She was tough, that Bobbi. Which was part of what made her so tantalizing, but not because she was actually tough. She wasn’t. Chicks like her liked to think they were tough, they tried to convince themselves, but it was laughable nonsense. What was the saying? “Feminism: strong, smart, and independent until things get a little bit difficult.”

What made her tantalizing was that she thought she was something extra special, just like Alison Hadley. And just like Hadley, she’d decided she was too good for him, too. Bobbi had slipped through his grasp once, but she wouldn’t again.

He walked the dark streets, once again pleased how things took shape. It was hard when you were a young man – a few people might remind you that being normal was unexciting, that being different was being superior, but it still hurt, it was still a lonely road.

And the people who said that had their little place in society all carved out. It was easy for them; it hadn’t been easy for him. He’d discovered too soon that the world was a selfish place full of selfish people, that in the name of a better society, people played God. But then, everyone went home at night and who did they care about? They cared about themselves. The rest were lies, lies and masks he could clearly see through and had been able to see through for some time.

He stepped to the water’s edge and looked out over its black surface. Maybe he was shining the light on a problem that plagued humanity.

But, then, that would be his own ego getting in the way of things, tainting things, just like their egos did. No, the point here was not his own exultation. The point was to…

---

He stopped, once more having lost the thread of his own consciousness, and realized he’d waded into the water and was standing up to his knees. That smell was back, the stink of something chemical, burning in his nostrils, twisting in his stomach. He bent toward the water and threw up, then swirled it clear with his foot. He checked to make sure no one was watching; no one had been. It was late, or maybe early, and it was time to set things in motion again.

He grew excited: This next step was going to be something almost religious.

---

“Okay,” Mike said, “where are we at?” He was tired; sleep hadn’t come easy the night before. Today marked a week since Harriet Fogarty had been discovered. It felt like the case had multiple identities, only one of them true. Or none of them, which was depressing to consider.

Murders in the red longer than a week rarely got solved.

He was gathered with Lena and her chief of police, Brewer. Reggie Hume, his BCI supervisor, was on the phone from Albany. Mike had it on speaker.

“We’ve got a couple of main directions on this thing,” Mike said. “One, I got a call early this morning from Bobbi Noelle, who says she had an intruder at her apartment last night. So that whole line of inquiry might be top drawer again; I sent a trooper over there this morning to have a look, and I’m going to talk to Noelle as soon as I can.”

“She thinks it was Rentz?” Hume asked.

“First she thought it was her neighbor, mucking around, but then she was with him when she saw someone down the street, she says, looking at the building, then moved off. She couldn’t offer much for a physical description, he was about 100 yards away. Maybe he had a lot of hair, she says. If it was Rentz, his appearance may have changed.”

“And we don’t have any tags on this guy?” Hume asked.

“Negative. We put out the BOLO, but so far, nothing.”

“Tell me about him,” said Hume.

Lena leaned toward the phone, her notes out. “Jameson Matthew Rentz, D.O.B. October fourth, nineteen ninety-three. Went to Almond High School, graduated 2012; attended Rochester Institute of Technology, dropped out in 2014. His father is an engineer. Mother doesn’t show a work history. Rentz has never really been gainfully employed. He’s got a juvenile offense, record sealed. But Mike spoke with Bobbi earlier about this and it’s most likely for battery. He was sixteen, beat up his girlfriend, also sixteen.”

“But… so he’s got nothing to do with the Department of Social Services, here or in Watertown?”

“We’re checking,” Mike said. “But so far we haven’t seen his name in any of the Fogarty or Lavoie files. If Harriet was killed by Rentz, it’s back to this whole thing possibly being this guy screwing up, killing her when he meant to go after Noelle.”

“So,” Hume’s disembodied voice said, “you pretty much crossed this guy off before – I see Placid PD had someone looking in on her, but they weren’t there last night. So it’s like he’s been around, waiting, maybe, for the right chance. What’s he living on, if not his old man’s money? Where’s he living?”

“In his car, maybe. He’s got an older Ford Focus registered in his name. It’s white. It’s four-door.”

“Ah,” Hume said. “Okay. Well, we need to pick this guy up. He moved out of his family’s place… when?”

“Looks like right after dropping out of school, so summer of 2014,” Mike said. He glanced at Lena, who added, “I just talked to the mother, Geena Rentz. She said Jamie and his father had a falling-out when he left RIT before graduating. Haven’t spoken in more than a year, he’s not coming home for holidays, that kind of thing.”

“Was he squatting at the house on River Street?” Hume asked. “I’m looking at it right here – there was a white car, four-door, seen on River Street a few days before the Fogarty murder. I mean, Mike, what are we waiting for?”

“Motive,” Mike said.

“Motive? He’s in love with this Roberta Noelle, he’s obsessed with her. His life has no meaning without her, that sort of thing.”

“It leaves out Corina Lavoie.”

“She could know him,” said Hume. “If he’s drifting around… Maybe the sister knows him. You got a picture you could show her?”

“I’m just not—”

“It doesn’t fit into your ‘old score’ theory,” Hume interrupted. “I know. That’s your other main angle on this; that it all goes back to something that happened years ago, when Lavoie and Fogarty were under the same roof, sharing cases. In Lake Haven.”

