Sweetheart (17 page)

“What is it?” Henry asked.

The two plastic boxes lay open, the dark meaty flesh inside glistening under the office’s fluorescent lights. The blood puddled and slipped on the lunch boxes’ colorful plastic interior shell. Archie could smell it, the coppery sweet tang. He knew now what had happened to the missing male deputy, the poor sap who had helped Gretchen escape, probably even bought her the fucking lunch boxes.

Archie’s voice was steady. “It’s a human heart,” he said quietly. “I think it’s been cut in half.”

And judging by the smell, it was fresh.

M
om?” Susan said again.

There was a pause. “I might have eaten one.”

Susan couldn’t breathe. “Mom,” she said, as calmly as she could. “You have to throw up.”

“What?”

“Listen to me,” Susan said, her voice rising. “The chocolates are poisoned. Make yourself throw up. I’m going to hang up now and call nine-one-one.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Promise me.”

“But I don’t feel nauseous.”

Nauseated, Susan thought. But she didn’t say it. She opened her eyes. “Bliss, promise me.”

“Okay,” Bliss agreed hesitantly.

Susan hung up and dialed 911. “I think my mom’s been poisoned.” She rattled off Bliss’s address. “She ate a chocolate. I think Gretchen Lowell sent me poisoned chocolates.”

“Yeah,” the 911 operator said. She sounded unconvinced.

“I’m not crazy. My name’s Susan Ward. I write for the
Herald.
Please send paramedics.”

She hung up and looked around frantically. More kids were streaming out of the school now. All sorts of cops were jogging in. Something had happened in there. All hell had broken loose.

Susan didn’t care. “I need some help,” she cried. “Someone.”

She ducked under the tape and headed toward the school.

“Get behind the line,” she heard someone bark.

Susan felt the tears start to slip down her face. “Gretchen Lowell,” she cried. “She sent chocolates to my house.” She looked around frantically for someone, anyone, who could help her. But everyone was focused on the school. “My mother ate one,” she yelled. “I need help.” She looked for Archie, for Henry, for someone she knew. “I need Archie,” she screamed at a Hillsboro patrol cop. “Where’s Archie?” The cop looked back at her blankly. “Please,” Susan begged. She was running now. “Someone. Help me.”

Claire Masland appeared. She was there in an instant, out of nowhere, her arm around Susan’s shoulders.

“Susan?” she said. She took Susan by the shoulders, just as Susan’s knees started to buckle. “Calm down. Tell me what’s going on.”

Susan had to take a deep breath before she could talk. “My mom just called. A heart-shaped box of chocolates came to the house addressed to me. The card said they were from Archie. She ate one. My mom ate one.” She gripped Claire’s shoulder and looked at her hard, so she’d understand. “Archie wouldn’t send me chocolates.”

“Your mom’s at home?” Claire asked.

“I told her to make herself throw up,” Susan said. That would help. That’s what they always made people do on television. “But she never does what I tell her to.”

Claire lifted a walkie-talkie to her mouth. “I need a bus sent to—what’s your address?” Susan told her. Claire repeated it into the walkie-talkie. “Female in her fifties. Possible poisoning.” She turned to Susan. “Let’s go.” She pointed a finger at a white male patrol cop with a dark blond Afro. “You,” she hollered. “Art Gar-funkel.” She shouted Bliss’s address at him. “Follow me.”

They got in Claire’s Festiva and Claire flipped the siren on the hood on. The schoolyard was crowded with parents, cops, emergency vehicles, and news vans, but once that siren went on a path cleared and Claire was able to careen out of the chaos. Susan dialed her mother’s landline, but the phone just rang and rang. Maybe Bliss was busy vomiting. Maybe she was unconscious on the floor. Susan was the target. If anything happened to Bliss, it would be her fault.

She let the phone keep ringing, holding it tight against her ear, her eyes closed so it was the only sensation. Maybe her mother could hear it; maybe she would know that Susan was on her way. “God, I’m stupid. I thought he sent me chocolates,” she said to Claire, hiding her face. She used her sleeve to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Her skin felt clammy and cold. She wanted her mom. She opened her eyes, and looked over at Claire. Claire was steering the car around the fast traffic on 205, past the car dealerships and the malls and the mortgage companies. Her gun was on her lap. She could probably mud drywall and target shoot and change the oil in her car. “Do you have someone?” Susan asked her.

