Heartsick

CHAPTER 47

The Kevlar vest forced Archie to breathe differently. The Velcro straps were snug and the weight of the thing constricted his chest, causing his ribs to throb and making every movement of his torso a mental victory. He tried to inhale air deeply, visualizing the oxygen moving through his windpipe down into his lungs, feeding his heart. It gave him something to think about as he and Henry and Claire made their slow way along the cement drive that zigzagged down the hillside to the boats below. An old silver Passat was parked at the bottom of the hill. Reston ’s car. They walked at a casual pace, their vests under their civilian clothes, guns tucked away, but their bodies were tense, and anyone who happened to see them would be an idiot not to be alarmed. But there wasn’t anyone. Just the boats.

They reached the dock. It stretched into the river in a T shape, with boats on either side. The security lights that lined the gangways provided a lazy white glow that bounced off the black water and made everything look especially sharp. It was the cooler air, Archie supposed. It made everything look harder. He couldn’t see the damage from the fire-the boats were long gone, but a faint smell of charcoal lingered. He unsnapped the safety strap on his holster and let the smooth metal of his.38 press against the skin of his palm.

The numbers of the slips ran even on one side, odd on the other. Archie knew the boat wouldn’t be there even before they got to number twenty-eight. He just wasn’t that lucky.

“Fuck,” said Archie as they stood in front of the empty slip.

“What does that mean?” Claire asked.

“It means they’ve gone sailing,” said Archie.

“Boating,” Henry said. “It’s a powerboat. You say boating.”

“Fuck,” Archie said again.

Archie was standing on the deck of a twenty-eight-foot twin-screw hardtop cabin cruiser. He didn’t like boats. But he knew what kind of boat this one was because one of the River Patrol deputies had told him. The county River Patrol Unit wore green uniforms, painted their boats emerald, and called themselves “the Green Hornets.” Their winter staff consisted of one lieutenant, one sergeant, eight deputies, and a full-time mechanic. Within a half hour of Archie’s call, every one of them had reported for duty.

Within forty-five minutes, five Green Hornet boats were in the water, and two police helicopters and a Coast Guard helicopter were in the air looking for the Chris-Craft. “It’s a boat,” one of the pilots had told Archie confidently. “It’s on a river. We’ll find it.” And they did. An hour later, one of the pilots had radioed to say that he had spotted a Chris-Craft anchored just off the channel on the Columbia side of Sauvie Island.

Archie relayed the location to SWAT. Reston would have noticed the 10,000-megawatt police helicopter searchlight as it slid past. He’d either anchor up and try to flee, in which case the helicopter would track him, or he’d hunker down. It was a hostage situation, and Archie didn’t want to take any chances. But it would take SWAT time to get there, and the Green Hornet cabin cruiser wasn’t far, and, after all, didn’t they need to confirm that it was the right Chris-Craft? Didn’t want to send a SWAT team to burst into the wrong boat and ruin a family fishing holiday. So Archie instructed the three deputies on the Hornet boat with Henry, Claire, Anne, and him to circle around the island and see if they could get close.

And there she was. The running lights were off, but her cabin lights were on. Rick, a deputy about Archie’s age, with short-cropped hair and a salt-and-pepper beard, aimed a searchlight mounted on the deck of the cruiser at the Chris-Craft. The helicopter circled in the black sky above.

“That’s your girl,” he hollered over the engine.

“I’ve got SWAT and a hostage negotiator on the way,” Archie hollered back.

“There’s not a lot of time,” Anne cautioned Archie. Her braids were whipping in her face and she held them back with one leather-gloved hand. “He’s going to want to end this.”

“How close can you get to him?” Archie asked Rick.

“Close enough to board.”

“Do it.”

Henry, Claire, and Archie had their guns drawn as the Hornets slowed the engine to a crawl and they made their way next to the Chris-Craft. Two of the men secured lines around the patrol cruiser’s cleats and stood at the starboard side of the boat. When the cruiser got close, Rick shut off her engines, and they drifted the last few feet to the Chris-Craft. When they were close enough, the two other deputies grabbed her railing and secured their lines to her cleats.

The two boats bobbed and knocked together. No one spoke. It was cold on the water and Archie brought his cupped hands to his mouth, blew warm air on them and then flexed them a few times to keep the blood flowing. His cheeks burned from the wind that blew over the river. There was no movement on the Chris-Craft. Archie scanned the river. No other lights on the water.

“I’m going aboard,” he announced.

He handed his gun to Henry, butt-first.

