set it next to the files on the coffee table.

“I only have beer,” Archie called from the kitchen.

She hadn’t bought The Last Victim when it came out, but she’d leafed through it. The trashy true-crime account of Archie Sheridan’s kidnapping had been on all the supermarket paperback racks back then. Gretchen Lowell was on the cover. If beauty sold books, then beautiful serial killers made best-seller lists.

He handed her a bottle of mid-range microbrew and sat in the recliner. She watched as his eyes flicked down to the book. And away. “My God,” Susan teased. “An aesthetic choice. Careful. You might accidentally give someone some insight into your personality.”

“Sorry. I also like wine. And liquor. I just happen to only have beer. And no, I don’t have a favorite brand. I just get whatever’s on sale that isn’t swill.”

“You know, Portland has more microbreweries and brew pubs than any other city in the country.”

“I did not know that,” he said.

Susan put her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a data sieve. Occupational hazard of being a features writer.” She tilted her bottle in a small toast. Archie, she noticed, wasn’t drinking. “Here’s to Portland. Incorporated in 1851. Population, 545,140.” She winked. “Two million if you count the greater Portland area.”

Archie smiled weakly. “I’m impressed.”

Susan took her digital recorder out of her purse and set it next to the book on the coffee table between them. “Do you mind if I record this?”

“State bird?”

“Blue heron.”

“Record away.”

She waited for him to say something about the book. He waited for her to ask him a question. The book sat on the coffee table. Gretchen Lowell gazed daringly from under its gold embossed title. Susan thought about excusing herself so she could run back to her apartment and change.

The hell with it. She pressed RECORD and opened her notebook. She had hoped that the book might knock Archie off his game; provoke something, anything. Time for plan B. “I talked to your wife today.”

“Ex-wife.”

Well, Susan thought, he didn’t take that bait. She’d have to try something more direct. She looked up. “She still loves you.”

Archie’s expression did not shift. “And I love her,” he said, not missing a beat.

“Hey, I have an idea,” Susan said brightly. “Why don’t you two get married?”

Archie sighed. “Our relationship is complicated by the fact that I am emotionally retarded.”

“Did she tell you about our interview?”

“Yep.”

“What did she say?”

“She was worried that she had been too honest about”-he searched for the right words-“my relationship with Gretchen.”

“Relationship,” Susan repeated slowly. “Funny word.”

He shook his head. “Not really. Criminal/cop. Kidnapper /hostage. Killer/victim. They’re all relationships.” He twisted his mouth wryly. “I don’t mean to imply that we’re dating.”

Archie was sitting back in the chair. Legs uncrossed, knees fallen apart. Feet on the carpet. Elbow on each armrest. But while he might have been trying to be casual, he was certainly not relaxed. Susan tried to observe him without staring, noting the angle of his head, the fit of his shirt, the heaviness under his eyes. His thick brown hair was all clumps and curls.

The truth was that Archie Sheridan made her feel off-kilter. It was something that Susan wasn’t used to. The power in interviews was usually hers, but more and more, when she spent time with Archie Sheridan, she found herself longing for a cigarette. Or something.

He was looking at her. That was the thing with interviews. Everyone was always waiting for someone to say something. It was like one long first date. So, where are you from? What did you major in? Any Huntington’s in the family? Or, in this case, “Why did Gretchen Lowell kidnap you, do you think?”

“She’s a serial killer. She wanted to murder me.” Archie’s voice was level. They could have been talking about the rain.

“But she didn’t,” Susan pointed out.

He shrugged. “She changed her mind.”

“Why?”

Archie smiled faintly. “Female’s prerogative?”

“I’m serious.”

His expression returned to neutral and he picked at something microscopic on his pant leg. “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

“You’ve never asked her?” Susan said incredulously. “All those Sundays?”

“It’s never come up.”

“What do you talk about?”

His eyes lifted to meet hers. “Murder.”

“That’s not very forthcoming.”

“You’re not asking the right questions.”

Susan could hear a child running above the popcorn ceiling over their heads. Archie didn’t seem to notice it. “Okay,” she said slowly. “I guess I’m interested in what was different about you. I mean, the torture was different, right? She killed all the others after a few days, right? You, she kept alive. So you were different. From the beginning. To her.”

“I was the lead investigator on her case. The others were all random. As far we know, except for the accomplices she killed, she didn’t know any of her victims. She and I knew each other. We had a relationship.”

