Next to Die: A gripping serial-killer thriller full of twists

by T. J. Brearton

  Farm country. Flat, unlike the mountainous region of home. Long white barns, boxy country-style houses with black-shuttered windows, rusted tractors, long swathes of nothing.

  Penny Zuliani. Now he had a name, a contact for the whole Marlene Blackburn thing. They could work Zuliani to pressure Blackburn into coming forward on her own, go on record that she couldn’t confirm Pritchard was at her place until midnight the night of.

  He bumped over some railroad tracks, and his thoughts swung to his daughter Kristen, expected to arrive the next day. He thought of Lena too, and wondered if he would say anything to his daughter about the new woman in his life. Probably not. Maybe not yet. It was too early. Had it been just a fling? He’d been out of the game so long he didn’t know how it worked anymore. Lena had two kids of her own. What did that mean? That she had expectations? Or that she wanted to maintain her independence?

  In the failing light, he noted the headlights trailing him. A couple hundred yards back, someone keeping pace.

  Downtown Bombay was a crossroads, 95 and county road 1. There was an American flag sticking into a telephone pole, another poking out of a small yard, both of them listless in the end-of-day heat. Mike spun the wheel clockwise and veered onto the county road. A few seconds later, he checked the rear-view mirror and saw the vehicle behind do the same. A massive pickup truck, side mirrors sticking out like big ears.

  He drove for a while, full dark fading everything out, the houses fewer and farther between, but the headlights behind him pulled closer. Mike plucked the radio from its handset, thought about talking to dispatch. He hung it back up without saying anything.

  The lights were bearing down on him. Between South Bombay and Moira was another stretch of nothing. He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck before it even happened – the headlights seemed to lurch forward, accompanied by the roar of an engine. Mike hit the brakes, jerked the wheel, and plowed into the dirt shoulder as the truck went roaring past.

  He brought the Impala to a shuddering stop. Breathing a bit faster, he watched as the taillights of the truck flashed bright. It slowed, then stopped in the road. Too far away and too dark to get the make of it, let alone the plates. Still he grabbed his phone and took a quick picture.

  Then the white reverse lights flashed on as the driver started backing up.

  Mike leaned over to the glove box, pulled out his service weapon. He went through a quick procedure, checked the mag and chamber, slapped the mag back home, loaded a round with a snap of the action.

  The truck did a quick backward U-turn in the road, tires grinding the soft shoulder; the headlights blasted in at Mike, and he put his hand up. The truck rolled forward, came up alongside him, driver’s side to driver’s side.

  Smoked-out windows. Couldn’t see inside. Mike kept his gun in his lap, finger against the trigger guard.

  The dark window rolled down, and a man with a hard brush-cut, brown skin, and somber eyes peered out.

  Cody Blackburn, looking just like the picture Stephanie had sent along.

  Mike let out a breath, eased his finger away from the trigger.

  “Wasn’t sure who it was,” Blackburn said, “till I came up close enough to see your plates.”

  “They called you from the casino,” Mike said.

  “Yeah.”

  “We should talk.”

  * * *

  They stood in the dark, Mike slapping at the mosquitos. Cody Blackburn had done another U-turn and pulled his behemoth truck behind Mike’s Impala, both of them off the road. There wasn’t anybody else coming by, anyway.

  Blackburn leaned against the bed of his truck, his hands folded over the ridge, chewing on his lip as he contemplated the dark farmland. The night air smelled like manure.

  “So, I got booted,” Blackburn said. “Well, they let me resign.”

  Mike was patient to let the man tell his story. The humidity was bad, though, his clothes sticking to his skin, the bugs hungry.

  “I was checkin’ up on her,” Blackburn said. “Had a microphone in there, in her place. Couple cameras I rigged up. I’d be on duty, but I’d be sittin’ there outside of the trailer at night. Or I’d be over to the casino, dodging calls, just focused on Marnie. One night this guy comes out of her trailer.”

  “Pritchard?”

