Take Your Turn, Teddy

by Take Your Turn, Teddy (epub)

  The couple stepped aside, and Burklow asked the fireman, “And the Mayweathers?”

  “They didn’t make it out, Jack.” The guy bit his lower lip and then sighed. “When we finally got it maintained enough to send someone in, it was too late. We found them in bed. We just got them out and sent them to forensics so the odontologists could confirm, but it was them, Jack.”

  Strode used three fingers and pressed on his throat to counteract the pressure as he asked, “They were in bed?”

  The fireman stepped closer and turned his ear to Strode.

  Finch repeated for him, “They were found in bed?”

  The fireman nodded. “Yes. Sad. At least they went together.”

  Strode shook his head, and Finch said, “One of our witnesses said people from all across the block ran out to help. It’s possible they heard the screams later into it when people were already dead on the street, but they still would’ve gotten out of bed. They would’ve gone to the window, or out the back door, or something to see what was wrong.”

  Those were Strode’s thoughts exactly. Something wasn’t right there. And if this case had taught him anything, it was that when something didn’t feel right, it probably wasn’t.

  With a hard, painful swallow, Strode moved a little too close to the fireman. He looked like a schoolgirl telling a secret, and asked, “What has been recovered from—”

  Strode’s voice cut out. He pointed to the Mayweathers’ place.

  They were still digging through it all. Finch, who Strode was learning would always be prepared, pulled out a baggie of latex gloves and said, “We’re going in.”

  Burklow retrieved three masks from the fireman’s equipment. He pulled one over his nose and said through the fabric, “I’m sure the ash and fumes are still pretty strong in there. And one of us,” his accusing eyes pointed to Strode, “is already banged up.”

  Burklow returned to their equipment pile beside the truck and grabbed three helmets too. “Better safe, and, you know, all that shit.”

  Strode grinned. Finch hesitated, watching Strode remove his stolen Cardinals hat to reveal his blood-matted mess of a wound. He slipped the helmet over it, cringing for just a second.

  “I don’t know, Strode. If anything falls and hits your head... It isn’t a good idea. You’ve been up more than you should and—”

  Strode smiled with a sense of sincerity and said, “Thank you, but we both know I have to. I have to see this through, in every phase, at every turn. You didn’t bring me to the World Series just to put me on the bench.”

  Finch ran her hands over her black hair, catching any astray. Of course, there weren’t any. She put the helmet over her head. And the three of them headed inside the house.

  What used to be the living room looked like the aftermath of a war. The couch sat against the back wall with no traces of what design or color it had been. Just the general curves of it here and there suggested it was once a couch.

  The size of the rooms was hard to determine because the flames ate through so much of the drywall. Fallen boards and insulation blocked off space from the living room to the kitchen. So they went for the stairs. Strode didn’t want to say it, but he had a brief vision of Burklow making it midway, and then the steps giving out from under him.

  Under other circumstances, the thought might’ve made him laugh. But, the first step was soft under Strode’s foot, and he thought it best to skip it altogether.

  “You two wait and make sure I get up before you try them,” Strode said.

  Finch hopped right around Strode and skipped up the steps, taking them two at a time and not allowing her weight to settle on them. She was already turning into a bedroom before he had taken his next step.

  Strode turned around to Burklow, who just shook his head laughing. Then he said, “Well, if everyone’s doing it.”

  Strode cleared the steps and stood at the top, watching Burklow and hoping their journey didn’t end with another one of them in the hospital.

  Burklow felt the steps, tapping them before he took each step. He hung on to what was left of the railing and made it up in one piece.

  Finch was in the first bedroom, which had a big rocket poster on the wall, and stood in front of the closet door. To the clan’s surprise, that part of the house was mostly charred around the edges but not in ruins. The poster’s edges were brown and orange and crinkled from the heat.

  Strode stood behind her, looking into the closet. A plastic clothes hanger hung in disarray, like a shirt had been pulled off quickly. Finch grabbed the bottom of a NASA t-shirt and tugged at it, sending the hanger in a 180 spin.