Mike said, “I can see someone traveling to Watertown to abduct, possibly kill Lavoie because of something involving the Pierce County DSS, but I’ve had a hard time seeing Rentz kidnapping and maybe murdering Lavoie because he’s a lovesick psychopath.”

“Well maybe you’ve got to let go of Lavoie, Mike. Maybe you’ve got to face that you can’t get these to connect because they don’t.”

Mike could feel himself getting worked up and was about to let fly when Lena spoke. “Can I say something here, please?”

“Of course,” Hume said.

“I think a little hashing out is healthy, okay, but we’re into total speculation. We’ve got enough probable cause to pull Rentz over whenever he pops up, search his car, and bring him in. Pritchard is in jail on the assault charge; we can monitor him, see if there’s someone he’s talking to or meeting with – or if his lawyer gets bail reduced, we follow him and see where he goes.” Her gaze flitted to Mike. “In the meantime, what we need to do is keep going through these cases. We started with eight cases that looked promising, and we’ve eliminated half of them due to deaths, imprisonment, and relocations, leaving us Dodd Caruthers, Charles Morrissey, Scott Earnshaw, and Susan Gann.”

Hume was silent, then, “You’ve got a woman in there, huh?”

“We’ve got four people for whom it could be said their lives were irrevocably impacted by the intervention of Pierce County Child Protective Services, all who have violent criminal histories. And Lavoie and Fogarty were involved with each of them. So, we need to knock on some doors and see where we’re at in twenty-four hours. Okay? But we’re going to start with Dodd Caruthers, who once left his kid in a hot car, and might have called the complainant and harassed him. He’s the right age, he’s the right size, he lives in Lake Haven.”

“What’s his motive other than general antipathy toward society?” Hume asked.

Overton answered, reading from the file on her lap. “That his older son Thomas was accidentally injured while a child in foster care.”

“Accidentally injured?”

“He was playing, got burned by the woodstove, there’s some permanent scarring.”

Another pause from Hume, then, “That’s good enough for me.”

---

“I was in ’Nam,” Bill Caruthers said. “I was eighteen when I got sent to Da Nang.”

Mike sat beside Lena on a couch that looked Vietnam era – orange- and red-striped. Caruthers’ small, modular home was gloomy, its walls paneled with fake wood, a flat-screen TV in the corner playing silently with closed captioning on the screen. A dog, the source of the musty smell in the air, had barely budged when they’d come in, and looked older than old Bill, who was at least seventy.

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” Mike said. “How are you doing, sir?”

“China Beach,” Bill Caruthers said. “March 8, 1965. Me and 3,500 US Marines, Operation Rolling Thunder. Three weeks later, a car bomb exploded outside the Embassy in Saigon. How am I doing? How do I look?” He wore a ragged bandage on his nose to cover the skin cancer, a tube beneath his nostrils snaking down to the oxygen tank beside the recliner, a cane resting nearby. “It’s a shit world for an old man,” he said.

“Do you expect your son home soon?” Lena asked.

“Oh… Dodd. Yeah, I s’pose. He was gettin’ my meds from the Kinney Drug. Sometimes he goes, you know… he goes around. Does whatever boys do.”

Dodd Caruthers was in his forties; Mike supposed kids never really grew up in their parents’ eyes.

“And he’s been working?” Lena asked. “Since he got out?”

“Yeah, well, he does a bit of this and that.” Bill’s gaze sharpened. “What did you say you was here for again?”

“We have some questions to ask your son regarding an ongoing investigation,” Lena said.

“Does he need a lawyer?”

“Well, let’s hope not. Just a couple questions, and we’ll see.”

“Maybe he ought to have a lawyer,” Bill said, and grunted as he tried to get out of the easy chair.

Mike spoke up. “Mr. Caruthers, there are no allegations here, just questions for us to gather information. Your son is…” He stopped as a rumbling truck turned in the driveway. Old Bill slumped back in the chair, defeated, while both Mike and Lena rose to their feet. The old dog lifted its head; its tail slowly flopped from one side to the other.

Mike watched through the window as Dodd Caruthers got out of the truck, took a hard look at the Impala parked in the driveway, and walked toward the house with his brow furrowed. He pushed in through the squeaky screen door holding a plastic shopping bag. He stared at Mike and Lena as he crossed to his father and handed him the bag. “There you go. She said the antibiotic was strong, that you needed to take it for the full ten days.”

Bill flapped a hand. “Yeah, yeah. Did you get my cigarettes?” He pawed around in the bag, pulled out a pack of USA Golds, and grimaced.

Dodd turned to the investigators. He was tall, his blond hair going gray, eyes bright blue. He wore a patchy beard, part of which didn’t quite grow around a scar from his left ear to his chin. “What’re you here for?”

Lena spoke first, introduced them, and asked if he wanted to sit down.

“I’m fine standing. What do you want?”

Lena glanced at Mike, indicating he had the floor. Mike asked, “Are you Dodd A. Caruthers?”

“Yeah…”

“We’re investigating the murder of Harriet Fogarty.”

“Okay. And?”

“Your children were placed in foster care when you went to SCI Cold Brook for drug charges and your wife wasn’t able to care for them. You did thirteen years, out now for just over a year. Is that all correct?”

Dodd’s gaze shifted from Mike to Lena and he looked her up and down before connecting with Mike again. “Yeah.”

“Can you tell me where you were one week ago, the night of July 12^th?”

