They sat for a while. A breeze shook the trees, scattering drops of rain. Mike was occupied, mentally trying to fit these various pieces together.
“What about any of these guys?” Mike said. “Caruthers, Randall Bates, Chapman – were they a part of this sweep?”
She was shaking her head. “I can’t remember. Maybe.”
“We need to check that out, too.”
Another silence followed, the house on Baker Street still quiet, and Mike thought back. “I remember a little about that roundup,” he said. “But not much. I was running radar back then.”
Lena seemed to rouse out of her own reverie. “Where’d you work?”
“North Hudson, pulling nights.”
She grinned.
Feeling self-conscious, he asked, “What?”
“Just picturing you working out of a rest-stop. I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like you.”
“Well, I thought it was. Mom didn’t want me following Dad’s footsteps, and I was kind of… I don’t know.”
“Hiding out.”
“Biding my time.”
She nodded at the onboard computer mounted between the seats. “Is that why you have an MDT?”
“Yeah I got used to having one in the car. You know what else I want to know? I want to know who bailed Gavin Fuller out.”
“I’ll put it on the list.”
Mike put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. “I’m taking you home.”
This time she didn’t object.
* * *
Mike leaned over the seat so he could better see Lena as she stood with the passenger door open. “Okay,” she said. “See you in a little bit, I guess.”
But she stayed put a moment, looking in at him before she winked and shut the door.
Mike watched until she was at the front entrance. She used her key then glanced back before slipping inside. The sound of her door closing rolled down to the street.
More than infatuation, he thought. In just a short time, he was feeling things for Lena Overton he hadn’t felt in years. And it worried him.
He faced forward, hands gripping the wheel, suddenly tight in the chest. He didn’t know what this was, maybe some kind of panic attack, and he closed his eyes, willed it to pass.
Molly’s face surfaced in his mind. The clarity of her was shocking – her image had faded not long after her death; in recent years he’d relied on photos to jog his memory. Sometimes he’d find something, like a hair tie hidden deep in a cabinet drawer, one of her hairs still twined around it, and the feeling would overtake him. They were both present now; that feeling, and the picture of her sweet face, living there in the car with him.
Some tragedies you were able to move past. The loss of a spouse seemed eternal.
He hadn’t been able to sit in a cruiser anymore, running radar, after she’d died. He’d needed to stay busy and keep moving. So he put in an application with BCI, took a few tests, jumped through some hoops, and a couple of months later was working death investigations.
His father liked to say, if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.
So, death. Death wherever he could find it. Anywhere but in his own life. And maybe he could puzzle out why a death happened, maybe find physical evidence of a crime, or get a confession. Maybe he could answer the questions of loved ones left behind. Some therapeutic value in that, or something.
But not much.
He wondered what his father would think about death investigators working for God.
Mike opened his eyes, pulled away from Lena’s house. He prayed as he drove, maybe to God, maybe to his wife, asking for permission to care about Lena Overton. They’d only just met, but he could sense it, like he’d sensed it when he’d first met Molly – this one was going to be more than a passing thing.
After driving a while, working through it, his mind swung back to the case. He cruised through quiet downtown Lake Haven, everything still and shining wet. This time he took the correct direction down the one-way street and turned into the parking lot.
Chapman’s car was still there. Mike rolled to a stop in a dark corner, grabbed a screwdriver from his glove box, got out and approached. It was going on 3 a.m. and he could hear music still emanating from the bar. Almost closing time. Nobody out, though, just a few other vehicles besides Chapman’s.
Harriet no longer had a voice, and he was her advocate. Did she die because her brother was involved in some drug operation with bikers and white supremacists like Dodd Caruthers? Did her brother want the family property as a place to manufacture methamphetamine, and had he killed her, or had her killed, when he couldn’t get his share? Mike needed answers. Her husband needed answers. The town needed answers.
He slid the screwdriver from his pocket, crouched behind John Chapman’s car. He nimbly removed the casing around the left taillight, checked to see if anyone was watching, unscrewed the bulb, slipped the bulb into his pocket, and replaced the casing. He got to his feet, grunting under his breath at his tired legs. Then he casually returned to his car and drove off.
He took the road out of Lake Haven, nothing but evergreen forests on either side, tall slender pines like sentinels in the night.
Maybe Harriet’s death was drug-related, maybe she’d talked to Corina Lavoie about something, making her a target, too. Or the whole thing was about Caruthers getting his kid taken – the kid who was hurt while in foster care, Tommy – and Caruthers, once out of prison, decided to exact revenge on the caseworkers. Lennox Palmer didn’t show up in the Caruthers case, though. That was either a paperwork error, or maybe because, like Lena said, they were looking at this thing the wrong way.
With a little luck, though, they’d learn what Chapman was carrying around in his trunk, see if it was drugs or not.
In the meantime, Mike let his mind wander. He thought about Charles Morrissey’s daughter coming to kill him in a dream. Victor Fogarty, bereaved and enraged over his mother. Parents screwing up their kids; kids taken from their parents. Kids inadvertently poisoned by parents who’d kept bad chemicals next to the food in the fridge.
* * *
Mike found himself outside Bobbi Noelle’s apartment building, just sitting there in the Impala, looking up at the third floor where she lived. The lights were off; it was now half past three in the morning. Kristen knew he was on a stakeout and wouldn’t expect him home. He didn’t want to go home. He hadn’t forgotten about Bobbi, and even if her ex-boyfriend didn’t fit as a prime suspect, she’d been threatened, and she still had some role to play in this – Mike was sure of it.
He rolled down the windows, shut the engine off. Listened to the sounds of the night. Frogs, somewhere not too far off, doing their chirping chorus. The rumble of an engine in the distance. Maybe the local police, who were supposed to be driving by to check on her.
Then, nothing. He put his head back.
* * *
The knock against the windshield startled Mike awake. He’d been slumped behind the wheel. A Lake Placid cop was standing outside the door surrounded by a bright Monday morning. The cop passed a paper cup of coffee through the open window; his name tag read Drummond. He was about thirty, with a buzz cut and blue eyes.
“Morning, Investigator Nelson. Didn’t know you when I first rolled by about oh five hundred. Ran you and found out – you were pretty zonked.”
Mike took the coffee. “Time is it?” He groped for his phone and looked at the screen just as Drummond said, “Little before oh seven hundred. I’m just getting off shift.” He gave Mike a look. “You good?”
“Yeah.” Mike looked past the cop at the apartment. What day was it? Monday. He wondered if Bobbi had left for work, then spotted her Honda CR-V down the street, the one that looked just like Harriet Fogarty’s car.
“Alright,” Drummond said, sounding unconvinced. “Well… anything I can do for you?” He seemed reluctant to leave, like Mike needed to better prove he was on an even keel.
Drummond stepped back as Mike got out, feeling the stiffness in his back and neck.