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

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “I didn’t mean we ought to go looking for more problems! Pregnancies are dangerous. You wake up every morning wondering if it’s going to last. You can’t talk about what-ifs and you can’t think about it like there really might be a baby, because then what happens when things don’t pan out? So there’s nothing but silence and stuff you didn’t say and grief and anger…” He trailed off.

  “Whoa. Why do I get the feeling we’re not talking about this pregnancy all of a sudden?”

  He leaned against the side window and grunted.

  “Is this about what happened to Linda?” She knew Russ’s late wife had lost several pregnancies.

  “No. Maybe. Some of it.”

  “Her sister said she’d had three miscarriages—”

  “Five. Two were early, before we’d told anyone she was pregnant.”

  “Oh, Russ.” She took his hand in both of hers. His skin was chilled. “I’m so sorry. That must have been awful. Did she have some sort of uterine condition?” Clare was vague on the details, but she knew there were women whose wombs simply couldn’t carry to term.

  He shook his head. “No. That was the hell of it. It was always something different. Infection. Failure to develop. Cord death—Jesus, that was a hard one.”

  She put her hand on his cheek and turned his face toward hers. “There’s no reason to think any of that will happen this time.”

  “So instead we get to burn ourselves out and risk your mental health taking care of a dependent special-needs kid?”

  “It might not—”

  “Of course you think it might not, Clare. That’s how you operate. You live in a world of belief, and faith, and half-full glasses. I live in a world of bad news and worse outcomes.” He pushed away from her and started the ignition. “Look, I can’t change you. I never wanted to change you. But don’t ask me to change, either. I’ve been on this ride too many times before. I know where it comes out, and I don’t want to go there again.” He threw the truck into reverse and backed out of the parking spot. “I won’t say a word against you on this. But don’t expect me to pretend to be happy about it.”

  5.

  If you had asked Lyle MacAuley what was the least favorite investigative task he could think of, it would have been visiting men on the sex offenders registry. First off, they were scum. Second, there were way too many of them. There were a few guys who had gotten on for stupid reasons—usually sleeping with their underage high school girlfriends after they’d turned eighteen—and he could eliminate them from his checklist, but that still left dozens of sickos who liked to flash little kids, or molest their stepdaughters, or liquor up twelve-year-old boys and rape them. Lyle had been dealing with criminals for thirty-five years, but nothing got under his skin like these guys.

  It didn’t help that he was working his way through the list alone. He didn’t dare put Eric McCrea on this—the man was a father with anger-management issues. Lyle didn’t want to imagine what Eric might do if he snapped while interviewing one of these perverts. He had tried calling Russ twice already to bring him up to date, but the only person he reached was the computer operator, telling him the chief’s number was “unavailable due to network failure.” Kevin and Hadley were trying to track down the little girl’s father, in the hopes that might shake something loose.

  That left Lyle, ringing bells and looking into slack, panicked faces, asking if he could “come in out of the cold” so he could listen for the sound of a child somewhere in the house or apartment. He listened to their protestations of how clean they were, how recently they had checked in with their parole officers, how diligent they were about therapy. He wrote down their alibis—he figured Eric could run those down safely enough—and got their numbers and work addresses. Mostly, he looked for the guy who was off. The one who sweated a little too much or smiled too widely or who just smelled wrong.

  He found him on his third stop after grabbing a greasy sack lunch out past the Super Kmart. Wendall Sullivan, twenty-seven, last known address 8 Smith Street, Fort Henry, a listing two-story house with asphalt shingles flaking off the exterior. Lyle parked on the street in front, marched up to the front door, which was flaking paint, and rang the bell. It was answered by a guy flaking dandruff, making the place a perfect trifecta of neglect.

  “Yeah?” Flaky Shoulders said. He was too bored at the sight of a cop to be the guy Lyle was after.

  “I’m looking for Wendall Sullivan.”

  “He’s at work.”

  Lyle waited a beat. Nothing else was forthcoming. “Which is where, exactly?”

  “Huh? Oh. Maid for You. They’re over on River Street, by the Italian bakery and the comic book shop.”

