Next to Die

by T. J. Brearton

  He closed the file and set it on the desk, looked across at Crispin, whose kind eyes held a glint, as if he knew what Mike was about to ask.

  “Well, Doc, you’ve seen far more of this type of thing than I have, I’m sure…”

  “You said on the phone you could be linking this to a disappearance; another caseworker. So, I’ll tell you – if this is a serial case, and I’ve seen a few of those, there’s usually a methodology, something repetitive the killer does. Is he a knife killer? Are you going to eventually find this other caseworker sliced up? I don’t know. Maybe more important – and I’m sure you’re asking yourself – is this going to keep happening?” Crispin shook his head, remorseful. “I’ve been at this for four decades, and I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around it.”

  “There’s some thought that a killer like this, they had something happen, usually in youth. They were abused, maybe humiliated, and they carry it with them.”

  Crispin scowled. “Or there’s something wrong with their neurotransmitters. They don’t have the same emotions. And so that’s why there’s the ritual. To make it special, because their brain doesn’t let them feel like it’s special, and they want it to be.”

  Mike was silent, thinking, and Crispin said, “If these two women are linked… you know, you’ve got to look at it like the first one, she’s taken away somewhere, and if she’s killed, it’s in secret. This one, though, she’s left right there for people to see. It’s a deviation from previous methodology; it might be what they call, you know, a ‘quickening.’”

  Mike looked out Crispin’s one window, flanked by two towering ferns. “So if there’s another one,” he thought out loud, “this guy’s liable to raise the stakes again. How? Multiple victims? Gun? Something else?”

  Mike looked back at Crispin, realizing it wasn’t the doc’s job to figure out such things, it was his. “And you’ve found nothing on Steve Pritchard. No prints, no DNA, nothing under her fingernails.”

  Crispin shook his head, no.

  Such a mess. Even if Crispin said yes, and they had Pritchard nailed, Pritchard’s motive seemed personal and left out Lavoie. They had one definite victim, one potential victim, several possible motives, numerous possible suspects, and unless they found Lavoie or some physical evidence at Harriet’s crime scene, there was no way to narrow any of it down.

  Crispin said, “He grabbed her, this guy, he was rough with her, but he didn’t leave many crumbs behind. I’d say he was young, maybe on the big side – but then, there wasn’t much to her: she’s 110 pounds. In my report I’m saying he’s right-handed. Which doesn’t help much either, I’m sure. You got nothing from her vehicle?”

  “We’re running every test we’ve got. Sweat secretions, hair follicles, you name it. This guy, yeah, he’s strong. Either he’s bald with no sweat glands or he’s not in the system. There was a partial boot print that looks like a logging-style boot, the kind with a thick sole, raised heel. But…”

  “Well, I’d say the whole thing took less than one minute, Mike. For the killing – I don’t know how long he waited in the car. And the car would have been hot.”

  “Yeah, exactly.” Mike stood up, nodded at the file. “That’s mine?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s your copy.” Crispin rose from his chair, showing his age a little when he winced at the effort. He reached a hand across the table and they shook. Mike started for the door.

  “How long you been with the state police?” Crispin asked.

  Mike paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked up, thinking. “Well, I’ve been with BCI for twelve years. I was a trooper before that for a while.”

  “Haven’t wanted to retire yet?” Crispin asked. “I thought you had that option at twenty years.”

  “You do,” Mike said. “But the longer I stay in, the better the pension, the better the benefits for Kristen.”

  “That’s your daughter?”

  “Yeah. Plus, you know…”

  Crispin smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Thanks for talking to me on your lunch hour,” Mike said.

  * * *

  Outside in the heat, Mike called the Forensic Investigation Center in Albany to check in on the vehicle processing, hoping for something new. Nothing yet.

  Lena Overton swung her car into the parking lot and got out. She was wearing a pair of reflective aviator sunglasses, hair pulled back, a light-colored skirt and jacket over her white blouse. Her shoes made crisp sounds across the parking lot as she came toward him.