Susan underlined the word relationship in her notebook. “But she infiltrated the case to get to you. I mean, that’s why she came to Portland, knocked on the task force door? She was after you.”

Archie lifted his arms off the armrests and folded and unfolded his hands in his lap. He was looking at the copy of The Last Victim. At Gretchen Lowell. Eyes heavy, unblinking. Susan glanced from Archie to the book and back at Archie. It was like once he looked, he couldn’t look away. “It’s not that unusual for psychopaths to get close to investigations,” he said, gaze still fixed on the thick paperback. “They enjoy watching the drama unfold. It makes them feel superior.”

Susan bent forward, resting her forearms on her crossed legs, and scooted a little closer to Archie. She always seemed to make the first move on first dates. “But she risked a lot,” she said softly. “To get to you. And then she didn’t kill you.” He was still looking at the book. Susan was filled with a sudden impulse to reach out and fling it off the table. Just to see what he’d do. “I’m confused by that. It seems out of character.”

“Excuse me,” Archie said. He stood up quickly and went into the kitchen. Susan twisted awkwardly in her seat so that she could watch him. She couldn’t get a read on his face. He stood with his back to her, hands on his hips, facing a sad bank of white Formica cabinetry. And then he sighed and said, “Will you do me a favor and put the book away?”

The book. Was it the photograph of Gretchen Lowell looking like a Breck Girl on the cover that bothered him, or was it what was inside? “Sorry,” Susan called, pushing the paperback into her purse. She hunched her shoulders a little, feeling like a jerk. “It was just a prop. For the interview.”

He didn’t say anything. A hand went from his hip to the back of his neck. She wished he’d turn around so that she could see his face, see what he was thinking. She wanted to do something other than stare forlornly at the back of his curly head, so she started writing in her notebook. “What isn’t he telling me about Gretchen Lowell?” She circled the question several times, until the pen made an indentation in the paper. The question sat on the page, surrounded by blank paper.

He said something. She looked up, mortified. He was standing at the fridge now, looking at her, a beer in his hand. He had definitely said something.

“Excuse me?” she said, flipping over the page she had been writing on so quickly, it tore a little at the spiral.

“I said, you think she showed me mercy.”

Susan twisted around to face him again, lifting her legs under her on the couch, her motorcycle boots pressing a dent into the foam cushion. “At the end,” Susan said, “she killed everyone else she took. She killed you. But she brought you back. She saved your life even.”

Archie stood alone in the kitchen and took a sip of the beer. She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her. Then he walked back into the living room and sat down, placing the beer carefully on the coffee table in front of him. He did everything carefully. Like someone who expected to break the things he took care of. He looked at his hands, thick, laced with veins, still folded in his lap. And then back at Susan. “If Gretchen had been feeling charitable, she would have let me die,” he said matter-of-factly. “I wanted to die. I was ready to die. If she had put a scalpel in my hand, I would have stabbed myself in the neck and happily bled to death right there in her basement. She didn’t do me any favors by not killing me. Gretchen enjoys people’s pain. And she just found a way to prolong my pain and her pleasure. Believe me, it was the cruelest thing she could have done to me. If she could have thought of something crueler, she would have done it. Gretchen doesn’t show people mercy.”

The heat kicked in. There was a rumble and then the slow blow of hot air from a vent that Susan couldn’t see. Her mouth felt dry. The kid upstairs was still running. If Susan had lived there, she’d have killed that kid by now. “But she ended up in jail. That couldn’t have been part of the plan.”

“Everyone needs a career-exit strategy.”

“But she could have gotten the death penalty,” Susan said.

“She had too many bargaining chips.”

“You mean bodies?” Susan asked.

He took another sip of beer. “Yes.”

“Why do you think she agreed to talk only to you?”

“Because she knew I’d go along with it,” Archie said simply.

“And why did you agree? When your wife made you choose? Why choose Gretchen?”

“She’s my ex-wife. And I did it for the families. Because they deserve some closure. And it’s my job.”

“And?” Susan asked.

Archie held the cold bottle next to his face and squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s complicated.”

Susan glanced at her purse. The spine of the paperback was still visible where she had tucked it in the main compartment, along with some loose tampons, her Paul Frank wallet, a plastic case of birth-control pills, and about thirty pens. “So, have you read The Last Victim?”

“God no,” Archie said, groaning.

