Teddy smiled, looking beyond Dr. Lustig and at his protector and friend. “Yes. The shadow is with me wherever I go.”
Dr. Lustig began to turn his head, and then it seemed as though he resisted the urge. “Is the shadow with us now?”
Teddy repeated, “Wherever I go.”
The shadow stepped closer to Dr. Lustig and merged with the doctor’s still shape of darkness. But the eyes towered over him, growing in height. Its shoulders climbed over their resting place as its claw-like fingers arched at the head of Lustig’s shadow.
The shadow gave Teddy a nod of reassurance, and its snake-like fangs broke into a subtle grin.
“Teddy, did the shadow tell you to kill those people in Three Oaks?”
Teddy didn’t see the need to hide anymore. The world knew what he was and saw that he wasn’t this scared little boy. Teddy straightened up in his seat.
“The shadow needs me to kill. If I can’t, it has to leave me. That’s the only way it would ever leave me. So, I do what my friend needs, and then it takes care of me.”
“And did the shadow take care of you in the past year before you got to Michigan?”
Teddy looked onto the shadow with adoring eyes. “We took care of each other.”
Dr. Lustig folded his hands together and said, “Did you hurt people during that time, Teddy? Like you did in Three Oaks?”
The shadow’s eyes opened and closed, giving Teddy a shot of encouragement.
“I just took care of my friend, the shadow.”
Dr. Lustig stared at Teddy, and Teddy wondered if the doctor could ever understand. Or, if like the cops, he would only see Teddy as evil.
But then, Teddy remembered, he didn’t need the doctor to approve of him. He didn’t need anyone to think he was good. All he needed was to find his way out so he could take care of his only friend. He needed out, so he could feed the shadow.
2
Teddy had spent five days in the psych ward. It was far more confinement than Teddy was used to, and the shadow’s eyes, though still white, weren’t quite as bright.
Teddy had given the shadow enough to make it the best it’d ever been. The shadow said so. With that, Teddy could bury some of the returning guilt about the people he had to hurt. Teddy had learned that people wouldn’t be there for him—even the best ones, like his mother or Ali. There would always be something else. Something that mattered more or that could take them away. But with the shadow, Teddy controlled when it left, and as long as he kept it well fed, it never would.
The same broad man who had taken Teddy to his first appointment with Dr. Lustig accompanied a blonde woman with deep purple lipstick to Teddy’s confinement center. That’s what they called them instead of cells.
The woman couldn’t look at Teddy. Every time she lifted her head, it was as if it was attached to a pull-string that tugged it back down. She handed the letter to the man and said, “Can you just give this to him? I need to get back upstairs.”
The woman spun around and hurried up the steps. The man opened the envelope, keeping that part to himself, and handed Teddy the folded piece of paper. “You’ve got a letter.”
Teddy was surprised. A letter? Who could be writing to him? Teddy opened the letter and saw scribbly yet neat letters that said:
Dear Teddy,
I have spent all this time wishing I could tell you I was sorry. When your dad came, I was so afraid. He started shouting. And I was scared. When you told me to get my dad, I ran through the house, yelling for him, screaming as loud as I could. Then I remembered Daddy left me with you while he went to the abattoir. I ran as hard as I could, Teddy, but I was too late. And for that, I’m sorry.
Daddy doesn’t want me hearing any of it because he says, “It’ll just break my heart,” but I sneak the radio into my room at night. When they put the alert out for you, I went to your house each day until they found you, waiting to see if you’d come home.
I’ve heard some other things they say about you too, Teddy. It’s really bad. But I want you to know that if you get out again and get to come home, please come here. Me and my daddy can help you, Teddy.
You did bad things, Teddy, but you’re not bad.
Your Friend Always,
Ali
Teddy lowered the letter from his face. He had never thought of going back to Indiana. It never really did feel like home. It might’ve had he been there longer, but who could say for sure?