A quick look at his father, who was slapping the cigarette pack against his palm and seemed to have forgotten about everyone else in the room. “I was here,” Dodd said. “I was at home with my dad.”

“Mr. Caruthers,” Mike said to the older man, “can you confirm that your son was with you last Thursday?”

Bill unwrapped the plastic from the cigarettes and opened the top. He looked up, “Uh?”

Dodd said, “They’re asking where I was last Thursday, Dad. I told them I was here with you.”

“Yuh. Right. You was here with me.”

“Mr. Caruthers,” Mike said to Bill, who fumbled to extract a cigarette. “That’s not what you told us before Dodd arrived. You said you thought he was bowling.”

The younger Caruthers got red in the face, his jaw starting to twitch. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Thursday is league night. I was thinking before that, and after that, I was here. Maybe you ought to be more specific with your time.”

“Between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.,” Mike said.

“So then, yeah. I was at the league game. You can ask any of them.”

“When’s that league game go from?”

“From six until about nine or so.”

“And you were here at home right up until you left for the game… Where’s that at, Silver Lanes?”

“Uh-huh.” Dodd gave Lena another look-over. Mike thought he was being pretty obvious about it, too.

Mike said, “Alright. We’ll check in with the league. Meantime, I’d like to talk about your older son, Thomas.”

“What about him?”

Bill lit up a cigarette at last, took a long drag, coughed, and squinted against the smoke. “They talking about Tommy?”

“Don’t worry about it, Dad. What do you want to know about my kid?” Dodd wore jeans, despite the heat, and a black T-shirt with an AR-15 on the front and From My Cold Dead Hands written beneath it in lettering that was colored red, white, and blue. Heavy work boots on his feet.

“While he was in temporary placement,” Mike said, “your son, Tommy, sustained burns. From a woodstove. Is that right?”

Dodd let out a long breath, whistling through his nostrils. Mike wondered how many weapons were stored up in the home Dodd shared with his father. Maybe some nice hunting knives among the collection.

“You got something you want to ask me?”

“Sure,” said Mike, “I’ll ask. Have you harbored anger toward the Pierce County Child Protective Services for what happened to your son?”

“Have I what?”

“Have you blamed them for what happened? That Tommy was taken into state custody, and during that time sustained injuries? Have you been angry with them?”

Dodd looked at his father again, who seemed lost in the pleasure of his cigarette. He’d removed the oxygen from his nose, the hose draped around his neck like a noose. When Dodd didn’t answer, Mike said, “You also had two CPS reports prior to your drug arrest. I’ve seen them.”

“Okay. So?”

“Under ‘alleged suspicions of abuse or maltreatment’ of your children, child alcohol use is cited, emotional neglect, inadequate food, parental drug and alcohol misuse, excessive corporal punishment, bruises… and then there was the call that you left your other son, Brandon, alone in a car on a hot day.”

Bill started coughing. When he couldn’t seem to stop, he said, “Doddie, gimme somethin’—”

“Shut up.”

“Gimme somethin’ to drink.”

Dodd stalked off into the kitchen, making Mike nervous. His hand drifted around to the small of his back, where he carried his pistol. He glanced at Lena, saw the concern reflected in her eyes, but gave her a nod – it’s okay. There was the snap of a can opening and Dodd strode back – those steel-toed boots thundering – and handed his father the beer. Bill took it, slurped it down, stifled a cough, had some more.

At this point the old dog got to its feet – Mike didn’t know if it was the scent of the beer, the testosterone in the air, or what – and lumbered over to the easy chair. Dodd stood there watching his father drink, then lowered into a squat when the dog bumped against his leg.

“Easy girl. Hey. Hey, it’s alright.” Dodd rubbed and petted the dog; he sunk his oil-stained fingers into her thick yellowish hair. Mike relaxed a little, dropping his hand to his side.

“I don’t blame anyone for Tommy,” Dodd said. “Those were hard times. I got laid off – if anyone is to blame, it’s the US Government. Not taking care of my dad – who’s a vet, by the way – and the jobs have been disappearing up here.” He reached to pet the dog’s hindquarters, stretching his T-shirt. The short sleeve revealed more of a tattoo.

Mike gave Lena a quick look to see if she saw it too.

“And Tommy’s mother wasn’t in any great shape. We had some parties back then, okay, you know, just trying to unwind, and the kids got a hold of the liquor, so…”

“Tommy was five,” Mike said. Couldn’t help it. The stuff he’d seen on little Tommy had turned his stomach.

Dodd let go of the dog, rose to his feet, looking incensed again. “That woman, you said her name was Fogarty? I had nothing to do with that. I was at the bowling alley, then I was here at my house.”

Mike looked back, saw the fire in Dodd’s eyes, and said, “Thank you for your time, Dodd.” He nodded to the old man. “Mr. Caruthers, take care.” He moved toward the door, brushing up against Lena, getting her going in the same direction.

“My house,” said the old man.

“What?” Dodd snapped.

“You said this was your house.”

“Drink your beer.”

“See?” Bill called out as Mike was pulling open the screen door. “No respect. It’s a shit world for an old man.”

---

“That was interesting,” Lena said. She was drawn up against the door of the car, looking out the window as Mike drove along.

“You saw that tattoo?”

