Take Your Turn, Teddy

by Take Your Turn, Teddy (epub)

  Strode and Finch headed back to Burklow, who had his ass on the Pinto’s front hood. When they came up behind him, he kept his eyes on the house and said, “I knew them, you know. Their daughter, Jennifer, used to babysit once a month so Sarah and I could go out. Their son was always a good kid too.”

  Finch put a hand on Burklow’s shoulder. “We don’t know that they’re in there.”

  Finch did many things with brilliance and skill, but Strode thought she couldn’t have sounded any more unsure of her own words than in that moment.

  “Ten thirty-five. Ten thirty-five. Surrounding units. Surrounding units, ten thirty-five. Pricetown. Pricetown. Ten thirty-five.”

  Burklow pushed past his young partners and threw his top half into the open window of a squad car. Burklow’s sweaty, chubby face was only inches from the cop sitting in the vehicle.

  Burklow shouted into the radio, “Ten nine. Dispatcher, ten nine.”

  The woman on the other end repeated her message, “Ten thirty-five. Ten thirty-five. Surrounding units. Ten thirty-five. Pricetown. Pricetown. Ten thirty-five.”

  Burklow pulled himself from the squad car and pointed the finger at the officer inside. “Stay here. Help any way you can. And you find a way to reach me if the Mayweathers made it out. Got it?”

  Still in shock from Burklow’s response to the call, the officer could only nod.

  Burklow hopped into the driver’s seat of the Pinto and yelled, “Finch, Strode, we’re going to Pricetown. Let’s move.”

  Finch and Strode piled into the vehicle. Strode’s mind was racing. Teddy had killed at least seven people that night. And now, there was an emergency in a town only a few miles past Three Oaks.

  Strode wasn’t sure how Teddy was doing it all, but he knew a few things for sure. Teddy was dangerous. Teddy was killing. And Teddy was moving.

  Finch put a hand on the back of her seat and gave Strode a look with narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows that said she knew it too.

  3

  Ten thirty-five meant an emergency. Strode crossed his fingers and prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that they would respond to anything but more murders.

  They hadn’t called it that yet, but Strode knew what they had just come from was calculated death. It was murder, and Teddy Blackwood was the killer.

  Burklow was sweating an excessive amount, even more so than usual. The smell filled the car, and Strode wondered if it would ever leave the driver’s seat.

  Finch filled Burklow in on what they learned from Jason. “It wasn’t just a fire. It was arson,” Finch said. “It was a premeditated massacre. We asked the only survivor who responded to the screams. His name was Jason. Jason said after the powerline fell, a kid, a boy, cried for help.”

  Burklow nodded. “He lured them like the others.”

  Finch nodded, and then directed Burklow.

  “There are sirens ahead.” She put her head out the window. “Take a right at this light. We’ll see the lights.”

  Strode found that Pricetown was even smaller than Three Oaks, which he hadn’t thought was possible. They had a single gas station right on the edge of the town followed by a tiny trailer park, though “collection” was maybe the better word. Strode counted five trailers, and one looked like they could combust at any moment.

  The streets were ill-lit with dim, dark yellow lights. Every other had burned out, and the houses were almost as rundown as the trailers. Strode looked out the rear windows and tried to determine where the hell anyone could work in a town like Pricetown.

  They passed a movie theatre that seemed only to show one film at a time, and the current poster was from a Vincent Price movie that was nearly twenty years old. Is that where the town name came from? Strode assumed not. The town looked too old.

  When they took a right and then a left at the next intersection, Strode saw a line of locally owned shops. The pharmacy doubled as a convenience store followed by a soda shop, a bakery, a grocery, and a bar. And, as Finch said, they saw the blue and red police lights.

  An older officer, even older than Burklow, met them at the front of the Pinto. The man’s deep wrinkles around his lips may have suggested he knew how to smile long ago. Just a few white hairs clung to his head and nestled on top of dark brown spots. All the hair the man had left hung from his chin in a scraggly, white beard.

