Next to Die: A gripping serial-killer thriller full of twists

by T. J. Brearton

  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.

  “Mr. Petrov? Had you ever met Steve Pritchard before last Friday night, when you got in the argument? Yes or no.”

  Finally: “Yes. Knew him.”

  “Okay.” Mike nodded, glanced at the TV a second. “From just around town? Or for some other reason?”

  “Some other reason.” Petrov flicked ash out the door. He’d gone pale as a cloud, his eyes sharp with anxiety.

  Mike slowly rose from the chair to move a little closer, reel him in, and Petrov bolted. Just dropped the cigarette, turned on his heel, and ran.

  “Shit.”

  Mike banged his shoulder in the narrow space of the partway opened door then charged across the deck. He took the stairs down to the driveway fast, almost lost his footing, saw Petrov turn at the end of the driveway and start running up the street.

  Farrington was parked in the cruiser down the road. Mike shouted and clapped. “Hey! Hey!” Farrington saw him, then saw Petrov, gunned the engine, and Mike got running again.

  A ramshackle little neighborhood, more of those big cure-cottage homes – these converted into apartments, quiet on a workday. Then a dog started barking. Mike sprinted after Petrov. The pudgy bastard was naked but for his shorts, bare feet slapping the asphalt.

  Petrov hooked left and darted out of sight. The street was actually a court, dead-ended at a line of trees. Petrov had turned just before it terminated, run into someone else’s driveway.

  Mike got his bearings – down through those woods was the Saranac River.

  Farrington came roaring up, stopped just short of the dead end, barking the tires, and hopped out of the car. He’d seen Petrov too, and took off running. Mike caught up to the driveway, turned in. In back of the driveway was a wooden fence, door swung open. Mike stepped through and was in another yard, sloping down to more trees. He could hear the river beyond.

  Farrington crashed into the trees first, throwing his arms up in front of him to ward off the grasping branches, Mike following right in behind him.

  The woods were thick, and he slapped aside the pine boughs, ragged underbrush clawing at his legs. He picked his way through, unable to hear much over the crunch of movement, just saw a flash of Farrington’s dark uniform.

  Mike stopped and stood in the sepia gloom, breathing hard, listening. Farrington continued to tromp and snap his way through the vegetation. He hadn’t seen Petrov come in this way, just Farrington, but Petrov must have – there was nowhere else to go.

  Mike got moving again, now seeing bits of the river through the trees, splashes of white water as it rushed over the rocks. He veered away from Farrington and came out at the riverbank further down from the trooper. The water was lively after two days of rain, loud; he had to shout upstream to Farrington. “See him?”

  “He was right there!” Farrington sounded frustrated. The trooper looked around then waded in.

  “Let’s get some more people! Let’s get this on the air!”

  Mike saw movement on the other side of the river. There were more woods there, but a ways down was the Water Department, a big gray building, and further up was the dam, and then the lake on the far side. He saw a pale blur of flesh amid the trees on that side, started across. It got deep quick, up to his waist; the water sucked at him, tried to tip him off balance.

  He finally reached the far bank, came out with his pants heavy and water-logged, his socks squishing in his shoes, the smell of dead fish in his nose, and started bushwhacking through the woods again.

  Petrov was fast, the fat son of a gun. He was probably going to head deeper into the woods, not come out at the Water Department or move toward the dam, because then he’d be back in town. Straight in was another street, then deeper woods on the far side. Mike thought Petrov would cross and keep moving that way, or he’d hook around, head further upstream; there was another residential area up there, plenty of places to hide.

  Mike’s chest was blowing up – he hadn’t run this hard in years. He scurried up the steep embankment to the residential street, grabbing handfuls of weeds and dirt and rocks, lost his footing, slid back, scrambled harder. He reached the street, clambered over a guardrail, and then kept going up, panting and coughing.

  He saw him – Petrov was further up along the roadside. The residential street forked, and Petrov had taken the left side, still gaining elevation. God, why? Mike couldn’t take it anymore, going up and up like this. But he thought he was actually closing the distance.