  Blackburn mournfully shook his head. “Some other guy. Aldrich. Lives on the res. I chased him down, we had words.” He spat something off to the side then turned around so his back was against the truck, folded his arms. “You know, Perkins called me, talked about your case, that this guy, Pritchard, claimed he was with Marnie the night of.”

  Mike waited.

  “You can appreciate how this was a delicate situation. Because she can’t really say whether he was there or not.”

  “But you can,” Mike ventured.

  Blackburn made a small nod. “Yeah. I can. He was there.”

  “When did you resign?”

  “Just did this morning. This is how it all came out.”

  Mike pieced it together: Cody Blackburn was spying on his wayward wife using police resources, doing it while on duty, just like the night Pritchard said he was in Marnie’s trailer. Blackburn could verify that Pritchard, in fact, was. But in order to do so, he’d had to admit to this extralegal activity. And then it had tumbled out he’d been doing it all along. Who knew how many man-hours Blackburn had racked up surveilling his wife instead of policing the community, chasing off her lovers and “having words.”

  “I’m gonna need a statement from you,” Mike said.

  “I gave my statement to Chief Perkins. He’s got all the paperwork, was gonna call you tomorrow.” Blackburn looked like a guy who’d reached the end of a very long and troubling road. “I want you to know that this is my fault,” he said. “Not the fault of the tribal police, not Marnie’s fault neither. Perkins talked to Marnie; she told him she was working that night until midnight. Then he hounded me until I confessed I’d seen Pritchard.”

  “Understood.”

  There was nothing more to say. Mike walked back to the Impala and opened the door. Before he sank into the driver’s seat, he said to Blackburn, “You gotta watch it, rolling up on someone like that. I could have shot you.”

  Blackburn opened the door to his truck. “Don’t know if I woulda cared if you did.”

  Eighteen

  “I wasn’t sure I’d get this appointment,” Carrie Lafler said. She strode into Bobbi’s office with confidence, wearing a khaki pantsuit, all three buttons fastened, and sat in the single chair by the window. “You still have some cops around, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Bobbi nodded and took a seat at her desk, facing Carrie. “The investigation is ongoing.” She thought of seeing Mike and Detective Overton the previous afternoon, Wednesday, headed down to the records room. Everyone was wondering what they’d been looking at.

  Carrie leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Have they found anything?”

  “They don’t say much.”

  Carrie sat back and nodded like this made perfect sense. She’d made an obvious effort to dress nice for the day; the pantsuit had probably run her 100 bucks at Kohl’s and fit her well. Not long ago, her hip bones would’ve been showing above the waistband of her ripped jeans.

  “So, you know why I’m here,” Carrie said. “First Anita calls the cops on me, now she’s got a new plan: trying to convince everyone that my little Hailey is an emotional wreck, and it’s my fault for coming back.”

  Anita hadn’t said anything like it to Bobbi, but she omitted that. “Did she give you an example?”

  “Well, yeah. So, Hailey’s got this little kiddie house she shares with Mason, right? They play in it.”

  Bobbi nodded – she’d seen the tiny playhouse out behind Anita’s garden. It was cute, made of real wood and cedar shakes on the roof. Windowsills with flower boxes.

  “I mean,” Carrie said, “mostly she uses it and plays with her dolls but Mason uses it too. So apparently she was playing
just fine and adding in her little decorations and then, according to Anita, I show up, and it’s this big fiasco now. First the flowers wilt—”

  “How did you hear this? You spoke to Anita?”

  Carrie wore a look of guilt. “No. Roy told me.”

  “You’re speaking to Roy? Did you call him? When?”

  Carrie bit her thumbnail. “Last night.”

  “Carrie… showing up at Anita’s house, talking to Roy about her – this isn’t going to help you.”

  “They’re our kids,” Carrie said, dropping her hand. “Mine and Roy’s. Our kids.”

  “Right. But you left. And Roy had a lot of trouble. Anita has been taking care of them, giving them a home – that just can’t be undone in a day or two.”

  “I’ve been back for over two weeks.”

  “And you’re jumping through the hoops, you’re doing a lot of the right things – but it’s a process. Okay? Tell me more about Hailey – tell me what Anita said.”