“Yeah. Was it what I…”

“Yeah. The outer symbol replicates a swastika with Egyptian overtones, or something. I bet if we’d looked under his shirt, he’d have a big, fat heart with knives through it. Aryan Brotherhood.”

Overton was silent.

“Could be from his time inside,” Mike said.

“Yeah but there was other stuff, too,” Lena said. “Did you see the…? Who was that in the picture? Framed, sitting a few inches away from the crucifix on the wall. I think it might have been Nathan Bedford Forrest.”

“They should fire their decorator,” Mike joked. “Probably white robes, hoods, maybe a pulpit in the garage…”

“Yeah… maybe.”

The scene had made a real impact on her and he quit the foolish humor. “Hey – you okay?”

“This shit just… you know?” She rubbed her temple with a finger.

“We need to check his story.”

“Silver Lanes isn’t open for another four hours,” Lena said. “But I know the guy who runs the local league – Philly Pete Randolf.”

Mike cut her a look, couldn’t resist. “You’re a bowler, huh? I guess I could picture that.”

She finally cracked a smile. “Pete’s a local guy; everybody knows him.”

---

Pete confirmed Dodd’s attendance at the previous week’s league night.

“All night?” Mike asked. “Could he have disappeared at some point?”

“Maybe; not that I noticed.” They stood in Pete’s living room, him in a Hugh Hefner-style robe. “Can I get you guys something? Drink? Bite to eat?”

Mike didn’t feel like sticking around. Everybody seemed to have a damn alibi – Pritchard, Dodd Caruthers, even Jessica Rankin had turned over her phone records, showing a landline call to her sister in Missouri during the commission of the crime. Not that she’d been high on their list.

He moved off down the walkway toward the parked Impala, leaving Lena to reminisce with Pete and get a list of the rest of the league members. For a guy who owned and operated a rundown bowling alley, Pete lived in one heck of a neighborhood. Some of the best homes in Lake Haven shouldered together, pretty elms lining the street, backyards overlooking the town below.

The street made a sharp curve, and through the spaces between houses, Mike could see downtown. The trees obscured a view of the bowling lanes from here, but they were close. He wondered if Dodd could’ve spent the first part of the evening in the home on River Street, watching as the DSS employees left for the day, leaving just a few cars in the lot, then popped over to Silver Lanes, signed in, bowled a few frames, then left again. Maybe he would have told his buddies his father needed him. Maybe they were drinking, no one really paid much attention.

Then he drives to DSS, Mike thought, either goes back to his nest in the house on River Street or maybe just hangs out in the woods, watches until Harriet’s Kia Sportage is the last car in the lot, slips into the back seat, kills her when she sits down.

Couple of things, though: League bowlers probably took their Thursday nights very seriously. They’d make a fuss about someone taking off in the middle of a game, regardless of his excuse or their drinking. If it happened that way, one of them might say something to Mike, like Pete. On the other hand, if they distrusted cops, they might circle the wagons and protect Dodd. They needed to track down the other league guys and see.

And Dodd would need some prior knowledge that Harriet was going to be there. Maybe he knew Gavin Fuller? Talked to him about how CPS was taking Gavin’s son, Grayson, and putting him in foster care that night?

It wasn’t a perfect theory, but it had legs. Especially if Dodd was a racist – that would really lend to his traveling all the way to Watertown last year, after he’d gotten out of Cold Brook. Corina Lavoie would have known him, recognized him, too. Maybe he kills her as part of a broader campaign of violence – murdering caseworkers who interfered with his family – but maybe it’s her race that catalyzes the whole thing.

In all, there were some notes there that were starting to play a tune.

He heard the door clap shut behind him, turned, and saw Lena walking away from Pete’s house toward the Impala, thumbing her phone. She looked up the street and saw him.

“Nice neighborhood up here,” he said, walking back.

She pointed down the street. “My friend Maggie lived right over there. Her parents still do; her dad was a pediatrician, mother just retired from the APA…”

When her gaze wandered back he felt that tightness in his chest, a jump in his heart. The way her brow creased when she was thinking, the sound of her voice. They’d grown up in the same small town but years apart, so had never really known each other. And now here they were.

“What’s on your mind, Investigator Nelson?”

He stepped a little closer. “Think we can take a break? Just an hour?”

She glanced at Pete’s big house, looming behind her. “Well, we’ve got the league list.”

“That can wait a minute.”

She held up her phone. “We’ve also got the list of child protective service adoption actions through the district court. Just came into my email.”

He leaned back, unable to see the small lettering that close. “Dodd?”

“No, Morrissey. Charles and Gerry-Anne Morrissey. He beat her up, put her in a coma, she delivered her baby. Baby went to Child Protective Services.”

“I remember the file.”

“Well, then you remember that Gerry-Anne died not long after – they couldn’t stop the brain swelling, she was a vegetable, they pulled the plug. Charles Morrissey was over in Anderton, doing his time for attempted murder. The baby was adopted that fall.”

Mike sighed. “So Morrissey gets out of prison, just like Dodd Caruthers, goes after Corina Lavoie, then Harriet?”

Her eyebrows went up, her expression said, It’s a possibility.

He sighed again. “I think we need more boots on the ground.”

“I think I agree.”

She was giving him a coy look, so he added, “And no, I’m not just saying that because you turned me down for a nooner.”