  Twenty-Five

  Connor was working around Moody Pond not far from where Lennox lived, and so Bobbi circled the pond, looking for his truck.

  She found it and waited.

  She’d been texting Connor throughout the day, his responses curt, though he’d said he was sorry about Lennox, hoped he was found soon.

  He emerged from the woods twenty minutes later with another surveyor, who climbed into the truck. Connor opened the door and stopped, spotted Bobbi. He said something to the other guy, shut the door, and headed over, his expression hopeful. “They find him?”

  Bobbi got out of her car, shook her head.

  He gazed at her a moment, then looked off into the trees. There was a smudge of dirt on his face, and he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with an orange, reflective safety vest and orange hard hat. “Pretty crazy,” he said. His eyes drifted back to her. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay. How’s Joly?”

  The mention of his son seemed to sting Connor a bit, but he recovered, said, “He’s good. With his cousins tonight, giving me a break.”

  “Yeah? You going out?”

  “Just a couple beers maybe. It’s Monday, so, open mike night at JJ’s.”

  “Cool… My friend Rachel is a wreck. You know they released the name of the woman from Watertown? You were right.”

  “Yeah. Saw it on the news. She was in a river?”

  “In a pond near some nature preserve. I don’t think I’m going to stay out after dark tonight. I didn’t go to bed last night, I was awake until dawn, it was just so…” She trailed off, catching herself telling him her troubles like he was her boyfriend. She could see the same thought register in his face, and he cleared his throat, glanced at the truck, started to move away.

  “Listen.” She caught his arm, quickly let go. “Let me, ah… Can we talk?”

  His eyelids drooped and lips formed a tight line. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Let’s just talk…”

  “Bobbi… I don’t want to play any games.”

  “I know you don’t. I don’t either. I’m sorry.”

  “I have a kid, you know? Yeah, I have a kid. But I’m his parent. That’s how it works. That’s why I don’t wear a T-shirt saying, you know, Single Dad Looking for New Baby Mama.”

  He took his construction hat off, ran a hand through his mass of dark, sweaty hair, and his eyes acquired a sadness. “Okay. I gotta go take a shower. Like I said, we’re going to JJ’s, maybe to Trackside, have a few beers.”

  Softly: “Who’s going with you?”

  “Just me and a couple of the other guys.”

  He meant surveyors on his crew, she assumed, and flicked a look at the guy in the truck, who was watching. She wanted more time with Connor, was afraid to let him walk away. “What’re you guys doing out here?”

  “What’re we doing? We’re making precise measurements to determine property boundaries. We’re providing data relevant to the shape and contour of the Earth’s surface.”

  She felt some relief at his dry humor. “It’s important w
ork…”

  “That’s why they pay me the big bucks. Hey – look, I gotta go. Okay?”

  He started to the truck, and she let him, just waited, feeling her heart beat against her ribs, a mix of emotions pin-wheeling her thoughts – she should be thinking about Lennox, thinking about Rachel, not watching Connor’s ass as he climbed up into his truck, not feeling like she’d screwed this up royally. That was selfish. Seemed like no matter what she did, the timing was bad lately.

  Connor fired up the engine and did a three-point turn in the road. He drove back her direction, slowed, leaned out of his open window. “Your back tire is low,” he said.

  “I’ll check into it.”

  “Alright.” He gave her one last look, then drove away.

  * * *

  The son of a bitch was dug in like a tick.

  For a little while, Mike had been chasing Petrov up the street – River Street. Like he was going to the pea-green house, and it was a cook-house, and that was the damn smell the real estate agent couldn’t get out.

  The whole reason for talking to Petrov, Mike had thought, scrounging for breath as he ran, was because Petrov was tied in to Gavin Fuller and Steve Pritchard, and Harriet could be dead because of some big meth deal, maybe Lavoie, too. Chasing him down under the beating hot sun, headed up River Street, he’d wondered if Petrov could be the one who’d killed Harriet, hired by Pritchard. Maybe Petrov had been using the house to watch Harriet from there, waiting for her to be alone.

