Next to Die

by T. J. Brearton

  “What’s he entitled to after this?”

  Overton stopped, hand on the doorknob, then turned to face Mike. “Well, I’ve only just had a look. The Department of Social Services pays out three years’ salary to either the spouse, or the spouse and the children, or just the children, depending on the arrangement. Harriet made about 65,000 a year, before taxes.”

  “So that’s about…” Mike glanced up as he did the math.

  “A hundred and ninety-five thousand,” Overton said.

  “Well, let’s look at it and see how it’s distributed between him and the son. What else?”

  “Harriet has an inheritance from her parents, both deceased.” Overton spoke in a voice close to whispering. “Again, I’ve barely had time to look. But that inheritance has already been absorbed into the marriage, and based on where their son went to school – Colgate – I’d say tuition has eaten up a lot of it. There’s nothing new Fogarty or his son stand to gain beside the life insurance from DSS, as far as I’ve seen.”

  “And he’s a Highway Department guy?”

  “A supervisor. Just retired.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Highway maintenance worker. So… whatever that is. I haven’t had time to pull those records but I’m guessing, you know, since he had twenty-five years, by the end maybe he was making forty, forty-five grand, and he’s got a pension. She was probably doing better, but for their house and a kid in college… you know, the inheritance definitely helped them.”

  “Alright. Let’s talk to him.”

  Fogarty agreed to join them in the small room. There was a plush loveseat, some bookshelves filled with inspirational stories on grief no one ever read, and a window looking into an adjacent room, in case it was necessary to separate the bereaved from the deceased. Fogarty sat on the loveseat, slouched forward.

  “Mr. Fogarty,” Mike began, “I don’t know how better to say it… I am so sorry for your loss.”

  Fogarty’s hunch seemed to deepen, his eyes darted about, ringed red from emotion.

  “What happened last night?” Mike asked. “Did you expect your wife home at some point?”

  He nodded, slowly, his eyes filling with tears. “I fell asleep.”

  “You fell asleep? About what time?”

  “Right about eight thirty. I was on the porch, reading, getting tired. So I went in to lie down. I’ve had something – I don’t know, it’s going around.”

  “You mean you felt sick?”

  “My stomach. My head ached. I took NyQuil – that really knocks me out. I closed my eyes and…” He shrugged, and two tears tracked down his face. “And that was it. I woke up around six this morning, and she wasn’t there.”

  Mike gave it a moment, glancing at Overton, surprised to see emotion swimming in her own eyes.

  Mike used a soft voice as he resumed with Fogarty. “Then what did you do?”

  “I texted her. I got up and went to the bathroom. Then I… I called her.”

  “We have your incoming call on her phone – 6:17 a.m.”

  “Right.” He seemed to straighten out, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his eyes and nose. “I knew something was… Rita wouldn’t just stay out all night or anything like that. I knew something happened. Something was wrong.”

  “And that’s when you called 911, who directed your call to the Lake Placid police. That was at six twenty.”

  Terry gave a big nod, then looked over their shoulders at the window into the next room.

  “What did Lake Placid say?” Mike asked.

  “They said they would look into it right away. They asked me if… I told them we haven’t been having any problems. They asked me… I don’t know. The usual. Acting like she might’ve left me.”

  “Any reason to think she would?”

  Fogarty’s eyes hardened behind the sheen of emotion. “No. Not even close. She was going to retire soon. We were going to travel. So I’m getting a little tired of being asked that.”

  Mike knew a man’s emotion loved to go toward anger if it meant a break from the grief. He wasn’t trying to rile Fogarty, so he subtly shifted direction. “What did you do for the Highway Department?”

  “Everything,” Fogarty said, softening a bit. “Started on mowers, forklift; did the plow every winter for years, in the summer might work a striper, post pounder – whatever it was; I could drive it and work it. But I’ve been out for almost a year. Loving it. Looking forward to just spending life with my wife… Oh God…” Terry fell apart again and they had to give him more time.

