Next to Die Page 18

  “Sometimes. I mean, DNA is not indelible. Bleach, hydrochloric acid, even soap and warm water can work in some cases. But we’re still looking. Otherwise, we got dirt. Bits of leaves and moss. We took samples from the woods, and they’re a match. And we’ve determined the imprint is a size twelve or thirteen work boot. So, the guy’s big; big feet anyway.”

  Mike heard a key hit the lock downstairs and got up from the bed. “What about the door, breaking in?”

  “So, power locks, as you know, are activated by the remote fob or standard key. The door is untouched and doesn’t really tell us anything except if he did clone the fob, it’s not hard – this is not high security but pretty standard.”

  “Okay, Brit. Thanks.”

  “Sorry I don’t have better news.”

  “No, it’s good.” He stuck his phone in his pocket and started for the stairs, thinking about a killer with the foresight to bring protective wipes along. It might mean he was in the system and working hard to cover his tracks. Or he was just being extra cautious in general.

  “Dad?”

  He called down, “Yeah, up here. Hang on.”

  Mike ducked into the bathroom, stuck his face in the mirror. His hair was flat on one side. He ran the tap and tried to reshape it a bit, smooth things out. He breathed into his cupped palm and made a face. Took down his toothbrush, went for the toothpaste, found the tube squashed and empty.

  Did the wipes prove the killer had every intent to murder Harriet right there in her car? No. But cleansing wipes weren’t going to do much with fabric upholstery – maybe he’d known Harriet’s car had a leather interior. More points on the scorecard that he knew her, unless he always walked around in a body suit with Armor All wipes in his pocket.

  Mike managed to squeeze a pea-sized dollop from the tube. He brushed with haste.

  Also, the DSS building was remote, on the edge of town, tucked against the woods, but how could the killer be certain there wasn’t a nighttime cleaner hanging out inside, someone who’d see him? There were no other cars in the parking lot, but some people took the bus, or taxi. Mike knew there was no one working when Harriet was murdered – he’d looked at all the employment records for that Thursday, and the penultimate person to leave for the day was the other supervisor, Jessica Rankin, at 5:43 – but had the killer known that, too?

  Did he know the typical schedule of the caseworkers? Had he been watching for a while? Sitting up in that house? In 120-degree heat in the attic? Waiting for Rankin to leave, then Harriet two hours later? Maybe not that hot as the sun fell, but still. Pretty hot. And big as he was – local PD had done all the door-to-doors – nobody had seen some large man coming and going from the vacant house. Canvassing photos revealed what Mike had seen with his own eyes: depressions in the long grass that, on further thought, could’ve been made by a dog or a deer.

  Rankin said they rarely worked late. Maybe then, if the killer wasn’t watching from the nearby vacant house, he otherwise knew Harriet would be detained. That pointed back to the Fullers; that the killer knew Harriet was staying late because of the emergency placement for the boy, Grayson. But the Fullers were locked up and had no known associates – unless they’d hired someone to kill Harriet… and that was really stretching it.

  Fuck.

  Or if not the Fullers – hell – maybe Pritchard had been the one to hire someone. Just because he was lying up at Marlene Blackburn’s place didn’t mean he was off the hook. He could’ve used someone else, just like Chelo had used someone to gun down Mike’s dad.

  Mike set the toothbrush aside, ran some water into his palms to rinse his mouth, thinking if Harriet staying late was an anomaly, and if the killer wasn’t up at the house on River Street, how had he known when to strike?

  Mike heard his daughter walking around downstairs, the floor creaking. “Dad…” Her voice drifted up. “It smells in here. Open a window…”

  He spat in the sink. “Be right down!”

  Maybe the guy was just down in the woods, skulking around in the trees until the time came. He didn’t have a broad view of things because he didn’t need to; he could stay hidden and just wait for the time to come.

  Because maybe – and this was a big one – he had other ways of knowing who would be leaving, staying, and when. Other ways of watching.

