It was almost 9:00 A.M. by the time Susan awoke with a splitting headache and a stomach-turning wave of nausea. She had finished that entire bottle of pinot on an empty stomach. Why did she do this to herself? She sat up gingerly, and then staggered into the bathroom, where she poured herself a big glass of water, took three ibuprofen, and brushed her teeth. The Band-Aid on her finger had fallen off during the night and she examined the wound, which had scabbed over into an ugly red crescent. She sucked on it for a minute, the blood coppery in her mouth, until the cut was almost undetectable.

Then she wandered naked into the kitchen, where she put on a pot of coffee and sat down on the Great Writer’s blue sofa. It was too early for the light to make it in through her north-facing window, but she could see the blue sky beyond the building across the street. Long shadows loomed dark on the street and sidewalk below. Sunshine, to Susan, had always seemed ominous. She was halfway through her second cup of coffee when the doorbell rang.

Susan wrapped herself in her kimono and answered the door to find Detective Henry Sobol standing outside. His bald head, freshly shaved, gleamed.

“Ms. Ward,” he said. “Do you have a few hours?”

“For what?”

“Archie will explain. He’s downstairs in the car. I couldn’t find a fucking place to park. Your neighborhood is awash with ambling Yuppies.”

“Yes, they’re ferocious. Can you give me a few minutes to change?”

He bowed nobly. “I’ll wait here.”

Susan closed the door and went back into her bedroom to change. She realized that she was grinning. This was good. This meant a break in the case. This meant more material. She pulled on a pair of tight, distressed jeans and a long-sleeved black-and-white-striped shirt that she thought looked French, and ran a hairbrush through her pink hair.

She grabbed a pair of cowboy boots from her closet, snapped up her digital recorder and notebook, stowed the entire bottle of ibuprofen in her purse, and headed for the door.

Henry’s unmarked Crown Victoria was idling in front of Susan’s building, with Archie sitting in the passenger seat, gazing down at some files in his lap. The winter sun looked almost white in the pale, clear sky and the car shone and sparkled in its light. Susan glanced up in dismay as she climbed into the backseat. Another fucking beautiful day.

“Good morning,” she said, slipping on some oversized dark sunglasses. “What’s going on?”

“You wrote Gretchen Lowell,” Archie said matter-of-factly.

“Yep.”

“I asked you not to.”

“I’m a reporter,” Susan reminded him. “I was attempting to gather facts.”

“Well, your letter and your stories have intrigued her and she would like to meet you.”

Susan’s headache vanished. “Honestly?”

“Are you up for it?”

She leaned forward between the two front seats. “Are you kidding? When? Now?”

“That’s where we’re headed.”

“Well, let’s go,” she said. Maybe she would get a book out of this after all.

Archie turned around to face Susan, his face so serious and haggard that it successfully wrung the life out of Susan’s momentarily high spirits. “Gretchen is mental. She’s curious about you, but only in so far as how she can manipulate you. If you come, you’re going to have to follow my lead and restrain yourself.”

Susan forced her face into a professional earnestness. “I am known for my restraint.”

“I’m going to regret this,” Archie said to Henry.

Henry grinned, flipped down a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses from the peak of his forehead to the bridge of his nose, and pulled away from the curb.

“How did you know where I live, anyway?” Susan asked as they pulled on to the freeway headed south.

“I detected it,” Archie said.

Susan was just glad that Ian hadn’t been there. It’s not like her apartment had all that many places to hide, and if Henry had seen him, he’d certainly have told Archie. Just because Archie knew she was screwing Ian didn’t mean she wanted him to be reminded of it. In fact, she was hoping he’d forget she’d ever said anything. “Well, it’s a good thing I was alone,” she said. “So I could drop everything at a moment’s notice.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Henry smile.

Archie’s gaze didn’t waver from the file he was reading.

Susan’s face grew hot.

It was an hour’s drive to the prison. She crossed her arms, leaned back, and forced her attention out the window. It didn’t last. “Hey,” she said. “Did you guys know that Portland was almost named Boston? Two founders flipped a coin for it. One of them was from Portland, Maine. The other guy was from Boston. Guess who won.” No one answered. Susan fiddled with the white string fringe around one of the holes in her jeans. “It’s ironic,” she said. “Because Portland is often referred to as the Boston of the West Coast.” Archie was still reading. Why couldn’t she stop talking? She made a promise to herself that she wasn’t going to say another word unless one of them talked to her first.

It was a quiet trip.

The Oregon State Penitentiary was a campus of gristle-colored buildings located just off the freeway behind a wall topped with razor wire. It housed both maximum-and minimum-security inmates, male and female, and had the state’s only death row. Susan had driven by it dozens of times on trips home from college, but she had never had occasion to visit, not that she would have jumped at the chance. Henry parked the car in a space reserved for police vehicles near the entrance of the prison. A middle-aged man in pressed khakis and a golf shirt stood on the steps of one of the main buildings, leaning against the railing, arms folded. He had soft features and a receding hairline and a belly that pressed insistently against his shirt. A cell phone in a jaunty leather case was clipped to the belt of his pants. A lawyer, thought Susan grimly. He stepped forward as Archie, Henry, and Susan climbed out of the car.

“How is she today?” Archie asked him.

“Pissy,” the lawyer said. His nose was running and he dabbed at it with a white cloth hankie. “Same as every Sunday. That the reporter?”

“Yep.”

He thrust a germy hand out to Susan, who shook it despite that. He had a firm, precise handshake, like someone who intended to make good use out of it. “Darrow Miller. Assistant DA.”

“Darrow?” she repeated, amused.

“Yeah,” he said without affect. “My brother’s name is Scopes. And that’s the last crack we’ll be making.”

Susan struggled to keep up as the group moved at a quick pace through the main building, taking corners and climbing stairs with the ease of people who had traveled the wide hallways so often that they had become a body memory. The group encountered two security checkpoints. At the first, a guard checked their identification, logged their names, and stamped their hands. Henry and Archie surrendered their side arms, and moved past the guards without a break in their conversation. A male guard stopped Susan, who was still a few steps behind. The guard was small and wiry, and he stood with his fists on his hips, like an action figure.

“Did you not read your pamphlet?” he asked her with the slow enunciation of someone talking to a child. He was shorter than Susan was, so he had to look up.

Susan bristled.

“It’s okay, Ron,” Archie interjected, turning back. “She’s with me.”

The little guard chewed his cheek for a moment, slid a look at Archie, and then nodded and stepped back against the wall. “Nobody reads their pamphlet,” he mumbled.

“What did I do?” Susan asked when they were moving again.

“They don’t like visitors to wear denim,” Archie explained. “The prisoners wear prison blues, and it might lead to confusion.”