Take Your Turn, Teddy

by Take Your Turn, Teddy (epub)

  “You’re nervous about this. I get it. And there’s something here, Strode. I know it too. But I need you to do something for me. Okay?”

  Strode was taken aback by her tone. It was soft and gentle, but her face showed conflict like she was battling whether to say what she was about to.

  Strode swallowed and wiped his face again, ready to be in the woods so everyone would begin sweating as much as his anxiety had made him. “What is it?”

  Finch grabbed a stack of folders from the floorboard. Strode hadn’t even noticed she was carrying all the files. She raised them and said, “We’ll start with the cabin. Then, we can go back to the rest of these. Right now, we’re looking into Derek Russell.”

  Strode said, “Right. I remember the guy’s name.”

  Finch shook her head. “I know you do. That’s not what I mean. I mean, we need you, Strode. I need you to take things one step at a time. I need you to focus as best as you can.”

  Strode looked at his new partner and couldn’t decide if he was thankful for the talk or embarrassed that he needed it.

  Finch repeated, “One step at a time.”

  One step at a time. Maggie used to say the same thing.

  As Strode thought about it, Dr. Evers mentioned something like that too. “You build a wall in your mind. And not a sturdy one. It’s as if it were made of toy blocks, wobbly and destined to collapse. You take everything around you, every interaction, every worry, every task, and stack them on top of one another. Then, when you’ve got them all collected, and you try to pull at one, you get worked up and pull too fast. The tact of the game is lost in your hurry, and it all comes tumbling down.”

  “And I panic,” Strode answered.

  “And you panic,” Dr. Evers echoed.

  Finch’s face softened into a reassuring smile. “One step at a time, Strode.”

  Strode knew Finch meant well, and her worry and belief in him were unmatched by anyone else. So, he figured if she felt the need to say it, he needed to hear it. It would be the mantra he would carry with him as he worked this case.

  Strode turned the key, and the engine hummed. He repeated Finch aloud, “One step at a time.”

  Burklow had made it back to his car, and the brake lights lit up. “We better go, Strode,” Finch said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Strode was fairly certain he remembered how to get back to Warren Woods, but he let Finch direct him. She reached for the radio dial and turned it to a reasonable volume, saying, “The clavinet and percussion opening of this song is perfect.”

  Strode had no idea what a clavinet was, but he knew the song and the group. Then he remembered seeing a vinyl somewhere with the five members on the cover. The album was yellow with gold and orange psychedelic letters. Where had he seen that? He liked vinyl records but never really started his own collection.

  The Blackwoods. They had quite the collection of vinyl records. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was playing when I got there. The Spinners were on deck.

  When Strode entered the Starling house the day the Blackwood husband and wife were killed, “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” played through the murder scene. It danced its way from the Crosley record player, over the gore, and to the hairs on the back of Strode’s neck. The carnival sounds made the whole thing feel like a bad dream, like some dope trip where he imagined a freak show. Then Strode remembered the smell of the bleach. The combined thoughts burned the clown from Burklow’s bathroom into his mind. He could hear it.

  “Strode had a stroke. Strode had a stroke.” The clown’s laughter clawed into his ears and suffocated all other sounds. Then, in its manic cry, the clown said, “Who will bring that little girl home? Who will find that little boy?”

  He turned at the wooden sign that pointed to Warren Woods.

  Then, just to Strode’s left, he saw the clown amongst the open mouth of the trees. It was waving at him. It hopped from one foot to the other, its yellow hat bouncing atop its head, and stringy strands of its bloodied jaw moved with it.

  Strode slammed on the brakes, and Finch caught herself on the dash.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Strode unlocked his seatbelt and dumped himself from the car. Tiny pebbles ate their way into his palms as he vomited onto the worn pavement. He had only had a cup of coffee, but the claws in his stomach dug it up. It seemed as though he could feel it carry away the coffee, then the creamer, and then the sugar. He flung his head up, pinching a nerve at the bottom of his neck.

  The shock lingered, but the clown was gone.

  Finch came around the side of the car and put a hand on Strode’s back as his body thrashed and the acidity of his stomach emptied once more.

  Strode wiped his mouth and beat his fists into the ground. “God damnit.”

  The woods were quiet. No laughing clown, just the sound of rustling leaves.

  “I’m sorry, Finch. I just—the kid—Teddy. And Jackie. Both of them. I can’t stop thinking about the kids. They can’t just be gone, right?”

  Strode felt defeated as he failed to recite and follow his mantra less than twenty minutes after declaring it.

  Finch nodded, and as a mother would, she continued to rub his back and hushed him, “You’re okay.”

  Strode shook his head. “You don’t understand. That’s the good, Finch. That’s the good I’m supposed to bring from this godforsaken case. I have to find him. I have to find them.”

  Finch only nodded, letting Strode get out whatever he needed to, whether it was mid-digested dark roast coffee or angst about the kids.

  When Strode was quiet, Finch stood and reached a hand out to him. “Ready?”

  Strode nodded and took Finch’s hands. He was surprised. For how small she was, she tugged him up with ease. Part of him was surprised at how weightless he felt too.

