Take Your Turn, Teddy

by Take Your Turn, Teddy (epub)

  Strode put a cigarette between his lips, thanking the little devils for keeping him thin, and realized he forgot all about his appointment that afternoon with Dr. Evers.

  He smiled, shifted the car into gear, and said, “Sorry, Dr. Evers. Duty calls.”

  4

  As Strode exited I-65 and steered the red Ford Pinto to I-94, he thought of Dr. Evers sitting in her ridiculous, cliché shrink leather chair. She would tap her foot and check her watch. When she started to lose patience, Dr. Evers would poke her head into the waiting room, as if her trusty receptionist had neglected a patient sitting in the corner.

  Strode supposed he should feel guilty, but he couldn’t stop that mischievous grin from spreading on his face. He threw his head back and laughed. Maybe I am out of mind. He laughed louder.

  A convertible with a man and a woman and two kids in the backseat zipped past him. The pair up front, who Strode assumed were the parents, gave him a concerned look. Like a scolded school kid, Strode hushed and straightened himself up in his leather seat.

  He mumbled to himself, “Yeah, you’re definitely losing it.”

  Strode wondered if part of his laughter came from the fact that he was walking right into the very thing he had spent the last year and a half trying to escape. Something was terrifying about the idea that going into this would cause irreversible damage, and the only way to prevent himself from sinking into the blackness of true insanity was to laugh it off. Maybe that was true insanity in itself.

  Hell, at least I’ll go out smiling.

  With his nicotine-stained fingers, Strode turned the radio up and hummed along to a soothing Peter, Paul, and Mary song about a dragon. Without a doubt, the radio host would come on after to discuss whether the song was really about drugs and not a magic place called Honahlee.

  Before Strode could hear the big debate, a peeling wooden sign pointed him to Warren Woods. He pressed on the brakes, and the Pinto hummed as it drove down the gravel path. When he saw a squad car through the break in the trees, he turned right where a petite police officer was waiting with her arms crossed. That specific stance was quite familiar to Strode. He remembered her standing like that at the academy, scowling at the dipshit men chasing each other around the dirt track or arguing who climbed the rope the fastest. The woman didn’t smile or wave. She just waited for Strode to pull in.

  Strode got out of the car and offered her his hand. “Hello—” Strode still couldn’t remember her name. “Long time no see.”

  The woman looked at Strode’s hand with only the slightest hint of a smile and said, “Good to see you again, Strode.”

  Again, without offering her name or much direction, the woman turned and headed for the woods. Strode followed.

  The woman’s dark hair was collected tightly at the nape of her neck. Not a single piece was out of place, even in the humidity. Strode thought of Maggie, who would throw her dark hair on top of her head and then tug at the pieces. “If it’s too tight, I’ll get a huge headache,” she would say. Maggie’s ponytail always hung high and sort of lopsided. Just the thought made Strode smile.

  “Strode, did you hear me?” the officer asked.

  He’d done it again. Be present. Exist as more than a two-dimensional figure in the background.

  “Sorry. Lost in thought. What did you say, ma’am?”

  The woman shoved a circular container at him. “If you can’t smell it yet, trust me, it only gets worse.”

  Strode dipped two fingers in the container and rubbed the mixture under his nose. The smell of peppermint tingled up his lip and into his nostrils. “I’m familiar with the smell. It haunts me to this day.”

  With a heavy look of empathy and analysis, the woman nodded to Strode. “Of course.”

  Strode was surprised how far into the woods they were before he saw the caution tape, another squad car, and the van marked Haddonfield Coroner.

  “Haddonfield? I thought we were in Three Oaks?”

  A deep voice came from behind the police car. “You are, Officer Strode. Haddonfield is a family name. They’ve run that business for three generations now.” The man extended his chubby hand and Strode accepted it. “Officer Jack Burklow.”

  The man raised his flabby arm, revealing a great deal of underarm sweat in his corpse-grey-colored uniform, and pointed to a cart in front of the van. “Finch, grab us all some gloves. Would you?”

