The Night Season (29 page)

CHAPTER

66

The picnic table
at Oaks Park was crooked, lifted by floodwater and resettled at a slight angle. The grassy area under the elms was a field of mud. Across the river, the west side looked scarred where the river had carved away at its bank. But the clouds had cleared. The sky was blue. And the wooden top of the picnic table felt warm in the sun.

Archie watched his son and daughter play nearby, laughing as the mud sucked at their sneakers.

Ben looked up and waved, and Archie waved back at him.

It had been weeks since Archie had seen them. It had been too easy to make excuses.

He had let Susan do the talking, watching his children as she rattled off Gloria Larson’s story to August Hughes. Hughes sat quietly next to her on the picnic table bench until she was done.

“I didn’t kill Elroy McBee,” August Hughes said finally when she was done. “I figured he drowned, like everybody else. I figured it broke Gloria’s heart. That she still loved him.”

Susan’s brow furrowed and she glanced at Archie. “That’s why you never tried to see Gloria again,” she said.

“I didn’t kill him,” Hughes said again. “So who did?”

They both waited for Archie to say something.

“She said she threw the gun down the sewer,” Archie said. “Some of the sewer system is still there. When they built the golf course they reused it for irrigation. I’ve got people looking for it.”

“And if you find it?”

“It will have your fingerprints on it,” Archie said. “Or it won’t.”

It was a bluff. The odds of them finding the gun were next to none, the odds of there being any prints after sixty years were even slimmer.

But Hughes didn’t back down. “Will you tell her I didn’t do it?” he asked.

Susan looked up, behind Archie, toward the parking lot. “Tell her yourself.”

Archie turned and saw Gloria Larson and her daughter stepping out of a car. Another car pulled up beside it and Debbie got out and waved at him. He stood up. His kids ran to their mother.

“I have to go,” Archie said to Susan. “I’ve got something across the river.”

“The hearing, right?” Susan said.

“Today’s the day.”

“Good luck,” she said. She glanced back and forth between August Hughes and Gloria Larson and grinned from ear to ear. “It’s like fate,” she said.

CHAPTER

67

Archie sat on
the hard bench in the courthouse hall, his feet on the marble floor, his back against the plaster wall. He emptied his pocket of pills. There were four left. They had worked. His lungs were clear.

Henry had been released from the hospital in time to attend Heil’s funeral. Heil had been cremated, so there hadn’t been a casket. Archie felt relieved. He hadn’t wanted to see him again.

The bench was making Archie’s back hurt and he checked his watch. But it had stopped. He held it against one ear and shook it. It wasn’t ticking. The water damage had finally taken its toll.

The crowd outside filled the park across the street. News vans lined the street. Archie could hear the distant chanting of the crowd, but he couldn’t make out the words. The media had been banned from the courthouse, but there’d be no escaping them outside.

The courtroom doors opened and Archie looked up to see the assistant district attorney. She was wearing a skirt and suit jacket and heels. It was a big day. Archie’s phone rang. He glanced at the ID and held up a finger for her to wait.

It was Robbins.

“Hey,” Archie said, slipping the pills back in his right pocket. “Make it quick.”

“We found the gun,” Robbins said. “It was in an unused portion of the pipe, so it’s been dry for most of the time it’s been down there. There was a partial print. It’s kind of amazing. It wouldn’t have lasted all these years if it hadn’t have been so oily.”

“Was it Hughes?” Archie asked.

“McBee. He shot himself. I matched the print to the fire department records. Through the mouth, I’d guess. Bullet lodged in his brain. That’s why we didn’t see evidence of bullet damage to the skeleton. He died instantly. Hand spasmed. Gun landed a few feet away.”

Carey had killed five people in some sort of bent revenge because of a mistaken belief that McBee had drowned. And Gloria Larson had lived with the heavy guilt that she’d cost lives by delaying the alarm.

“Can’t prove it,” Archie said.

“Can’t prove anything,” Robbins said.

Archie paused. “You think Carey’s body will surface?”

“Sure,” Robbins said. “Give it a few months. Someone will fish him out.”

