Next to Die Page 27

  Mike stepped harder on the gas, plotting a new course in his mind.

  “Listen, can you do one more thing?”

  “Spin another plate, you mean?”

  “You’re our illustrious case manager. Can you go back through the files, see who drives what again? Same thing we did for the white four-door; let’s look at DSS staff, plus go through the construction crew that worked the addition, the survey team, and any subcontractors.”

  “Looking for a blue Chevy Caprice or Buick LeSabre.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m on it.” Lena asked, “What’re you thinking?”

  “I met with Bobbi Noelle this morning, asked her about the quality of record-keeping going back. I want to follow this line with Caruthers as far as it takes us because it’s possible Lennox Palmer was on the case involving him back then, too. But I’m also thinking about your drug sweep, so I’m going to the high school.”

  “The school? Why?”

  “I was thinking about a kid I knew from Brooklyn, Neil Johnson.”

  “Um, okay…”

  “Tell you about it later. Probably nothing.”

  * * *

  Lake Haven’s schools were divided – there was an elementary and a middle school in one place, the high school further out, on the edge of town. The high school was where they kept all records for the district. He asked the woman in the office if he could get into the enrollment data. “I’d like to look back into the mid-2000s.”

  “Well, our electronic records don’t go back that far.”

  He was getting used to it.

  She brought him to a room with a big table where it looked like teachers held conference. Her name was Barb and Barb left the room with a large, jangling ring of keys, promising to be right back. Mike sat by a window viewing the track. No one out there today; the school year had ended a month before.

  Barb returned with several boxes, dropped them on the table, and left him alone to go through it all; left him thinking about kids. Kids like Victor Fogarty, who’d been at Lake Haven until his family moved to Placid in 2005. Or Dodd Caruthers’ kid, Tommy. Charles Morrissey’s daughter. Or any kids from the big drug bust in ’04.

  The first box was general enrollment data by year. Lake Haven was not a diverse school; the past year was eighty-three percent white, eight percent black, six percent Asian, two percent Latino, one percent multiracial. Over half the students enrolled were considered “economically disadvantaged.”

  He dug back through to 2005, had a look, and it was about the same. For 2004, the year Dodd’s son had been removed from his home, there had been just over five hundred students enrolled. But Tom Caruthers hadn’t been in high school then – he’d been in the first grade. Mike moved to another box, went through the elementary school stuff, including class pictures, and found little Tommy, smiling with a couple of missing teeth.

  Tom Caruthers was a young man now. He worked as a roofer in Schroon Lake, an hour from Lake Haven. Amazingly, he had no record. Nothing criminal anyway, just medical stuff pertaining to the burn he’d sustained while in foster care. There had been a chance at an elective plastic surgery when he was old enough, but his parents had forgone it. Dodd was in prison by then, Tom’s mother getting by as a single mother on a shoestring budget. She’d found a religious man in Schroon Lake and apparently managed to turn her life around. Maybe Tommy’s too. Just kept his scars.

  If Dodd Caruthers was angry with the system that had taken his son, or because his son had suffered, he was a sore sport, because Tom Caruthers seemed to have turned out just fine.

  Mike unzipped his valise, pulled out the list of persons of interest from the Lavoie / Fogarty shared cases: along with Caruthers was Charles Morrissey, Scott Earnshaw, and Susan Gann. In the school records, he found a third-grader from 2004 named Jason Gann. Then Morrissey’s daughter, Lexie, in eighth grade. But it was a small town with some big families – the children weren’t necessarily offspring; he had to cross-reference with the case files and found out that Jason Gann was actually Susan Gann’s nephew, not her son. He could find no children named Earnshaw.

  Mike rolled his shoulders. Cracked his knuckles.

  He set out the list of names from the big drug sweep in Lake Haven the same year, Lena’s first big case, with basic information on the arrests. She’d emailed it all to him that morning:

  Twenty arrests made, but once he’d eliminated the arrestees not old enough to have kids in school, and ones who lived in another district, he’d narrowed it to six. He cross-referenced the names with the Fogarty / Lavoie case file summaries.