“Yes,” Claire said.

Everyone had someone. “All I have is my mom,” Susan said.

“We’ll get there, sweetie,” Claire said. “I promise.”

The ringing stopped. For a second Susan thought that Bliss had picked up, but then an operator recording came on the line. “The party you are trying to reach is not available. …” No shit. She hung up. The moment she did, her cell phone rang and she snapped it to her ear, expecting to hear Bliss on the other end.

“It’s been ten minutes,” Ian said. “Anything?”

“Nothing,” Susan said.

A
rchie held Sara close as they moved out of the administration office. Henry was behind them, Ben in his arms. Eight members of the Hillsboro SWAT team flanked them, four on either side. Their weapons were drawn, fingers on their triggers, knees bent. Archie knew that Gretchen was long gone, but no one was taking any chances. They were ready to shoot. Archie could hear the sound of children’s voices coming from a classroom. They were singing.
There was an old lady who swallowed a cat. Imagine that, she swallowed a cat.
Some teacher was trying to keep her students busy. Their voices and the footsteps of the cops were the only sound. Archie held Sara’s head down on his shoulder. Her wet pants were cold against his arm.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird. … She swallowed the bird to catch the spider. That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
He could hear Sara then, eyes still squeezed shut, face pressed against his shirt. She was singing, too.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
The front doors opened, and they stepped out into the light.

Emergency vehicles ringed the perimeter of the school. Patrol cars, ambulances, fire trucks. Behind them, news vans. Two helicopters overhead. They had evacuated the back of the building and children stood in groups in front of the school. Many parents had already arrived, but most would just now be hearing about the siege, leaving work, speeding to the school, their worst fears burning in their chests. They would arrive to find their children safe. They would take them in their arms and carry them home and they would weep with relief and they would move on.

Archie envied them.

Jeff Heil, a detective on Archie’s squad, fell in step with Archie, guiding them toward the street. Heil was light-haired. His partner, Mike Flannigan, was dark-haired. They were both medium build and square-jawed and clear-skinned. Archie called them the “Hardy Boys.”

Heil didn’t say anything. He just led Archie by a light touch on his elbow, keeping such pace with Archie that the two were almost pressed together. Heil was using his body, Archie realized, to shield Archie and his children from the news cameras.

Archie heard the mayor before he saw him. Buddy was barking orders at some patrol cops, telling them to move the press line back. His yellow tie flapped against his dress shirt as he swept toward Archie.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I want to see Debbie,” Archie said.

“She’s in the car,” Buddy said. He walked them across the grass to a waiting black Town Car with city plates. The SWAT team moved with them. Archie could hear the distant sound of media shouting his name. He held Sara closer and glanced back at Henry and Ben. Ben’s face was pale, but he held his head up, eyes trained on the activity that surrounded them. Archie could still hear Sara singing.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly. Perhaps shell die.

A tall Japanese man opened the back door of the Town Car. Archie recognized him as part of the mayor’s security detail.

Debbie sprang out of the car, hands over her mouth. When she saw them, she burst into tears and the hands fell and opened wide. Sara lunged from Archie toward her mother, falling into Debbie’s arms.

Debbie fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around Sara, so that their entire bodies were touching. Henry unwrapped Ben’s thin freckled arms from around his neck and set the boy down and Debbie held an arm out for him and he fell into their hug.

Debbie looked up at Archie. Her eyes were red, her face pale. “Did you get her?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” Archie said. Debbie closed her eyes for a moment and then loaded the children into the backseat of the car with her. Archie turned back to Heil. “Make sure all my lines are tapped,” he told him.

Heil glanced back at Henry.

“Did it as soon as we heard she was loose,” Henry said.

Of course he did. “Right,” Archie said. He climbed into the backseat. Sara was on Debbie’s lap, Ben in the middle. Ben had taken Sara’s hand and held it in both of his. Sara stared out the tinted window at the distant television cameras.