  Finch looked at Strode as if to say, Now you know, and came back with three pairs of bright purple gloves.

  Below them was a sheet-covered body. The cloth’s once pure whiteness was stained with traces of something wicked and vile, the aftermath of something hungry for blood—a feeding. Finch started to crouch down and pull the sheet back, but she rose to her feet and turned to Strode, “Actually, why don’t you take a look? We all know what I think. I’d like to hear what you think.”

  Strode nodded. He immediately thought of the Warren family, of Jackie, and then of Teddy Blackwood. He hoped to God they weren’t somewhere torn apart like this man. He hoped if they were dead, they went quickly. It was wishful thinking, and he knew it.

  Strode settled his boots into the dirt, took a deep breath, and held it. The nerves were trying to battle it out with the smell, fighting for the satisfaction of making Strode hurl in front of his new acquaintances. He hoped his nerves would settle so he could be the bright-minded outsider rather than a confirmed whack-job.

  Strode pulled the sheet back. It was like slowly peeling the bandage off a wound. There’s a reason it’s recommended to do it quickly. But if the body were torn up as badly as Strode expected, pulling too hard would make loose skin come up with it. It turned out that was inevitable. The skin made a rubber band flicking sound as it tore from its base and stuck to the sheet. Burklow turned his head to gag.

  Finch paled but held her composure.

  Just like Arthur Blackwood’s, the body had dangling pieces of skin that decay would soon claim. What was left of this man was stained with a deep purplish-red color of dried blood. There was a faded pinkish color in some spots too, almost like a piece of salmon gone bad.

  Torn down to the muscle, just like Arthur Blackwood.

  Finch elevated on her tiptoes and rocked back on her heels. “Any thoughts?”

  Burklow still had his head turned.

  “Let me check one more thing.”

  Strode turned his head to take a small gasp and regretted it almost immediately. The contents of his stomach readjusted, and their movements crept up Strode’s throat.

  No. No. No.

  He fought it down.

  Strode lifted the sheet from the victim’s feet, noticing the bloodied shoe nearby. The hole and blood spray on the top suggested a quick stab through the shoe. He lifted the sheet again and noted the deep stab wound on the right foot. There were even cuts on the heel, deep cuts, that showed the whiteness of tendons.

  The toes were bent in inhuman contortions and were twice their usual size, like packs of sausage links that had laid funny in the fridge while they were defrosting.

  Strode looked at Finch. “Miss Finch, did they notice the broken toes?”

  Finch’s eyes shot at him. “Officer. Officer Finch.”

  “Excuse me. Officer Finch, did the coroner notice the broken toes?”

  She shook her head. “No, I did. Did any of the Warrens or Blackwoods have breaks like that? It just looks so obsessive. Like a ‘getting every last one’ mentality.”

  Finch was right. The precision, the details, it was obsessive behavior. Tactful. There’s a method to the madness, as Maggie used to say.

  The toes reminded Strode of the thing his mother used to do when she tucked him in at night. She flipped the blanket up, just exposing his toes, and one at a time she’d pinch them between her fingers saying, “This little piggy went to the market. This little piggy stayed home,” until she was squealing and tickling his feet. But whoever did
this didn’t tickle each little piggy.

  “Strode? Are you with us, man?” Burklow asked. “What are your thoughts?”

  Even before the paranoia, Strode easily lost himself in thought when on a case. It made him a good cop, the way he could tune out everything else. Now, it just piled onto his oddities, and people credited it to his insanity.

  “Sorry. I was just thinking how methodically this was done, as Finch said. Like someone had to get every toe. Can you imagine the agony of that? It’s like the nursery rhyme about the piggy that squealed all the way home.”

  Burklow had this Are you out of your fucking mind? stare, but Finch lowered herself beside Strode. “Is this anything like you saw in Indiana?”

  Strode nodded.