  Two kids shared last names with arrestees among the Fogarty / Lavoie cases. Jayden Price in first grade and John Durie, ten years old, in fifth. Mike didn’t have the warrant yet to get into Lennox’s cases, but DSS didn’t keep records arranged by caseworker anyway – they went by year, alphabetized by client. He could look, he just couldn’t directly use anything he’d found.

  Jayden Price had a single mother who’d been arrested in the drug sweep. He’d been temporarily placed in foster care while his mother served thirty days. John Durie was the child whose meth-addicted parents had inadvertently poisoned him by storing precursors in the fridge. Mike found a picture in the school records. The kid sort of looked familiar, too. Like an actor from years ago, and now he’s in some new movie, but you can’t be sure if it’s him.

  Mike went back to the Lena’s drug sweep info: John Durie Sr. and his wife Melissa were the parents, arrested and charged with criminal possession of meth precursors, seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, third-degree unlawful manufacture of meth. They were both remanded to the county jail in lieu of $10,000 cash bail or $20,000 bond each.

  He grabbed his phone and called Lena. “What happened to the Duries?”

  She hesitated. “Mike… tell me, really – what are you doing? The DEA is a phone call away.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Okay. Um, pretty sure he went away for at least ten. She did a year, or something, got out. No idea after that.”

  “You remember what happened to their kid? Because I’m looking at the file and it shows temporary placement, but that’s it. Let’s run a search on John Durie, see what comes up. Call Stephanie – or I can.”

  “I’ll call her. Why are you looking at this kid?”

  “Not a kid anymore. He’d be around twenty-four now. And I guess I’m doing it because of what you said.”

  “What did I say?”

  “That we might be looking at this in the wrong way.”

  “So, which way are you looking?”

  “In reverse.”

  “Mike.” She sighed. “Did you sleep last night?”

  * * *

  An hour later, Barb came in. “I’m leaving for lunch.”

  “Actually,” he said, “just finishing up.”

  She looked relieved, then retreated. He needed a few more minutes. Five, tops.

  Fogarty and Lavoie, both working on the Durie case, but no record of what happened to little John Durie, or where he went. And Lena’s memory that Lennox had been involved, too, even if he didn’t show up in the paperwork. Maybe, like Bobbi had admitted, things got lost, misfiled, or were never documented in the first place. A big case like Lena’s drug bust, with six arrestees in Lake Haven, more outside town, some within the school district, some not, some in the same judicial circuit, some not, some arrestees with kids, some without, people everywhere, the DSS swamped – caseworkers were more than likely to put something in the wrong spot, or forget to write it up. In all probability, there would have been mistakes.

  They’d been through everything else, spent hours poring over the cases they had. Mike thought that this guy, whoever was out there killing people, could’ve easily been a casualty of the multi-agency drug sweep from ’04. That thing – pulsing in his brain since he saw how Victor reacted to the people around him after his mother’s death, or thinking about the anger Kristen had carried for yea
rs, or the dream Charles Morrissey had about his daughter – all that gnawing in his gut subsided when he looked at John Durie.

  The only question, really, was why. Had something happened to the kid’s parents? Had he experienced a terrible time in foster care, and so blamed the county workers who put him there? They needed to find out what happened to the kid and the parents, otherwise the whole thing was just vapor.

  His phone rang, derailing his train of thought. He answered, “Nelson.”

  “Mike, it’s Trooper Farrington. Guess who I’m sitting behind.”

  Mike’s focus shifted immediately. “Chapman.”

  “Affirmative. How did you…? He’s got a taillight out. I ran the check on him and it says to contact you on the return. So, you, um…”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s just sitting there. Am I hanging paper on this guy or have you got something? I’m guessing you’ve got something.”

  Mike walked to the bank of windows overlooking the high school track. “I want you to proceed with caution, okay? And have a look in his trunk, then give me a status check.”

  “You got it.”

  Mike ended the call, set the phone on the table, and paced until Farrington called back.

  “Holy crap, Mike.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s got boxes and boxes of flares. Plus crates of iodine bottles.”

