Kill You Twice

by Chelsea Cain

  Leo lived in a penthouse apartment in one of the new mixed-use buildings in the Pearl District. There was a designer sneaker store on the first floor next to a shop that sold ten-thousand-dollar light fixtures. His building was the tallest in the neighborhood and the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room made the urban bustle of the Pearl look faraway and irrelevant. You could see cars politely jockeying below at four-way stops and the light rail gliding by and people ambling along with gelati and bicyclists and men walking pugs and office workers on their lunch breaks sitting on sidewalk benches eating salads out of to-go boxes, but you couldn’t hear anything. That’s what money bought you: silence.

  Before Susan had moved back in with her mother, she had sublet a loft in the Pearl from her former MFA adviser. She’d had sex with him, too. But not for his HVAC system.

  She dropped her purse inside the door and flung herself on Leo’s black leather sofa. “You know, people who die of hyperthermia stop sweating,” she said. “They’ll feel hot, but their internal cooling mechanism fails. They can’t sweat. Their skin is dry to the touch. Their body can’t cool itself.” She pulled at her sticky, sweaty shirt. “So I know I’m not hyperthermic.”

  “I was on my way out,” Leo said, still standing at the door.

  “Please don’t make me go,” Susan pleaded. “I’ve been driving around for two hours, with no A/C, looking for this girl who is totally not my problem, but I feel like she is because she reminds me of me. I mean, she’s a total hardcase. She drives Archie crazy. She Tasered him once, but that’s a long story. She lives at the group home where that guy who got filleted up on Mount Tabor worked, and they think she saw him that morning. Anyway, she probably took off to avoid the hassle of having to talk to the cops and whatever, but who knows, right? Maybe she saw something more than she said she did. And she’s an asshole, but she’s seventeen and who isn’t an asshole at that age, right? And Archie says it’s a problem for Missing Persons now, but we both know they’re not going to find her if she doesn’t want to be found.” Susan reached up and touched her scalp. “Do you think my hair needs conditioning?”

  Leo didn’t budge. “I really have to go,” he said.

  Susan put her hands behind her and stretched back on the couch. Even the leather felt cool. Leo had one of those refrigerators with the unit on the door that dispensed ice and cold water. “So, I’ll see you when you get back,” she said. “Do you have any sandwich stuff?”

  “You can’t stay here,” Leo said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ll snoop,” he said.

  Susan peeked at him over the back of the couch. “Please. I have to work. I work better with A/C and black leather furniture.”

  “You’re unbelievable,” Leo said.

  His white button-down shirt was fresh from the cleaner’s and still creased at the seams. His black slacks looked like he’d never sat down in them. Every piece of his dark hair was in place. He was the only person Susan knew who regularly had his shoes sent out to be shined.

  She peeled off her damp shirt, unhooked her red bra, and tossed them both next to her laptop on the floor beside the couch.

  “What are you doing?” Leo asked.

  Susan stood up, stepped out of her flip-flops, and slid out of her skirt and underwear. “Getting comfortable,” she said. She sauntered over to him, hoping that she didn’t smell as bad as she thought she might.

  “Really?” Leo said. “You’re willing to trade sex for air-conditioning?”

  Susan grinned. Then she hooked her fingers around Leo’s belt and pulled him into the bedroom.

  CHAPTER

  30

  Leo’s shower was marble and glass and it had its own light source, so you could stand bathed in light and water in an otherwise completely dark bathroom. There was a marble bench, and two showerheads, and soap that smelled, somehow, exactly like banana bread. Susan was a bath person. She had always been a bath person. Her longest bath on record was three hours and twelve minutes. Susan had dropped more books in the bathtub than most people would read in their entire lives. But she had to admit—she loved that shower. The setup reminded her of those game show booths where money blew around and you got to keep as much as you could stuff inside your pockets.