  “In part. The others, they had small indications of physical pain, but it wasn’t straight torture. The Warren girl, the one we found, the older of the two daughters, was missing teeth. So was the mother. But the wounds seemed older. There were a few like this beyond the Starling house, a few miles out in each direction. But we credited those to Mr. Warren, and he killed himself. We were sure of it, but now—”

  Finch nodded, signaling for Strode to go on.

  “There was another body found in the woods outside the Blackwood’s home. It was a man. His toes were broken, his fingernails removed, and deep incisions from his face to his inner thighs, and—”

  Strode moved to the side of the man’s body. His “Tri-County” t-shirt was torn to hell, with bloodied, fringed pieces of cotton smashed into the dried wounds. But at the center were two deep gashes. The man was either stabbed with a long object or, worse, impaled.

  Strode surveyed the area. Nothing immediately pointed to the double-impaled wounds.

  “What is it?” Finch asked.

  Strode shrugged. “How long did you say—” He pointed to the ground.

  “Williamson. Well, Nate Williamson,” Finch said.

  Strode nodded, and he hoped his eyes showed his condolences for her. The kid’s death pained her. Twenty-three is a kid. He agreed with Finch, and he was all too familiar with the helpless feeling of not being able to save them.

  Still, he went on, “How long since Williamson’s time of death?”

  Burklow stepped in, flipping through some papers, but Finch knew on the spot. “Roughly forty-eight hours ago.”

  Strode scratched his beard. “There are definite similarities to the bodies we found back in Indiana. Murders we thought ended with Mr. Warren. But, when I saw the brutality of the slaughter of Arthur Blackwood, I wondered if we missed something.”

  Finch nodded, hanging on his every word. “And now, Officer Strode, what do you believe?”

  Strode hesitated. Part of him felt conflicted. Was this good police work or an illusion that carried him right back to Dr. Evers’s couch for an “intervention session”?

  He had caught Burklow’s attention too. The way the two of them looked at him, Burklow with curiosity, maybe a personal bet on how nuts Strode really was, but Finch was different. Strode wondered if Finch already knew what he was thinking.

  And that was enough. So, Strode went on, “I think whoever did this in Indiana… I think it’s connected to the Warrens like we thought, but I think it somehow connects to the Blackwoods too. And now, I think that person is moving.”

  Finch nodded. “But, Strode, if I may. The families, their deaths weren’t prolonged as I understand it, other than the one Warren girl. They were all killed in a matter of minutes. There may have been instances of aggression between the wife and the husband, but that night, he slit her throat before his own. Correct?”

  Strode winced. The night of the Starling house nightmare, or the Warren Massacre as the papers called it, Strode found the family. He had been camped out at Abraham’s Abattoir because teens had been sneaking onto the property after dark.

  But Strode didn’t hear teens laughing or disturbed pigs that night. Instead, he heard screams. Agonizing, horrific screams. When he responded, he found one of the Warren girls dead in the living room, her head smashed to oblivion and smeared on the rug. The mother was in the hall. Her eyes were wide and expressionless as a pool of blood drained from her throat. When Strode went up the stairs to check for the others, he saw Mr. Warren in the office. He was arguing with himself. When he saw Strode, he said, “You! Get out of here before it takes you too!”

  Strode drew his gun on him, seeing his words as a threat, but then Mr. Warren grabbed an already bloodied letter opener, turned his eyes to the sky, and dragged the blade across his throat.

  Strode learned later that the youngest, Jackie Warren, was nowhere to be found. And while Strode searched for her for the next year, he saw her in his dreams and his home. Each time Jackie was branded by new injuries as a fresh reminder of her likely death—and worst of all, Strode’s inability to save her.

  And after the disappearance of Teddy Blackwood, Strode only saw Jackie more and more.

  Finch put a hand on Strode’s shoulder, causing his body to jolt. She raised her hands in defense. “Hey, easy. Are you alright?”

  Strode nodded. “Sorry. Yes.”

  Strode tried to refocus. He cleared his throat.

  “You’re right, Finch. The Warrens’ deaths weren’t prolonged. With the Warrens and the Blackwoods, I believe the person was simply out for death, or pushed into it with a sense of urgency. But it’s different now. Now it’s like the killer needs more. He needs lasting fear; he needs pain. He needs to play with his food before he’s ready to take a bite.”