  Mike knew the rest of the story anyway: Placid PD took the report and made a call to the Lake Haven police, inquiring about Harriet. Lake Haven sent a car up to check the office building where she worked, saw the car parked, the body inside at around seven thirty. Employees began arriving for the day about fifteen minutes after that. Bobbi Noelle had been the first.

  “You call her Rita?” Mike asked.

  Fogarty gathered himself again and their eyes connected. He nodded and offered a broken smile. “I tried calling her ‘Harry’ for a while but it didn’t take. Her parents called her Rita from when she was little. People at work call her Rita.”

  “And she has two brothers?”

  “Joe lives in Salt Lake City. Steve is somewhere… I don’t know. He moves around a lot.”

  “When was the last time Harriet saw either of them?”

  “We don’t really talk to Steve. But Joe was here with his family, um, two Christmases ago. Or three… I can’t remember. He’s got two grown kids. We were planning a trip out there this fall. I’m not looking forward to the call to Joe.”

  “And Steve?”

  Terry’s eyes were heavy and hooded. “Steve’s not my favorite in-law. He was an asshole to Rita when they were kids. Sorry for the language. He’s the youngest. Never married. She’s the middle child; a brother above and a brother below.”

  “How was he an asshole?” Overton glanced at Mike, then back at Terry. “Was he aggressive?”

  “He could get in her face. They’re only two years apart; he’s the baby. He was just a problem child – he’d harass her, you know, like, barge into her bedroom when she was changing clothes. When they were little he’d wrestle her and pin her down – but in a mean way. And he just kept on. You know. Very aggressive. Angry. An angry man.”

  Mike made a note: family issues, younger brother. “But they haven’t been in contact recently? Maybe an email, Facebook, or something?”

  “No. The last they spoke was when Rita’s mother passed, shortly after her father. Cecilia was…” He looked into a corner, remembering. “She died almost four years ago. This August. She’s buried down where the family farm is, in Gloversville. Steve made an appearance for the funeral, but… he was a real handful. Drinking, arguing about the will.”

  “The will?” said Mike.

  “Okay, so, when Arthur died – that’s Rita’s father – he left everything to Cecilia, his wife, including the farm. Then she left the farm to Joe and Rita. Steve was… He had this whole story about how Cecilia was under duress when she signed it, and that Joe and Rita coerced her, all this sort of bullshit.” Fogarty rubbed his eyes. “I keep swearing. Please excuse my language.”

  Mike brushed away the apology with a hand. “Whatever you need, Mr. Fogarty.”

  “I haven’t seen Steve in years. Rita wasn’t talking to him. She’d drawn a boundary. That’s the bottom line.”

  “She’d said ‘enough,’” Overton suggested.

  “Exactly. Life’s too short for someone like Steve and all his bullshit.” The emotion bubbled up again, and Fogarty’s lower lip shook.

  Mike asked, “Are you going to reach out to him?”

  Fogarty ran a hand over his face. “I have to call Joe. No question. But Steve… I’ll try the number we’ve got for him, if it’s even still his number. I couldn’t care less if he knows or not.”

  “Could you share that number with us when you get a chance?�
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  “I’ll look for it.”

  There was a soft knock at the door. Overton opened it up. A mousy woman stood nervously on the other side, wringing her hands. Mike recognized her as Dr. Crispin’s assistant. “I’m sorry to interrupt – Victor Fogarty is here.”

  * * *

  The young man was square-jawed with fierce eyes and thick brows like his father, but otherwise looked more like his mother. Handsome, wearing dark slacks and a crisp white shirt. Standing in the lobby, fists clenched by his sides.

  Terry stuck out his chest a bit, like he was marshaling strength, and walked to his son.

  Victor searched his father’s eyes. “Where is she?”

  “She’s here. They’re examining her.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s okay, Vic. We’re going to be okay…”

  “What happened?” Victor glared at Mike and Overton. “Where is my mother? What happened to her?” His chin trembled, eyes shone. Terry tried to embrace his son but Victor pulled away. Then he turned and stalked off toward the autopsy suite and Terry followed. Mike started after them.