“Maybe in sixty years,” Archie said. He glanced up at the ADA.

You’re almost up
, she mouthed.

“I’ve got to go,” Archie said, hanging up.

The ADA smiled. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t wear a tie,” Archie said.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Follow me.”

He stood up and followed her to the courtroom entrance. A bailiff nodded at them and opened the doors to Gretchen Lowell’s sanity hearing.

The sun streamed through the tall windows and glimmered on the hardwood moldings and benches.

Archie stopped.

He could see Gretchen sitting at the defendant’s table, her back to him, her blond hair golden in the light. She slowly turned her head and looked at him. She still hadn’t spoken since her second arrest. Not a single word. Her face was unmarred by incarceration. Her skin glowed. She reached up with her manacled hands, brushed her hair behind her ear, and smiled at him.

“You can sit here,” the ADA whispered, ushering him to slide onto a back bench. “Just a few minutes.”

Archie took a seat, and the ADA slid in next to him.

It was a closed hearing, so attendance was limited to witnesses and court personnel.

The judge shuffled some paperwork on his desk. “Ms. Lowell. The court has been notified that you’ve decided not to testify on your own behalf, is that correct?”

Gretchen leaned close to her attorney. Her hair fell like a curtain between their faces and Archie couldn’t tell if she was telling him something or just tilting her head. After a moment, her attorney stood. “Actually,” he said, “if it pleases the court, Ms. Lowell would like to make a brief statement.”

Even with so few people in the courtroom, the murmur of surprise was audible.

“Go right ahead,” the judge said.

Gretchen pushed her chair back from the defendant’s table and rose to her feet. She moved languidly, relaxed but purposeful, as if she were excusing herself after just paying the tab for lunch at a restaurant.

She walked to the witness box and sat down. She was wearing prison-issue orange cotton pants, an orange cotton shirt over a T-shirt, and flip-flops. The male and female inmates all wore the same clothes. The T-shirts, along with the underwear, were dyed pink, after years of attrition from inmates filching underwear when they were released.

Gretchen looked right at Archie. The pink collar of the undershirt made her look girlish. Her skin glowed. Her perfect, pretty features still made his gut hurt.

“I just wanted to make it clear that I don’t regret anything,” she said. Her blue eyes left Archie and skirted around the court, finding everyone, making each person shift in his or her seat as her gaze settled and then lifted. “You can justify killing anyone, really,” she said. “You just need to give yourself permission. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for a reason.” She looked back at Archie and smiled that beauty queen smile. “I knew you’d come, darling,” she said.

He’d been subpoenaed.

Archie didn’t look away. He reached into his left pocket and rolled a pill between his fingers.

It was smaller than the antibiotics. A single Vicodin. He’d been saving it.

“You ready to do this?” the ADA whispered.

Archie met Gretchen’s stare. The sunlight through the window flattered her, the shirt was small and hugged the curve of her breasts. He showed her nothing. No emotion. No reaction.

Until her smile faded, and her perfect lips fell slightly open.

Then he grinned.

“Absolutely,” Archie said.

EPILOGUE

Heather Jadot was
out of shape. Baby bulge. Dylan was six months old, but the pregnancy fat was still there, an extra inch of flesh around her thighs, hips, and belly. All the Spanx in the world couldn’t hide it. Most of the Eastbank Esplanade had reopened. It wasn’t raining. So she didn’t have any more excuses. Dylan was snug in the baby jogger and Vixen was on her leash tumbling alongside them.

She could see the bulldozers on the west side, still working to clear debris. Barges pushing along rafts of detritus had become a common sight in the Willamette. Waterfront Park had been completely destroyed. A capital campaign was already under way to fund a redevelopment effort. Heather had joined the Facebook page.

Her Reeboks hit the pavement as she headed north, alongside the freeway. The concrete pathway had been underwater, like everything else. When the water receded it had left a layer of silt on everything, which had to be pressure-washed with fire hoses. The riverbank, which had never been pretty, was now a mush of dead plants and mud. Garbage came to the surface and clotted the weeds faster than the volunteers could get to it.