  She turned off the spigot, stepped out, and dried herself with one of Leo’s big black towels. She squeezed the water out of her hair and then wrapped the towel around her chest. It came down to her mid-shins. She looked at herself in the enormous mirror that covered the wall from the double sink marble vanity to the ceiling. The sun had brought out her freckles. Her wet orange hair looked like packing straw. Flat chest. Skinny limbs. Put her in braids and she’d look like Pippi Longstocking.

  She touched her brittle hair.

  Leo had nice hair. He had silky shiny healthy hair, hair that made you want to change shampoos.

  He didn’t have a conditioner in the shower. He must have some secret—a spray or leave-in ointment. Susan went to the sink he always used and opened a few drawers in the vanity. The man liked his grooming products. He used more moisturizers and cleansers than she did. She found a nail-grooming kit that had implements in it she’d never seen before. She pulled a small pair of silver scissors out of the kit and used them to trim her pubic hair. In a bottom drawer, she found old teeth-whitening trays, an electric nose hair trimmer, and a plastic bag full of a thousand cotton balls, but she didn’t see any hair treatments. She even tried the drawers below the other sink, but they were empty except for a box of tampons, a toothbrush, and some nail polish remover, presumably Leo’s emergency Girl Kit.

  Now she was on a mission.

  She looked around the bathroom and her eyes fell on the closet where Leo kept extra towels. She opened it. The towels were neatly folded and stacked on shelves. A toilet brush and a plunger sat on the floor of the closet. Behind them was a large gym bag.

  Did she really think that she’d find Leo’s conditioning spray in that bag? Maybe. He might use it after working out. At least that was what she was going to tell him she was thinking if he ever found out she’d opened it.

  You’ll snoop.

  She knelt down and unzipped the bag. She did it slowly, like someone revealing the climax of a magic trick. Now you see it. Now you don’t.

  Unzipped, the bag fell open like a mouth. Inside, on top, was a gun.

  Her brain processed it in pieces. A muzzle. A barrel. A trigger. It was the cocaine that the gun was resting on that really got her attention, a huge fucking brick of cocaine encased in plastic wrap and packing tape. Susan bought a pair of boots once that came in a box that was the same size. Those boots went up to her knees.

  This was a lot of coke.

  Susan sat back on her heels. Her throat felt small.

  She went through the possible explanations. He was just holding it for a friend! He’d found it on a park bench and just hadn’t had time to call the cops yet! But the most probable explanation was the one she liked least: Leo was more involved in his father’s business than he’d let on.

  Then Susan did something out of character—she decided it was none of her business. She zipped up the gym bag and pushed it back where she’d found it.

  CHAPTER

  31

  Archie was not where he should have been. But he hoped that if he kept the phone call short enough, Henry wouldn’t ask where he was.

  “There’s no sign of her,” Henry said.

  “She’s probably in Seattle by now,” Archie said into his phone.

  Pearl had been gone for six hours.

  “How was the meeting with the mayor?” Henry asked.

  “Brilliant,” Archie said with a sigh. He’d had nothing to report to the mayor or Portland’s chief of police. They hadn’t found any trace evidence in the parking lot or on the rooftop. No trace evidence on Jake Kelly’s body or at the scene or at the center’s parking lot. “Canvass both the areas again,” Archie said, “where they were grabbed and where they wer
e found. He’s got to have a car. See if the traffic cameras picked up anyone blowing through red lights.”

  Getting away with one murder was lucky. Getting away with two took talent.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Henry said.

  Archie looked up at the midday sky. Puffy white clouds drifted overhead. “He managed to kidnap adults from public areas in daylight, murder them, and stage spectacular crime scenes, all without leaving evidence behind,” Archie said. He wasn’t a beginner. “This guy has killed before.”

  “No unsolved murders with a similar MO have turned up on the national databases,” Henry said.

  “Let’s try looking internationally,” Archie said. He was standing on the sidewalk, a few feet from his car.

  “Can I go to Paris?” Henry asked.

  “No.”

  “C’est dommage,” Henry said with a perfect accent. “Where are you?”

  Archie glanced up at the St. Helens police station. “I’m tracking down a lead,” he said. “Call me if anything turns up.” And he hung up.