  Overton caught Mike by the arm, and their eyes locked. “I’ve already had a look at Harriet’s brother, Steve. He’s got a record. Drinking and driving, suspended license, possession charges. He seems to drift around, doing different jobs.” She blinked, let Mike go. She said, “We have no idea where he is right now.”

  * * *

  Late in the evening they gathered everybody at the state police barracks in Cold Brook, where they had the space to stretch out. The large room was arranged like a college classroom, with semi-circular rows of seating, a dais and three large whiteboards. Present were several state troopers, local Lake Haven patrol officers, the Lake Haven chief, and Mike’s supervisor from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Reggie Hume.

  Mike drew a large circle on the middle whiteboard. “So, here’s where we’re at: We’ve got twenty-two employees at DSS who are caseworkers, supervisors, administrators, front-desk people, maintenance, custodial, and information techs. Now, most of these are going to go pretty easy – these employees, for the most part, have taken civil service exams, had background checks, physical and mental evaluations. But we’ve also got a construction that just finished up the new addition, and landscapers are still working. I believe they all had to go through background checks, but we need someone looking into that. And finally, prior to construction, there was a survey team, so same thing there.”

  He drew a point in the middle of the circle. “This is Harriet.” He drew a ring around her. “And these are all the subjects I’ve just mentioned. They’re fairly easy-access. But outside of them,” he indicated the space between the ring and the circle he’d already drawn, “are hundreds of people involved in services offered by the DSS.” He set the pen down and wiped his hands off, just a reflex from the older days of chalkboards.

  “Caseworkers do a lot of their work out in the field,” he said. “They go into people’s homes. Same with the Adult Protective Services – though in that case they’re venturing into homes where the person isn’t able to care for themselves, or there’s some other problem. We’re going to get everybody’s schedule, look at where they were this past month, keep track of what they’re doing…” He trailed off when someone’s hand went up.

  Reggie Hume. “There’s some talk that this could have been mistaken identity.”

  Mike nodded. “Yeah, it’s a possibility. Another caseworker, Roberta Noelle, drives the same car as Harriet Fogarty. Or, they’re different makes, but look almost identical. The women bear some resemblance, too – same hair color, same length, but otherwise they’re thirty, thirty-five years apart in age. Most notably, the reason Harriet Fogarty was working late was she was covering for Noelle. So, we’re taking that all on board.”

  He cleared his throat, seeking the previous thread. “Okay, so caseworkers, when they’re on call, get paged sporadically. If it’s after hours then usually the call comes to us first – if it’s domestic violence, maybe drug- or alcohol-related, and someone called 911, then we notify SCR – that’s the State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment for those of you taking notes. But they’re also getting complaints directly, and they may not ask for a police escort. Now, I’m not saying we need to be looking at every one of those calls. But I want someone accompanying these workers on every home assessment or any initial investigation from this point. Okay?”

  No one groaned or rolled their eyes, but Mike could see in their faces it was a lot to ask. Officer Cal Mullins raised a hand this time. “How are we getting their schedules?”

  “They’ve got a massive system going on there. We’ll export to a spreadsheet, get a list of addresses we can map out, pin any areas of heavy activity.”

  Overton spoke up. “When we interview their IT person we can have him do the export – we’ll need to get past the security software.”

  “Great. That will work.” Mike clapped his hands together. “Okay. Right now we have a few persons of interest, including the victim’s brother, Steven Pritchard, who is currently off our radar. We’re actively looking to get a hold of Pritchard, but in the meantime we’ve got a lot of staff to get through, a lot of data to crunch. I’m going to turn this over to Detective Lena Overton from Lake Haven PD.”

  Another arm shot up, Reggie Hume again. “What about this line on some disgruntled parent who forfeited their parental rights? I’ve read about this Grayson Fuller child in your initial report – you’re getting a writ to look into other potential cases like this? Because this has my interest piqued.”

  “Mine too. We’re working on it.”

  He stepped out of the way so Overton could have the floor. Then he sat down and listened as she handed out assignments to everyone in the room.