  “Strange,” Finch said. “Burklow, didn’t you say their kids were all grown up?”

  Burklow came into the room, out of breath from the climb of the stairs. “Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. They’re all grown up now.”

  Strode got it. The closet was open, and the clothes were disturbed.

  “It looks like a shirt was taken in a hurry, like a kid who was late for school,” Finch said.

  “But they’re not in school,” Burklow heaved.

  Finch snapped, “Exactly.”

  She led the group to the next bedroom and did a quick walkthrough. Not much was there. That room looked untouched, despite the traces of the fire, ash, and soot that gave everything a grim coating.

  The master bedroom seemed to be just as bad as the living room. It was like the fire followed a straight path and clung to the house’s center. The bed was mostly ash. What they assumed were bedside tables were nothing but rubble and a few split wooden boards.

  Strode broke off into the bathroom. The shower curtain was obsolete, and the nonslip rubber bath mat that every retired person seemed to have was melted against the tub. But the porcelain white sink, at least the bowl itself, still held some of its bright white color. While the fire darkened the sink’s stand, the spots around the drain were a red rust color.

  Finch came into the bathroom and Strode motioned for a cotton swab by balling his fists and twisting his hands around his ears, as though he were revving a motorcycle.

  Finch, of course, understood. She came behind Strode and gasped. “Is that blood?”

  Strode shrugged and whispered, “I believe so.”

  Burklow barreled in, and Strode was having a flashback of being pinned in the closet-sized bathroom in Sarah’s salon. “They were old, Strode. That could’ve been from coughing, or...”

  Finch cut him off. “Then we’ll let forensics tell us that.”

  Burklow raised his hands in defense. “Alright. You’re right.”

  They cleared out of the bathroom, and something in the corner of the bedroom, under a mound of ash, caught Strode’s eye. He lifted the debris and threw it to the side. Underneath was a round ceramic piece. It had a deep crack down the center and a bold ring of blood at the bottom.

  Strode carried it to his partners, and Burklow’s whole demeanor shifted. Now they were all certain something was very wrong.

  Strode swallowed hard, hoping his voice would let him get what he needed to out. He pointed to the vial Finch had tucked the bloodied cotton swab in and whispered, “Check Blackwoods. In Indiana.”

  Burklow blinked three times, indicating he thought Strode was malfunctioning.

  “Burklow, we need to confirm the blood in this vial isn’t the Mayweathers.”

  She took the ceramic piece from Strode, “And that this belongs to one of them.”

  Strode repeated in a louder but hoarse voice, “Then we go to Indiana.”

  Finch nodded, “To see if it matches the Blackwoods.”

  Strode and the others climbed back down the stairs, feeling more confident than they did going up, and returned to the barren front yard.

  In addition to the three firemen were two men in navy jackets far too warm for summer. On the back were three initials, FBI.

  Strode didn’t feel good coming ou
t of there and removing his helmet to reveal an unkempt wound. If these guys hadn’t spoken to the police station back in Indiana, they would probably think he was crazy on sight.

  The men immediately approached them and flashed their badges as Strode extended his hand to greet them.

  He had seen it happen a few times but never expected them to show up with this one. It felt like his case, and for some reason, Strode expected others to accommodate that factor.

  In a matter of minutes from collecting the stained cotton swab, the bloodied ceramic piece, and copies of the reports and notes Strode, Burklow, and Finch had on the case, it was all taken from them.

  Teddy’s whereabouts, his victims, his capture, was now up to the FBI.

  6

  It had been three days since the FBI took over the Blackwood case. Finch insisted that the Three Oaks trio kept looking for Teddy, but Strode wasn’t sure where to begin. Plus, he wasn’t sure what they could learn at that point that the FBI wouldn’t. All Strode had that no one else did was a run-in with the golden eyes.

