Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “We’re concentrating on keeping it contained at this point.” Huggins had left his oxygen mask dangling beneath his chin, but otherwise was fully suited in his turnout. He pointed to where teams of men were hosing down the foliage on either side of the house. Russ could swear he saw the arcing water freeze as it touched the spindly black branches outlined against the moon-bright sky. “If it gets past us, these woods could carry it to the neighbors’ farther on down the hill.”

  Russ nodded. “Any idea how it started?”

  “Smoking in bed? Faulty kerosene heater? You know how it is, this time of year.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Winter was always the worst. Christmas lights in overloaded sockets on tinder-dry trees. Candles left burning in empty rooms. This January, with the extreme cold they’d been having, people were lighting fires in unused hearths and running badly wired space heaters next to oil cans in the garage.

  “I’ll tell you one thing.” Huggins squinted at the structure, as if he could see inside the blackened timber and blinding flame. “This bastard’s spreading a lot faster than your usual house fire. Look at how the fire’s boxed the place, both floors, corner to corner.”

  “You thinking an accelerant?”

  Huggins made a noise. “Maybe. I’m no expert, but if we can save enough of her, I might be able to tell.”

  “You’re sure the MacAllens were inside?”

  “Are they on your snowbird list?”

  The Millers Kill Police Department kept a record of residents who fled to milder climates until spring. Their homes were checked out regularly during patrol; Russ had found fully furnished, empty houses were a magnet for trouble. “I don’t remember ever seeing their names.”

  “Well, there you go. Their cars were in the drive.” Huggins pointed again. “We had to tow ’em back out of the way.”

  Between the ladder and the pump trucks crowding the driveway, Russ could glimpse a couple of vehicles wedged into the snow. Beyond them, the EMTs had erected a rest station out of the back of the ambulance, a half-open tent containing a few camp stools and a sports keg of water. They must have had heaters, because Clare, talking to one of the firefighters, had shed her parka. “Anybody else who might have been in the house?”

  “Not that we know of. One of my guys says they were an older retired couple. If they had any kids, they were long gone.”

  Clare turned as the firefighter strapped his helmet back on.

  “Huh,” Huggins said. “She’s, uh…”

  “Pregnant. I don’t suppose your guy has any contact names? Closest relatives?”

  “Nope. That’s up to your people.” Huggins was still staring as Clare shouldered on her parka and walked the firefighter out of the tent and through the snow bordering the drive. “They can do that? Protestant ministers?”

  “If they’re women they can. Did you see anything else that made you think the fire might have been deliberately set?”

  “Nothing offhand. I’ll be able to tell you more tomorrow.” He finally tore his gaze from Clare and looked at Russ. “So you’re gonna be a dad.” He whacked Russ’s arm. “Better you ’n me. I have a hard enough time keeping up with my grandkids, and we get to give ’em back at the end of the afternoon. If Debbie told me we were having another kid, I’d shoot myself. Of course, she’s already gone through the change, so we don’t have to worry about that.” He gave Russ another whack for good measure. “Guess that’s the downside of those younger women, huh?”

  “I guess so.” This wasn’t the first ribbing he had taken about becoming a father at his age. Clare didn’t get it. Sure, she had to deal with telling her congregation and the bishop, but people were excited for her. They congratulated her. But him? It was an ongoing joke. The old guy who couldn’t keep his hands off his young wife. Looking forward to a baby when his peers were looking forward to retirement.

  He watched as the man Clare had been talking to tapped out one of the guys on the pumper. The newly relieved firefighter raised his hand in greeting as he climbed down, but didn’t seem inclined to talk to a priest. Instead, he pointed to the far side of the rig. Clare vanished around the nose of the truck.

  A wrenching wooden groan drew Russ’s attention away from his wife.