  “I know you’re thinking about the kids, especially the boy right now. Theodore.”

  “Teddy,” Strode corrected.

  “Right, Teddy. But Strode, you’re putting too much on yourself at once. For over a year, you haven’t had anyone believe you, or in you, but you do now.”

  That was true, and Strode supposed he failed to realize how much things had changed for him in just a day and how much could change if he didn’t mess it up.

  Strode smiled at Finch, who was beginning to feel a bit like a savior to him. “You’re right.”

  “Now that there’s three of us, Strode, maybe we’ll get more answers, and maybe faster. But we have to be patient and vigilant, or we’ll miss things. We all have reason to be here, but we have to focus or we’ll screw this up, and more people will get hurt.”

  Strode’s eyes narrowed, and he did a shoulder roll, trying to reawaken his sickly body. “You’re right.”

  Finch smiled, letting her guard down a little more and more each time she was with Strode. “You know, you’ve got more heart than any other officer I’ve ever met. There’s something about you. A—”

  “A total loss of my fucking marbles.” He laughed.

  Finch ignored Strode’s interruption entirely. She was still searching for the perfect phrase. She found it.

  “A heightened empathy.” Finch snapped her fingers. “That’s what it is.”

  She stole his own phrase. Strode felt like it was a lesson in reflecting his compassion and understanding onto himself, even better than Dr. Evers was able to do.

  Strode knew he felt things differently from all the other officers back home, and at the end of their marriage, it was different from Maggie too.

  She went on, “And you know what that does?”

  Strode shrugged his shoulders. “Makes me a nut case who sees clowns and nearly throws his partner through a windshield?”

  Finch straightened her top and smoothed her hands over hair, as if even discussing something that would cause their displacement had rearranged them.

&nb
sp; “A good cop, Strode. I haven’t met very many.”

  Strode wasn’t sure what he felt. He supposed it was comfort. He couldn’t help but smile—not his usual sarcastic grin but a reflection of genuine warmth.

  Finch returned the smile and then clapped her hands together. “We better get going. Here, give me the keys. I’ll drive the rest of the way.”

  Strode waved her away. “I’m okay.”

  Finch didn’t have to repeat herself. She gave Strode a sharp look, and her dark eyes narrowed. He tossed her the keys.

  Finch settled into the Pinto and drove it just above the speed limit. The precision, even in her speeding, amused Strode. Exactly five over. Not once under or above.

  Strode watched the trees begin to envelop the car. They looked a lot like the cluster of trees between the Blackwood and Abraham home back in Indiana. Even a section of them seemed far more withered than the others, just like back home. Before his mind could tiptoe into dangerous territory, Finch said, “Burklow is parked by now. So, we’re on the clock.”

  Finch parked the Pinto at the bottom of the path. The cabin was just a ways up. She turned to look at the rising sun. “Let’s get this day going. Let’s move.”

  And as they climbed the hill, Strode repeated, One step at a time.

  10

  When they came upon the cabin, they heard a quick rustle to the side of it.

  Strode reached for his gun and rested his hand on the holster.

  Finch noticed and raised her hands as she said, “Easy, Strode.”

  He supposed he was feeling a bit antsy. He didn’t think he would fire if the clown came back, but who was to say? And who knew who or what he might hit instead.

  He took a deep breath and tried to focus.

  Finch climbed the steps, and they groaned under pressure, suggesting their age. Still, the cabin was well-kept. It looked like a life-size version of the building Strode built from Lincoln Logs as a kid. Only it was stained with a nice cherry oak color.

  “This place is nice,” Strode said.

  Finch shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s not used much. It’s technically city-owned, but the mayor rents it out to high-profile visitors. And in Three Oaks, that pretty much just meant Derek Russell.”

  “So, he was local too. Right?”

  Finch dug for the key in her pocket. “Yes. Grew up here and then moved to New York.”

  Strode remembered nearly everything in Russell’s file. But he needed to keep his mind occupied on Russell so it didn’t wander to the clown or the kids. So, he replayed the information.

  “And he came here during the summer to write?”

  Finch held the key before her like it was a prize. “There it is. And yes, he wrote mystery novels, crime thrillers, that sort of thing.”

  Strode couldn’t help but catch the irony. He refocused.

  “Has anyone been here since Russell was found?”

  A rustle came from behind the house just as Finch began to open the front door.

  The noise came again. Something was moving inside. They could see straight through the living room to the back door. It was open.

  Strode looked down at Finch and pulled his gun from the holster. “I’ll go first. Stay behind me.”

  Finch cut Strode off. “I certainly won’t.”

  Strode didn’t argue but followed closely behind Finch, checking each of her blind spots. She signaled for him to go left into the kitchen, as she began to turn past the living room into the bedroom.

  She was following the sound. It moved into the house. The rustle turned into a thud as something in the room, maybe a book, hit the floor.

  She turned back to Strode, who was disobeying her order to go left. Her eyes narrowed, the way they did when he protested her driving to the cabin.

  She pointed to the kitchen, and Strode shook his head and brought his hands together. Finch rolled her eyes but then nodded and waved him over to her.