Henry wrapped his fist around the gun but placed his other hand firmly over Archie’s so the gun was locked between them. He leaned forward, his big face pinched. “You going in there because you think it’s the smart thing to do,” he whispered to Archie, “or because you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself?”

Archie looked his friend in the eye. You can’t save me, Archie thought. “Don’t come in unless you hear a shot. I’ll try to signal you if I think SWAT needs to take him out.”

“Take a vest,” Henry said.

The vest. Archie had taken it off when they first got on the boat. It seemed counterintuitive to wear something heavy when you were supposed to be wearing something buoyant. He pulled his hand away, leaving his gun in Henry’s fist. “Hurts my ribs,” he said, and he turned and heaved himself over the railing of the cruiser and onto the old Chris-Craft before anyone could stop him. The rubber soles of his shoes stuck to the fiberglass deck of the boat and he managed to scurry, knees bent, hunched, a few yards to the door of the cabin.

“ Reston!” he shouted. “It’s Detective Archie Sheridan. I’m going to open the hatch so we can talk, okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer. What was he going to do if Reston said no? Just keep moving. Keep talking. Keep him off guard. Archie fumbled with the latch; it was unlocked. He swung the square wooden hatch open. A sign on the doorjamb warned: WATCH YOUR STEP.

Archie could make out part of the interior of the wooden cabin-a small corner galley and a dinette. But no Reston. No Susan. No Addy Jackson. “I’m unarmed. I’m going to come in so we can talk, okay?” He waited that time. Nothing. That was a bad sign. Maybe they were all already dead. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for any coming scenes of carnage. He wasn’t sure he could take that. “I’m coming in.”

He squeezed in through the hatch and lowered himself down the four steps that led straight into the main cabin.

He squinted in the light. It was what passed aboard a boat for a living room. A small floral sofa and a rattan chair with a matching floral cushion sat in front of a small round rattan coffee table that was painted white and topped with glass. The carpet was the color of AstroTurf. The ceilings were low and the space was cramped, but the walls appeared to be paneled with teak and the wood shone warmly in the yellow interior light. A large wood and brass barometer hung decoratively above the sofa. Just beyond the sitting area lay the small dinette and corner galley he had seen from above.

Reston stood next to the sofa, in front of an entryway that led deeper under the hull. He was wearing khakis and a T-shirt. His eyes were black holes. He had one arm firmly around Susan Ward’s waist and he held a gun underneath her left jaw. A brown leather belt hung loosely around her neck. Archie had no doubt that it would match the ligature marks around the dead girls’ necks. Susan’s forearms and ankles were bound with duct tape. But she was alive. And awake. And, judging by her drained but withering expression, pissed.

“Ahoy,” Archie said.

“Addy’s in the back-” Susan managed to spit out before Reston snatched the end of the belt and wrenched it tight, choking her. He kept the gun flush against her head as she fell to her knees.

“Shhhh,” he said ferociously. “Why did you have to do that? Why won’t you be nice to me?”

Susan flailed at the belt with her bound hands but couldn’t get her fingers behind it to loosen the noose. Her face was distorted, blotchy, her eyes frozen wide, mouth wider, sputtering. Archie had about two minutes.

It was all he could do to stop himself from rushing Reston. He had a gun to Susan’s head. If Archie lunged at him, he might shoot her. Her weight was on the floor, so Reston probably wasn’t going to break her neck. A successful strangulation was harder than it looked. It wasn’t the lack of air alone that killed you; it was the compression of the vascular structures of the neck. If Archie did nothing, she was going to die. But that would take a few minutes. And a few minutes was a long time. That gave Archie a chance.

He turned away from Reston and Susan and walked the few feet to the corner galley. There was a small stove and a steel sink set in a green countertop. The cupboards were painted white. Archie opened a few of them until he found some glasses. He took one out and poured himself a glass of water. He couldn’t hear Susan struggling anymore. Had she lost consciousness? Had he blown this, too? And then, at once, there came an enormous choking gasp. Reston had let go of the belt. Susan was breathing. She coughed, hoarse and rasping. Archie closed his eyes, feeling his blood rush to his fingertips. It had worked.

“What are you doing?” Reston asked him.

Archie waited a few breaths before he answered. Let the bastard wonder. “I have to take some pills,” he explained, his back still turned. “I can take them without water, but they work faster if I wash them down with something.” He turned back to Reston and gave him a courteous smile. Then he sat on the tan upholstered bench at the green fold-down dinette table, careful not to slide his knees under the tabletop, so that he could move quickly if he had to. He set the glass of water on the table. Archie could see the lights of the Coast Guard boat through the tiny porthole over the dinette. Which meant that they could see him. Good.