  Lyle thanked the roommate and got back into his cruiser, resisting the urge to brush off his uniform. He found Maid for You right where the guy said it would be, housed in a small storefront with a sign featuring a pin-up-style drawing of a girl in a saucy French maid’s costume. Lyle guessed it was either a cleaning service or a kinky escort business, and since he couldn’t picture a two-time con in high heels and a frilly black skirt, he was betting on the cleaning service.

  Inside was bare—just two benches, industrial-strength carpeting, and a receptionist behind a desk. Sadly, she looked more like someone’s chain-smoking granny than a naughty maid. She was on the phone when he came in, so he stood at parade rest while she went over the sanitary wonder that could be the client’s home for the low, low price of two hundred dollars.

  Evidently, that wasn’t low enough, because she hung up with a disgusted look on her face. “Damn economy,” she said. “People’d rather live in a damn pigsty than break out their checkbooks.” She took a drag on her smoldering cigarette. “Help you, Officer?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I understand you’ve got an employee named Wendall Sullivan.”

  “Yep. Good worker. Came with a great recommendation. Punctual, too.” She exhaled a stream of smoke. “Please don’t tell me he’s in trouble, because I’m having a bitch of a time finding cleaners. Everybody’s too damn good to scrub a toilet these days.”

  “I just need to ask him a few questions, ma’am. Do you know where I can find him?”

  “Of course I do. He’s with the B crew, out on a job. You need to talk with him now? I hate to interrupt a team when they’ve got the process going.”

  “It sure would make my life a lot easier.” Lyle smiled at her. The old MacAuley charm worked its magic, because she tore a piece of paper off her pad and scribbled down an address.

  “Here you go.” She took another drag. “If it turns out you have to arrest him, will you for God’s sake wait until he’s done steam-cleaning the carpets?”

  The B team was working in the Mountain View Park development, which was the sort of place Lyle would have expected to have maid service. Houses the size of barns, with those giant half-moon windows and brick driveways. Four bedrooms but six baths, and granite-and-copper kitchens with five-thousand-dollar ovens for people who always grabbed takeout on their way home from Albany.

  There were several beater cars and a Maid for You van on the street. Lyle parked in the drive and headed for the front door across a walk that had been snowblowered with a surveyor’s precision. The door was opened by a forty-something woman before he had a chance to knock. “Hello,” she said. “Can I help you?”

  Since she was wearing an expensive-looking sweater and a diamond the size of a .22 cartridge, Lyle figured she wasn’t here to mop the floors. “Ma’am.” He doffed his lid and gave her his most reassuring smile. “I’m Deputy Chief MacAuley of the MKPD. I just need to speak with the supervisor of your cleaning crew.”

  “Oh. Are they—is there some trouble?”

  “Just looking for some information, ma’am. May I come in?”

  “Oh! Of course.” She stood aside, then closed the door behind him. “I think Bea’s the supervisor. At least, she’s the one I always give instructions to. She’s in the family room right now.” She led Lyle across an acre of wall-
to-wall, giving him a chance to appreciate her tight little tush. Probably did Pilates. Something about those exercises always gave women a nice, high—

  “Bea!” They stepped down a few steps into the family room. A solidly built woman in jeans and a Maid for You shirt was wiping down an enormous window that showed the promised mountain view. “This officer wants to ask you a few questions. I’m going to give you some privacy. When you’re done, will you meet me in the kitchen, please?”

  “Sure will, Mrs. Moore.” The homeowner vanished into what Lyle presumed was the kitchen.

  “I’m Deputy Chief MacAuley of the MKPD,” he started.

  Bea stuffed her cloth into a many-pocketed bucket and nodded. “Yeah, Jackie called me to let me know a cop would be coming around. You want to see Wendall, right?”

  “That’s right. Does he expect me, too?”

  “Nah. Everybody on the crew except the supervisor has to keep their cell off. Clients don’t want to pay to see somebody standing around yapping to a boyfriend or bookie. Wendall’s doing the power wash in the master bedroom. Follow me.” They went up a wide, glossy set of stairs, past another woman in a Maid for You shirt polishing the banister. “Please don’t touch anything,” Bea said as they turned on the landing. “Our guarantee is ‘No Fingerprint Left Behind.’”

