A passing motorcade of bikers rumbled through downtown Lake Haven like a long roll of thunder. Inside the interrogation room, Pritchard’s eyes were bloodshot, last night’s booze-binge still leaching from his pores.

Mike opened the conversation. “Do you remember me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You were significantly intoxicated.”

“So you say; I never submitted to a breathalyzer.”

“Then you’ll remember speaking about your sister, Harriet, about her death.” Mike glanced at his notepad, though he recalled the line by memory. “You said, ‘Rita had it coming to her.’”

Pritchard glanced away. Mike thought maybe the man felt shame, but it was tough to tell. Most of Pritchard’s face was buried in a gnarly salt-and-pepper beard. He was deeply tanned, the kind of lizard-look usually reserved for hardcore beachgoers and desert-dwellers.

“That’s a pretty heavy thing to say,” Mike said. “Unless I mistook your meaning.”

Finally, Pritchard looked back at Mike with his wet brown eyes. “We all have it coming.”

Mike glanced at Overton, who rolled her eyes from the corner of the room. Overton liked to stand rather than sit, Mike noticed.

“I didn’t kill Rita,” Pritchard said. “Karma killed Rita.”

“Oh. Okay. Why did karma kill Rita?”

“Karma’s a bitch.” Pritchard cut up laughing, a gravelly, lifelong smoker laugh. He was in his clothes from the night before but still shackled, and the chains rattled as he had his fun.

“You know,” Mike said, “your brother Joe is on his way here.”

He settled down and grew serious. “So?”

“Is Joe going to like what you did? What’s he going to think about all of this?”

“I don’t give a shit about Joe.”

“So you’re angry at both your siblings. And this has to do with your family home in Gloversville? That you were cut out of the will?”

“Yeah, by Rita worm-tonguing our mother. Our weak mother.”

It felt like the edge of a confession. “Why would she do that?” Mike asked. “Why conspire to get you out of the will?”

“I don’t fuckin know. Why don’t you ask Joe?”

“Joe conspired, too?”

Pritchard sniffed, looked away.

“So because you were cut out of the will,” Mike said carefully, “you were angry with Rita, and then what did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, we know for sure you did at least a couple things. You picked a fight with a man at a bar the night after your sister was found murdered. Then you said she had it coming. And you were visibly intoxicated, angry. And you’ve admitted anger, then and here, over her influence to alter your inheritance… I mean, Steve. Come on.”

“That would be a good reason, wouldn’t it?” Pritchard snapped. “You think I’m stupid? Because I look like this? That’s why, man. You know? I’m not in a flashy suit like you, so you make your judgments. You think I’m going to go around saying she deserved it if I did something? You think I’m gonna off my sister and then blow it, get myself locked up, because some commie piece of shit I had words with at a bar?”

Mike had seen plenty of guys like Pritchard in his life: drifters, angry at the world. Sometimes it was the youngest in a family, but not always. Steve Pritchard had probably been tolerated, even enabled, to a certain point, but never really grown up. He came to resent the things done for him, and then resented it more when the helping hands were no longer there. His parents and his siblings had grown tired of bailing him out of trouble.

Or, maybe that was all psychobabble and he was a stone-cold killer.

“Unless you wanted to get caught,” Mike said. “With a lot of guys,” he shrugged, “that’s how it is. Guys want to get caught, because they need help. That how it went with you? You know you did something horrible, and you want to own up to it? We can help you. This would be a good step for you, Steve. A really good step.”

Pritchard laughed again. “You’re the same. Rita went around like she was better than everyone, just like you.”

“That’s not the sense I get about Rita.”

“Oh no? You’ve known her all of what? Two days? As a dead person?”

“From everyone I’ve met who knew her – people say she was a wonderful woman.”

“Yeah, that’s what people say when someone dies.”

“You think people are going to say that about you?”

Pritchard fell silent, sulking now. Mike didn’t like stooping to personal insults, but the guy had perturbed him. “Harriet’s son is here, too.”

“So?”

“Victor is here in town, and like I said, your brother Joe is on the way.”

“So what?”

Mike shrugged, leaned back. He chewed on his pen for a moment, staring at Pritchard. “Why did you show up in town the day after your sister’s death, Mr. Pritchard?”

“I didn’t.”

Mike set the pen down. “You didn’t?”

“No. I been here a week. I told you that already.”

“You’ve had a place to stay?”

Pritchard didn’t answer.

“I’ve seen it,” Mike said. “I just went all through it.”

“What?”