  * * *

  Mike bounded down the stairs, giving his armpits a sniff. Good enough. Kristen was in the kitchen. She kept her back to him as she fiddled with the coffee machine. “What did you do to this thing?”

  “Haven’t been using it,” he said. “Been heating water on the stove, having green tea.”

  She left the appliance alone and turned around. Seeing her was always his greatest joy – and at the same time carried a familiar weight: hellos and goodbyes were when Molly’s absence was the hardest, even after all these years. He could see in Kristen’s eyes that it was the same for her.

  They met in the middle of the room and he hugged her, probably too tight, and she put her head on his shoulder. “Dad, you look terrible.”

  “You want coffee? We can go out for some. Or there’s instant.”

  She pulled away, scrunching up her nose. “No thanks.” She backed up from him, not quite meeting his gaze until she bumped against the sink. He stayed in the middle of the room, disarmed, as ever, by his little girl. Not so little anymore.

  She looked like him through the eyes, her mother through the mouth. Tall like him, though, scraping the sky at almost six feet. Not bad for a grown woman of twenty-two, hard for a school-aged girl of twelve who’d just lost her mother and for whom every normal adolescent challenge had been more acute.

  “How’s the job?” he asked.

  She seemed to be looking around for something and walked to the adjoining counter, picked out an apple from a wooden bowl, gave it a look, set it back. “Job’s good.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t have anything more to eat. There’s this case that just… ah, man…”

  “I know. I read about it.” She scanned him up and down. “Sleeping in your clothes?”

  “You’re here before I expected. You got an early start, huh?”

  “It’s after nine; I’m up early. There’s a little drool there on your sleeve.”

  He walked to the sink, ran the tap over his arm.

  Kristen drew closer. “Here. Let me do it.” She scrubbed the white shirt sleeve with her thumbs.

  When she was finished he said, “I gotta change anyway.”

  She moved to the bar stools perched where the second counter overhung. The way she sat there, Mike flashed back to her as a little girl, feet dangling. They’d bought the place in 1999, when Kristen was just three. After Molly died, he’d almost sold it. He’d wanted to start over – Molly’s ghost was everywhere. But Kristen, by then twelve, didn’t remember any other home. For her, reminders of her mother were a good thing, not something to run from.

  Then the recession hit, kicked off by the housing crash, and Mike had decided to stay put. Keeping the house became a way of hanging tough, surviving the loss of Molly, surviving the severe economic downturn. Sometimes he’d felt like he and Kristen were the last two people left on earth, and their home was their refuge.

  She stared at him. “You not telling me something?”

  “No.”

  “You said that we were always… You know what you said.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “But – you’re oversleeping? That’s not like you.”

  “Just catching up. It’s healthy to sleep. Green tea is too. Doesn’t mean anything. You said the job is good?”

  She sighed, looked into the corner. “Yeah, the job is good. It’s a job.”

  “Well, it’s been keeping you pretty occupied.”

  She did a slow blink, and part of his mind calculated: he’d managed to last almost a full two minutes before laying a guilt trip on her.

  “Dad,” she said, and gave her head a little tilt.

  He leaned against the sink.
“I’m just saying. You’re only a couple of hours away. A little weekend trip every once in a while…”

  “Uh-huh.” She reached into the bag sitting in front of her and pulled out her cell phone. He’d already lost her.

  “I’m not… Look… I don’t mean to, you know…”

  “It’s fine.” She poked at the screen.

  He grasped for the right things to say, but, as usual, fell short.

  * * *

  They ended up getting iced coffee in town, took their plastic cups over to the park beside Mirror Lake, found a vacant bench. He felt a wash of déjà vu. Kristen caught him checking his watch.

  “You don’t have to hang out, Dad. I know you’re in the middle of this thing. You getting close or what?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  He told her what he could, emphasizing his theory that Harriet Fogarty’s death was tied into the disappearance of another caseworker.

  “Definitely,” Kristen said, and sipped her coffee through the straw. “And I’m with this detective in Watertown – what did you say his name was?”

