Mike ran the water in the second-floor bathroom and splashed it on his face. Darlene stayed in the hallway, gripping her purse, looking less excited and increasingly anxious. “Did you see something up there?”
No towel handy, so he wiped his face with his hands, dried them on his pants. His undershirt was soaked with sweat; dark circles beneath the armpits of his suit. “The front door has been locked all this time, correct? No access except for the key?”
“Right.” She shook her head back and forth. “No access. I’m the only one. I was here, I don’t know, about a month ago, with someone from a cleaning company. It was to get out that smell…”
Mike left the bathroom, started back down to the first floor, and she followed. “Maybe check the subfloor in the living room,” he said about the odor. “Sometimes unfinished wood like that can give off a sweet smell. You took the carpet out, and that’s why it’s the strongest in there. Can I see the basement?”
“Yes… You think that’s it? The flooring?”
“Might be.”
The basement was accessible off the kitchen. The realtor nudged past Mike, opened the door to reveal a dark set of wooden stairs. “The electric is off.”
Mike clicked on his flashlight.
A basement typical of older houses, stone instead of concrete blocks, a dirt floor. An ancient boiler squatted in one corner, a rickety workbench, and a couple of empty crates stacked against one wall. The street-side of the basement was cramped, and the dirt floor sloped down toward a door with a simple slide bolt, withdrawn so that the lock was disengaged.
Mike stepped out into the overgrown backyard. The tall grass and weeds were trampled, forming that path toward the woods if you looked just the right way.
He took out his phone and typed a name into his contacts, placed the call. “Hi Brit. I need a team at 117 River Street. Possible prints on the basement doorknob, and up in the attic along the floor joists, maybe the window. Really need to just go through the whole house and comb the backyard.”
Brit Silas would need elimination prints from the family who’d lived there, which would be tedious, depending on where they were located and if anyone was already in the system. Mike returned to the main floor and asked Darlene about the family who still owned the house. “Well, one of the boys is overseas,” she said. “There are two other kids, and they’re local. Mary is the daughter, and she’s the one I work with on selling the house. It went to all three kids, but she’s the one who handles it. What’s going on?”
“Could be nothing,” Mike said.
Eight
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.”