She laughed, bright and sudden, then walked to the car and opened the passenger side door. “A ‘nooner’? What is this, 1950?”

“I can be vulgar if you prefer.”

She gazed at him over the car roof. The birds were chirping, light breeze stirring, a few garlands of clouds and the sun beating down. He was either growing infatuated with Lena Overton, or it was something more.

“I prefer you the way you are,” she said. Then she dropped into her seat.

---

More boots on the ground. That meant requesting BCI send someone else out to pick up Mike’s slack, which wasn’t likely to happen. Cases that lingered unsolved were usually given fewer resources, not more.

He was frustrated. This was supposed to be his area; he had a good clearance rate when it came to homicides, a shiny seventy percent. Not that a number mattered, but a grieving family deserved answers, and a small town that hadn’t seen a murder in nearly two decades needed to know.

The case was sprawling. So many people, the faces were starting to blur. They had just enough manpower to interview league bowlers separately, see if anything came out about Dodd’s presence at Silver Lanes the night of. He left Lena preparing her patrol officers while he went to talk to Charles Morrissey.

He drove through Lake Haven with the radio on for a while, the oldies station, last one left in the area; Solomon Burke wailed “I’m Hanging up My Heart for You.” As he cleared the town, though, Mike shut it off, wanting to think in silence.

The suspects topping their list were people who’d gotten caught up in the system, lost a child because of either violence, drugs, poor choices, or all of the above. Dodd was especially interesting; he checked a lot of the boxes, and had apparent leanings toward white supremacy.

But they had no murder weapon. Forensic evidence, all around, was sucking wind. No prints or DNA in Harriet Fogarty’s car, aside from her own. The house on River Street was splattered with everyone’s fingerprints from the neighborhood, but nothing matching Dodd or anyone else in the system that raised a flag.

Jamie Rentz was still missing. There was no real way to tie him to the crimes except for Bobbi Noelle, and that was circumstantial. Still, Rentz was interesting; his Facebook page was loaded with more selfie shots than Justin Bieber – though he hadn’t posted in months. They could start pinging his phone with a subpoena, but that might be tough – Bobbi wasn’t able to identify him as the man outside her house, and the texts to her, on their own, were harmless.

Like Hume had suggested, it could be worth it to show Maybelle Spruce some pictures, though, see if she recognized Rentz. For that matter, see if she recognized Dodd Caruthers.

For now, it was all about Charles Morrissey.

---

The property looked like a tornado had come through: rusted vehicles, a couple of snowplows, snowmobiles with ripped seats, broken riding mowers, two Japanese-made motorcycles, piles of bagged trash, dunes of old tires. It was working hours and Mike didn’t expect anyone home, but a man in a ragged white T-shirt came to the door of the mobile home as Mike parked the Impala.

“Afternoon,” Mike said as he got out of the vehicle. “Charles Morrissey?”

“Who’s asking?” The man brought a rifle into view.

Mike stopped in his tracks, put one hand on the gun in the waistband holster at the small of his back, and stuck the other hand out. “Hey – whoa. Mike Nelson, state police. Put that down, sir.”

“Let me see some identification.”

“Point that away, right now.”

“You come up slow. This is private property.”

“Yes, sir. It is that. I’m just here to ask a couple of questions.” Mike walked carefully, keeping his right hand behind him on the grip of his gun. Twice in one day now he’d gone for his firearm, when whole years passed without even considering it. It added to his respect for caseworkers, who placed themselves in some sticky situations, all for the good of children.

“I’m going to reach into my jacket here with my left hand, pull out my badge, okay?” Mike eyed the rifle the man was holding, which he’d pointed down and to the side. “That a short rancher?” Mike asked.

“Yah,” the man said. “Winchester .30-30.”

“I think they used those on Bonanza…” He was a few yards away and held up his badge, and the unshaven, slovenly man squinted down from the raised doorway of the mobile home.

“I never seen that show,” the man said.

“Before your time, I guess. So, are you Morrissey?”

“Yeah.”

Mike slipped the badge back into his pocket. “Do me a favor, Mr. Morrissey – set that down on the floor behind you, and step on down out of the home, can you do that?”

It took him a moment, but Morrissey finally complied. He walked down the three steps from the mobile home, sniffing and wiping his nose with his forearm. He stopped, keeping a distance between them.

“Let’s talk,” Mike said.

They stayed outdoors, standing, the sun beating down, Mike getting some foul odors from the various piles of junk surrounding him. Morrissey was a small engine repair guy, he said, though it didn’t seem like there was a lot of repairing going on. Finally, they got around to the difficult subject of his incarceration, and what led him there. In order to get to the telling, Morrissey said he needed some liquid courage, and popped open a beat-up cooler with some cheap cans of beer inside, cracked one open.

“It was an accident,” he said. “I still maintain that. Gerry-Anne, she fell. She was runnin’ from me, but I wasn’t gonna do nothin’. But the DA said that I hit her, and I pushed her, and that’s how she hit her head – the angle iron on the guardrail took a good piece of her scalp clean off. It’s one of those things like lightning striking, you know?”

Mike tried to push away the sickening thought of a scared wife running from her husband, killing herself in the process. If, anyway, Morrissey was to be believed. “And she was pregnant,” Mike said.