  “You’re all done?” Overton asked.

  “Nothing revelatory from the internal, just what Harriet Fogarty had for lunch. We went over the wounds a bit.”

  Overton looked in the direction of the medical examiner’s office, asking, “Anything Crispin say that puts Pritchard in place?”

  “I’d be jumping up and down.”

  “What about Perkins? Heard from tribal police yet?”

  “Not since this morning. But he said they’re going to talk to Marlene Blackburn. And if there’s a knife in her place, or something, they’ll tell us. But…” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  She faced him, her eyes hidden behind the lenses. “You worried about something?”

  “Ah, you know. They’re not obligated to help. And the Kahonsie are pretty effective at keeping their controversies contained. I got a little bit of a feeling.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Pritchard is an outsider, she’s an American Indian. If he was sleeping with her or something… you know? Anyway, if we don’t hear back from him later today I think we could at least drop by the casino where she works, talk to her there. The casino is outside the res.”

  She tipped her head forward and clocked him over the ridge of her sunglasses.

  Mike shrugged. “Yeah, I know – they like to be the ones policing the casino.” He turned over his hands. “I have no issue with that; state police have been letting them handle that area for years. I just want to confirm an alibi, maybe find a murder weapon. You want to get lunch?”

  She just looked at him then pushed her glasses up with a finger.

  “I’m buying,” he said. “Crispin was eating and made me hungry. We can continue arguing over burritos at Chipotle.”

  “I’m not arguing. And I don’t eat burritos.” She started toward her car.

  “Yes, you do.”

  She stopped, looked over her shoulder at him. “What – did you pull my file?”

  “Your burrito-eating skills are legendary.”

  “Fine.” She reached her car, opened the door, stopped. “How about we take a drive instead?”

  “Okay. Let’s take a drive.”

  “Corina Lavoie went missing in Watertown. Her sister still lives in the house they shared. Let’s ride out, talk to her, talk to Detective Corrow. That’ll keep us busy while everyone does their work and we don’t have to get into a jurisdictional issue.”

  “Hey, like I said, there’s no issue.”

  “Mike?” Her eyebrows went up.

  He asked, “We taking your car?”

  “Get in.”

  “Getting in, ma’am.”

  Thirteen

  The road dipped down and the city of Watertown spread out, dominated by fast-food restaurants, big box stores, and car dealerships, everything hazy and shimmering in the midday heat.

  “I need a record check for a Jameson Rentz,” Mike said on the phone. “I tried calling him twice already today, left messages; he’s not returning calls.”

  “Alright, you got it.” Stephanie was a researcher at BCI, and a good one.

  “Thanks, Steph.”

  Mike rang off and asked Overton, “Who do we have as known associates for Gavin Fuller?”

  “I checked, and there’s no one. Fuller’s arrest was fairly small potatoes, just him and his wife. He was selling Suboxone. We charged them with third-degree criminal possession with intent to distribute. Arraigned, remanded to county in lieu of five and te
n. The whole thing came out of an overdose case about a month before; a guy was found dead at his apartment up near Glenwood Road, so we talked to the neighbors, they’d seen Fuller coming around. He never confessed to selling to the guy, but we nailed him on the possession anyway.” As Overton spoke, she pulled up to the curb in front of a nice little Colonial-style home with a white picket fence, black shutters, fat bushes flanking the doorway. They’d called ahead to Lavoie’s sister, Maybelle Spruce, who’d agreed to leave work for an hour that afternoon to let them in.

  Mike glanced over at Overton. “Alright,” he said about the Fuller thing. Then, “Ready?”

  “Yep.”

  They headed up a walkway dividing two sections of neatly manicured lawn. The front door opened before Mike could ring the bell.

  Maybelle Spruce was a thin woman with shining skin, graying hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her nursing uniform was a peach V-neck shirt and white pants, and she wore white, comfortable-looking sneakers on her feet. “Come on in.”

