Chelsea Cain - Heartsick

The press conferenceended and Ian led Susan into the task force offices. The press in attendance had rushed off to write their stories and edit their videos. Susan saw immediately why they had chosen to have the press conference outside. The office was in chaos. Half-unpacked boxes were everywhere. The bank transaction counter had been removed and what was left was a large open space with a few offices in the back and what Susan presumed was the old vault. The furniture was bank furniture-dingy mauve couches with oak armrests, cherry-laminate desks with shiny brass hardware, plastic floor mats, and cloth task chairs. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The industrial carpet was gray, with a worn footpath to and along the now-missing counter. The walls were painted a funereal pale rose. Detectives and support staff unpacked boxes, nailed large dry erase boards to the walls, plugged in computers, and transformed the space into a police station. Susan wondered how much time they were losing setting up shop that might be used to find Kristy Mathers before she was murdered. Their faces were pinched; there was no small talk.

The mayor finished the soliloquy he was performing for a group of aides and Ian stepped in to introduce Susan.

“Mayor, this is Susan Ward, the writer who will be doing the piece on the task force,” Ian said. Susan noticed that he used the word writer and not reporter.

The mayor’s eyes widened at Susan’s appearance, but he smiled and shook her hand firmly, placing his other hand on her upper arm. He was tall, with painstakingly sculpted, prematurely silver hair, and the kind of hands that are always warm. His fingernails were buffed to a bright sheen and he wore a gray suit that was just as luminous. Susan thought he looked like Robert Young in Father Knows Best, a TV show she loathed only because her own life had always seemed so tawdry in comparison. She made a mental bet with herself that he would be a senator within five years. Assuming he was rich enough.

“It’s a pleasure,” he said, his eyes positively brimming with paternal amiability. “I’ve heard great things about you. I’m looking forward to reading the series.”

Susan felt a strange self-consciousness wash over her. She didn’t like it. “Thank you, sir,” she said.

“I want to introduce you to Archie Sheridan,” the mayor said. “You know, I served on the Beauty Killer Task Force with him. Years ago. Before I was even chief. I was actually the first detective to lead the task force. Archie didn’t have the seniority then. It was his first case. I was something of a hotshot in the department, so they put me in charge. I lasted three years. Hell of a thing. No one I’d rather work with than Archie Sheridan. There is no one out there I’d trust more with my daughter’s life.” He waited a moment, and when Susan didn’t open her notebook, he added, “You can write that down.”

“You don’t have a daughter,” Susan said.

The mayor cleared his throat. “Figure of speech. Have you had a chance to look around?” He led her farther into the bowels of the bank, his hand settled firmly just above the small of her back. “As you can see, we’re still setting up office equipment. When we’re done, we’ll have a working squad: interrogation room, conference room, state-of-the-art computer system, et cetera.” They reached an office with a large glass panel that overlooked the main room. The white venetian blinds were closed. “This is the old bank manager’s office,” the mayor explained. “But it appears our current bank manager isn’t here.” He turned to a small dark-haired woman walking past with a badge clipped to the waist of her jeans. She was eating a half a burrito wrapped in a paper towel and her lips were stained with hot sauce. “Detective Masland? Where’s Sheridan?”

She was caught mid-bite, and they had to wait while she finished chewing and swallowed. “The school. Just left. He went over there to conduct some interviews and get the checkpoint set up. I’m heading over there now.”

A trace of agitation crossed the mayor’s face. “I’m sorry,” he said to Susan. “I told him I wanted him to meet you.”

“I realize that he’s busy,” Susan said. “But eventually, I will have to meet him. I can’t profile him without talking to him.”

“Come by tomorrow morning at nine A.M. I’ll make sure he’s here.”

I bet you will, thought Susan.

Ian and Susandrove back to the paper in silence. When they pulled into the parking garage, Ian swallowed hard. “Can I come over tonight?”

Susan pulled at a wisp of pale pink hair. “Where’s your wife?” she asked.

He looked at his hands, still gripping the steering wheel. “Up in Seattle.”

Susan hesitated. “Make it late,” she said. She felt a twinge of guilt, bit her lip, and opened the car door. “You’ll find that stomaching the whole adultery thing is easier if we don’t spend too much time together.”

T here was anotherreason that Susan wanted Ian to come over late. As soon as she and Ian got to the fifth floor, she excused herself to go to the bathroom, doubled back downstairs, got in her car, and drove across the river to Jefferson High School. There was no way she was going to let a night pass without getting to meet Archie Sheridan.

Portland was divided into quadrants: Northwest, Southeast, Southwest, and Northeast. Which quadrant you were from said a lot about who you were. If you were from Southwest, you lived in the hills and had money. If you were from Southeast, you were liberal and probably a vegetarian. If you were from Northwest, you were young and spent a lot on clothes. If you were from Northeast, you had some money and a dog and drove a Subaru wagon. Then there was Portland ’s so-called fifth quadrant: North Portland. North Portland was carved out between Northeast and the Willamette River. Only 2 percent of Oregon ’s population was black. But you wouldn’t know it walking down the street in North Portland.

Jefferson High was in this fifth quadrant, or, as it had been recently rechristened, “NoPo.” The area was still recovering from heavy gang activity in the nineties. Teenagers were still occasionally shot dead on the street, but the empty lots thatched with dead grass that punctuated many blocks were getting fenced in and being transformed into multiuse development projects. Blame the gentrification on all the hipster white kids buying up or renting houses because they were cheap and close to downtown. The houses were usually bent with dry rot, but you didn’t have to worry about neighbors calling the cops if your band played too loudly in the basement. The benefits of this renaissance-a bevy of trendy restaurants, boutiques, and renovated old Portland four-squares-had not had much impact on the local school system, which boasted some of the lowest test scores in the state. Most of the kids who went to Jefferson were poor and most were black, and many were no strangers to violence.

Susan noticed the police cruisers parked out in front of the large institutional-looking brick school. She easily found a spot to park her car on a side street and walked the block back toward the campus, notebook in hand. There was some local news activity. Charlene Wood, of Channel 8, was standing on the corner, interviewing a huddle of teenage girls in tight jeans and puffy coats. About half a block behind her, a man in a bright orange windbreaker was yammering into another microphone. Several teenagers, presumably fresh from extracurricular activities, loitered on the steps of the school, a nervous energy permeating their practiced insouciance. A uniformed police officer and two crossing guards waited with them for parents or friends or buses or some other vessel of safety. On the other side of the river, the sky over the West Hills was ablaze with deep pinks and oranges, but on the east side it just looked gray.