“I’m going to reach into my pocket now and get the pills,” he said, and before Reston could respond, he reached slowly into his pocket and retrieved the brass pillbox. He opened it and counted out eight pills and lined them up one by one on the dark green tabletop. Even in this environment, he felt a surge of endorphins just looking at them. “I know it looks like a lot,” he said to Reston. He raised his eyebrows wryly. “But I have a high tolerance.”

Reston had Susan by the waist again. She was still coughing as her airway tried to convince itself that it was clear. But she had managed to pull the belt off her neck and it now lay in a heap at her feet. Good girl, thought Archie.

“Susan,” he said pleasantly. “You okay?”

She nodded, raising her head to look at him, eyes flashing with defiance again. Reston pulled her tighter toward him. Archie picked up a pill, put it on his tongue, and washed it down with a drink of water from the glass. Then he set the glass back down on the table. “You got Addy to come to you,” he said to Reston.

Reston nodded. “She needed someone who made her feel special.”

“But you took the other girls,” Archie said. “So how did you fake your alibis?”

“It was easy,” Reston said. “I watch rehearsals from the light booth. The kids can’t see inside. We’d do a run-through. I’d give notes. Then we’d do another run-through. They’d see me go into the booth before they started and out of the booth when they were done. I would leave a few minutes into the first act.” He smoothed Susan’s tangle of hair like one would a doll’s, and she recoiled at his touch. “I could find them, talk to them, and kill them and be back by curtain. The girls would be dead under blankets in my car and I would be giving the actors notes I had made up. I didn’t even need to see the run-through. They made the same fucking mistakes every time.” Reston looked down at Susan and then back up at Archie. “I’m not going to let you take her out of here,” he said.

So Reston was an overconfident asshole in addition to being a rapist-murderer. Maybe Archie could use that to his advantage. Archie glanced around the cabin. “This is a nice boat.”

“It’s Dan McCallum’s.”

“Right,” Archie said. “Dan McCallum. The suicidal serial killer.”

Reston gave Archie a fleeting smile. “I just wanted to buy some time.”

Archie picked up another pill, tossed it in the air, caught it on his tongue, and washed it down with more water. He set the glass back on the table.

“I could kill you if I wanted to,” Reston said, his voice hollow and tremulous. “I could shoot you and her before they got inside.”

Archie ran a hand through his hair and tried to look bored. “You’re not scary, Paul.” Then he added, “I’ve seen scary.”

Reston was unraveling before Archie’s eyes, shifting his weight from foot to foot and squeezing his eyes shut in a hard blink, an involuntary tic. He grappled with Susan, continually adjusting his grip on her, fidgeting with the gun, moving it a fraction of an inch in Archie’s direction, then back, not wanting to waver from Susan. Susan kept her eye on the gun. Her whole body was shaking, but she appeared to be keeping it together. The tears had stopped. Reston leaned his head close to hers and kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t be afraid,” he told her. “It’ll be quick.” She flinched, and Reston squeezed her tighter. Then Reston turned to Archie. The pits and neck of his shirt were stained with sweat. He stank of it. “Do you recognize me?” he asked Archie. His expression was pleading, hungry.

No question. Reston was definitely losing it. “From yesterday on the porch?” asked Archie.

Reston ’s eyes narrowed. “Think back.”

Reston looked so serious, so certain, that Archie actually found himself searching his memory for what he might be talking about. Had he arrested Reston before? No, he didn’t have a record. A witness he’d interviewed? Lord knew, he interviewed thousands of witnesses in connection with the Beauty Killer case. He shook his head blankly, coming up with nothing.

Reston was growing increasingly unwound. “I’ve killed four people,” he announced.

That meant that Addy was still alive.

Archie heard the engine of another boat approaching. The helicopter. Bright light glowed beyond the cabin’s portholes.

He picked up another pill. Washed it down. Put the glass back on the table. His own twisted Japanese tea ceremony. “Did you like it?” he asked.

Another involuntary blink. “I had to do it. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t have a choice.” Reston ’s jumpiness worried Archie. Reston wasn’t nervous enough about what was going on outside. The other boat. The lights. He wasn’t worried about being arrested, and to Archie, that meant one thing: He’d already decided to die.

And if SWAT rushed the boat, the first thing Reston would do would be to kill Susan Ward.

“But did you like it?” Archie asked again.

