Heartsick

CHAPTER 36

Archie knocked on the door of McCallum’s 1950s bungalow hard enough that he thought his knuckles might split. It was a diminutive one-story tan-brick house set in the middle of an expansive and obsessively tended yard. A row of rosebushes, just returning after being cut back for winter, lined the paved walkway to the wide cement stoop at the front of the house. The door, in a lonely splash of personality, was painted a glossy red. A doorbell that looked like it had not been operational since shortly after the house was built was taped over with a weathered piece of electrician’s tape. Monday’s Oregon Herald, untouched in its plastic sleeve, still lay in front of the door. “Dan?” Archie called. He knocked again. The door had a large glass window, but it was curtained and Archie couldn’t see more than a sliver of the interior of the house. He motioned with two fingers for the Hardy Boys to go around to the back door. Henry stood on the steps. Claire stood beside Archie. Susan, attired in a yellow vest with the words RIDE ALONG emblazoned in black on the back, had wedged herself next to Claire. Archie gestured for Susan to stand back, which she did. Then he drew his gun and knocked again. “Dan, it’s the police. Open up.” Nothing.

He tried the door. It was locked. A gray tabby appeared on the porch and snaked her way between Archie’s legs. “Hello, beautiful,” he said. Then he noticed the faint trail of paw prints she’d left behind. He knelt down and looked at the prints, pale red against the glossy mud green paint of the stoop.

“It’s blood,” he said to Claire. “You want to get it?”

He stood up and stepped back as Claire shielded her face with her elbow and gave the door window a hard whack with the handle of her gun. The window splintered and broke into five pieces, which slid from the framing and fell to the inside floor in an explosion of shattered glass. The moment the glass was broken, the stench of death hit them. They all recognized it. Archie reached inside and unlocked the door. He swung the door open and raised his gun.

He carried a Smith & Wesson.38 Special. He preferred a revolver to an automatic. They were reliable and didn’t require as much upkeep. Archie didn’t like guns. He’d never had to fire his off range. And he didn’t want to spend half his waking hours at the kitchen table cleaning his service weapon. But a.38 wasn’t as powerful as a 9-mm, and Archie found his loyalty suddenly wavering.

“Dan,” he called out. “This is the police. Are you in here? We’re coming in.” Nothing.

The front door opened into a living room, which led into a kitchen. Archie could see paw prints straying diagonally across the linoleum. He turned to Susan. “Stay here,” he said in his most commanding voice. Then he nodded to Claire and Henry. “You ready?” They both nodded back.

He moved inside.

Archie loved this part. Even all his pills couldn’t compete with a natural surge of adrenaline and endorphins. His body felt alive with energy. His heart rate and breathing increased; his muscles tightened. He was never more alert. He moved through the house, taking in every detail. Bookcases filled the far side of the living room. The shelves were stacked with books as well as other objects-old coffee cups and papers and what looked like mail that had been tucked in any available cranny. Four easy chairs in varying shades of green and pedigrees sat around a square coffee table, which was layered with newspapers. Framed line drawings of tall ships hung on one wall, one on top of the next. Archie moved through the hallway, his back against the wall, with Claire following so close behind that he could hear her breathing. Henry followed behind Claire. Archie called out again, “Dan? It’s the police.” Nothing.

He turned the corner, gun raised, and immediately saw the source of the bloody paw prints.

Dan McCallum was dead. He lay cheek-down on the oak kitchen table, his head resting in a pool of thick blood. One arm was stretched across the table; the other was folded at the elbow, the gun still in his hand. His was facing Archie, eyes open, but there was no question that he had been dead much of the night.

“Fuck.” Archie sighed. He reholstered his gun, threaded his fingers behind his neck, and walked in a small circle, willing himself to let go of his frustration. If McCallum was their killer, it was over. But where was the girl? He snapped back to the present. “Call it in,” he said to Claire.

He could hear Claire on the radio behind him as he approached the body. Careful not to step in the blood that had pooled on the floor, he squatted beside the corpse. Archie recognized the gun in McCallum’s hand right away. It was a.38. The heart can continue to pump for up to two minutes with a brain injury like that, which explained the extensive bleeding.

Archie had once found the body of a man who’d punched his fist through a plate-glass window after an argument with his wife. He’d severed the artery in his arm and bled to death because she had stormed out of the house and he was too proud to call an ambulance. The blood had sprayed in a wide arc across the kitchen when the artery was severed and then continued to throb out of his body despite the several dish towels he’d tried to use as tourniquets. His wife had returned the next morning and called 911. When Archie got there, he found the man dead, slumped against a kitchen cabinet. Blood splattered the yellow kitchen curtains and the white walls and spread across the entire kitchen floor. Archie hadn’t known that one body could produce that much blood. It had looked like the scene of a chainsaw homicide.

Different kitchen. Archie leaned in close to examine the muzzle imprint of the contact wound near the mouth and an exit wound in the back of the head. A.38 will go right through the skull, whereas a.22 will bounce around for a while. McCallum’s hazel eyes stared sightless, the pupils dilated, the lids pulling back in full rigor. His jaw, too, had tightened, giving his mouth a disapproving grimace. The skin of his face was bruised with livor mortis, like he’d laid his head down to rest after a bad fight. He was wearing red sweatpants and what appeared to be a Cleveland Warriors sweatshirt. His feet were clad only in white sweat socks, their toes wet with blood. There was no coffee cup on the table.

Archie’s gaze returned to the body. Paw prints indicated where the cat had ambled across the table, leaving in her wake blood dusted with a fine gray cat hair. The brown hair above McCallum’s left temple was flattened and wet where the cat appeared to have licked him. Poor thing. Archie tracked the paw prints from the table to a cat door in the back door.

He stood up. It wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Henry had opened the back door and the Hardy Boys stood waiting, along with Susan Ward. They were waiting for him to say something. “Turn this place upside down,” Archie said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll still be here.” But he didn’t believe it. “And call Animal Control,” he added. “Someone’s going to have to take care of that cat.”