  But then Petrov had changed course and moved deeper into the forest.

  Mike tracked him to some long-abandoned place – just the crumbling foundation of a house left in the middle of the woods, with the rotted, rusted skeleton of an old T-model Ford sitting nearby. And then Petrov did something Mike never would have expected a real adult human to do – he climbed a fucking tree. And he wasn’t coming down.

  Mike had his gun out, aimed up at Petrov, and was catching his breath, still marveling that this was actually even happening. He moved a little closer, only able to see pieces of Petrov up in the tree – just his leg and part of his arm. He’d found a nice maple, plenty of branches, and was at least thirty feet in the air, still climbing. Bits of tree came falling down, landed on Mike’s face.

  How did an overweight, out-of-shape, middle-aged man like Petrov climb a tree like a child? Pure adrenaline; he was panicked.

  “Dmitri! Come on, man…” Mike struggled for breath. He’d run for so long his clothes had dried. “What are you… doing? You’re gonna… How are you even…?”

  He heard crashing footsteps, turned, and saw Farrington huffing and puffing, coming up to where the ground leveled off. Farrington looked around at everything, the old foundation with the metal bed frame still in it, piles of rock and brick, everything covered with lichen. “What the hell?” Then he followed Mike’s aim. “Jesus, he’s up there?”

  “Dmitri! Come on down, man. You can’t stay up there. Let’s go.”

  “I want lawyer!”

  Mike sighed, wiped sweat and tree leaves out of his face, spit something to the side. “Who’s your lawyer? You got one? Pritchard’s got a lawyer; maybe you can use the same one.”

  “I want lawyer or I jump!”

  “Dmitri… we were just talking…”

  Petrov tried to climb higher.

  Farrington bent forward, hands on his knees, still getting his wind back. He looked up at Mike with a bemused expression and said, “Should we just read him his rights?”

  “Why are you running, Dmitri? What did you and Pritchard have going? Talk to me, man. Maybe you’ve done nothing wrong and this is all a big misunderstanding, right?”

  Petrov called, “Yes. Misunderstanding!”

  It was hurting Mike’s neck to keep looking straight up like this. He lowered his chin to his chest, rolled his head around a few times, then tilted back again. “Dmitri, let’s go, bud. Did you hurt someone?”

  “No! I hurt no one.”

  “Then you got nothing to worry about from us.”

  “You’re not who I worry about.”

  More shit fell out of the tree; Mike felt something go in his eye. He was getting angry. “Then who are you worried about? Huh?”

  “You’ll make me try tell you, then they will come. They will kill me.”

  Mike said to Farrington, “He’s talking about Dodd Caruthers and Chapman. All of them.”

  “Yeah,” Farrington agreed.

  “You got all these bikers driving all over the state,” Mike said, “a ready-group of couriers. They go around gathering precursors – Red P., iodine, pseudoephedrine – bring them to Caruthers, and maybe Chapman runs the meth lab. Or Chapman’s just collecting everything, transporting it to the lab in his trucks.”

  Mike moved off, saying to Farrington, “Just keep him from jumping.” He took out his phone, called Wright with the DEA team.

  “We’re just getting set,” Wright told him. “We got a guy going in now, using a UPS truck, gonna have a look around Chapman’s property.”

  Mike explained the situation with Petrov. “Oh boy,” Wright said. “Yeah, he’s shitting his pants because he got in with these guys. Maybe Pritchard was trying to work the end with this family farm of his. Expand, maybe get a little closer to Truenol, who knows.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “You still think this ties into your vic, or what?”

  Mike used a hand to shield his face from any more debris – even though he’d backed away from the tree – and looked up at Petrov. Obviously, Petrov didn’t fit the narrative of a disgruntled, dejected parent or someone coming back around on DSS with this salvo of attacks. Maybe he was in over his head in some meth operation – maybe he’d even been the one to first talk to Pritchard about the use of Pritchard’s family farm downstate. But was he a murderer? Or was he just scared?