  Carrie sighed, studied her hands a bit. Her peroxide-blonde hair was fixed in a French braid, the dark roots visible. “She said Hailey’s just been freaking out over everything; this isn’t right, that’s not right, the door is sticking and won’t open properly, the flowers, moss on the roof… and you can’t help her, you can hardly help her, Anita says, it’s like Hailey’s got to do it all herself, just like she was when she was little. It’s like she’s regressed to age two or something…”

  She trailed off, looked out the window, and brushed a finger over her lips. Bobbi saw she’d taken to carrying a purse, a leather bag that sat on the floor beside her. Carrie had not been a purse-carrying woman when she’d left Roy with a toddler and an infant and headed to California.

  Still looking out the window, Carrie said, “I was just remembering – we went to the grocery store once, me and Roy and the kids – Mason was just, I don’t know, he was like a couple months old, I guess, but Hailey was almost two, or so, and she wanted one of the things in those machines. You know? The little red machines and they spit out the plastic bulb thingies and the little toy is inside? And in this one was this little pink teddy bear thing, and she loved it. Cutest little thing. And we took it with us, but then the next day I dropped her at Anita’s house, so I could, um, go to work, and I forgot the little pink bear. Holy shit – sorry, I mean, my God, did she freak out. She wanted that bear. Had a full-on meltdown. Would not let it go. All day she’s upset about it. And this little house… the way she’s acting, it sounds just like that. Like she’s freaking out, the flowers in the flower boxes have wilted, and somehow Anita blames me for the whole thing.”

  Carrie turned toward Bobbi, her face open, expecting a solution to it all.

  Then Carrie said, “I mean, you know about Roy, right? He’s a lot of things – he’s not a liar, though.”

  Bobbi didn’t answer. Roy had managed with the kids for a while but was a bad drinker, made a beer run one night and got pulled over just as he was arriving back home. Cops found out he’d left his kids inside, alone.

  The kids were asleep and okay, but the cops field-tested Roy, arrested him, and called child services. Here was a guy with a clear drinking problem, leaving his small children alone at ten o’clock at night while he went out for more alcohol. And, at the time, was driving with a suspended license. Roy went to court, was ordered to attend parenting classes, didn’t, got pulled over again for driving drunk two years later, this time with no license, the kids in the car, also late at night, and the kids went away. They were given temporary placement with Anita, his mother, and that placement had endured, even after he got out of jail for felony DWI and aggravated unlicensed driving.

  Now Carrie had returned, having seen the light, and wanted her kids back. But, four years had gone by. The kids were secure in a loving home.

  “I believe Roy observed his daughter was stressed,” Bobbi said finally. “And what you’re talking about – little Hailey, two-year-old Hailey crying about the tiny little teddy bear – it was like her heart was broken, right?”

  “Oh, she was devastated. I mean, yeah, just heartbroken. Like she’d lost everything.” Then Carrie’s eyes narrowed. “You’re taking Anita’s side, aren’t you? I can see it.”

  “I’m on Hailey’s side. My point is, two-year-olds haven’t learned to regulate their emotions. Losing that little toy was as bad as an adult losing their job, or their house; there’s no real sense of scale when you’re two, and that’s what we help teach them.”

  Bobbi edged a little closer in her chair. Carrie had always had a hard time making eye contact, but she looked over as Bobbi said, “As the parent, you say, you know, ‘There, there, it’s alright – I’ll get the teddy and bring it back in a little bit.’ Or, you try to offer an alternative toy, or you distract them with a game or something. Right?”

  “Yeah.” Back to brushing her lip again with her finger, biting her nail.

  And now, carefully, “So, when there’s that situation, and the parent is not doing those things, if the parent is drunk, maybe, dismissive, and they shout, ‘What are you bawling at? Get out of here.’ Then the child is not learning how to cope, how to self-regulate. And that can continue on.”

  “Roy wants them back, too.”

  It took Bobbi a moment. “What do you mean?”