Teddy did feel a sense of relief in knowing that someone else out there, someone like Ali, still believed he was good.
He wanted to see Ali and see if she really could help him and the shadow. Teddy knew he couldn’t stay at the psych ward forever. Eventually, the shadow would get too hungry, and Teddy couldn’t let that happen.
The man still stood outside Teddy’s bare, besides a cot, “confinement center.”
Teddy looked at him, sliding a piece of hair from his forehead. It was getting long. Maybe Ali could cut it for him. Teddy could already hear her giggling as she did it.
“Sir?” Teddy asked. “Is Dr. Lustig available?”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Your appointment isn’t until tomorrow.”
Teddy nodded. “Yes. I know. I was just hoping to discuss this letter with him. Well, you see, it’s made me feel something different than I did when we first spoke.”
Another guard came from behind the big guy and said, “Oh, yeah. What’s that? Insanity?”
“Guilt,” Teddy said.
The guard brushed the scrawny comedian aside and looked Teddy in the eyes. His gaze was full of suspicion, but Teddy thought maybe even a touch of sympathy too. It was as he thought before. Something about this guy’s face, perhaps the softness of his eyes, even when he tried to make them stern, made Teddy think he was a good guy.
“Please,” Teddy said. “I need his help with this.”
The guard’s brown eyes looked at the letter. And then he nodded. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, sir.”
When the guard’s boots beat into the steps as he went to retrieve Dr. Lustig, Teddy turned to the bare wall of his confinement center.
“Shadow?”
The eyes appeared, slightly more yellow than they were a few days ago but still in good shape.
“Shadow, we’re getting out, but I’ll need your help again.”
The shadow nodded.
Well played, Teddy.
Only a few moments later, the guard appeared with Dr. Lustig. Teddy was thankful he had the hall all to himself. That made things easier and made Lustig more willing to bend the rules.
Dr. Lustig carried his notebook and pen against his chest. He smiled and greeted Teddy, “Good afternoon. What can I do for you?”
Teddy debated on whether he should let the doctor read the letter for himself.
You read it.
Teddy obeyed the shadow’s instructions.
“I got a letter today, Dr. Lustig.”
Dr. Lustig smiled. “I heard, Teddy. I was going to ask you about it tomorrow. Was it from anyone special?”
Teddy straightened his cream-colored shirt and matching pants that were far too big for him.
“Yes. Ali.”
Dr. Lustig’s eyes widened. He immediately tried to correct his response to something more conspicuous, but Teddy knew he had him.
The doctor tried to appear casual as he said, “Oh, right. Your friend from Indiana?”
Teddy nodded. He lowered his head and began to cry. “I need to write her back. Only I don’t know what to say, but I have to answer her. She’s just so kind, doctor. She wants to be my friend.”
Dr. Lustig said, “Do you think you and I writing Ali together may help you talk about leaving Indiana and the trail to Michigan? Maybe even what the shadow asked you to do?”
Teddy nodded, wiping a tear from under his eye. “Yes.”
/> “Very well then, Teddy.”
The guard disappeared and found a chair for Dr. Lustig. He stood behind the doctor as he began writing.
“Well, where do we start? ‘Dear Ali.’ How about that?”
Teddy shook his head. “I need to write it. It’s my guilt. I should be the one to confess it to her.”
Good, Teddy.
“May we talk in your office?”
Dr. Lustig looked at the guard and nodded, giving him the okay.
“Stand back,” the guard said. He opened the door to Teddy’s room, and Teddy ran at him. He grabbed the pen from the doctor’s hand and lodged it into the guard’s eye. A clear gelatinous fluid poured from the man’s eye.
Teddy held his legs around the man’s torso and stabbed his other eye, ramming the fine metal tip right into the center.
Just as Dr. Lustig began to scream, the shadow opened its claws and tore out his throat before the man ever saw it coming.