Vixen hopped off the path into the grass and skittered down the bank a few feet.

Heather stopped the stroller and pulled on the leash, but Vixen wouldn’t budge.

She was into something. Snuffling around.

Heather could smell something rank. Vixen had already rolled in the remains of a drowned squirrel in the parking lot.

Heather tugged hard and Vixen’s face popped up above the foliage.

“Leave it,” Heather commanded.

Vixen hesitated.

Dylan whined.

“Leave it,” Heather said louder.

Vixen disappeared for a moment and then came bounding up to the path with something in her mouth. Heather drew back in disgust and Vixen dropped it on the pavement.

Heather looked down. It was only a piece of elastic. Like a portion of a man’s suspenders. That was a relief.

Heather nudged the elastic back into the weeds with the tip of her Reebok. She wasn’t going to touch it. Someone else would pick it up.

Everything ended up in the river anyway.

She adjusted her pink baseball cap over her ponytail, set her eyes on the next bridge, and started jogging.

She wanted to get away from that smell.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not exist without the Herculean efforts, persistence, and patience of my editor, Kelley Ragland. You were right about the kid, Kelley. Joy Harris is simply the best literary agent ever. Thank you, Joy. And thank you to Adam Reed and Sarah Twonbly at the Joy Harris Literary Agency. (I am always careful to include the full name of Joy’s agency, because when I was a struggling writer, someone told me that a good way to find an agent was to look in the acknowledgments of books I liked and see who was thanked.) My writing group still meets once a week. They are: Lidia Yuknavitch, Chuck Palahniuk, Monica Drake, Mary Wysong, Diana Jordan, Erin Leonard, Suzy Vitello, and Cheryl Strayed. The writing I’ve read in that room is some of the best I’ve ever read anywhere ever. You guys each inspire me. A big thanks to my film-rights wrangler, Nick Harris at Mosaic. Keep working on that fake British accent, Nick—I think people are really starting to buy it. I launched two new Web sites this past year: chelseacain.com and iheartgretchenlowell.com. It was hard. And it took a lot of people. Thank you to the fabulous Storm Large (always my Gretchen Lowell), Lia Miternique of Avive Design, the team at Dorey Design Group, project manager Karissa Cain, photographer extraordinaire Laura Domela, make-up artist Crystal Slonecker, writer Courtenay Hameister, and copy editor Rob Simpson. Ryan O’Neil and Jake Kelly wrote Gretchen Lowell murder ballads and performed them at readings with me. You can check out audio clips on iheartgretchenlowell.com.

Much love to my husband, Marc Mohan, and our daughter, Eliza Fantastic. And hello to my nephews Jacob Duwa and Luke Duwa, just because I think they’ll get a kick out of seeing their names in this book. (Though they’re not allowed to read it.)

For the big finish, I am thankful every day to have a publisher like St. Martin’s Press, which is populated by so very many smart, lovely people. Special thanks to Andrew Martin, George Witte, Sally Richardson, Matthew Shear, Matt Baldacci, Matt Martz, Hector DeJean, Nancy Trypuc and Tara Cibelli. Also, I’d like to apologize to Talia Sherer, Macmillan’s Library Marketing Manager. I know this book isn’t gory enough for you, Talia. I promise to make up for it next time.

ALSO BY CHELSEA CAIN

Evil at Heart

Sweetheart

Heartsick

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE NIGHT SEASON. Copyright © 2011 by Verite Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cain, Chelsea.

The night season / Chelsea Cain.—1st ed.

        p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-61976-3 (alk. paper)

  1.  Sheridan, Archie (Fictitious character)—Fiction.   2.  Ward, Susan (Fictitious character)—Fiction.   3.  Police—Oregon—Portland—Fiction.   4.  Women journalists—Fiction.   5.  Serial murderers—Fiction.   6.  Portland (Or.)—Fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3603.A385N54 2011

813’.6—dc22

2010040692

First Edition: March 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-6515-6

First Minotaur Books eBook Edition: March 2011