“Another case of lightning striking,” Morrissey said. “A miracle. I looked it up – I went online when I was in Anderton and read about how there’s only a few cases where a woman delivered while she was in a coma like that. Amazing what the body can do.” He took a long pull of the beer and cleaned up with his forearm again.

“The baby went into Child Protective Services,” said Mike.

“Yah. She did.”

“Was there any contention over that?”

“No… no contention. She didn’t have nobody else. Gerry-Anne’s mother, she’s got… well she had cancer then, and she died. Gerry has a brother, but he’s a real piece of work, no way he’s gonna raise a kid, so there was really no one else. And I was fired from my job, and up at county jail, waiting for my day in court.”

“Did you get it?”

“Pled guilty,” Morrissey said. “Public defender I had thought it was the best option to plead out, and I did my time.” Morrissey cracked another beer, took a slurp, and squinted one eye at Mike. “This is about the Harriet Fogarty murder, isn’t it? Over there in Lake Haven. ’Cause she, ah, back then she was the one, I think, to take the baby and deal with all that stuff – the adoption or whatever.”

“You ever see your child?”

He shook his head. “No, never. She’s better off.”

“So you think it was a good thing; that she was removed from your custody, and that no one in your family was going to raise your child?”

Morrissey looked at Mike for a long time, drank the rest of the second beer, crumpled up the can and burped. He was crude, Mike thought, but he wasn’t stupid – there was intelligence in the man’s eyes. “If anyone’s got to be upset by the whole thing, it’s my daughter. Some nights, well…” He tossed the can aside and fished around in the cooler for another.

“Some nights?”

He pulled out the beer, tapped the top of it with a fingernail but didn’t open it yet, staring off. “Some nights I dream she comes for me. You know? And I don’t blame her; I let her. I let her burn it all down, burn me right down in that trailer.” Finally, he cracked the beer and took a sip, focused on Mike. “Say hi to Terry for me,” he said, and headed back for the trailer.

“You know Terry Fogarty?”

Keeping his back to Mike as he walked way, he said, “Sure. That was my job back then, ’fore I got into all this.”

“You worked for the Highway Department?”

“Yah. Old Terry was my supervisor.” Morrissey burped and climbed the three steps, pushed in the door, and went inside.

Mike let him go.

---

Mike drove aimlessly for a while, thinking about Morrissey, thinking about the man’s dream of his estranged daughter burning his home to the ground with him in it. He thought about Terry Fogarty, working with this guy all those years back. Their relationship didn’t indicate anything more than living in a scarcely populated area (in the Adirondacks, everybody knew somebody who knew somebody), but it made Mike feel restless. Like something was forming in his mind, a sort of mental Polaroid developing, and he couldn’t make out the image just yet.

He chose a direction and wound up bumping down Terry Fogarty’s long driveway on the outskirts of Lake Placid. The sun was lowering toward the treetops, the day’s heat giving up a little grip, and the place looked picturesque in the fading light.

Terry’s eyes were fuzzy with sleep when he came to the door, like he’d been napping, or just never got out of bed from the night before. There were dogs barking at his feet; Labs – one chocolate, one black. He took hold of their collars and invited Mike in.

They moved into the kitchen, where Terry let the dogs out a side door. They raced away, happy to be outside. “What can I do for you, Mike?”

The kitchen was charming, rustically old-fashioned. There were some upgrades, like the stove and microwave, but the old sink was deep-basin, slightly rusted around the fixtures, looking like it weighed a couple hundred pounds. “Just wanted to check in,” Mike said. Piled everywhere were bouquets of flowers, unopened boxes, and foodstuffs yet to be put away.

“Bobbi Noelle dropped off a bunch of groceries,” Terry said, seeing where Mike was looking. “Help yourself to anything you want.”

“Bobbi did?” Mike asked.

They sat down at the farm-style table with a view. The dogs chased each other around in the yard.

“Yeah,” Terry said. “She came over, ah, couple nights ago. I can’t remember which… everything is a blur.”

“I’m sure,” Mike said, having similar thoughts.

But Terry really meant it, and he looked dazed. “Emerson said a man is what he thinks about all day long, but I don’t know what I’m thinking from one minute to the next. I can’t seem to catch anything and… hold onto it.”

“I understand. You like Emerson?”

“I’m not such a huge fan of his libertarian leanings, I guess, but his essays on nature, his optimism for humankind, really something.” Terry seemed to look directly at Mike for the first time. “I wasn’t always working for the Highway Department. A million years ago I was a philosophy major at Plattsburgh State.”

“That’s partly why I’m here,” Mike admitted.

“Philosophy?”

“Ha, no. I know Emerson, but that’s about it. I always liked what Keith Richards had to say. As far as quotes go, anyway, he said, ‘The blacksmith invents the iron work, the horse wears them.’ I guess I really don’t even know what it means. Or maybe it means, this is all here, this life, and we just wear it. Our names, our clothes. Anyway, I bumped into someone today who used to work with you.”

“Who was that?”

“Charles Morrissey.”

“Morrissey…” Something flickered in his eyes. “You bumped into him?”

“You ever have any relationship with him outside of work?”

“None. He went away to prison for his wife. That was it.”