  She led them down a long, creaky hallway. In the kitchen, she offered drinks, which they both politely declined, and sat them down at a thick farm table. “When my husband died,” she said after some small talk, “Corey moved in with me. That’s what I call Corina – ‘Corey.’ My husband had a construction accident, but he was freelance, so there was no insurance. We’d been married just coming up on five years, had this place for three, and there was the mortgage, taxes, all the bills. Corey helped me with all that.”

  The sisters were from Watertown, born and raised, Maybelle said. “Our papa worked in a hotel, The Woodruff in the Public Square, was the maintenance man there for forty-five years until he died in ’99. Our mother worked at the school.”

  To hear of it, Mike imagined that the Lavoies had been one of few African-American families in Watertown during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. The demographic had grown but still only hovered somewhere around six percent. Maybelle traced their lineage to Canada.

  “Corey was very nice to move in with me,” Maybelle said. “You know, but that was Corey. Her whole life was about doing things for other people. Casework was just part of it; she never really thought of herself.”

  Mike asked, “May we see her room?”

  “Certainly.”

  Maybelle took them out of the kitchen, back down the hallway, and through the foyer where they’d come in. Mike saw several clocks in the next room, all of them clicking, including a handsome grandfather clock with a swinging pendulum. Beside it hung a picture of Jesus framed in gold; the Sacred Heart hovered in front of him, his hand up, two fingers extended. Next to all the clocks, it seemed to send a message: Your time is limited.

  Mike turned and followed Maybelle up narrow stairs, the risers white and the treads natural wood. The clocks and picture left his sight.

  “Book of Job talks about suffering,” Maybelle said. “I always look at the Book of Job. People ask why God allows suffering, but if you look at Job, you see it there. Because first Papa died in ’99, and he was only sixty-nine, but his heart had trouble, and then my husband Randy in 2008, and Corey moved in. And then Mama finally passed in 2016, and then Corey disappeared the year after.”

  She led them down a hallway, back toward the front of the house. Overton, following, turned to glance at Mike, who was bringing up the rear. Overton’s face said it all: This woman had lost everyone in her life over two decades, and here she was, talking about the Book of Job.

  “This is it.” Maybelle swung her arm then clasped her hands together again in front of her, began kneading her knuckles. “Corey’s room.”

  Overton stepped in, walked around. Mike hung in the doorway next to Maybelle. Simply decorated, with a single bed, a small desk in the corner, a bureau with some pictures standing on top, a crucifix mounted on the wall above. There were a couple of file boxes beside the bed, two stacked on each other, lidded.

  Overton asked the questions. “Did Corey ever talk about her work?”

  “Oh, no,” Maybelle said. “She wasn’t supposed to say anything about the people she worked with.”

  “Just in a general way, then? Did she ever say anything, like she was having a tough time, something like that?”

  Maybelle looked into some mental distance. “Oh, you know, sometimes she would come home and she’d just seem tired. But she was… Corey was usually a very upbeat person. You know? Quick to laugh. She’d come home most nights and if I was off, we’d have tea – we’d even stay up and watch Jay Leno on Friday nights.”

  “And you’re a nurse?”

  “Yes. At Watertown General.”

  “So both of you are in the business of helping people,” Mike said, smiling.

  Maybelle seemed bashful, tried to find somewhere to look. Mike had all types of friends, ranging the political and religious spectrums, and there was no set temperament that seemed to accompany any belief system. But over the years, he did seem to find a pattern with the devout, people like Maybelle – they were humble. But they weren’t unsuspecting or naïve.

  “And you said your sister never married,” Overton resumed, still slowly touring the room, looking but not touching.

  “No…” Maybelle seemed to give it some thought. “She was always content being alone. Some people are like that. She had a few boyfriends in school. I think she had a boyfriend in college. But she never… She was…”

  “She was choosy,” Overton offered.

  “Yes.” Maybelle seemed relieved.

  Mike thought the real word she’d been hunting for was chaste. He asked, “So no man in her life around the time of her disappearance?”