  Huggins switched on his radio. “The roof’s gonna go. Everybody back. Everybody back.” The teams staggered away from the farmhouse, clumsy with the snow and their water-whipped hoses. With a roar, the roof collapsed inward, sending sparks and gouts of flame high into the frosty air. Huggins shook his head. “I take back what I said about telling you tomorrow. It’ll be a miracle if there’s enough left for us to make out how this monster started. We may need to call in one of the state investigators if we want to rule out arson.”

  “I’ll do a rundown on the MacAllens from my end.” The noise from the fire and the water was louder now, and Russ almost had to shout to be heard. “See if there’s anything that raises a red flag.”

  Clare emerged from the far side of the pump truck and headed toward them, a big, broad-chested dog walking beside her.

  “How ’bout that,” Huggins said. “She got the mutt to come with her.” He looked at Russ. “The dog was in the front yard when we got here. Ran off when we towed the cars and wouldn’t let any of us get near it.”

  The dog stopped several yards away and dropped to the snow. Clare bent down, scratching its head and ruffling its fur until it rolled over and allowed her to rub its belly. She stood up and slapped her thigh. “Come on, Oscar. That’s a good dog.”

  Oscar obediently rose and accompanied her. As they waded through the snow toward Russ and Huggins, the dog whined and trembled.

  Clare stopped a few feet from them. “I think he’s a little shy with men.” She dug her fingers into the dog’s fur.

  Russ got down on one knee in the snow. “Hey, boy.” He held out his hand. Oscar sniffed toward him but wouldn’t leave Clare’s side. Russ looked up toward Clare. “Did you get his name off his tags?”

  She nodded. “And his address. Fifty-two Crandell Hill Road.”

  “That’s the MacAllens’,” Huggins said. “Looks like we’ll have to get PJ over here.” PJ Adams was the Millers Kill animal control officer.

  Clare made a sound of protest.

  Russ braced a hand on his knee and pushed himself back up. “How did he get out of the house?”

  Huggins shrugged. “Must’ve been kept outside.”

  “Did you see a doghouse? Any other outbuildings?”

  “Just the barn.”

  Russ looked across the road. In the bright bands of moonlight, he could see the barn’s double doors shut up tight. “Maybe.” He could hear the doubt in his own voice.

  “So they left him out for the night,” Huggins said.

  “Not in this weather.” Clare thumped the dog’s side. “Look at him. His coat’s thick enough to keep him comfortable for a while, but he’s still a short-hair. He’s cold right now.”

  She was right. The trembling Russ had taken for fear was the dog’s reaction to the deep freeze. “Could he have escaped from inside the house somehow?”

  “Maybe,” Huggins said. “The front windows blew out before we got here. He would have been pretty scorched and smoky if that were the case.”

  Clare squatted down and buried her face in the dog’s fur. “Smells like baby shampoo.” She rubbed briskly over the dog’s legs. “Somebody took good care of you, didn’t they?”

  “What’s the deal about where the dog was?” Huggins asked.

  Russ looked at the inferno that had once been a home and was now a funeral pyre. “If he was an indoor dog, one of the MacAllens had to let him out before the fire started.”

  “To do his business. So?”

  “So if one of them was up with the dog, how come neither of them made it out alive?”

  4.

  The dog came home with them. Russ hadn’t planned on it. Of course, nothing in his life seemed planned at this point—everything rolled over him, one chaotic accide
nt after another.

  What little he could do at the MacAllens’ was done; he wasn’t going to roust any of his people out of bed before the state arson investigator made a ruling, and Huggins assured him that wouldn’t happen until midmorning at the earliest.

  Clare was kept busier than he was. She sat in the warming tent, the dog at her feet, and passed out Gatorade and talked with the guys. Once in a while she and the dog walked down the road a ways with one or another of them, her head bent, nodding, listening as they told her what they didn’t want their buddies to hear.

  When Russ was sure every volunteer had cycled through the warming tent at least once, he collected her. The fact that she only put up a token protest told him how tired she was. In his truck, she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, one hand on her stomach and the other on the dog, who had wedged himself between her seat and the glove compartment and sat with his head resting on her thigh.