  The morning before, the FBI had confirmed what Strode already knew to be true. The blood found in the Mayweathers’ home passed the paternity test with Arthur Blackwood.

  Strode was going to head back to Indiana, but Burklow and Finch insisted that he stay. Finch even threatened to take him back to the hospital if he didn’t.

  Strode lay on the couch until nearly ten in the morning. Finch’s petite feet spiraled down the staircase, and she flipped each of the lights on. The light beat into Strode’s eyes and made him more aware of the pain from his head injury.

  “It’s time to change the dressings,” Finch said, carrying a small wastebasket.

  Strode groaned and said, “You don’t have to mommy me, Finch.”

  She sat beside him on the couch, forcing Strode to sit up, and tipped a bottle of peroxide onto a cotton ball.

  “Do you know why I hate that so much? When people say I’m mommying them?”

  Strode shook his head.

  “Because you think it’s an insult rather than a display of men needing women to point out, ‘Hey, if you don’t change your bandage, your wound will get infected, and you’ll be back in the hospital.’”

  Strode couldn’t help but smile, and Finch returned it with a look that said, “Now, are you done?”

  Strode helped take the old bandage off, and Finch dabbed the wound.

  “You know they have everyone looking for him now?” Finch said.

  Strode did. How could they not after they found his blood in the Mayweathers’ house? If they couldn’t prove he did any of the other things, they had evidence there.

  “They had his picture on television and his description on the radio,” Finch went on.

  Strode winced when Finch got to the back of his head. “Have you taken your pain medicine today?”

  “No. I just got up.”

  Finch gave him a scolding scowl.

  Strode felt as though he had just proven her statement. Women had to remind men of the simplest things, like how taking your pain medicine made your injuries less painful.

  “Come on. You’ve been moping down here long enough. We still have work to do. Let’s get some food in you so you can take your medicine.”

  Finch went up the stairs, and Strode changed into a new t-shirt. He could hear Burklow asking how he was and Finch shushing him. “He’s fine. The best thing for all of us is to keep working.”

  The television in the background blared a deep, interrupting tone.

  Strode hurried up the steps to find Burklow and Finch glued to the screen.

  They found Teddy.

  The newswoman said that officials placed him in Northern Michigan in front of a television store. The woman who called the police said he was staring at the set, in a hypnotic trance, watching the New York Yankees.

  Strode’s heart sank. Before, when he thought of everything Teddy had done, it was as though the boy he’d been was gone, buried under a monster. But now Strode couldn’t help but wonder how much of him was still there. How much of him was still only a kid?

  Part 5

  Confessions of a Man Gone Mad

  1

  Teddy was led down a mustard-colored hall with peeling striped wallpaper that had heavy water stains from the shitty ceiling that leaked both repugnant-smelling water and mounds of soggy insulation. The dark green vines burst across the yellow backdrop. Their sporadic twists and turns with uneven lines of thick and thin reminded Teddy of the blood vessels in his mother’s eyes as his father choked her. Only the vessels in her eyes weren’t a cooling green, but a bright blood red.

  Teddy had seen similar inscriptions on some of the shadow’s victims. It was as if the eyes were communicating with Teddy all on their own. The burst blood vessels could say, “You’ve won. Well played.”

  The man behind Teddy was a large Black man. He had a face that would’ve seemed friendly had he not put handcuffs on Teddy’s wrists and held them as they walked to the doctor’s office. Teddy couldn’t tell if the guard was from the hospital or borrowed from the prison.

  The whole place had a nasty bleach smell that gave Teddy a headache. But when the doctor opened his office door and told Teddy to take a seat inside, the scent shifted to mold and must.

  The doctor positioned his desk as far into the right-hand corner as possible. If he were to sit at it, his back would be to Teddy. Teddy could see it was a therapy tactic. The doctor pushed the swivel chair into the center of the room so the two chairs would face one another with nothing between them.