“He’s out,” Mike said. “Been out for a couple of years.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.” Terry looked out at the dogs and said, “He was a pretty normal guy, I guess. He was a drinker but in the winter he kept sober so he could plow. What he did to his wife was…” Another spark in Terry, like the lights were coming on inside his head. “You saw him – you asked him about Harriet? I think she might have… yeah, she handled it when his wife delivered the baby and the baby needed a place to go. Are you looking at him; is he a suspect?”

“We’re going through all of your wife’s cases from years back,” Mike said. “His name is one of many.” He switched gears. “So, Bobbi Noelle came by, brought some groceries? That was nice of her.”

Terry just stared a moment, like he was deciding whether to get more upset about Morrissey. Finally, he said, “I told Bobbi she didn’t have to trouble herself, people already helped out. But she insisted. Came by, talked with me and Victor, then went to the store. Yeah, I remember now – it was after Harriet’s memorial service. She went up to Price Chopper at ten o’clock at night, came back with bags full of groceries.”

“That’s very nice,” Mike said. Terry was gaunt and Mike doubted he’d eaten a morsel from Bobbi or anyone else all week. The widower fell silent and studied his hands, which he rested on the table.

Mike said, “I lost my wife.”

Terry looked up. “I didn’t, ah… I’m sorry. How did she die?”

“First it was breast cancer. We thought we’d caught it in time, and we did, sort of. She had a double mastectomy, she did the radiation. My daughter – she was very young, but she had the presence of mind to tell us about using cannabis.”

Terry smiled on one side of his mouth, but the humor didn’t travel to his eyes.

“And then it came back,” Mike said. “Molly complained about her back one day, and her shoulder, and we took her in. She just had a real aggressive type. I guess it actually started in her ovaries, and it just kept coming. After that, I… we managed her pain as best we could, and she went pretty quick.” Mike ran a hand over his jaw, said, “Kristen was just a kid. Turning thirteen.”

Terry took a deep breath, expanding his chest, let it out slowly, like a deflating balloon. “I guess there’s a small mercy in knowing that she… that Rita, she went quickly.” He frowned, and a thought seeming to cross his mind. “I’m so sorry – I don’t mean to use your wife’s death to—”

Mike stopped him. “Please, Terry. Not at all. I know what you mean. And I think, yes, you can maybe take some comfort in that. It’s alright to do that.”

Terry sort of blurred out again, not seeming to look anywhere or at anything in particular, his hands still limp on the table. Mike thought that there was no comparison of suffering. Even if Harriet hadn’t died a slower death like Molly, it was heartrending enough on its own. Her death had been surprising and terrible and certainly painful. And Terry was retired; he didn’t have work to help distract him, or a young child to raise. He was sixty-one, had planned to travel with his wife, maybe sell their house, begin a whole new chapter of their lives. It was all cut short. It would never be.

“How’s Victor?” Mike asked. “He get back home okay?”

Terry nodded, slowly, distantly. “He did.”

“How old is he? He’s twenty-eight, right?”

Another slow nod.

“Did Victor go to high school here? In Lake Placid?”

“He did, for part of it. We bought our first place in ’79, in Lake Haven. We were there about twenty-five years. Then they changed the law, so Harriet could live outside the county, and we’d had our eye on this place. We moved in… well, Victor was in the middle of high school.”

Mike nodded and did the math in his head – the Fogartys had moved to Placid around 2005. “This place must’ve cost you. Lot of acreage, higher comps in Lake Placid.”

“I was able to get a loan, sell off some of the timber right away, pay some of it back. Then Harriet’s parents passed, we took the inheritance and paid off more. The rest went to Victor’s tuition.”

After letting those facts settle in: “So how are you… are you going to be okay, at this point?”

“You mean money? I have my pension,” Terry said. “And some investments. And in a few years I’ll get social security. Is that what you’re asking – do I benefit financially from my wife’s death?”

Mike thought about how to respond. “I’ll be honest with you, Terry. I’ve considered it. But I have to; that’s my job. I have to look at everything and everybody where there might be a motive.”

Terry’s gaze had become sharp. “And you think I have a motive. To kill my wife. Could you have ever killed your wife, Mr. Nelson? Even if it meant you’d get some money out of it?”

“No. But like I said, I’d be doing your wife a disservice if I didn’t at least consider the possibility.”

A heavy silence followed, and then Mike asked, “Was that tough for Victor when you moved? Changing schools at that age?”

Terry took another long breath and seemed to relax. “Victor didn’t have any trouble. Always had his eye on the prize – getting good grades, getting out of the area. We’re not big sports people, Rita and me. I do a little bit of cross-country skiing, and we love to hike, but Victor really got into the team sports. He had the physique for it. He’s big, on my father’s side. He ran track, he was on the wrestling team, and he played lacrosse.”

“Sounds like quite a kid.”

Outside, the dogs had settled down – or, rather, they were both intent on something in the grass, their noses down, paws working. After another gap in the conversation, Mike asked, “Joe left to go to back home, is that right?”

“Yes. Went back Wednesday.”

“You think Joe’s not telling us something? About the place in Gloversville?”

Terry seemed to tense, the way Mike had seen him do during their meeting earlier in the week. “The only thing Joe is doing is downplaying his brother’s menace,” Terry said. “Steve is a violent, callous son of a bitch, and I’m glad he’s locked up. He threatened Rita before, on multiple occasions.”

Mike said, “When we were all meeting, at my office, Victor said something to Joe. He said, ‘Yeah, you’re sorry, Uncle Joe.’ Do you know what he meant?”