  As they walked along the upstairs hall, Lyle caught a glimpse of another Maid for You employee scrubbing a bathroom and a teenager sitting with a laptop in one of the bedrooms. “Do you usually work while the owners are at home?” he asked.

  “Depends. Some clients”—Bea’s exaggerated emphasis on the words let Lyle know what she thought of them—“don’t trust us to be here on our own. We’re fully bonded, but, you know.”

  “Ah hah.”

  “A couple of the older clients, I swear they just hire us so they got someone to talk to once a week. Follow the crew around while we’re trying to clean. Kinda sweet, but it can drive you batty, you know? Here he is.”

  The door at the end of the hall was open, and Lyle could hear a low, deep roar, like a vacuum. Except for the bed and some dressers, the master bedroom looked just like the family room—same giant windows, same acre of carpet, same wide-screen TV. Sullivan was running one of those rug-shampooing machines, wearing noise-canceling headphones. Bea walked over and tapped his shoulder.

  Lyle watched as Sullivan caught sight of a police uniform. His eyes went round, and he started blinking fast. He switched off the shampoo machine and removed his headphones.

  “Wendall, this officer wants to talk with you. Jackie says go ahead, tell him what he needs to know, you’ll still get your usual break time.” She turned back toward the door. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Remember”—she pointed at Lyle—“no fingerprints.”

  When they were alone, Lyle smiled. “Hi, Wendall. I’m Lyle MacAuley, deputy chief over at the MKPD. Do you know why I wanted to talk with you?”

  Sullivan swallowed. “I haven’t done anything.” He was a medium-sized guy who looked younger than twenty-seven: pink cheeks, smooth skin. Curly hair. He smiled nervously and a dimple popped in his cheek. Kids would trust him.

  “Really? That’s not what I hear.”

  Sullivan kept the smile pinned in place. Lyle could see the shine of sweat on his upper lip. “Somebody’s been trash-talking me? They’re full of it. I go to work, I pick up a few DVDs at the library, and I go home. I don’t go near no schools, or playgrounds, or nothing like that. I keep my nose clean.”

  Lyle tugged on his lower lip. “Now that surprises me. It’s not like that last girl was a one-time deal, was it? You did four years federal time for taking a girl into Massachusetts.”

  Sullivan flushed. “That’s my juvie record. That’s supposed to be sealed.”

  “Then a year after your release, you reoffended. What was the second one? Seven? Eight?”

  “Nobody proved I did anything to that girl. I was in for kidnapping, not for rape.”

  “Yeah? Did they put you in general, then?” The general population of a prison—garden-variety dealers and thieves and killers—would tear apart child molesters. Special population offered safety, but also mind-numbing segregation and a complete lack of freedom. A prison within a prison. “The way I see it, you been out more’n a year now. You gotta see them everywhere, even if you are staying away from schools. Girls in the supermarket with their moms, riding their bikes, checking out books in the library. Must get pretty lonely after a while. Hard to resist.”

  Sullivan wrapped his hands around the handle of the shampooing machine. His knuckles were white. “I don’t do that no more. I did a nickel in Fishkill, stuck in Special the whole time. I’m not going back there. I don’t care if I have to whack off for the rest of my life. I’m not going back.”

  “Mikayla Johnson,” Lyle said.

  Sullivan blinked rapidly. “Who?”

  “Cute little girl. Eight. Used to live with her mother, Annie Johnson, until about six months ago. Since then she’s been in foster care with Ted and Helen MacAllen.”

  Sullivan looked at the carpet. “Don’t know her.”

  “Sorry?”

  Sullivan raised his head. His mouth was flat and hard. “I don’t know her. I didn’t have nothing to do with her. I didn’t have nothing to do with nobody. If you think you got something, go ahead and take me in. Otherwise, I gotta get back to work.” He jammed the earphones on and started up the rug shampooer. This close, the machine sounded like a jet engine running up on a tarmac.