  Finch was following. “Now, they’re torturing them. Savoring their kills.”

  Burklow turned to Finch. “They? You mean a group of people did this to the kid?”

  “No, I’m saying it could have been a man or a woman.”

  Burklow shook his head. “I don’t think a woman could do something like this, the physical brutality of it. The grisly wounds.”

  Finch rolled her eyes and gave out a big puff of annoyance. “Evil is nonbinary, Burklow. It nestles and builds in whatever host it deems fit. Young or old, beautiful or ugly, and yes, man or woman.”

  Strode rose to his feet and removed his gloves. “I’d have to agree, especially since we can assume the victim was weakened with injuries that held him. Trapped like a fly in a spider web, the fly knows it’s the main course, but it’s stuck. Still, no matter the spider’s strength, or lack of, that makes the fly an easy and filling kill.”

  Finch looked back and forth at the two men. Burklow looked like he was going to be sick. Strode was too deep in thought to let nausea steal the stage.

  “So, we all agree then? We have something here. Something the two,” Strode stopped and motioned to Burklow too, “the three of us, should pursue?”

  Finch stood straight and, as those being asked by a commanding officer at war if she was proud to serve her country, said, “Absolutely.”

  Burklow shrugged his shoulders just as the chief had back home when Strode suggested a connection between the Blackwood massacre and the Starling house nightmare. Strode thought of little Jackie Warren and Teddy Blackwood again. They deserved more.

  The thought enraged him. If he was getting back into this, he was going all in. Strode stomped to Burklow and shoved his face right at the chubby officer. “If we’re going to find this sick son of a bitch, if you’re going to help us, you have to get off your ass. I’m sick of small-town officers like you, who don’t want to put in the work that comes with asking questions, so you write it off as some commonality and let criminals go. Free to roam with immense blood on their hands as they drive off, giving us the finger.”

  Burklow put his hands up. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want to hear you’re sorry. I want to hear that you’re going to help. That you’re going to carry some weight.”

  “I’ll help… in any way I can.”

  Strode stepped back a
nd took a deep breath. “Good.” He tried to let the anger fade so he could think. He had to put all of his energy into this. He had to, for little Jackie Warren and Teddy Blackwood.

  “Okay. How long was this guy missing?”

  Finch stepped in. “Three days. Maybe more. But the coroner thinks he’s been dead for two.”

  Strode nodded. He was putting it together. He thought the killing still began quickly, but it was drawn out over twenty-four hours, give or take.

  But before Strode could fill the others in, Burklow surprised him. “At least one complete day of torture.” He looked to the shape of the man under the sheet. “That poor bastard.”

  5

  Finch and Strode sat in a crappy diner drinking coffee that tasted as stale as the place smelled. Strode rolled his neck. The hotel he’d stayed in, one of only three in Three Oaks, didn’t grant him a good night’s sleep. It had offered the hardest, maybe dirtiest mattress he had ever slept on. Then again, he didn’t think he’d have slept any better in his own bed. Too much was on his mind. Too many questions that he couldn’t answer.

  Burklow stood on what was left of the splitting sidewalk out front. He held a thick cigar between two fingers and was taking deep inhales, smiling after each one like a man celebrating his daughter’s wedding day.

  Strode supposed some men woke up with a cup of coffee, others with a big fat cigar. He studied the oversized officer out front and wondered how much help he was really going to be in all this. Part of him wished Finch was older, and that he was, well, not thought of as a mental case. Then they could just handle it on their own.

  Finch caught Strode watching Burklow and said, “He used to be good, you know. Burklow moved around from city to city, really whenever they needed him.”

  Be present, more than a two-dimensional figure in the background.

  Strode turned to Finch to show he was listening, but then she seemed to be the one floating away. She stared at Burklow. He was fat, thick-skulled, in Strode’s opinion, and he already saw him as more of an obstacle than any help.