  Keeping quiet, they went into the bedroom, a simple cream color with navy striped bedding. Finch stepped toward the bathroom, and Strode moved the bedroom door and shoved his gun in the corner. Nothing.

  Finch moved into the bathroom. Strode heard her push the shower curtain aside behind the bathroom door. She came out and shook her head. Nothing.

  Aside from the bedroom, the cabin had an open layout. Strode and Finch were alone. They gave one another a concerned look, mirroring one another’s arched eyebrows and pursed lips.

  Strode reverted to his first order from Finch and checked out the kitchen. Nothing.

  Old houses make noise. That’s what Maggie used to say when Strode would wake up in the middle of the night, swearing he heard something downstairs.

  Strode and Dr. Evers began to think it was yet another paranoia-induced sensation. He hoped that this old cabin, and the woods around it, had simply been settling.

  Finally, Finch broke the silence. “We look around here, and then we walk the woods.”

  Finch pulled a plastic bag from her jacket pocket and tossed Strode a pair of latex gloves. She spread her fingers open and slid a pair on too.

  Finch walked to the kitchen counter. “Okay, so let’s go over the scenario again. The report said they’d found the stove on when they arrived, the kettle empty.”

  Finch then pointed to the counter. A mug sat with a green tea bag in it and a glass container next to it missing its lid.

  She came beside Strode and, lost in thought, gave him a pushy nudge to get out of her way. He grinned and obliged.

  Finch opened the tea kettle on the stove.

  “It’s empty.”

  Strode studied his partner. “So?”

  The thread hung relaxed over the moon-patterned mug. “So, the assumption is he was making himself tea. And then left the stove on. The water boiled out,” Finch said.

  Finch went to the desk across from the kitchen. A stack of papers lay beside a leatherbound notebook. The first sheet of paper read, “To-Do List.” Each day had writing goals, mostly chapter writing and research to collect.

  “Russell had been here for about a week and a half, Burklow said. If you look at his to-do list, it stops on day eleven. According to the date scribbled in the corner here, that would’ve been Tuesday. They found him on Friday.”

  “Three days, just like the others,” Strode said.

  Finch picked up the notebook and flipped through its yellow-tinted pages. “The chapters, his writing, they stop three days before we found him.”

  “Any chance he would give himself a few days off?”

  Finch shook her head. “I don’t think so. He came here to write. He clearly had some momentum. I’m no Fitzgerald, but I don’t think anyone would walk away from a project that was going well. He was writing a chapter a day. On Tuesday, he meant to write chapter eleven.”

  Finch flipped through the pages further. “And he started it.”

  She turned the notebook so Strode could see the few paragraphs written. Scribbled across the top of the page in loopy lettering was “Chapter 11.”

  Finch’s eyes lit up. “It’s the one day he didn’t finish his chapter, and the to-do list stops there.”

  Finch hurried from the desk and back to the kitchen counter. She stood at the stove and said, “Russell put water in the kettle and turned it on to boil. He came over here, put in the teabag, and grabbed a spoon for the sugar. Then he sat down to start chapter eleven, but he never ended up making the tea.”

  Finch walked back to the open back door and raised her hands to rest on the sides of the door frame. She looked into the woods, “Something called him away.”

  Finch closed the back door, but it wouldn’t latch. The wind grabbed ahold of it and pried it open again. She followed it and examined the latch.

  Strode’s head felt like a cook was stirring around the contents of his brain, whisking them into scrambled eggs.

  Finch ran
her finger around the edge of the wooden back door. “This should’ve snagged my glove. The wood is old and rigid. It used to fit perfectly into the frame, there, but now it’s too smooth.”

  She pulled a hand free from the glove and ran her finger alongside the door’s frame.

  “It’s been sanded,” Finch said.

  Strode was confused. “But why? Why would anyone do that?”

  Finch went back to the desk, and with her gloved hand, shuffled the loose papers. At the top of one, in Russell’s handwriting, it read, “DISTURBANCE LOG.”

  It was organized by date and time, over eleven days.

  DISTURBANCE LOG

  Monday—9:00 a.m.

  Monday—1:00 p.m.

  Tuesday—9:00 a.m.

  Tuesday—7:00 p.m.

  Wednesday—11:00 a.m.

  Wednesday—10:00 p.m.

  ... And on.

  Then they saw a business card for a locksmith.

  Finch held it. “Something was bothering him. To the point where he logged it, trying to decide if the sounds were rational or—”

  “Paranoia,” Strode interrupted.

  Finch pursed her lips. “Right.”

  She turned to Strode. “Do you know what this means? Something was calling him. Something that wanted him to leave the cabin.”

  Strode looked at the open back door and said, “Something that wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  Strode stuffed the gloves in her pocket and hopped outside the open door into the dirt of Warren Woods. She turned back to Strode, determined.

  “And neither will we.”

  11

  Strode and Finch heel-toed into the woods. The sun lingered midway into the horizon, creating a dim, golden glow between the trees.

  It was cooler in the shade of the trees, but the sweat on Strode’s face was still active. He was fighting off the familiarity of the chilled perspiration from when he woke up late at night and saw Jackie Warren’s corpse standing at the end of his bed.