  Teddy’s seat was a vinyl chair. Its overlay was peeling, creating scratchy edges that rubbed the back of Teddy’s pant legs. A bright, white light hung from the ceiling, just above their heads.

  The doctor sat in his seat and pulled his jacket closer to his middle. Like the guard, Teddy thought the doctor had a nice-seeming face, but given the circumstances, niceness didn’t matter.

  “Hello, Teddy. My name is Dr. Lustig, and I’ll be performing the psychiatric evaluation on you.”

  Teddy shook his head. “I don’t think my head is sick.”

  Dr. Lustig smiled, pen and paper at the ready, and said, “Well, we can’t know until we try. And the goal is just to make you better.”

  Dr. Lustig’s demeanor caught Teddy off guard. All of the FBI officers had been calling him a twisted son of bitch or a conniving little bastard, and then this guy said he just wanted to make Teddy better. No one could make Teddy better but the shadow. It was a truth he knew they could never understand.

  “So, Teddy, let’s start with the house,” Dr. Lustig said.

  “I already talked to them about the houses. They know I was in one of them. That’s how they found me. Well, my blood anyway.”

  The doctor took a quick, scribbled note across a yellow notepad. “No. No. I mean the house in Indiana. The one you and your mother moved to. Can you tell me about the move?”

  Teddy hadn’t spoken about the move with anyone aside from the shadow, whose white-hot eyes positioned themselves just above and behind Dr. Lustig.

  “We moved because my parents got into a fight.”

  Dr. Lustig crossed his arms. “What about?”

  “My dad was having my old babysitter over. I saw them together one afternoon.” Teddy shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  Dr. Lustig nodded. “I understand, Teddy. Can you tell me, did you have any friends in Oakhaven?”

  Pete. Teddy still had the Polaroid picture the shadow had created for him of Pete trudging through the snow.

  “Yes. One.”

  Dr. Lustig’s hand zipped across the pad of paper again.

  “And how about Indiana? It doesn’t look like you ever started school there?”

  Teddy had forgotten all about school. He had missed a year of it. He couldn’t help but wonder, if he were still in Indiana,
what he and Ali would be doing. She was going to be his summer guide. Teddy wondered if Ali knew he was alive. Then, Teddy feared she’d heard what he’d done.

  “I had a friend. Her name was Ali. She lived in the house next to ours. There was a cluster of trees between our houses, and we’d swim in the pond there.”

  Dr. Lustig nodded and said, “Ali sounds lovely.”

  She was, Teddy thought.

  Teddy saw the shadow’s white eyes against the dingy wall and said, “I had another friend too. A best friend.”

  “Great, Teddy. Can you tell me about him?”

  Teddy smiled. “He lived in the basement of the house in Indiana.”

  Dr. Lustig’s smile faded. “The basement?”

  Teddy nodded. “I could hear him inside my head. He would talk to me. At first, I was afraid, but then he would play games with me.”

  Dr. Lustig tapped the pen on his notepad. From all the games he and the shadow played, Teddy knew this meant the doctor was considering his strategy, his next move.

  Dr. Lustig’s eyes lit up. He had it. “What kind of games did you and this friend play?”

  Teddy’s lips parted into a beaming smile. “All kinds, but mostly tic-tac-toe. We didn’t play it as much when we left.”

  “That reminds me, Teddy, what was the past year or so like for you when you left the house in Indiana? Weren’t you afraid?”

  Teddy looked to the shadow behind Dr. Lustig. “I was most afraid of being alone, but the shadow didn’t let that happen. So, I left with it.”

  “And the shadow was the friend you mentioned?”

  Teddy nodded.

  “Teddy, help me understand something. You said you could hear the shadow in your head when you moved to Indiana. Had you heard the voice before then?”

  “No. It was in the basement at the house.”

  Dr. Lustig nodded. “Right. Right.” He took another note and seemed to underline it. Teddy could hear the fine-tip metal pen carving into the paper.

  “Did you hear the shadow when you killed the man and woman on Maple Street?”