  Five

  Connor came by Bobbi’s place late in the day after getting held up at work. Bobbi stood on the doorstep of her apartment building behind the church. She’d been there awhile, watching every car, alerted to every passerby, wondering if any one of them were a killer out to finish the job. Seeing Connor get Jolyon out of the massive pickup truck managed to lighten her mood; he struggled to unbuckle the child-restraint seat while Jolyon played with a Transformer toy, swishing it through the air, pooching his lips out to make artillery sounds – pitchoo pitchoo.

  Then the kid was free and Connor plopped him onto the sidewalk. Their voices drifted over from the street. “You want your backpack? Here, put your pack on. You can read your comic book while I talk to Bobbi.”

  “It’s a graphic novel.”

  “It has pictures, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a comic book. I’m never wrong. About anything.”

  Connor mounted a giant backpack onto his son then glanced up, waved, and smiled at her. She felt a mix of emotions; her feelings about Connor and Jolyon were complicated – wonderful and scary at the same time.

  The man and his boy made their way up the walkway to her.

  “Welcome.” She looked down at Jolyon and his outsized pack. “What’ve you got in there?”

  “Oh, just all my stuff.”

  Not looking at her, Jolyon suddenly threw his arms around her waist and Bobbi’s heart did a somersault. She’d spent a few hours with him by now, but his affection still surprised her. She placed a gentle hand on his head as she turned to Connor, who looked slightly embarrassed and reached for his son.

  Then Bobbi squeezed Jolyon around the shoulders in a return hug. “Let’s go up to my apartment in the sky, yeah?”

  “Yeah!”

  She held the door and Jolyon bounded in. She’d told him about her apartment when she’d met him on her second date with Connor. Apparently, Jolyon had never spent any time in an apartment, and he’d marveled at it being on the third floor of a building, counting Bobbi as lucky to live in the sky. He clomped up the stairs eagerly ahead of them, the big backpack manhandling him along the way.

  “Well,”
Connor said, “I guess you’re in.” He called after Jolyon. “Hey, slow up, bud!”

  The boy had already disappeared around the corner and was charging up the second flight of stairs. “I know where to go! 3B! ‘B’ for Bobbi!”

  Bobbi gave Connor’s hand a quick squeeze. “Better catch him.” She started up the stairs, realizing Connor had been anticipating a kiss. Maybe later.

  She focused on Jolyon, taking the steps two at a time in order to keep up. “I’m gonna beat you to the top!” she teased.

  “No, you’re not!”

  She grabbed the bannister and swung herself onto the second floor, sprinted down the hallway to the next flight. The apartment building smelled like cigarettes and greasy food. It hadn’t been her first choice, but 3B had been available when she’d got the DSS job and she’d snatched it up. She could’ve found something in Lake Haven, but the problem of living in the place where you worked was that you ran into everyone, eventually, out on the street. It was Harriet who’d suggested as much. Just ten minutes away, Lake Placid had afforded Bobbi a touch of privacy that now felt vital.

  “I beat you!” Jolyon sounded ecstatic.

  Bobbi heard him jumping outside her door. She reached the third floor and found him grinning, trying her doorknob. “It’s locked.”

  She pulled out the keys as she approached. “You want to open it?”

  “Sure, yeah. Dad lets me start the truck sometimes.”

  “Does he? That’s cool.” She handed over the keys, pinching aside the correct one for him to use. “Just give it a little twist.”

  Connor had reached the landing and started down the hall. She turned and gave him a smile as Jolyon made the key work and pushed against the door with his shoulder. “Got it!” He ran inside her place.

  Bobbi waited for Connor to catch up, and slipped an arm around his waist. She came up just past his shoulder and he looked down into her eyes. Bobbi stretched onto her tiptoes and he kissed her, then drew her into an embrace.

  So, this was “later” then. She eased back onto her heels, enjoying the swimmy sensation of their first kiss, the way her skin was tingling. But Connor gave her a serious look. “You okay?”