“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.
Nine
Work felt deserted. About half the staff had elected to stay home, at least until after the memorial service. Those who’d ventured in to work were like Lennox, with pressing matters, or Bobbi, who just didn’t know what else to do with herself on a Monday morning. Or where she was safer – here or at home.
Bobbi stared at her computer screen. The stupid thing was demanding she do another restart. How many times in one month did it need to update? Maybe it had something to do with the police, though – supposedly they were pulling everyone’s schedules and had to get through security in order to make that happen.
The office felt small. All anyone could think about, or talk about, was Harriet. When Lennox knocked on her open door, she jumped.
“Hey, come on in.”
He offered a wan smile and moved to the chair by the window in his slow, gangly way. He sat down, took the band out of his hair and pushed it all back, reaffixing his dreadlocks. Then he looked out the window, striking a forlorn pose. “This is so weird.”
“I know.”
“I feel like I’m in a dream.”
“Yeah.”
“I keep passing her office. Her door’s closed. I gotta… like, keep myself from opening it up. Like maybe she’s there, sitting at her desk.”
“Chained to the phone.”
“Man, she spent a lot of time on that phone.”
“Or working on the ECR.”
“Ah, God,” Lennox said. “I thought that software update was going to be the end of her. Poor woman. Sometimes I think we spend more time organizing and categorizing than anything else. And we’re still behind.”
“Yeah.” Bobbi smiled at Lennox then looked down at her hands. Her knuckles were bruised from her Shorin-Ryu session over the weekend. And after class she’d worked the punching bag in the gym pretty hard. Anything to keep her mind occupied, her body in motion.
She’d almost considered using some cover-up on her hands. If she had to go out on a call, looking like she’d just beaten the shit out of someone probably wasn’t for the best.
“You heard anything about the case?” Lennox asked. His eyes were watchful; looming unspoken and unresolved was the issue of her possible role in the scheme of things.
“One of the investigators,” she started, “Mike Nelson… He called me on Saturday. Asked me about her brothers. You knew Rita had brothers?”
Lennox nodded. He’d been there for years. Over a decade. Maybe as long as Harriet, but Bobbi had never asked. “Steve and Joe.”
Bobbi felt another jolt. She hadn’t known their names, but she’d been looking at the news each morning, and now she pulled out her phone. She was shaking a little and told herself to calm down.
Lennox looked concerned. “What about… Everything okay?”
“Some guy was arrested in town for fighting or something.” She found the article and scanned it. “His name is Steve Pritchard.”
“That’s Harriet’s maiden name,” Lennox confirmed.
The feeling was familiar – a mixture of relief and shame. If Harriet’s brother was behind this, it had nothing to do with her. She handed Lennox her phone and thought about her own brothers as he read, remembered watching reality cop shows with one of them – Brad. In the shows, the killers were often close with the victim – husbands, boyfriends. Sororicide wasn’t as common, but it happened.
Lennox read: “Village police charged Steven R. Pritchard, of Boulder, Colorado, with disorderly conduct, a violation, and assault in the third degree, around 1:54 a.m. Saturday.” He glanced at her and said, “This is Saturday’s paper. Maybe there’s something new. May I?”
“Go ahead.”
Lennox didn’t own a smartphone, but he was adroit with hers. “Okay – yup, here it is. Arraignments are Monday mornings so this must’ve just gone up: ‘Pritchard was arraigned in Village Court and sent to Pierce County Jail on $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond.’”
He handed her back the phone and she skimmed it. “It doesn’t say anything in here about Harriet,” she said.
“They probably don’t know yet,” Lennox said.
Bobbi felt chilled. The AC was on and the office was like a refrigerator, for one thing. She opened the window. Today was rainy and overcast, but still hot, and the warmer air came swirling in.
“I bet they’ll find out,” she said, returning to her desk. She looked at the report again. “That’s a high bail, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”