  It was getting late, the daylight turning salmon, the sunlight blinkering through the trees as Mike walked back to where Farrington stood looking up at Petrov. The barefoot man had at last gotten as high as he could climb. Mike heard more people walking through the woods, saw two Lake Haven cops step into the clearing beside the old foundation, giving everything a look, their eyes wide, breath coming hard. “Jesus,” one of them said.

  From up in the tree, barely audible: “Think I am stuck.”

  * * *

  Finally back on the ground, his bare chest scratched and bleeding, leaves in his hair, Petrov agreed to cooperate as long as he stayed protected. Farrington arrested him with the local cops stepping in to assist. They led him out of the woods like an old-time posse who’d finally caught their quarry.

  Mike walked slower, lagging behind, and clicked on his flashlight since it was almost full dark. He and Wright updated each other again by cell phone. Wright said their undercover UPS guy had a good scout, saw that the silo was definitely active, the door equipped with a huge padlock, tire tracks everywhere, signs of people coming and going.

  “This is a major piece,” Wright said. “Chapman has got grain production going at his elevator, looks like he’s been up and running from everything we’ve seen. We’re still chasing the paper trail, but at first blush, he’s subcontracting for Truenol.”

  It sounded like Wright was driving, road noise in the background. “They can process up to 40 million bushels of grain a year. And so that turns into something like 100, 110 million gallons of ethanol, dry distiller’s grain with solubles, and we’re thinking a shit ton of meth.”

  “So, Chapman is sending down the grain. In what? Barrels?”

  “Well, yeah. Corn. A bushel of corn weighs fifty-six pounds. We’re going to set up at the weigh station in North Hudson. We’ll have a good look at what’s inside the next truck Chapman sends down.”

  “That’s my old stomping ground,” Mike said. He pulled a cobweb off his face. Almost out of the woods now, feeling good. “Hey, Wright, I got another call.”

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Mike picked up the
other call. “Nelson here.”

  “So while you were chasing Dmitri Petrov up a tree,” Lena said, “I was humbly cross-referencing away. Mike – Trevor Garris drives a dark blue, late-nineties model Buick LeSabre. I called the witness, the one who was camping and came back and saw the car the night of. I had her come down to the station, and she officially IDed the car.”

  Mike thought it through. “But Garris is staff. He’s their IT guy. We did background checks on all the employees.”

  “Not in this case: Garris was hired on a contractual basis, so no civil service exam, none of the typical background checks; physical, drug screening, nada. Apparently, their own IT people couldn’t do what was needed for the big upgrade, so they brought in Garris.”

  Mike tried to picture Trevor Garris in his mind. Big guy, prematurely balding. Or receding hairline, was the right way to put it. “Shit. Bobbi Noelle told me that Lennox Palmer and Trevor Garris were friendly.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Getting out of the woods. Back to my car. Coming to you now.”

  * * *

  Mike pulled out Trevor Garris’s picture in Lena’s office, slapped it down on the table. Then he went rummaging around for something else in the file, mumbling. “The kid…”

  Lena cautiously approached from behind her desk. “What kid? Durie? I had Stephanie run a check, like you asked, but he’s nowhere in the system.”

  Mike found the class picture he’d photocopied from the school, and pointed out ten-year-old John Durie. “Look at him.”

  “Alright. I am.”

  “Now look at Garris.”

  Mike put the pictures side by side on her desk and waited. He said, “Stephanie found out that the mother died about six months after that bust. Melissa Clay. She’d gone right into rehab as part of the sentencing for the charge – not jail. She comes out, gets her kid back at this point – her son, John Junior. But then she starts using again, this time heroin, and little John finally gets taken away. Then she O.D.s; dies in a bathtub in South Burlington. By then the kid was already in foster care – we just don’t know where. Two months later, the father completes a suicide in jail. So, this kid, John Durie, he’s an only child, has some brain damage maybe from the ammonia hydroxide, drug bust puts his father in jail, Child Protective Services takes him from his mother, who O.D.s. Now he’s an orphan.”