Heartsick

CHAPTER 32

Susan stumbled a few steps down the hall, hugging her arms, before her bones seemed to give out and she fell against the wall. Archie was behind her in a moment, his hand on her shoulder. It was a comforting touch, nothing sexual about it. Susan wasn’t used to that. She turned away, pressing her forehead against the cinder-block wall so that he couldn’t see her blotchy face, the tears, her smeared lipstick. Archie moved around in front of her, never taking his hand off her shoulder, and then leaned against the wall, put his hands in his pockets, and waited. The sound of a door, then footsteps, and Henry was in the hallway, too, a guard, the lawyer. God, they had all seen everything. Susan wanted to die.

“Why don’t you give us a minute?” Archie said to them all, and they all slid back behind the observation room door, except for the guard, who glanced around awkwardly and then slipped into the interview room, where Gretchen Lowell still sat. When they were alone in the hall, Archie asked, “When did it start?”

The cinder-block wall was painted with glossy gray paint. It reminded Susan of an overcast winter sky, when the clouds appear solid, a canopy of ash. “When I was a sophomore. I ended it when I went to college.” She mustered up her dignity, drawing herself to her full height, lifting her chin. “I was precocious. It was consensual.”

“Technically, no, it wasn’t,” he said. She could see the color in his face change as he tried to suppress his frustration, his fists tightening in his pants pockets. “You should have said something. Did it occur to you that the victims were all fifteen-year-old girls? All raped.”

Susan shrank into herself. “He didn’t rape me,” she said. She felt defensive, ridiculous. “And I was going to tell you. But it didn’t seem relevant. You would have harassed him. He would have lost his job. Besides, you said he had an alibi.”

“Statutory rape is a crime. If the statute of limitations weren’t up, I’d go and arrest him right now. Did anyone know? Your parents?”

Susan laughed sadly. “Bliss? She didn’t know anything.” She twisted her mouth up. “She probably would have been supportive. She always hated setting boundaries.”

Archie gave Susan a dubious look.

And suddenly, with a little shock, Susan knew that she was wrong. “No,” Susan admitted. “She would have hated it. She would have made sure he went to jail.” She turned away. “But she didn’t know. Because I didn’t tell her.” She pressed her knuckles against the cinder block until she felt the rough cement break the skin. “I think I was mad at her for not figuring it out.”

“Were there any other girls?”

Susan couldn’t even look at him. “Not that I know of.”

“I can’t just forget we had this conversation, Susan. I have to report it. I will do everything I can to get him fired.”

“It was ten years ago,” Susan pleaded. “I seduced him. My father had just died and I needed comfort. Paul was my favorite teacher. It wasn’t his fault.” She looked away. “I was hardly a virgin.”

“He was an adult,” Archie said. “He should have known better.”

Susan began the work of cleaning herself up, wiping the tears off her face, tucking her tangle of pink hair behind her ears. “If you report it, I’ll deny it. And so will Paul.” She bit her lip so hard it felt like it might split. “I just wanted to explain.”

“Explain what?”

Susan looked away, fingers splayed as she tried to find the right words. Her knuckles were pink from where she had dug them into the wall. “Why I am the way I am. All those things Gretchen Lowell said in there. They’re true.”

Archie looked her in the eye under his heavy brows. “Gretchen says a lot of things in the hopes that one or two of them will stick and make you suffer. Believe me, I know this. Don’t give her that power. And don’t give Reston that power, either. He’s a creep. Adult men should not sleep with teenagers. Period. The ones who do have some serious issues.” He leaned close to her, so close that for a moment she had an impulse to press her forehead into his neck. “And those issues belong to them, not you.”

“It’s ancient history,” Susan said.

Archie gently took each of her wrists and lifted her hands away to reveal her tear-stained face. “I have to go back in there now, and it’s going to be a little while. Why don’t you wait out here.”

Susan’s face fell. “Can’t I wait in the observation room?”

Archie lifted his hand and wiped a tear that still hung on her cheek. “When I go back in there, Gretchen is going to give me her confession,” he said. “Every detail of how she tortured and killed Gloria Juarez.” His face darkened. “You don’t want to have to hear that if you don’t have to.”

He gave Susan a last pat on the shoulder and started walking back toward the room where Gretchen sat waiting for him. Susan watched him as he walked, one arm extended, the fingertips of his hand dancing along the cinder-block wall.

She wondered if he was this high all the time, or just on Sundays. She decided this wasn’t the time to ask.

The guard left as soon as Archie entered the room. Gretchen sat just as she had, in repose, her manacled hands folded on one knee, seemingly undisturbed and unimpressed by Susan’s outburst. Susan’s sleek silver digital recorder still sat in the center of the table where she had left it, still recording. Archie pulled the metal chair out again and sat in it and faced Gretchen. Then, avoiding eye contact with Gretchen, he reached out, turned the recorder off, and slipped it in the inside pocket of his jacket. He could still feel Susan’s tears on his hand.

“You want to tell me how you knew about Reston?” he asked, looking up.

Gretchen’s eyes widened innocently. “Lucky guess?”

“You’re intuitive,” Archie said. “Not psychic.”

Gretchen rolled her eyes and gave him a bored half smile. “She mentioned her dead daddy in a story in the Herald about a year ago. And just look at her. The pink hair. The clothes. She’s completely arrested. It screams sexual abuse.” She leaned forward. “The way she looks at you-that longing for a father figure to take her in his strong, protective arms. It was obvious. I just had to guess the right teacher.” She smiled, delighted with herself. “And, darling, it’s always the English teacher or the drama teacher.”

Archie’s head throbbed. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “It’s a coincidence. That it might be related to a case I’m working on.”

“You’re tired.”

That was a safe bet. “You have no idea.”

“Maybe you should up your antidepressant dosage.”

“I’ll defer to Fergus for my medical advice, thank you.”

She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her manacled hands. Then she glanced at the observation window before settling her attention back on Archie. “I pulled her small intestine out. I cut an inch-wide hole in her abdominal wall with a scalpel and I pulled her small intestine out inch by inch with a crochet hook, slicing it from the mesentery an inch at a time. An H crochet hook. You want something big enough to be able to get a grip on the intestine because it’s slippery and you don’t want to perforate it.” She never looked away during the confessions. She maintained eye contact with Archie always. She never glanced to the side to recover some memory; never looked away in revulsion at what she had done; never allowed him a moment’s respite. “Seven meters. That’s what they say the average length is. I’ve never been able to pull out more than three.” She smiled, licking her lips as if they were dry. “It’s beautiful, though. So pink and delicate. Like something waiting to be born. The metallic smell of blood? Remember it, darling?” She sat forward, a blush of pleasure settling in her cheeks. “When she begged me to stop, I started burning her.”

He tried to tune out for the confession. To shut off. Ignore the graphic images she tried to paint for him. He just watched her. She was very beautiful. And if he could manage to stop himself from hearing her, he could enjoy this part. He could enjoy the excuse to just sit and look at a beautiful woman. But he had to be careful when he did. That his eyes didn’t slip from her face, didn’t slide down her neck to her collarbone or breasts.

She knew, of course. She knew everything.

“Are you listening?” she asked, a smile flirting on her lips.

“Yeah,” he said. He pulled the pillbox out of his pocket and set it back on the table. “I’m listening.”