Susan blushed. “It’s not bad. You know, for a true-crime thriller. Not much in the way of actual journalism. I called the writer. She said that you refused to talk to her. Your ex-wife refused to talk to her. Your doctor refused to talk to her. The department refused to talk to her. She based the thing mostly on news accounts, public record, and her own torrid imagination. There’s this scene at the end where you talk Gretchen Lowell into turning herself in. You convince her that she can be a better person, and she is overcome by your grace and goodness.”

Archie laughed out loud.

“Didn’t happen like that?”

“No.”

“What do you remember?” Susan asked.

Archie flinched.

“You okay?”

“Headache,” he explained. He reached into his pocket and produced a brass pillbox, withdrew three white oval pills, and swallowed them with a pull of beer.

“What are those?” Susan asked.

“Headache pills.”

Susan threw him a dubious look. “Do you really not remember those ten days?”

Archie blinked slowly and let his eyes settle on Susan. He looked at her for long time. Then his eyes slid slowly to a digital clock that sat on a bookcase. The time was wrong, but Archie didn’t appear to care. “I remember those ten days better than I do the days my children were born.”

The heat turned off and the room fell quiet. “Tell me what you remember,” Susan said. Her voice cracked like a teenage boy’s. She could feel Archie appraising her. And she put on her best smile, the one she had learned to use so long ago, the one that made all the men understand that no matter what their troubles, she could make them feel better. Archie wasn’t buying.

“Not yet,” Archie said finally. “You have three more stories, right? You don’t want to spoil the suspense.”

Susan wasn’t ready to let it go. “What about the ‘second man’ theory? Some of the reports said that you said there was a second man there. Someone who was never caught. Do you remember that?”

Archie closed his eyes. “Gretchen has always denied it. I never saw him. It was more of an impression that I had. But I was also not in the most stable mental condition.” He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Susan. “I’m tired. Let’s continue this some other time.”

Susan dropped her head in her hands in mock frustration.

“We’ll get to it,” Archie said. “I promise.”

She snapped off the digital recorder. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“It’s off the hall.”

She stood up and walked down the hall to the bathroom. It was as unremarkable as the rest of the apartment. A fiberglass tub and shower combo with a sliding frosted-glass door. A cheap sink with plastic faucet knobs set in a pressboard cabinet. Two gray towels of an unimpressive thread count hanging limply on oak towel racks. Two more sat freshly laundered and folded on the back of the toilet. The bathroom was clean, but not too clean, not fastidious. She stood at the sink, staring at her reflection. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She was close to the biggest story of her career. So why did she feel so crappy? And what was she thinking with the pigtails? She pulled them out, combed her hair with her fingers, and tied her hair back at her neck. The light in the bathroom made her flesh look like raw chicken. She wondered how Archie Sheridan faced himself in that mirror each morning, sallow, every wrinkle shadowed. No wonder he was a head case. She dug into her pocket, retrieved some lip gloss, and slathered it on liberally. Did he want to be forced back on medical leave? Is that was this was all about?

She flushed the toilet and used the cover of the noise to open the door of the medicine cabinet. Shaving cream. Razors. Toothpaste and toothbrush. Deodorant. And two shelves of amber plastic pill bottles. She spun them around by their white lids to read the prescription information. Vicodin. Colace. Percocet. Zantac. Ambien. Xanax. Prozac. Large bottles. Small bottles. Nothing that would interfere with his ability to do his job, Fergus had said. Right. There were enough pills in that cabinet to medicate an elephant. All made out to Archie Sheridan. Fuck. If he needed all this stuff to function, he was worse off than she thought. And a better actor.

She memorized the names, carefully turned the bottles back to their original orientation, closed the cabinet, and walked back into the living room.

Archie didn’t even look up at her. “If I’d wanted you to not see the pills, I would have hidden them.”

Susan searched for what to say. What pills? But, for some reason, she didn’t feel like lying. “You’re on a lot of medication.”

His eyes followed her into the room, but he remained still as a corpse. “I’m unwell.”

Susan had the sudden unnerving sensation that everything she’d found out so far about Archie Sheridan was exactly what he wanted her to know. Every interview. Every lead. To what end? Maybe he was just tired of lying. Maybe he just wanted everyone to know all his secrets, so he didn’t have to work so hard at keeping them hidden. Subterfuge could be exhausting.

She stowed her digital recorder and notebook in her purse and dug out a pack of cigarettes. “I’m fucking my married boss,” she said to Archie.

Archie paused, mouth slightly agape. “I’m not sure I needed to know that.”

Susan lit her cigarette and took a drag. “Yeah, but as long as we’re sharing.”

“Okay.”