  The man stretched out a hand, and Burklow took it with a clear sense of discomfort. Burklow stepped aside, revealing his investigative young duo, Finch and Strode.

  “I brought some help. This is, uh… Finch.”

  Finch reached out a hand and said, “Officer Finch, sir.”

  Burklow nodded. “Right. Right. And this is Officer Strode.”

  The man held his stern, frowny face and simply pulled the wooden “Do Not Pass” sign aside. On the other side was a red Chevy truck. In front of it was a pale, palm-up hand flat on the ground—a body.

  The Three Oaks trio walked around the front of the vehicle and saw a young man in his early twenties with round glasses and dark curly hair. Another wild card, the glasses were sitting neatly beside the man’s head. And over his eyes were two bright white rocks.

  His throat had a deep slice straight across it, and his dark green shirt had growing black spots—blood.

  Finch turned to the old officer. “Did somebody count the stab wounds?”

  The frowning officer narrowed his eyes at the petite officer but didn’t answer her.

  “Sir?”

  Burklow shouted, “For the love of God, Richard, answer her.”

  The man mumbled, “Six.”

  Finch nodded, understanding that this man did not want her help.

  Strode noticed how fresh the blood seemed to be. He pressed on his throat and let out a hoarse, “Others?”

  The man nodded. “That’s why we called in neighboring officers. Our squad is all tied up at the farming strip. Three more just like this down there.”

  Finch’s head snapped toward Richard. “All with the white rocks over their eyes too?”

  The man didn’t even look at Finch as he nodded.

  Finch ignored him and said, “But why? What are we missing?”

  Strode knelt to the man’s face, examining the rocks. “Any witnesses?”

  Richard nodded and spat into the gravel road. “Yes. The guy who called it in said he saw a kid leaning over the body. It was a man at the bar. He thought he heard shouting once, but the music was loud, so the guy said he tossed back another drink. But then the scream was louder. When he looked out the window, he saw the blood, and a kid taking off the guy’s glasses. He ran for the phone to call the police, and when he came back, the kid was gone.”

  Burklow nodded and mumbled, “Of course he was.”

  Richard didn’t pay Burklow any mind as he kept going. “The guy from the bar works at the pharmacy too. He said he’s never seen this kid before. We got the call about a body found at the first of the farms ten minutes earlier followed by the second five minutes later. It’s like we were right behind him as he was doing it. It’s maddening.”

  It’s Teddy.

  Richard kicked the gravel and spat again. Then, he stuffed a thick wad of chewing tobacco on the inside of his lower lip.

  “Then, this poor guy.”

  The man turned to Burklow. “Sarah knew him. You know?”

  Burklow nodded.

  “She was friends with his mother, Natalie.”

  Finch turned her head, and her eyebrows raised, telling Strode she knew the name too.

  Burklow shrugged, seeming to fold into himself and neglect the body on the ground. “Sarah was friends with everyone.”

  Richard smiled, but not one that seemed sincere, and said, “But not with her good ole dad.”

  Finch intervened. “Richard, did the man in the bar describe the kid?”

  Richard stared Finch down with a coldness that pissed Stro
de off to no end. He got up from the gravel and pressed on his throat, “Answer her.”

  Strode could taste blood. He wished he could’ve added, “You racist prick.”

  “No. The guy was wasted. All he said was that he saw the kid take the guy’s glasses off. Hell, he was so far gone, he told me he saw golden cat eyes watching the kid as he did it. When I asked if he saw anyone else with the kid, he said no, just the yellow eyes.”

  That detail confirmed what all of them knew. Teddy Blackwood was there, he had killed, and yet again, he was lost in the wind.

  4

  Strode hardly slept through the night. The horror of the past twenty-four hours burned bloody and brightly each time he closed his eyes. He spent the night staring at the ceiling, avoiding the unmistakable smell of bleach and not daring to turn away. After what he had seen in his past few days in Three Oaks and Pricetown, he was confident that a run-in with Jackie Warren would send him over the edge.