“People leave signs of themselves,” Mike bluffed. “So let’s just get past all this; forget the games, forget the whole bit. You turned yourself in, basically, and I’ve seen where you’ve been staying.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on. At this point, you need to be thinking about your future. How you want to spend the remaining years of your life. Do you want to live? Do you want a chance at parole? Because this is what it’s going to come down to, Steve. How you and I talk, right now, you and I, this is going to determine the shape of your life from this point on.”

Pritchard narrowed his eyes, leaned toward Mike just a little bit. “You don’t know shit.”

“I know where you’ve been staying. I know where you’ve been watching your sister.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Bullshit.”

“Alright.” Mike rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I understand – you’ve come this far, now you’re having second thoughts. So here’s where we’re at: You were arrested for disorderly conduct. Okay? And in the process of your arrest, you kicked the door of the police car as an officer approached, which hit him. So now you’re going to get hit with Assault 3, a misdemeanor. But that’s just the beginning. The DA is prepared to file additional charges based on what we have: first-degree murder. Do you understand this? If you cooperate, if you follow through with your instinct – and it was the right instinct – to turn yourself in, you have a chance at living some kind of life.”

“So, file away. I didn’t turn myself in, and I don’t give a shit. This is funny to me, watching all this bullshit.”

“How familiar are you with New York State law, Steve? You’ve got a record, but never been arrested in this state. Do you know what a buccal swab is?”

Pritchard’s eyes were cunning. “You can’t take my DNA without a court order.”

“Not true, Steve. We’re going to get your DNA and we’re going to match it to blood and tissue samples from your sister’s car. Just like we’re going to match your fingerprints to the house where you were staying.”

“I haven’t been in her car. I don’t even know what she drives. And I don’t know anything about this fuckin house you’re talking about. You’re trying to get me to say something, and it ain’t gonna work.”

“You’re going to go to jail for these initial offenses. But that can be for a little while or a long while, depending on what we tell the judge. And a year in county is no picnic.”

“A year? I won’t do a year. That’s crazy. I barely did anything.”

“No? You assaulted an officer. That’s more than ‘barely anything.’ A lot more. The only sensible thing to do now is to play nice, like I said. Because when we match your prints, it’s all over for you. We know where you’ve been.”

Pritchard blinked, starting to look angry. “You know where I’ve been then you’ll know I didn’t do this. There’s no way I’d have time to get to Lake Haven from the res.”

Mike and Overton shared a quick look and Mike said, “The res…”

“Yeah, officer. You want to know where I been staying? On the res, with Marnie Blackburn.”

“On the Kahonsie Mohawk Reservation?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you were there Thursday night? Between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., you were with this person?”

“I was with Marlene, then, yeah.”

“You just said her name was ‘Marnie.’”

“She goes by Marnie. I call her Marnie. Other people call her Marlene.” Pritchard grinned. “So there goes your whole fuckin theory about where I been, huh?”

Mike jotted down the name Marlene Blackburn, closed up his small notebook, and dropped it into the pocket of his sport coat. “Okay, Mr. Pritchard. We’ll talk to Marnie.” He rose from the desk and started for the door, stopped. “But I’m gonna be pretty upset when she tells me you slipped out for a few hours, and she doesn’t know where you went. So why don’t we just clear that up right now?”

Pritchard wore the same defiant expression; it just seemed to be his face. Resting asshole face. “There’s nothing to clear up,” Pritchard said. “That’s where I was.”

“Enjoy county,” Mike said. He and Overton left the room together.

---

“So?” The Honorable Helen Cheever was a ginger-haired woman in her mid-fifties with direct, bright eyes, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, some gardening dirt smeared on the sleeve. “I’m here at the village courthouse on a Saturday. I’ve read the police report.” The judge’s eyes flitted between Mike and Overton. “Remind me which one of you is case manager on this?”

“I am,” Overton said. “Mike is lead investigator.”

“Okay, then. Mike?”

Mike pulled in a breath, let it out slow. “Pritchard shows up from out of town the night after his sister was murdered, says she had it coming.”

“But now he maintains his innocence.”

“We need physical evidence.”

The judge’s eyes flitted to Overton. “Lena?”

Overton held Cheever’s gaze. “We can’t leave anything to chance. This guy, if he did this, he needs to go away. Forever. So it has to be solid.”

“So?” Cheever said. “Your crime scene people are processing the scene; you’ll get your DNA. This Pritchard – he’s already in the database?”

Overton shook her head, “No.”

“Well, then this is a penal law misdemeanor for Pritchard, he’ll get the buccal smear when he processes into county, and then, depending on when you get through with the blood and tissue samples from the vehicle, you check for a match. I heard it was a pretty gruesome scene…”

Mike was lost in thought a moment, images of Harriet Fogarty’s mutilated body haunting him. “It was, and it’s going to take a while to process. And we’re waiting for the house on River Street. So, in the meantime I want to talk to this Marlene Blackburn, see if he’s telling the truth, or just playing games – he’s that type. But, she’s on the res.”