  “He got in some big fight with Anita. I mean, like I said, he wouldn’t lie about nothin’, not when it comes to the kids…”

  “Carrie. Forget Roy. He’s burned too many bridges. You have to focus on what you need to do. Don’t listen to him, don’t talk to him if you can help it. You’ve got your own work cut out for you. You want healthy, happy kids?”

  Carrie nodded, her mouth working, like she was on the verge of tears.

  “Then keep it straight. Keep your eye on the prize, and remember that those two kids are all that matters. You’ve got a long road ahead, but you can do it.”

  The tears fell, and Carrie’s chest hitched with a sob, but it was all good growth, Bobbi thought. She wanted Carrie to succeed, completely and wholeheartedly, and thought Carrie was developing the chops to do just that. But there was no sugar-coating anything; her kids were going to be messed up from the three years they’d spent alone with a drunk father, even if they’d gone to Anita eventually.

  “I know you’re grateful to Anita,” Bobbi said. “It’s tough to have your ex-boyfriend’s mother be the one who your children are with every day, saying goodnight to them, tucking them in.”

  Full crying now. “I’ll never forgive myself for it…”

  Bobbi decided not to remark on forgiveness. They had a plan for Carrie, and it was working. Her therapist could work on the forgiveness part.

  “My parents took in foster children,” Bobbi said instead, trying to reel Carrie back in.

  “Oh yeah?” She sniffed and took a tissue when Bobbi handed her the box.

  “I’m actually the only biological kid my parents had,” Bobbi said. “And I was a surprise.”

  Carrie wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and faced Bobbi a bit more directly.

  Bobbi said, “I had foster sisters and brothers. Eight, all together.”

  “At one time?”

  “Different times. My parents only took on three foster children at one time. Most of my growing up was with my two foster brothers.”

  “Were they, you know, screwed up? From their, um, biological parents? Or were they okay?” Carrie looked hopeful – their good news could mean good news for Hailey and Mason.

  “Carrie, you’re back. That’s what’s important. And Hailey is young, just eight years old, and you’ve got a wonderful adventure ahead of yourself.”

  “Because I heard this thing, um, on Dr. Phil or something, that by age five, kids are like hardwired or something. And I left when Hailey was four…”

  “There’s a lot of development in the first five years, sure, but we’re still changing right through our whole lives. Look at you.”

  At last, a smile.

  �
��You’re doing it,” Bobbi said. “You got this. Okay?”

  Carrie sniffed, blew her nose again, nodded. “Okay.”

  * * *

  Brit Silas was calling. Mike realized he’d fallen asleep in his clothes again. Come home last night after the casino and run-in with Cody Blackburn, laid down, and went out like a light, apparently.

  “Brit, what’ve you got?” His mouth tasted funny.

  “Mike, the River Street house is a total mess. We’re talking eighteen different individual sets of fingerprints, and that’s so far – my two best guys are still there. Oh, and that’s with all the cleaning the real estate agency claims they did on the place. That woman, Bilger, she shows up non-stop, checking on everything.”

  “But the attic?”

  “Nothing in the attic. First of all, it’s 120 degrees up there. Literally. That doesn’t mean my crime scene didn’t do the work; they did. But there are no prints, save for one partial we found and matched to a set I’m sure will be eliminated once we get everything in from the previous owners. But this was a family, kids – and kids have friends over… It goes on and on.”

  Mike swung his legs over the bed and sat up, tried to get the knots out of his neck – they seemed to be worse, like he’d slept hard the wrong way. “Doorknob?”

  “Front doorknob, nothing, probably wiped down by Bilger’s people. Rear basement doorknob, six, maybe seven different prints, never got cleaned. Skin oils are non-volatile, so again, we’re looking to eliminate these as family and friends. That’s going to take a while.”

  “Vehicle…?”

  “Okay, the victim’s car – 2012 Kia Sportage. This is where it gets interesting. Speaking of cleaning, we discovered a substance in the back seat, a chemical commonly found in those clean-up and protectant wipes, like Armor All.”

  “He tidied up after himself,” Mike said.

  “It could explain the lack of sweat secretions.”