Heartsick

“I hope you’re not sensitive to asbestos.”

“Does this seem odd to you?” Archie asked.

“I’ve always liked banks,” Henry said. “They remind me of money.”

“They all here?”

“They’re huddled together, waiting for you in the vault.”

“The vault?”

“Kidding,” Henry said. “There’s a break room. With a microwave. And a minifridge.”

“Sure. It being a bank. How’s the mood?”

“Like they’re about to see a ghost,” Henry said.

Archie waved his fingers at his friend. “Boo.”

A sink, fridge, and countertop with cabinets dominated one wall of the break room. Several small square tables had been assembled to form an ad hoc conference table. The seven detectives were sitting or standing around it, many with travel mugs of coffee. Conversation stopped dead when Archie entered.

“Good morning,” Archie said. He looked around at the group. Five of them he’d worked with on the Beauty Killer Task Force. Two were new. “I’m Archie Sheridan,” he said in a strong voice. They all knew who he was. Even the two he hadn’t met. But it gave Archie something to start out with.

The new additions were Mike Fla

“Claire,” he said, spi

The rest of the team had been brought in that morning. But Claire and Henry had worked the case from the begi

Claire sat up a little bit, surprised, but pleased to be put on the spot, as he knew she would be. “After-school activities have been canceled until further notice. We’ve got four uniforms stationed at each school, and six units patrolling around each between five and seven, when he seems to take them. They’re hosting safety assemblies today. Sending letters home to the parents suggesting they don’t let their girls walk or bike to or from school.”

“Good,” he said. “Search and rescue?”

Martin Ngyun leaned forward. He wore a Portland Trail Blazers cap. Archie wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him without it. “Just got an update on that. Nothing turned up last night. We’ve got almost fifty people and ten dogs doing a daylight block-by-block in a square-mile radius around her house. Another hundred volunteers. Nothing yet.”

“I want a roadblock near Jefferson today between five and seven. Stop everyone who drives by. Ask if they’ve seen anything. If they’re driving by there today, there’s a chance they drove that route yesterday. Lee Robinson had a cell phone, right? I want to see her phone records and all the girls’ E-mail records on my desk.” He turned to A

A

“A sketch?”

“Male, thirty to fifty. And then there’s the obvious.”

“Yeah?”

“He makes an effort to return the victims.” She shrugged her plump shoulders. “He feels bad.”

“So we’re looking for a male between the ages of thirty and fifty who feels bad,” Archie summarized. Sound familiar? “If he feels bad,” he theorized aloud to A

“He knows what he did is wrong. You might be able to intimidate him, yeah.”

Archie bent forward over the table, leaning on his arms, and faced the group. They looked at him expectantly. He could tell that many of them had been up all night, working the case. Every minute that ticked by would eat away at their morale. They would sleep less, eat less, and worry more. His team. His responsibility. Archie was not a good manager. He knew this. He put the people who worked for him above the people he worked for. This made him a good leader. As long as he got results, the higher-ups were willing to overlook the manager bit. He had worked on the Beauty Killer Task Force for ten years, led it for four, before they’d caught Gretchen Lowell. He had felt the edge of the brass’s ax on his neck during his entire tenure. He had proved himself and almost been killed in the process. And because of it, he had the tenuous trust of the people in that room. This made him loathe all the more the a

Body language stiffened.

“I know,” Archie said, with a sigh. “It’s irregular. But I have to do it and you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you that I have a good reason. You are all welcome to cooperate to your level of comfort.” Looking around the room, he wondered what they were thinking. Celebrity whore? Promotion hound? An exclusive exchanged for the burial of some damaging information? Not even close, thought Archie. “Any questions, concerns?” he asked.

Six hands went up.

CHAPTER 7

Tell me about Archie Sheridan,” Susan said. It was mid-afternoon and she had made her way through the folder of research material that Derek had pulled from the Herald database and handed over with an apple fritter wrapped in aluminum foil. Was he trying to be fu

Parker was the city crime-beat reporter. He was balding and fat and thought little of journalism degrees, much less M.F.A.’s. He was old school. He was belligerent. He was condescending. He was probably an alcoholic. But he was smart and Susan liked him.

Parker leaned back in his task chair, gripping the arms with his beefy hands. He gri

“They tell you about my Pulitzer Prize-wi

He snorted. “Did they tell you that your vagina got you the story?”

She smiled sweetly. “My vagina is my most tireless advocate.”

Parker guffawed and appraised her fondly. “You sure you’re not my kid?”

“Would your kid have pink hair?”

He shook his head, causing his jowls to sway. “Over my dead fucking body.” He looked around the newsroom at the rows of people staring at computer screens or talking on telephones. “Look at this place,” he said, scowling sadly at the hushed, serious environment-all carpeting and cubicles. “It’s like working in a fucking office.”

“Come on,” he said, straining to push himself upright and out of his seat. “I’ll buy you a crappy sandwich in the cafeteria and we can play reporter.”

The cafeteria was in the basement of the building. The food was standard institutional fare: slop under heat lamps, iceberg lettuce salads, shriveled baked potatoes. A wall of steel and glass vending machines that had probably been in the building for thirty years hosted tangerine-size red apples, triangular sandwiches, slices of pie, and slightly bruised bananas. Parker bought two ham and cheese sandwiches out of a machine and handed one to Susan.