  He had listened to Susan’s recording the night before. And then again, early this morning. Gretchen’s honey voice sounded husky and sedated. Her speech had been intended for him. He had rewound the details and tried to puzzle it out. Why confess to killing Beaton now? Why bring up the lilies? Gretchen didn’t do anything by accident. Archie made a deal with himself. It wasn’t worth diverting resources from the primary investigation, but he would see what he could dig up in a few hours, and if he didn’t find anything, he’d let it go.

  He walked inside the small police station and pulled out his badge.

  “I’m expected,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  32

  James Beaton’s missing person file was underwhelming.

  Archie scanned the report.

  “Can I have a copy of this?” he asked.

  Samantha Huffington, the chief of police of the small St. Helens police force, looked up from her computer. “I can send you the digital file,” she said. She had been more than helpful, pulling the file, letting him use her office, not asking too many questions.

  “You’ve digitized your files,” he said. “I’m impressed.”

  “We have guns, too.”

  They were in her office, which was twice the size of Archie’s and ten times as cheery. The walls were papered with local newspaper stories about various arrests her department had made, and drawings by a group of elementary school kids who’d evidently come through on a tour. A shelf displayed framed photos of a police softball team. Huffington was in the center of the last five years’ worth of team photos. She was a few years younger than Archie, sturdily built, with thick arms and round shoulders. Archie guessed she was good at the plate.

  She pulled a pen out of a Giants mug on her desk and held it out to him with a sticky note and he scribbled down his e-mail for her. She took it and stuck it to the side of her monitor, and he watched while she brought up a PDF of the file.

  Chiefs in small departments could wear any insignia they wanted, up to five stars on each collar. Huffington only wore one. Archie liked that about her.

  “Did you read this?” he asked, laying his hand on the missing person report.

  She hit send. “As soon as you had me pull it.”

  That was what he would have done.

  “Any thoughts?” he asked.

  She frowned and glanced at the file. “Looks pretty perfunctory.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Archie said.

  Huffington put her elbows on her desk. The blue sleeves of her uniform were rolled up. The brass badge over her left shirt pocket glinted under the fluorescent lights. She had a broad friendly face, no makeup. “The guy left his wife and two kids,” she said. “It’s a small force. My guess is they looked around a little and decided he didn’t want to be found.”

  Behind her head, taped on the wall, was a handwritten quote by Robert Louis Stevenson. “Everyone who got to where he is has had to begin where he was.”

  “Pen,” she said, extending her palm.

  He looked in his hand and then realized that he’d inadvertently put the pen she’d lent him in his pants pocket. He handed it back. “Sorry,” he said. She dropped it back in the Giants mug.

  “There’s a difference,” she said, “between being missing and being missed.”

  Archie stood up. “Thanks for your help,” he said.

  “Just keep me in the loop,” she said.

  He took a step, and then turned back. “You haven’t asked why I’m interested,” he said.

  Huffington was looking at her computer screen, her fingers tapping on the keyboard. “I know who you are, Detective,” she said. She glanced over the monitor at him. “I can guess.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  Mrs. James Beaton lived in a one-story wooden house painted the color of the Caribbean, with white trim and an aluminum screen door. The yard was dead, the grass dried to a crisp. A bed of wilted white snapdragons lined the cracked concrete walkway to the porch.

  Archie had barely stepped on the porch when barking exploded from inside the house. He heard a woman shout and then the door opened, and a throaty voice from the other side of the screen door said, “You the one who called?”

  Archie squinted at the hunched shadow of the woman. “I’m Detective Sheridan,” Archie said.

  The screen door creaked as she opened it. “Careful of the dog,” she said, ushering him in. “Damn thing tripped me last year and broke my hip.” Archie stepped carefully inside the house. The dog, a tan and white corgi, eyed him suspiciously. “Come on, then,” Mrs. Beaton said. “Before you let the air out.” She was small, five-foot-one at best, though it was hard to tell because she was curled over a walker. Archie guessed her to be in her mid-seventies, which would have put her in the same age range as her husband. Her face was creased, and the skin around her arms looked like crepe paper. She was wearing a wig. A blond bob. Archie could see the soft white natural hairs poking out around her ears.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” Archie said.