The doctor lay flat on his back, and just as the others had, including Teddy’s father, Dr. Lustig coughed and gagged as the blood spilled from its exposed passage.
Teddy ripped up four pieces of the white notebook paper and laid them over each of the men’s eyes.
Then he tucked the letter in his pocket and hid himself within the thick doorframe on the other side of the hall as he waited for the aides to respond to the commotion.
They did.
“Dr. Lustig! Mike! Oh my god. Call nine-one-one! Call nine-one-one,” one of them shouted. And while the men tended to the soon-to-be deceased, Teddy strolled right past them, smiling when he noticed some of the blood sticking to his shoes.
Teddy was fine with it. They were looking for him, but just like any other game, it required skill and strategy.
And when they saw the bloodied footsteps, they would know Teddy had won.
3
Strode and Burklow got the call around ten the next morning. The FBI reported that Teddy had escaped the psych ward in Logansport, less than an hour from the Starling house.
Burklow relayed the information from the speaker on the other side of the phone to Strode. Finch stood at the coffee pot and seemed to be solving a mental puzzle of her own.
“How?” Strode asked. “How did he get out?”
Strode’s voice was a little hoarse, and he still wasn’t eating solids, but his throat was doing better. Thanks to Finch, he was down to two painkillers a day too. One in the morning and one before bed.
Burklow was shaking his head. “I don’t understand. How did this happen?”
The voice on the other end explained, and Burklow said, “That little fucking bastard.” Then after a pause, he continued, “Oh, no. You’ve got the wrong guy. That would be Officer Strode.”
Burklow handed the phone to Strode, and given that he hadn’t spoken much in the past two weeks, he was reluctant. Strode took the phone and said, “Hello?”
The voice on the other side was quite higher than any other man Strode had ever heard before, which sort of sounded like one of Santa’s elves was reading him a murder novel.
“Officer Strode. This is Special Agent Borr. We met at the Mayweather place the morning after the fire.”
Strode was tempted to say it wasn’t much of a meeting but thought better of it. This was the first time the FBI was calling him directly about the Blackwood case.
“I was just telling your partner that Teddy’s means of escaping were quite horrific and tragic. We have agents set up across Michigan waiting for him if he comes back. Sometimes killers like to revisit their scenes. I have my money on Maple Street. He’d probably consider it his most grand achievement.”
Special Agent Borr made a “tuh” sound, mocking Teddy.
“How did he escape?” Strode asked.
Special Agent Borr sighed. “It was awful. Honestly, I don’t know what’s sadder, the deaths of these people, or the fact that it’s a kid doing them.”
Strode had never said it aloud, but he knew what Borr meant. Of course, the innocent lives lost were sadder, or they were supposed to be. Strode hated it all. But what he hated most was that a kid like Teddy, one he thought he and Maggie would’ve loved to have, had gotten so lost.
“He stabbed the guard with a fine-tip, metal pen.”
Strode cringed a little but then nodded.
“In the eyes,” Borr clarified.
Strode quivered and then mouthed, “In the eyes,” to Finch. Her bottom lip curled in disgust.
“Jesus. Were there any others?” Strode asked.
“Yeah. The psychiatrist who was evaluating him was there. They were sitting outside his cell, or I guess they call it a confinement center, though it is just a room with a toilet and a cot.”
Strode had a feeling, but he asked anyway. “The doctor, how did Teddy kill him?”
“We’ve seen it a few times in this case. Or I suppose you have. He somehow ripped the throat clean out. It was just like those kids we found in the woods the other day. They were only in high school.”
Strode knew what he was referring to, and he’d read the reports on those boys. The bodies were rotten and turned to goo by the time they found them. No torturing for those guys either. That thing that tried to do it to Strode had torn out their throats too. And one of them had a stick shoved into the center of his neck.
“The kid left a literal trail of blood. He stepped into some on his way out. Police said they followed the trail, but then it faded right before a wooded area. There’s not much else out there. No sign of him.”