  He called PJ Adams and got a recorded message letting him know she was vacationing for the week and any emergencies should be handled by the Glens Falls Animal Control Department. Their message said they would be open at 8:00 A.M. He got a real live human being when he called Glens Falls dispatch, who assured him that he was free to drop an animal off at the impound, but no, they weren’t coming to get it unless it was dangerous. He cursed under his breath as he stowed his phone.

  “What’s the problem?” Clare asked.

  “PJ’s frolicking on some beach in the Caribbean, which means we’re going to have to take the dog to Glens Falls ourselves.”

  Clare scratched the dog’s head and let out an unhappy sigh. The dog whimpered and butted against her. They both looked at Russ.

  “It’s a perfectly good shelter. They take excellent care of the animals.”

  Clare nodded.

  “Somebody will be by to claim him or adopt him in a few days.”

  The dog whined.

  “Give me a break, Clare. He’s used to living out in the country. We live in town near a busy intersection. And we don’t have a fenced yard.”

  Clare nodded again.

  “Besides, we’re supposed to be heading up to the lake this afternoon for our honeymoon. What are we going to do, bring him to the cabin with us?”

  The dog looked straight at Russ and perked his ears up.

  “Cabin,” Russ said. The dog’s ears perked up again. “Cabin.” This time he got a tongue loll in addition to the ear alert. “Huh.”

  Clare bent over Oscar and scratched beneath his jowls.

  “Oh, for chrissakes.” Russ threw the truck into gear. “Just until we make other arrangements.” He pulled back onto the road. Christ. He didn’t want a dog. He shot a glance at his wife. She had leaned back and closed her eyes again. She was smiling faintly. He didn’t want a kid, either. They had agreed on that, hadn’t they? Before they had gotten married. No kids. Being a priest took too much out of her to leave anything left over for motherhood. And he was for damn sure too old for fatherhood.

  She had found out at the beginning of November, a week after the wedding. Some blood work that should have been nothing turned up something, and he had been so nauseatingly scared it was going to be bad news that when she hung up the kitchen phone and turned to him and said, “I’m pregnant,” for a second he had felt nothing except a huge heartbeat of relief. Then the reality settled in.

  “Pregnant?”

  She nodded.

  He collapsed into one of the ladder-back chairs. “How?” She looked at him incredulously. “I mean, I thought you had the birth control thing all covered.” He jammed one hand through his hair. “Jesus, Clare, I would’ve used condoms if there was a problem.” He squinted up at her. “You didn’t forget to take ’em, did you?” He didn’t mean to sound suspicious, but it came out that way.

  She stalked across the kitchen and slammed the percolator on the stove. “I didn’t screw up my birth control pills in order to trick you into fatherhood, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  He rose from the chair and went to her. Wrapped his arms around her stiff shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

  “This is as much of a surprise to me as it is to you.” She poured a scoop of her home-ground coffee into the pot.

  “You didn’t have any idea?”

  “No.” She turned to face him. “I mean, yeah, I suppose I had symptoms. I was exhausted in the run-up to the wedding, but it wasn’t like I didn’t have other reasons for it. And I had some bouts of nausea, but never in the morning.”

  “I don’t think it has to be in the morning.”

  She pushed him away. “Well, thanks for updating me, Dr. Brazelton.” She twisted the faucet on and filled up the water chamber.

  “How far along are you?”

  “I don’t know!” She sloshed some of the water onto the enamel stovetop. She pressed her palm against her forehead.

  He took the container and poured it into the percolator. “Let’s think.” He turned on the element, and the blue gas flame sprang to life. “We decided to forgo sleeping together about a week before we got engaged—”

  “You decided.”

  He bit his tongue before continuing. “Which was a week before Labor Day. So, mid-August. Which would make you two and a half months.”