  Though Strode wondered if he was still on the right side of the edge. Or had Teddy already pulled him over? Was Strode so distracted by the chaos that he didn’t even notice?

  And once in the night, right when Strode’s eyes began to close, he heard the clown. “You look like shit. Barely made it out alive, huh?”

  Strode locked his eyes on the ceiling tile above him.

  The clown laughed, and Strode could hear the mushy wetness of its bloodied jaw detaching from its saber teeth followed by the tapping of its feet as it laughed and hopped from one foot to the other. He imagined its paper hat popping on and off its head. Strode pulled a spare pillow from the basket beside the couch and wrapped it under his head and around his ears. He could still hear the faint chants from the clown. “Strode had a stroke. Strode had a stroke.”

  Strode wondered why the rocks? It was different from anything Teddy had done before, but then again, so was the Maple Street massacre. Before, Teddy had stayed hidden. And if he and the golden eyes were killing, as they had been in Michigan, which he was certain they were, they did a few here and there and then moved. But, on Maple Street, Teddy intended to kill several people and fast. It felt like more than vengeance on Strode and Finch for saving the Byers boy from his spiderweb. It felt cocky, but at the same time, urgent. Then, he went to the next town over and killed four more people. Again, with a different strategy than the last. And this time, Teddy left a calling card.

  Teddy wanted the validation of being feared. It was like if they were going to see him, he wanted them to see him as something powerful.

  Strode’s head was pounding, and he could feel the cotton matting to the wound. He thought about showing it to Finch, but he had a feeling she would make him go back to the hospital. He grabbed the Saint Louis hat he had worn the night before and slid it over his head, wincing as the fabric rubbed on the raw skin.

  When he went into the bathroom, inside Sarah’s shop, he was relieved to see Burklow had taken the clown away. The smell of bleach came again, and Strode was quick to tell himself it was just from Sarah’s supplies. But, when he opened the bathroom door, he kept his eyes closed and felt his way to the stairs.

  When he came up the spiral staircase, Finch was already there, coffee in hand, with case reports and notes spread across the table. Some even seemed to be color-coded. This woman is nonstop, Strode thought. Though, he was learning, so was he.

  “Is Burklow awake yet?” Strode asked.

  Finch didn’t lift her eyes from the gory spread before her as she said, “He is now. I told him to hurry up and get through the shower. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Strode wasn’t sure where that work began. So, he sat at the table and walked himself through the cases from Three Oaks. He saw at the start of Finch’s timeline were two handwritten notes. Warrens at the Starling house, and Blackwoods at the Starling house.

  At the center of the table was a list of names from the people identified from the Maple Street massacre. Finch worked fast.

  “I got them from the coroner this morning. Nine so far.”

  Strode cocked his head to the side, “So far?”

  “We haven’t heard back on the Mayweathers yet. I’m sure they know but want to let the forensic odontologists pull dental records to confirm. That would make eleven.”

  Strode nodded. Finch thought they were in their home, and he was willing to bet they were too.

  “How are you feeling?” Finch asked.

  Strode pressed on his throat, and today he could manage short answers if he didn’t put the full pressure of talking above a whisper. “Better.”

  Finch smiled. “Good, you little runaway.”

  Strode could sense a sort of awkwardness in Finch. He understood. She was freaked out. They all were. And as he had been for the past year, Finch was determined to get answers.

  Burklow came down the hall and didn’t say a word to anyone until he filled his coffee mug and took a few sips.

  Finch spoke up first. “I think someone has to be working with Teddy. This is just a lot for a kid to do all on his own.”

  The men agreed.

  “And to do all that walking from the woods, through the neighborhood, and then to Pricetown. It just doesn’t make sense. But the guy from the bar said he saw a kid and—” Strode said.

  Finch finished for him, “And Jason too, on Maple Street, heard a kid cry for help.”