  She frowned and shook her head. “Oh no. The other… That’s what they asked, too. They thought maybe she’d been in a relationship with somebody, maybe he took her somewhere. But I never thought that. Not for a minute.”

  Everything was quiet, just the ticking of the clocks downstairs.

  “Thank you so much,” Overton said. Mike stepped back so Overton could exit the bedroom. She said, “We don’t want to keep you from work.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem.” Maybelle seemed to remember she was the one guiding the tour and jerked back into motion, returned them to the staircase. “Is there some new evidence in Corey’s case?”

  A glance between Mike and Overton. “We’re hoping to shed some light on it,” Mike said, “but it’s early to tell.”

  “I understand.”

  Down the stairs, and then they stood around in the foyer for another awkward pause. Maybelle blinked rapidly and said, “Oh,” and picked up a purse on a small table by the door, fumbled around for her keys.

  She opened the door, Mike and Overton stepped out, then Maybelle followed, locked it behind her.

  “We’ll let you know right away if we learn anything new,” Mike said.

  * * *

  Detective Frank Corrow was middle-aged, shaggy-haired, wore a brown suit, had sideburns, and generally looked like he’d never quite left the late seventies, stylistically. They met him at the Watertown police station, exchanged greetings, and agreed they’d all pile into his vehicle for the second part of the tour.

  If Corrow’s personal aesthetic was outdated, he had a nice, brand-new Impala with all the bells and whistles. He pulsed the gas in traffic, the powerful V6 engine roaring as he jockeyed around the other cars, bringing them to the Watertown Department of Social Services, a square gray block of a building.

  “Okay. First stop on the ride: September twenty-second, last year, Corina Lavoie left work. She punched out at 5:02 p.m., and we have video of her in her car, leaving the parking lot at 5:05.” He turned and put an arm up on the seat, gave the two investigators in the back a look. “All good so far?”

  Mike felt a little bit like he and Overton were kids, riding in the back seat of the family vehicle. Overton asked, “Did any of her co-workers from that day say anything about her?”

  “Nope. She was her usual self. Pleasant, busy, somewhat a private person, I guess. That w
as the gist I got.”

  “And you looked at her cases.”

  “Oh yeah. It’s a tough workaround, as I’m sure you’ve found. But, you know, you gotta do it. And I gotta say, not exactly revelatory. I mean, these caseworkers – the stuff they have to deal with… I don’t think I could do it. But you take someone like Lavoie, and she’s on call a lot, because she’s childless; she’s got a real hefty caseload.

  “We went back a couple years, looked at ten or so reports. And of these ten reports, only three came back as indicated. You know, somebody makes the complaint, call comes in, report gets filled out, then there’s an investigation. That’s what these people are doing, what Lavoie was doing. But, often it’s something like… say, some fifteen-year-old girl and her mother are in an argument, and maybe it gets a little rough, then the girl falls down, hits her head. That, or it’s suspected child abuse. The report comes in, then the investigation to see if it’s indicated. They can go to the kid’s school, go into the home, sometimes the cops are involved, sometimes it’s more a ‘team’ effort…”

  Mike knew all this, but it was interesting to hear Corrow’s take, the way he subtly diminished the scope of Lavoie’s workload, and didn’t interrupt him until the end of his spiel. “Were you ever involved on a case with Lavoie?”

  “That’s not my area. That would be the uniformed guys, usually. There was a couple where they had to get involved, where the people wouldn’t let CPS come in the house, things like that.”

  “But nothing that stood out to you.”

  “No.” Corrow sniffed then rummaged around for something out of sight, put a stick of gum in his mouth, started balling up the wrapper. Mike noticed he looked at Overton in the rear-view mirror quite a bit.

  “Did you check into any of the reports?” Mike asked.

  “Of course we did, yeah we did. We talked to a couple people. So, like I… this is delicate. You can’t roll up on someone because they had a CPS report at some point. Most of them turn out to be unfounded.”

  “But of the indicated cases…”