  “Corrow.”

  “I’m with Corrow that Corina Lavoie knew the perp.”

  “Yeah?” He considered how Lena would get along with Kristen, how they thought alike. “Well, maybe that’s because of a case she had that involved him. There was one he mentioned about a—”

  “Or her. Cops always assume the perp is a male. And what about Harriet Fogarty? The killer was in her car, right? Maybe he or she knew her, too, then.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, nine times out of ten, it’s male. Is that sexist?”

  “Does your lady-friend think you’re funny?”

  He jerked back. “‘Lady-friend?’ What’re you talking about?”

  Kristen took a long, slow sip, giving him a look out of the corner of her eye. She smacked her lips. “Ah. That’s good java. Yes, your lady-friend. The one in the paper; Overton. I know when you have one, just like I knew about Annie.”

  “That was just a couple of dates.”

  “I knew. So, Overton… she’s divorced, you’re working together, you’re zonked out past nine in the morning; mostly it’s the look on your face. Am I punching around the center of the bag?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He watched people at the municipal beach, kids leaping off the long dock that extended out over the shimmering water. A lifeguard blew his whistle from a big wooden chair. The air smelled like warm grass.

  “Yeah, okay,” Kristen said. “I’m sure she’s very nice. You serious?”

  “It just happened. Anyway, that’s what I’m supposed to be asking you. How’s Kevin?”

  She fell silent, and he knew what that meant. He asked, “Relationship expired?”

  “Past the sell-by date, yeah.”

  “I never liked Kevin anyway.” He caught her grinning, but it worried him. Kristen had yet to keep a relationship for more than a couple of months. Maybe that was perfectly normal, but maybe she was afraid. “So how are you going to spend your time? You’re off for a week, right?”

  “Actually, I gotta cut it short. Steuben had someone quit, and he’s understaffed next week, asked me if I could fill in. And I need the hours.”

  Mike went from feeling sad to groping for his wallet. “Honey…”

  She put up a hand. “Stop – no. I’m fine. I need the experience.”

  Kristen was determined to be an arc welder and was finishing her apprenticeship. It wasn’t his first choice for her – she had the hands to be a surgeon, the patience of a school teacher, and the instincts of an investigator, but she’d never had any of those interests.

  “How’s the garden coming?” she asked. “I didn’t even look out back yet.” She was also excellent at changing the course of a conversation. Maybe she’d learned it from him.

  “I haven’t had the time to give it my best attentions,” he said, rising.

  “Where you off to now?”

  Mike looked down at his daughter on the bench, swinging a leg hung over her knee. “To meet with Overton,” he said.

  Their gaze held and then Mike watched the beachgoers again. Kristen stood and brushed off her backside, sipped her coffee a minute. “You know it’s okay, right?”

  He had a hard time looking at her. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t have to hide anything. It’s okay for you to see people. It’s even okay for you to—”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not the smartest thing to get involved with a colleague. I mean, there’s no cross-rank problem; she’s local and I’m state, but it can be tricky.”

  Her shimmering eyes twisted his stomach. “I know it’s tricky,” she said. “But, Dad, you deserve to be happy.”

  * * *

  Lena closed the door to her office and sat down.

  Mike said, “I’ve got something.” He pulled a document from his valise, pushed it across the desk to her. He watched as she studied it, scowling, then she looked up.

  “You just got this?”

  “I did, just an hour ago. It wasn’t the tribal police dragging their feet – it was this guy, Cody Blackburn. Marlene couldn’t confirm that Pritchard was there, but he could, because he’d been spying on her. They’re firing him – well, letting him resign quietly.”

  “So this…”

  “It doesn’t exonerate Pritchard fully, but we’ve got to show it to the DA.”

  “Pritchard still has to answer for the assault charge,” Lena said, “but this really knocks him out of the running…”

  “Maybe,” Mike said.

  “Maybe?”

  “I keep thinking of… well, Brit Silas said the killer cleaned up after himself. Pretty thoroughly.”