  Lyle retreated. He didn’t have anything yet, but there was something there; sweating, twitching, then shutting down cold. Lyle clattered down the stairs, not touching anything as instructed, and found Bea dusting a shelf of golf trophies in what looked like a home office. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “One question. Have you ever cleaned for a couple named Ted and Helen MacAllen? Big old house out on Crandell Hill Road in Millers Kill?”

  She frowned. “Nope. Not that I can recall. But different people switch around on different teams. It depends on the days available and how many hours you want to work. You should check with Jackie. She could tell you if we take care of them.”

  After two tries and getting nothing but a busy signal, Lyle decided it would be quicker to run back to Maid for You and talk to Jackie in person. On the way to Fort Henry, Lyle radioed the station and asked Noble Entwhistle to get started on the paperwork for a warrant to search Sullivan’s apartment. If he turned up something, he wanted to move fast. Sullivan had looked dead serious when he said he wasn’t going back to prison. If he had Mikayla Johnson, Lyle didn’t want to give the scumbag a chance to crawl back to whatever hidey-hole he was using and make sure the girl could never testify against him.

  The owner of Maid for You was still holding a smoldering cigarette, still on the phone trying to sell someone on cleanliness being next to godliness. This time, Lyle leaned over her desk and said, “I need to speak with you right now.”

  Her face pruned up. “Can I put you on hold for just a sec?” she said into the phone. “I have another client on the other line. Thanks.” She jabbed a button. “What?”

  “Have you ever cleaned for Ted and Helen MacAllen? At 52 Crandell Hill Road?”

  “Yeah. They’re once-monthly clients. Why?”

  “Has Wendall Sullivan ever been on the team assigned to their house?”

  “He is in trouble, isn’t he? Crap.” She turned to her computer screen. She clicked, scrolled, clicked again. “Yeah. Yeah, he was on D team the last three times they were there. Goddammit. Did he steal something? Because we’re fully—”

  Lyle was out the door and in his unit before she could finish. He raised Harlene this time. “Sullivan cleaned house for the MacAllens.” He flipped on his red lights. “I’m going to bring him in. He might spill if we lean on him, but I wouldn’t count on it. Tell Noble I want that warrant request ready to take to Judge Ryswick when I get there.”

  He drove a bit a
bove the speed limit, without sirens. It had just started snowing—not heavy, but enough to make the road slick. He was thinking about the search, and where Sullivan might have stashed the kid, and realizing they just might be able to wrap the whole thing up without having to drag Russ away from his honeymoon. Back at Mountain View, he swung in behind the van and its line of cars.

  “You again.” The lady of the house didn’t look very happy to see him.

  “Yes, ma’am. May I…?” He strode past her, through the football-field living room.

  “I have to say this is disrupting our Saturday routine!” She trotted after him.

  “Bea?” he called. The supervisor popped out of the kitchen.

  “And it’s making me have second thoughts about the reliability of your cleaning service!”

  Bea gave him a look that said See what I have to put up with?

  “Where’s Sullivan?”

  Bea pointed toward the door. The line of beater cars, he realized. One of them was—“He told me he was too shaken up to work,” the supervisor said. “He’s gone.”

  6.

  Hector DeJean hadn’t been home that morning. Hadley and Flynn had found his address easily enough, a double-wide on a country road in Cossayuharie. What would have been the attached garage had been converted into a business, with two cars parked out front and enough room for at least three more. The sign overhead read DEDE’S DO AND DYE. Next to the beauty shop, a good-sized cruiser was cradled in a boat trailer, its lines obscured by winter shrink-wrap. “Huh,” Flynn said. “He’s gone from a junkie to a successful businesswoman. Maybe he has reformed.”

  “Men don’t reform.” Hadley was in no mood to give any guy the benefit of the doubt after last night’s disaster. “They just get better at covering their tracks.”

  Flynn gave her a look but didn’t respond. When they entered the shop, the bell tinkled. It looked a lot like the salon Hadley went to—shampoo sink, three chairs, posters of edgy hairstyles that no one in Millers Kill would ever wear.