  “If that’s when we conceived! I got home from my tour of duty at the end of June. I could be over four months pregnant right now!” She yanked her baggy sweater up and stared at her abdomen. “Can you tell? Do I look different?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Oh, good Lord, what am I going to do?” She released the hem of her sweater and put her hands over her mouth. She shook her head. When she looked at him, her eyes were full of tears. “I’ve been married for a week and I’m going to start popping out any second. What’s my congregation going to think? What’s the vestry going to say?” She moaned and covered her eyes. “Oh my God, what’s the bishop going to say?”

  He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “They don’t need to know. We’ll get this taken care of quietly. We can find a good clinic somewhere outside the diocese if you’re worried about your privacy.” He didn’t mention it would be harder if she really was over three months along. Better not to borrow trouble before they knew.

  “An abortion?”

  “If we get it done as soon as possible, no one will ever know you were pregnant in the first place.”

  “I’m not getting an abortion to save myself embarrassment, Russ.” She broke his hold on her and went to the cupboard.

  “I’m not implying that’s the reason why—”

  She banged two mugs onto the counter and yanked the silverware drawer open.

  “Look, we agreed. No children. For very good reasons. Your job—your calling—takes a huge amount of time and emotional energy. You told me you didn’t think you could be a priest and a mother both. Right?”

  She took out two spoons and nodded.

  “And I’m fifty-two years old, Clare. I’d be sixty-five when the kid’s in middle school. I’ll probably be dead before we get the last college tuition bill. That’s not fair, not to me, not to a kid. Is it?”

  She fetched the sugar bowl from the table and shook her head.

  “So an abortion is the logical solution. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.” She poured out the two mugs and handed him one.

  Her ready agreement threw him. He spooned sugar into his coffee, eyeing her. “Okay. Then the next step is to find a clinic.”

  “No.”

  “Clare—”

  She stirred her sweetened coffee slowly. “This isn’t about logic or rational thought. It’s about a child, yes or no.”

  “No,” he said.

  She looked down at her abdomen with an entirely different expression than she had had only minutes before. His stomach sank. “Look,” he said, before she could say something that was going to blow up their life together. “We’ve just found out. Would you at least take the next twenty-four hours and think about it? Please?”


  She picked up her coffee and blew across it. “Of course.” She was about to take her first swallow when she stopped. She put the mug down. “I can’t drink this.” She sounded as if she’d just discovered it was radioactive. “It’s got caffeine.”

  And that was when he knew what her decision was going to be.

  He pulled into the rectory driveway and shifted the truck into park. Clare was asleep. He looked at her sharp features and the violet smudges under her eyes. He almost hated to wake her.

  The dog’s wet nose poking at his hand startled him. Reflexively, he scratched the mutt’s head. “Don’t get used to it,” he said. “In a week, PJ’s back and you’re gone.” He might not have any control over the rest of his life, but he could by God draw the line at a dog.

  5.

  Officer Kevin Flynn had developed a particular morning routine since he got put on the day shift at the MKPD. He got up at five and ate a bagel with peanut butter. Then he drove from his apartment in Fort Henry to the Millers Kill Community Center to work out. Other departments had their own weight rooms—the Syracuse PD, where he had served six months temporary detached duty, had a whole freaking fitness center on-site—but in Millers Kill, population eight thousand and falling, the best they could do was free memberships to the community center gym, where officers could keep duty-ready next to the Keep On Movin’ Arthritis Action class and the Mommy-and-Me yoga.

  Showing up at 5:30 A.M. meant Kevin was through before the moms and grandmas got in. He showered, shaved, and swung through the McDonald’s drive-through for two bacon-and-egg McMuffins. He tried to finish those off before arriving at the station; if he didn’t, the chief or deputy chief always wound up reminiscing about the good old days when they could eat whatever they wanted and stay up all night and walk uphill to school both ways. Kevin got ribbed enough for being the youngest person on the force; he figured he should at least be able to enjoy the benefits of being twenty-six without having to listen to the old guys jaw on about their lost youth.