“Sounds like coordination with Tribal Police,” Cheever said.

“I’d like to ride out there right now,” Mike said, “but then everyone’s stepping on everybody else’s toes, yeah, so… I’ll let them take point. At any rate, if Pritchard did stay with her, we’ll submit a search warrant for her place. Call in the feds if we have to.”

After a gap in the conversation, Cheever folded her hands, said, “You know, I like the both of you. Lena, we work together all the time. Mike, it’s nice to finally meet you; I’ve heard a lot about you. And I’m glad to see the two of you working together for the first time, circumstances notwithstanding. But you’re not telling me anything I don’t know, and I get the sense… What are you holding out on?”

She looked between them, and Overton glanced at Mike, lips pursed, cueing him to answer.

“Corina Lavoie,” Mike said.

Cheever leaned back in her chair, ran a hand over her lips, then leaned forward again. “Lavoie? Lavoie from about a year ago? She went missing in Watertown…”

“Ten months ago,” Mike said. “She was also a caseworker. We’d like to check into it a little bit more.”

The judge sighed and looked out the window showing a slice of downtown, the bar and parking lot where Pritchard sounded the alarm on himself not far from view. “But you’re not putting Pritchard into that scenario?”

“We first need to determine where he’s been for the past year. But that might be getting ahead of ourselves. And there’s still the problem of Bobbi Noelle.”

“What problem?” Cheever asked.

“We can’t be sure this wasn’t supposed to be her,” Mike admitted. “If Pritchard is the doer, then it’s highly unlikely. I’d say no chance. But if we can’t find someone with motive to go after Harriet specifically, we’re looking at a possible case of mistaken identity. Or maybe someone just looking to hurt caseworkers, for any number of reasons.”

“Tell me about Lavoie,” Cheever said.

“Corina Lavoie. African-American woman, aged fifty-five. She went to the movies by herself on a Friday,” Mike said. “Lived with her sister; the sister was away visiting friends. When Lavoie didn’t show up at work on Monday, they called her, left messages. That Tuesday, someone from the clinic where she worked sent a cop around. State police found her car still in the movie parking lot at the mall, no sign of her. Vehicle was impounded, swept clean, nothing there to go on. She just disappeared. A detective named Corrow took the case.”

“Okay,” Cheever said. “They’re both caseworkers. But Lavoie went missing. Harriet Fogarty was definitely not missing.”

Mike didn’t have an answer, and Cheever seemed to grow beleaguered by the brainstorming. “Look, you two do what you have to do. The arraignment is Monday morning, so that only gives you another day. If you get something, bring it to DA Cobleskill, add the murder charge. Otherwise, there’s risk of jail, so I will advise Pritchard of his right to counsel at the arraignment. He asks for a public defender, fine, we send him off to county with an application. He doesn’t, I’ll enter the not guilty plea as per usual… and he’s off to county jail. So, either way.”

“Where do you think you’ll set bail?” Mike asked.

Cheever looked a little pensive, and Mike knew they were entering some questionable territory. Still, cops and judges made deals like this every day. There was nothing illegal about it, maybe just shades of gray. “Even if this Dmitri Petrov isn’t pressing charges,” Cheever said, “we have the disorderly conduct since it was happening in a public space. And then Pritchard kicks the car door, striking Officer Daniels. So you’ll get your supporting deposition from Daniels, from witnesses who were at the Bark Eater, and how it looks is this guy – Pritchard – he’s got a record, was drunk, causing a disturbance, threatening violence, then assaults an officer… What if the door hit the officer and his gun went off? There are bystanders around, etcetera. My reasonable judgment will be that this guy needs ten and twenty for the offenses.”

It was a relief. Cheever was in their corner, and Pritchard would be under wraps.

“You get something solid,” the judge said, “you’ll know where to find him.”

“Unless he can come up with the bail,” Overton added.

“This guy doesn’t look like he can come up with that,” Mike said. “He’s rootless, has no assets, and it sounds like he was cut out of whatever his parents left to their other children.”

“Well then that’s how we have to play it,” Overton said. “Cobleskill is not going to issue a complaint based on Pritchard saying his sister ‘had it coming.’”

“What’s he likely to get for the dis-con and the Assault 3?” Mike asked Cheever.

“If he didn’t have a record he’d be apt to get time served, maybe a small fine. But he does. So it’s up to thirty days in jail for the dis-con, plus a heftier fine. The assault is a Class A misdemeanor, so could be up to a year. But I don’t know yet, I’m not in my robes. Like I said, it’s Saturday.”

Her tone signaled that it was time to leave.