  “You think someone was hired?”

  “Maybe. Brit confirmed the soil samples and bits of leaves in the back of the car. We have size thirteen boot tracks. Our killer is a big guy.”

  “Hired by whom? Pritchard?”

  “By Pritchard, maybe. Or even Joe. I don’t know. Maybe they’re working together on it.” Mike rubbed his jaw, realized he’d showered but forgotten to shave.

  “That might be a bit out there, Mike. Joe doesn’t stand to gain anything.”

  “You’re right.”

  “And Steve was the one to say Rita had it coming. Joe seemed genuinely bereaved. He even admitted Steve might have it in him.”

  He nodded, looking at his shirtsleeve, still a bit damp, and thought about Kristen. He said, “You need to know… I talked to Cody Blackburn, personally.”

  “How? He was at the casino?”

  “No. He followed me.”

  “He followed you?”

  “After I left, yeah. Security called him, probably the guard was a friend. So Blackburn tails me a while, then comes up on me, I pull over, he pulls over, confesses to using the badge for his own personal situation. But I wanted to wait until Perkins sent it all over and it was official.”

  She crossed her arms and gave him a hard look that twisted his gut. “Mike, I’m managing this case. That’s the deal. You need to tell me what you’ve got as soon as you’ve got it.”

  “Alright, I’m sorry.”

  A moment passed.

  “Look,” Lena said. “I’ll admit that there’s something to the idea that Pritchard hired someone. He’s a scumbag, and I can imagine him getting some other scumbag to be his proxy while he’s passed out on the res with Marlene Blackburn. Not a pro, not like these guys you’re talking about down in New York, but someone cheap, because Pritchard is a broke-ass gambler. Someone just as fucked up as he is.”

  Mike opened his mouth to share more of his thoughts from that morning, but Lena held up a finger. She moved to a file cabinet and took out several thick folders – she had the chain of custody on the CPS files photocopied on the previous day. She laid them out on her desk; the most promising leads were cases occurring in the mid-2000s involving men who might seek revenge against caseworkers thereafter.

 
“But,” she said, “none of that involves Lavoie. These cases – and your theory about something that happened upstream – this is where our focus should be right now.”

  She grabbed one of the files and held it up. “Someone who spent a long time thinking about this, someone with a personal stake.” She tapped the file with her finger. “Dodd Caruthers was at SCI Cold Brook for thirteen years. Before that, CPS investigated him twice. Once for the incident with his son in the car, and again following a domestic violence call. I want to talk to him.”

  “Okay.” Mike stood up. “Let’s do it.”

  She spread her hands. “Well… hold on. Take a minute. You’re always ready to blast off into space. I need to speak to my chief, you need to run it up the pole to your supervisor.”

  “I’ll do that right now.”

  She just watched him a moment, the corner of her mouth twitching into a sly smile. “You’re a pain in my ass, Mike.”

  “You and my daughter already agree on something.”

  “She’s here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Poor thing.”

  “One last thing,” Mike said. “Bobbi Noelle.”

  Lena’s eyebrows went up, she waited.

  “Placid PD has been having someone roll through each night, keeping an eye,” Mike said. “And we’re still looking for her ex.”

  “Okay…”

  “Until we’re sold on Caruthers, or one of these other old CPS cases, it’s still possible this was meant to be her, and Lavoie is a coincidence.”

  Lena sighed, dropped her gaze, nodded. “Lavoie is a coincidence if this is Pritchard, or if this is Noelle’s ex. Which is why we’ve got to get through these cases. We have to know if she’s connected or not. If it’s Caruthers, then she is.”

  “Agreed,” Mike said.

  Her eyes found him again. “Where are you at with that? With Jameson Rentz?”

  “Well, he managed to charm Bobbi’s mother into giving out her phone number. It crossed my mind that maybe he’s out there working that same charm on other people, getting information on Bobbi and her co-workers. That he’s a dejected lover turned psychopath.”