“No. I don’t. He was upset.” Terry gestured with his hands. “Why is Steve just sitting there, no murder charge? He’s got a lawyer now. He’s going to get out, be out there, walking around. What does it take to put a guy like him away?”

The temperature in the room seemed to rise. Mike said, “If Steve would’ve stood to gain something, we’d have a clearer motive. But Harriet’s share of the property goes to you and Victor. And—”

“His motive is hate and revenge.”

“I don’t discount that, believe me. Can you think of anyone who might… Who are Steve’s friends around here?”

“I have no idea. I doubt he has any.”

“Steve has someone who says he was with them during the time of death.”

“And you believe this person? Why? Who is it?”

“I can’t tell you that, I’m sorry.”

Terry was becoming more aggravated, color blooming in his cheeks, lower lip quivering. It killed Mike to upset the guy, after all he’d been through. But he had to ask. “Victor seemed to… I don’t know. Do you remember it? Is there something between him and Joe? Has Victor spent a lot of time with Joe?”

“Joe was defending Steve, who is the one who probably killed her – Victor was angry. There’s nothing between Joe and my son. Mr. Nelson, are you finished? Or are you about to insinuate Steve was in collusion with Joe, or even my son?”

One of the dogs started barking. Mike saw that it was the black lab, and it was facing the house. The brown one joined in, both of them pointing toward the kitchen as they barked, as if sensing the tension.

Mike asked, “Did you have a talk with Joe, after your wife died, but before coming into my office, about Joe giving up his share of the estate? After you helped Harriet decide to leave Steve out?”

A dark vein was showing at Terry’s right temple. “That’s what Joe told you?”

The dogs kept barking outside. Mike folded his arms, waited.

“I talked to Joe, yes,” Terry said. “About my wife. About his sister. Before he got his flight out. We talked about her. We talked about her memorial service, her eventual burial. As soon as someone finds her goddamn killer and we can have her back.”

“You didn’t talk about the property?”

Terry glowered a moment, then said, “I think I’d like you to leave now. I’m very sorry to learn about your wife, but please go.”

“Okay. But you should know – that’s what Joe has told us. That it wasn’t worth any of this – he didn’t want the place in Gloversville if it meant infighting.”

Terry stabbed a finger at Mike. “Well maybe that’s what my son was upset about, okay? Maybe Joe should have thought of that before. About what that stupid, rundown farm was doing to Harriet’s family! Joe held onto his half, and he’s out there in Utah, and we see him once every two years. Meanwhile Steve is like a fucking beggar, coming around, threatening Rita. You want evidence? You want to know why I thought Cecilia should cut him out? Here, let me show you this—”

Terry stood up abruptly, his chair scraping over the plank floor, then stalked off into the other room, leaving Mike alone in the kitchen. He listened to Terry slamming drawers, rummaging around for something, muttering curses. Finally, he walked back into the kitchen, sweating, looking crestfallen. “I can’t find it.”

“What?”

“A letter. From Steve to Rita.”

“A letter?”

Terry waved a hand. “Steve never got into computers, doesn’t email, nothing. He sent a letter, just after Cecilia died. Rita stuck it away somewhere – I can’t find it.”

“What was in it?”

Terry stood there with his shoulders drooping, his color ashen, eyes haunted. “Listen to me. Because this is everything. After this, I don’t want anyone else bothering me. Understand?”

Mike was silent.

“Steve wanted that property. Wanted it bad. Joe says he waxed and waned on it, but I remember Steve kept up a real effort, just wouldn’t shut up. He tried to get Rita to give up her half, to give it to him, and when she refused, he tried to get Joe to give up his. Because he thought if Joe gave his up, Rita would want out.”

“What’s so special about this place?”

“Nothing. You ask me, Steve never wanted to rejuvenate it, turn it back into some farm or something. He’s never done much of anything above board. But he told Joe that there were some people who wanted to lease it, all under the table. And at one point, Joe told Rita. He was considering it, just to get Steve off their backs. This all happened over the course of a few years, okay? We were all haggard, and Victor saw the toll it was taking on his mother, and so did I. I thought Joe needed to be more forceful with Steve, and Joe wasn’t. Most the time he just ignored it. And so that’s why Rita and I took action, and why Victor was upset.”

Unburdened, Terry slumped into the chair at the kitchen table and stared into nothingness. Mike took a moment and looked at the flowers decorating the room. They were beginning to wilt.

When Terry spoke again, his voice was low, getting hoarse. “I heard something about homicide detectives once. I have a cousin who does what you do, down in Florida. He said to me once that a homicide detective works for God.”

Mike waited.

“I guess the idea is that the dead are with God,” Terry said, “and the homicide investigator is doing the work of punishing whoever killed them. God’s justice – if you believe in that. But to be honest this whole thing feels more like the Devil.”

Mike held the man’s watery gaze, then said in a quiet, sympathetic voice, “If you find that letter, let me know, okay?”

Terry nodded once, eyes averted, and then buried his face in his hands. Mike wanted to console the guy, but he sensed it was better to leave. He rose and headed toward the front door, hearing the dogs round the house, moving to the same spot. He opened the door and they were there, but kept a distance. They seemed to ease up a little as he emerged, and wagged their tails. “It’s alright, guys,” he said softly. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”