  She laughed, showing yellowed teeth. “Sure as shit wasn’t doing anything else,” she said. “Drink?”

  “No, thanks,” Archie said. It wasn’t even four o’clock.

  “Didn’t think so,” she said. She shuffled backward, pulling the walker with her, the dog weaving around her feet, until she got to a recliner, but before she could sit, the dog hopped up in her place. She made a clucking noise and the dog looked up, put its ears back, and then leapt off the chair and flopped on its side on the floor. Then Mrs. Beaton slowly lowered herself down. “Damn dog takes my place every time I get up,” she said.

  Archie looked for a spot to sit and settled on a low-slung couch. A snowstorm of tan dog hair lifted off the cushions and settled on Archie’s pants.

  The house wasn’t hot. Archie could hear a window A/C unit churning somewhere. A print of a painting of Jesus Christ praying in a ray of godly light hung on the wall behind the recliner. A tapestry of several corgis curled next to each other in the wilderness hung next to it.

  Mrs. Beaton picked a wineglass up off a metal TV tray. “White wine,” she explained with a wink. “Doesn’t count.” She pulled a lever and the chair reclined with a clank. She was so small and the chair was so big that she looked like a child. “If you want something, you’re going to have to get it. It takes me five minutes to get up out of this chair.”

  “I’m fine,” Archie said.

  She set her dark gaze on him. “So, you find the son of a bitch?” she asked.

  “No,” Archie said. “No. Nothing like that. I just had a few questions.”

  Her jaw set and her eyes flicked above Archie’s head, but then an instant later her posture softened. She took a drink and shook her head. “Shoot,” she said. “I’m just giving you shit.”

  The corgi started to snore.

  “Can you tell me about the day your husband disappeared?” Archie
asked.

  “That was almost twenty years ago, son,” she said. “I told the cops everything I knew back then. It’s all in the report. Nothing to add.” Her eyes landed above Archie’s head again. Same spot.

  He turned around and followed her gaze behind him, where a half dozen framed photographs hung on the wall above the couch. Studio baby pictures. High school graduation. The kind of photographs with a gold photography studio imprint in the corner. A few black-and-white shots of grim ancestors. And a photograph of a woman with a blond bob standing next to a heavy man with a yellow necktie in front of the house Archie was sitting in. Two skinny teenage girls in matching sleeveless dresses slumped between them. Two Welsh corgis sat at their feet.

  “The son of a bitch took off. Left me with two kids and no income. Had to go back to work.”

  “Tell me about that day,” Archie said.

  She frowned and looked at her hands. The knuckles were swollen from arthritis. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. “Eighteen years ago. He left the office for lunch. Didn’t say where he was going. Never came back. The son of a bitch never called or wrote, all these years.”

  “Did he take anything?”

  She snorted. “The car.”

  Archie searched for a way to ask the obvious. “Did he pack a bag?”

  “Nope.” She leaned toward him. “But he withdrew five thousand dollars from our savings account that morning.”

  That hadn’t been in the report.

  “Did it from our local branch,” she continued. “I went in when I saw the money was gone, talked to the clerk. She knew us both by sight. Said he’d come in and made the withdrawal. By himself. Signed for it and everything. No question he cleaned us out, the bastard.”

  “Did you tell the police?” Archie asked.

  “Why would I? It was his money. He had a right to it.”

  Archie picked some corgi hair off his pants. This wasn’t going anywhere. “Did you ever know anyone named Gretchen Lowell?”

  She cackled and pointed a finger at him. “I knew it,” she said, jabbing the finger in the air in triumph. “I recognized you. From that old task force. Thought this might have something to do with that. You being here.” She took a sip of the wine and then set it back noisily on the table. “No. I never knew her.”