Teddy had to be moving. He was always moving.
“How many miles is the wooded area from the hospital?”
Strode could hear Borr flipping through some papers on his desk.
“Only about two and a half miles northeast.”
Strode mouthed the distance and direction to Finch. Strode watched as she set her coffee mug down on the counter, almost missing it, and hurried to the dining room table. She had tried to recreate all of her notes that the FBI had taken. Strode was sure she did more than a fair job of it.
She ripped a large multi-colored sheet of paper from the table, turned Burklow around, and held it up to his back for Strode to see. With a black marker, Strode circled Logansport and then Interstate 25, going northeast.
Strode said into the phone, “Well, thank you for the report. I’ll let you know if I think of anything else that might help.”
“Whoa, wait a minute, Strode. Do you know where he might be going?”
Strode held the bottom of the phone, shaking his head from side to side, the way the clown hopped from foot to foot when it shouted, “Strode had a stroke. Strode had a stroke.”
Strode looked at Burklow—spun around and confused as always—and then at Finch’s confident face. The three of them had to be the ones to go. They knew more about the case than anyone else. And Strode knew the most about Teddy. He needed to be the one to find him.
Strode tried to ease the sense of urgency in his voice and said, “I’m sorry, Borr. I don’t. I’ll talk to my colleagues, and if we think of anything, we’ll be sure to let you know.”
Borr thanked him and Strode hung the phone on the wall. He stood only a few inches away from Burklow and forgot the map was pressed against his back. He traced the black line Finch drew with his pointer finger. It went northeast, just as Borr had instructed.
Burklow shivered and let out a little, “Woo.”
Strode was too shocked to care about anything else.
He was going to find the missing kid-turned-killer, because Teddy Blackwood was going home.
4
Strode and Finch climbed into the Ford Pinto with Burklow close behind in his Three Oaks squad car. Burklow flipped his lights on once they got out of town and the whole time on the interstate. The instructions were clear. If another district’s officer or state trooper radioed in, Burklow would respond
immediately with a ten thirty-five code. Strode and Finch were not to stop for anything.
Strode gripped the steering wheel with anger and nerves as Finch stared straight ahead, focused. Then, she said, “Strode, have you given any more thought to who could be helping Teddy?”
Strode hadn’t because he had a good idea of who it was. He had seen them in the woods. It had tried to kill him the same way Teddy had killed the psychiatrist and the boy in the woods. Right after Strode thought it, he said, “Teddy didn’t try to rip my throat out. The eyes did.”
Strode turned to Finch, waiting for her to at long-last give him a look that said, “Okay, everyone was right. This guy is out of his fucking mind.”
But instead, she said, “Yes. The golden eyes.”
Strode turned his head, leveling one eye with the road as best as he could. “What did you say?”
“The golden eyes,” Finch repeated. “I saw them too. It made a hissing sound too, right after I shot Teddy. When I saw them, I froze. It wasn’t like anything I had ever seen before. I thought I was in shock, but then, the more we talked about someone helping Teddy, and the more unusual the circumstances, like taking down powerlines, the more I thought what I saw was real. And whatever it is, it’s helping Teddy.”
Strode had an uneasy feeling growing in his gut. It didn’t quite fit together. Why would this thing help Teddy?
Strode’s voice was drying out from talking, but he said what he had been thinking for weeks now. “That thing isn’t helping Teddy. Teddy is helping it.”
Finch sat back in her seat. She smoothed the top of her head to catch any loose-hanging hairs. There weren’t any.
Strode turned the radio dial and landed on a Beatles tune he had forgotten about. It was called, “Devil in Her Heart.”
Strode listened to the lyrics, and each line made him hurt more for Teddy. The poor kid lost his family and then was all alone and outwitted by the devil.
Either way, Teddy killed people, and it was up to Strode to bring him in.
Take Your Turn, Teddy Page 25