“We’ve got to go,” Heil said, getting in up front in the passenger seat.

Henry leaned in the open door toward Archie. “Who would Gretchen go after?” he asked.

Archie thought about it, tried to distance himself emotionally from the question. “Debbie,” he said. “The kids. Anybody who means something to me.” He looked past Henry, at the police cars, the children, the school. There weren’t that many people left he allowed into his life. But Gretchen knew him well enough to intuit who they were. He’d made it easier by taking one of them down to meet her. He looked for Susan now, in the crowd, the shock of aqua hair. But he didn’t see her.

“Where is she?” he asked Henry.

“Who?” Henry said.

“Susan,” said Archie. “Find her. Make sure she’s okay.”

From inside the car, Sara’s voice was tiny. No,
I dunno why she swallowed that fly.
She looked up at her mother and smiled, her apple cheeks dimpling. “You think Gretchen is pretty, right?” she asked.

Debbie threw Archie a withering look and then rested her head in her hand like she had a headache. “Sara,” she said calmly. “Shut up.”

I
’m glad you’re fine, Bliss,” Susan said, twisting around to face her mother in Henry’s Crown Vic. Her mother hadn’t said much since Henry had picked them up at the hospital. Susan and Claire had arrived at the house after the ambulance. The only ingredients in the chocolates, it turned out, was the stuff you made chocolate out of. Gretchen’s motive had been to terrorize, not kill.

“I wish we’d known that before they pumped my stomach,” Bliss said. “With a hose. In the yard.” She pulled at a bleached dreadlock. “In front of the neighbors.”

Susan looked out the windshield and crossed her arms. “Maybe this will teach you not to open my mail,” she said.

Henry sighed audibly as he slid the car in front of a hundred-year-old brick building in the cultural district of downtown Portland. The front door of the building was framed with Corinthian-style columns and a hunter green awning featured a white crest with the letters AC.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Susan said.

“It’s safe,” Henry said, getting out of the car. He walked around and opened the passenger door for Susan to get out.

“It’s the Arlington,” said Susan. “It’s a social club for capitalist geezers.”

“The mayor’s a member,” Henry said, opening the back door so Bliss could climb out of the backseat.

“I think I’ve protested this place,” Bliss said, climbing out of the car and looking up at the brick façade. “Do they still make women wear skirts?”

Henry’s face steeled. “We can control access. You’ll be comfortable.”

Susan was still sitting in the car. “I’m not staying here,” she said, crossing her arms.

Henry squatted down next to her and gripped her upper arm hard. “This isn’t a joke. Do you not think that she won’t kill you?”

“That’s a double negative,” Susan said. “You should keep it simple. ‘She will kill you.’ Direct. Scary.”

Henry glared at her. “Archie’s worried about you. It will make him worry less if you are nearby.” He ran a hand over his shaved head. “And that will make me worry less.”

“Archie’s staying here?” Susan asked.

“Yep,” Henry said.

She reached over and released her seat belt. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Henry sighed again and led Susan and her mother through the club’s oak double doors. The wainscoting and crown molding were white, but the walls were painted incongruously with a light salmon that had been sponged on in an attempt at texture. An ornamental table, festooned with flowers, squatted in the middle of the entryway below an enormous shiny brass light fixture. A grand staircase led upstairs, its treads covered in blue carpet. The once grand fireplace had been fitted for gas and the oriental rugs were threadbare. Susan had heard about the Arlington Club, but this was the first time she’d been inside. It was a little disappointing.

She looked around for power brokers and saw only a single old man sitting on a sofa in front of the gas fireplace reading the
Wall Street Journal
under a painting of Mount Hood that hung on the wall in an old gilt frame.

The only sounds were hushed voices and clinking silverware from the restaurant upstairs.

A tall, skeletal man appeared from behind a desk at the back of the room. He was dark-haired and wore a suit and his tie was affixed to his shirt with a silver stickpin. Henry flashed the man his badge. The man waved his hand. “Please put that away.” He slid a look over at the old man reading the paper. “The members.”

Henry shut the badge and bent his head at Susan and Bliss. “This is Susan Ward and her mother, Bliss Mountain.”