  “That’s… okay… that’s excellent.”

  “You want me to hook him up?”

  “No.” Mike held out his hand despite being alone in the room. “I want you clear with a citation. You got any slick-tops out there?”

  “Notario. But he’s almost to Jefferson County on a—”

  “Let Chapman go, but follow him. Alright? Can you do that?”

  “I can do that.”

  “Thank you, Trooper. Keep in touch.”

  Mike dropped the phone on the table this time, feeling the adrenaline. The Durie thing had a spark to it and was worth checking down, but the lead which had caught fire was a group of violent drug dealers killing off a social worker who stood in the way of business. Chapman was carrying red phosphorous and iodine. Mixed together with ephedrine, it was the makings of methamphetamine.

  * * *

  When it came to feds, there were FBI guys, who could be a bit starchy, and then the DEA, who looked like they’d just driven up from Miami in a Jeep with the windows down.

  They had maps spread out in Mike’s office; Trooper Farrington stabbed one with a finger. The small hamlet of Rainbow Lake was about fifteen miles outside of Lake Haven, just a wide spot in the road, a few farms. The Chapman property was one, a fifty-acre plot.

  “The place is totally run-down,” Farrington said. “Used to be a working grain elevator once, I guess, now it’s nothing. Building’s about to fall over, silo is still looking good though.”

  Mike chimed in. “This is the Chapman family’s place; used to handle grain in bags. Then they built the steam-powered elevator – this is circa 1940. Lasted until the ’80s; Henry Chapman died of a heart attack and the place went to the eight kids.” Mike leaned back and looked over the rumpled agents. “You got here fast.”

  “Nothing better to do.” It was a DEA agent named Colin Wright, with rough, pockmarked skin, wearing sunglasses indoors. “Like I said on the phone, our surveillance on Truenol already had us looking this way, wondering which direction the wind was blowing.”

  Truenol was an ethanol plant just over the Pennsylvania border, eight hours south. Wright said the DEA had been watching, suspicious that part of the plant was being used to manufacture methamphetamine – that it concealed a full, working lab, one of the biggest in the east.

  “So, what have we got?” Wright asked. “You guys were scouting Dodd Caruthers, followed his buddy there, Randall Bates, into town, he meets with Chapman and Petrov and this fourth guy, Gavin Fuller, and they’re around Chapman’s car, looking in the trunk. Is all that right?”

  “Chapman bailed Gavin Fuller and his wife out of jail,” Lena added.

  “Why Fuller?”

  “We don’t know,” Lena said. She glanced at Mike, then said to Wright, “One theory is that Fuller was up at county with Steve Pritchard, and they got talking, arranged some sort of deal.”

  “What’s the story on Chapman?”

  “The Chapman family is pretty well known,” she said, “and the word is that John, he’s got some money, he worked for North Country Labs for twenty-five years as a chemist, and he’s got a few patents. He’s supposedly fixing the place up to get it going again.”

  Wright looked from Lena to Mike. “So how did we get here? Him being a chemist is nice, but it’s not enough to pull him over and toss his car.”

  Mike gave a nod, swallowed hard. “Trooper Farrington was in service this morning, made a stop based on a broken taillight.”

  Wright stared across the room. “Huh. Lucky for us.”

  After a silence, Mike said, “Chapman’s got trucks coming and going from the place in Rainbow Lake. He’s rebuilding. And this just started about a month ago, according to neighbors.”

  “You see any signs?” Wright asked Farrington. “Expended propane tanks? Lots of plastic soda bottles? Anything?”

  “No,” Farrington said. “Lot of open space, big bins, like dumpsters; some greenhouse-looking things.”

  Wright gazed at his other DEA guys, who were expressionless, standing by like they were just waiting for the green light. “Sounds like cold method,” Wright said. “This guy’s hauling Red P. and other precursors around, he’s leaving chemicals out in the sunlight to make the interactions needed for the drugs.”

  “Or it’s just a staging point,” one of the other guys said.