  Burklow turned back to the coffee pot, reached for a mug in the cabinet above, and filled it. He walked the mug to Strode, who was afraid of eating or drinking anything.

  Strode sipped the coffee, and the pain didn’t miss the chance to remind him it was still there.

  “Strode, you need to take your pain medicine. And later this afternoon, we’ll take you to get your bandages changed,” Finch ordered.

  Strode didn’t argue. He didn’t even want to use his limited voice on an argument that Finch had won before it even began.

  “So, now what?” Burklow asked.

  “I say we go back to Maple Street. We look everywhere. Backyards, the Mayweathers’, the edge of the woods, everywhere Teddy might’ve been. Maybe we can figure out where he was going next.”

  Strode whispered, “And who he might’ve been working with.”

  5

  Strode, Finch, and Burklow piled into the red Ford Pinto. They still weren’t willing to let Strode drive, which he supposed was fair. No one had ever driven that car except for him, and in just a few days, Finch and Burklow, strangers to him last week, both had.

  It was weird to call them strangers now, especially Finch, who seemed to have her own secret passage to Strode’s thoughts. He wished they’d talked more at the academy. In all honesty, Finch had just intimidated the hell out of him.

  And she still did. But now, he expected it. He needed it to keep going.

  Burklow was anxious. Strode could tell from the back seat as Burklow white-knuckled the steering wheel. A cigarette hung from between his lips, but it was more like an accessory. He hadn’t inhaled a single puff of it.

  Strode had a feeling that Burklow already knew in his gut that the Mayweathers were killed. Maybe they felt like a final connection he had to his daughter. Or maybe he hated the thought of their kids, though they were grown-ups now, losing their parents. Burklow had seen first-hand how hard that could be on a kid. It was something Strode realized Teddy Blackwood was familiar with, maybe more so than any other kid who had gone through it because Teddy lost his father twice—once when they moved and again when his father died. He lost his mother on the same day. Just moments before.

  Strode imagined Teddy Blackwood was the loneliest person in the world.

  Burklow was humming along to The Mamas and The Papas on the radio. Finch hummed along too. Strode’s throat hurt too much to try, but he swayed his head back and forth. It was one of his all-time favorite songs, “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”

  Despite where they were headed, Strode realiz
ed that moment was the happiest he had been in a long time. Finch grabbed the headrest, turned to Strode, and winked.

  They took the road past the main entrance to Warren Woods, where he and Finch had turned the day before and where he had seen the clown. He was glad they passed it. The sky was cloudy, and Strode could see more of it once they reached the housing subdivision. However, he wondered if the dark clouds were a lingering smog from the night before.

  When they turned onto Maple Street, they were all taken aback by what they saw. Not just the Mayweathers’ house but the one beside it was all but gone. The Mayweathers’ place looked as though the men who boarded its foundation had a strong leaning to the left. The floorwork, the dangling insulation, all sat at a slant.

  The house beside it belonged to a young couple, Burklow had said. “I bet the Mayweathers were so happy to have them as neighbors.”

  Strode wasn’t sure if the young couple were victims in the electric shock, taken by the flames that swallowed their home, or if they made it out okay. Maybe Burklow was saying “they were” because the house seemed to look as sad as the chances of the Mayweathers’ survival.

  Burklow pulled as far up as he could and pushed the Pinto’s seat back to let his gut squeeze past the steering wheel. A fireman stood on the sidewalk in front of the Mayweathers’ talking to a young couple.

  Finch and Strode followed along, allowing Burklow only a moment of being the leader of their ensemble. He recognized the couple, and after he said, “Hey, I’m so sorry about your place. Please let me know if there’s anything we can do,” they knew it was the couple who lived next door to the Mayweathers. They both seemed physically okay.

  The woman sniffled while the husband nodded and managed a soft, “Thank you. We have family in Ohio we can stay with.”

  Burklow nodded. “Well, thank goodness for that.”