“The first one was hard. After that, it got easier.” He worked his mouth into a sick grin. “I didn’t like having to kill them. But I liked it afterward.”

“How did you choose them?” Archie asked.

“They all auditioned for the district-wide musical last year.” Reston laughed at the ridiculousness of it. “They’re expensive, musicals. Because of budget cuts, none of us could afford to launch one on our own, so the high schools got together and cosponsored one.”

That was the connection, thought Archie. Henry was right-they had all been freshmen last year. A district-wide musical? How could they have missed it?

“I was the director,” Reston continued. “I didn’t cast any of them. They weren’t good enough. But I remembered them. And they remembered me. They all wanted to be stars. I told them I wanted them each in my next play.”

“Young girls are easily manipulated,” Archie observed flatly.

Reston smirked. “I’m a very popular teacher.”

Susan rolled her eyes. “Please,” she said.

Archie took another pill.

“What are the pills for?” Reston asked.

A smile skated across Archie’s lips. It just might work. He ran his finger around the lip of the glass, never taking his eyes off Reston. “I have dark fantasies.” There was Gretchen again. Her hand against his cheek. The lilacs.

Then Archie had a thought. He could probably get Reston to shoot him. Provoke him a little more. Needle him until he became so enraged at Archie that he was willing to train the gun away from Susan long enough to take a shot. Archie bet he wasn’t a good shot, probably never been to a range. But if Archie got close enough, Reston might be able to hit him in the head or neck. It was an easy way out. In the line of duty. Everyone would understand that. Henry would know. Debbie, too, probably. But everyone else would just chalk the tragedy up to his dark fate. Poor Archie Sheridan. It’s probably for the best. He was never quite the same after his ordeal.

But then there was Susan. Reston would kill her. The second after he’d fired at Archie, he’d shoot her in the head, and he wouldn’t miss. SWAT wouldn’t be able to take him out in time, not where he was standing. They’d storm in after the first crack of gunfire. But Susan would be dead by then and Reston would maybe be able to get the gun in his mouth, fire it. Or they’d tackle him. Take the gun away. Arrest him. Archie and Susan would be dead and Reston would survive. That didn’t seem fair.

Back to plan A. The plan in which Reston got the bullet through the skull. It was a better plan anyway, thought Archie.

Time to alert the cavalry. Archie placed his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his right hand, the side that faced the porthole. He curled his pinkie and ring finger and extended his index and middle fingers straight, like the barrel of a shotgun, right to the temple. They would be watching him; he had been sitting there long enough, a goldfish in a bowl, a girl watching TV at night in an apartment. Henry would understand. The portholes were made out of some sort of thick double-paned acrylic. The best shot would be through the hatch, which Archie had left open. If the sharpshooters had even arrived. If anyone had seen his signal. If he could get Reston in the line of fire.

Reston took a tiny step forward, the gun still pressed against Susan’s skull. “Do the pills help?”

“No,” Archie said truthfully. “But they make you feel less guilty.”

“Give me some,” Reston demanded.

Archie picked up a pill and looked at it. “Do you have a prescription?”

“I’ll kill her.”

“You’re going to kill her anyway.”

“I’ll kill you.”

Archie set the pill back on the table. “Still not scary, Paul.”

Reston grabbed a handful of Susan’s pink hair and rammed her head into the teak-paneled wall of the cabin.

“Fuck!” she yelled.

Archie stood.

Reston leveled the gun on him, still holding Susan by the hair. Her forehead was bleeding, but she was conscious, fighting. Reston was infuriated, his face beet red, eyes searing. His chest heaved and his features transformed into something misshapen, deformed with rage.

“Okay,” Archie said. He picked up a pill and tossed it toward Reston. It landed on the green carpet, halfway between the two men. Reston scrambled forward, dragging Susan by the hair, gun still leveled at Archie. He got to where the pill lay, and unwilling to drop the gun or Susan, lowered his head, eyes still raised at Archie, and picked up the pill in his teeth. With a victorious grin at Archie, he swallowed it. Then, there was a crack of a sniper’s rifle through the open hatch, and Reston ’s head jerked forward and he slammed into the carpet. Susan screamed and scooted backward, her mouth open.

The SWAT team rushed in, weapons drawn, their black gear making them look like creatures that had just risen out of the Willamette. Susan had her bound hands in front of her face and she was saying, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“Check through there,” Archie said, pointing down the hallway. But he didn’t move. There were still two pills on the table. He brushed them into his hand and dropped them in his pocket.