  The DEA agents continued to talk and theorize, getting ready to head to a house in Lake Haven arranged for them to set up a home base. They all turned quiet when a motorcade of motorcycles went rumbling past out on the road.

  “Hey, Mike,” Wright said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Guy goes to the doctor, wrapped in cellophane.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Doctor takes a look, says, ‘Well, I can clearly see your nuts.’”

  “That’s good, Colin.”

  “Know what’s even funnier? A busted taillight.” Wright had a laugh, moved out of the office with the other agents, stuck his head back in and said, “We’ll keep in touch.”

  Trooper Farrington looked confused by the joke. “Taillight?”

  Lena looked at Mike when the door closed. “Friends of yours? He’s right about the taillight – pretty lucky.”

  “I actually went to school with him. I don’t know any of the other guys.”

  Farrington said, “Mike? What’s he mean about the taillight?”

  “So,” Mike said, ignoring Lena’s sharp look, “I’m going to have a talk with Dmitri Petrov; we’ve seen him with this Chapman crew, he’s in the bowling league with Caruthers, and he was in an altercation with Steve Pritchard. I’ll ask him what he thinks about someone from this crew killing Harriet when she kept her brother from using the family farm for drug manufacturing. Farrington, roll with me. I’ll explain the joke.”

  * * *

  Petrov was home, came to the door looking like Mike had woken him up. Mike showed his ID, but Petrov already seemed to recognize him.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  There was a baseball game on his big TV, and Petrov muted the sound. The living room was a mess, empty snack bags and pizza boxes, clothes on the floor, a dusty fan spinning in the corner. He lived in an apartment on the top floor, with a deck; there was a bunch of crap on it, including a rusted barbeque pit.

  “Anyone else here?” Mike asked.

  “No.” Petrov, wearing sweat-shorts for the Buffalo Bills, no shirt, sat on the couch and scratched at his stomach. Hair was matted on one side, eyes bloodshot.

  Mike stayed standing, blocking the TV. “I’d like to just follow up on your little run-in with Steven Pritc
hard.”

  “I not press charges,” Petrov said, his accent thick.

  “No – I understand that. And Pritchard never hit you, is my understanding, so there’s that. I’m here because I’m curious what the argument was about. What set it off?”

  “What set it off? I already talk to police.”

  “Well, tell me again. What got you guys all torqued up?”

  “Pritchard does not like me. He is American nationalist. Hates immigrants.” Petrov bit down on the consonants.

  “Yeah? So he just started harassing you?”

  “This is what I told police.”

  “Mind if I take my coat off?”

  Petrov didn’t object. Mike found a chair and laid his suit coat over the back of it. He was wearing his gun and holster tucked in front today, and Petrov eyed the Glock. It wasn’t a threat, just hot as hell.

  “You’re a bowler, yeah?”

  “Yes, I bowl.”

  “You’re part of the league.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dodd Caruthers is on your team…”

  “Yes, yes.” He waved a hand in the air, sniffed, looked out the sliding glass doors over the deck. “Detective, ah, Overton. She ask me about Caruthers. Was he at league night two Thursdays ago. I say yes. He was there.”

  “And you know about Steve Pritchard’s sister, Harriet, who was murdered.”

  Petrov’s eyes slid back. “Of course. Whole village knows about it.”

  “It’s a terrible tragedy.” Mike turned the chair around and sat down, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “First homicide in Lake Haven for a long time. I work death investigations, handle just about everything in the north part of the state. But this was particularly brutal, and has got me going crazy.”

  Petrov looked away, watched the silent game on the TV a moment.

  Mike asked, “Had you ever met Pritchard before last Friday night?”

  Petrov didn’t answer. His statement said no, he hadn’t, but now it looked like he was deciding whether or not to lie again. Then Petrov searched around on the messy couch, moved a newspaper aside, found a pack of cigarettes. “I going to smoke.” He stuck one in his mouth, found a book of matches, and lit up. Got up from the couch, moved to the glass door, slid it open. “Fresh air,” he said. He took a long drag but still didn’t answer. Mike saw the sweat running down the sides of his face.