One Was a Soldier

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “Mr. Fitzgerald’s in congestive heart failure. The family called me.”

  “You’ve got a sprained ankle and a banged-up shoulder. You need to rest. Couldn’t the priest who filled in for you be doing this? He’s still around, isn’t he?”

  “Father Lawrence is at his daughter’s house in Glens Falls, not here. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Mr. Fitzgerald is my parishioner.”

  He leaned forward. Her face was drawn, but despite being smudged purple with fatigue, her eyes were as bright and alert as ever. She must have downed a thermosful of coffee. “Okay. How long will it take you to hear his confession, or whatever? I’m finishing up my shift. I’ll drive you home.”

  “Russ.”

  “It’s the least I can do. I would have done it for—” He cut himself off before ramming his boot all the way down his throat.

  “For your wife?” She spread her arms as if to emphasize the black clericals and the symbols she wore. Collar. Cross. Stole. “I’m not Linda. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do for me.” She let her arms drop. “Mr. Fitzgerald is dying.” She smoothed a hand over her stole, dimpling the heavy satin. “He’s dying, and his children are afraid, and I’m going to stay until the end.”

  He took off his glasses. Polished them against the knee of his trousers. He thought of her reaction to the couch. Realized she must have sat there after he’d been shot, not knowing if he would live or die. He’d been back on the job within five months. Linda would have insisted he retire. Clare had never said a word, other than “Be careful.” She understood his job was what he did.

  So this was what she did.

  He put his glasses back on. “Can I do anything to help?”

  She smiled. “Not unless you’ve taken up prayer while I was gone.”

  He made a noise.

  “I have a question for you.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her change-of-subject tone. “What?”

  “How is Eric McCrea doing since he came back? In your judgment?”

  “Why? Is there something I should know about?” She flipped her hand open. Answer the question. “Okay,” he said. “I haven’t seen or heard anything that worries me. He’s taken several sick days since he came back from Iraq. Which is a lot, for him. I told him he could have more time before he returned to duty. I figured this is his way of pacing himself.”

  She nodded. “He seemed … charged up when he responded to the call from the soup kitchen Friday. Aggressive. As if he were perceiving a threat where none existed. Could he be using something? Steroids?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose. That sort of behavior’s not unusual, coming off a war zone. I remember trying to clear some underbrush from behind Mom’s house the summer I got back from Nam. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t walk into the trees and the tangle without my M-15 in my hand.”

  She smiled faintly. “I wonder if that’s one of the reasons you became a cop. So you’d never have to go without your gun.”

  “No.” Involuntarily, his hand fell to his service piece. “I haven’t fired my gun off the range since the Christie hostage incident. Before that, it had been seven years.”

  “I didn’t say use it. I said go without it.”

  He opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. “Hmm.” He nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on Eric. If he seems stressed, I can partner him up with one of the other officers or give him some time off. We’ve got access to a psychiatrist the town contracts with. Although having done my mandatory fatal fire session with the guy, I’m not wild about sending anyone else to him.”

  Clare’s smile was broader this time. “Lowest bidder, huh?”

  “That’s my guess.” He thought about where they were, thought about who might see them, thought the hell with it. He stood. Bent over her, bracing his hands on the arms of her chair. Kissed her. “Call my cell phone after—when you’re ready to come home. I’ll drive over and fetch you.”

  “From your mother’s? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Just call me.”

  “Russ, I told you. I don’t need you riding to my rescue because I’m out late or because I got a little banged up. I can take care of myself.”

  “Clare.” He touched his forehead to hers. “Listen.” He pulled back so he could see her eyes. So she could see his. “Every day you were in Iraq, I woke up wondering if this was it, if this was the day I’d get word that you’d been killed. Every night I watched footage and commentary and reporting and statistics until I wanted to put a boot through the damn TV. I had to see it, and hear it, and think about it, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.” He straightened. “For God’s sake, now you’re home, let me do something. I’m not trying to turn you into—I don’t know—the little woman. I just need to—to—” He ran out of words.

  “Take care of me.” Her voice was balanced between understanding and dislike. “Russ—”

  “You’d be helping me out.” That stopped her. “Please?” He didn’t need to see her expression to know that phrase had won her over. The day Clare could resist helping someone was the day cows would fly over Millers Kill and start grazing on the roof of St. Alban’s.

  “Okay.” She sighed. “I’ll call you. But—”

  “Reverend Fergusson?” A different nurse was standing in the wide doorway. “I’m all set.”

  “Thanks.” Clare leaned forward and braced her aluminum cane. “I have to go. I don’t want him to be alone.”

  Russ stood. Took her hand and pulled her upright.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You told me once that saying you couldn’t do something alone wasn’t the same as saying you couldn’t do it at all.”

  She paused. “I remember.”

  “Think about that, hmn? Next time you’re dead-set on going it alone?”

  She looked at him. “I’ll try.”

  He watched her limp off to Mr. Fitzgerald’s room, to watch the night through with a dying man. That was what she did. He turned, and left to go back to what he did.

  FRIDAY, JULY 29

  Hadley was heading back to the station to clock out when she got the squawk. “Fifteen-seventy, this is Dispatch, what’s your forty?”

  She unhooked the mic. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-seventy, I’m inbound at the east end of Burgoyne.”

  “We’ve got multiple reports of a three-car crash on the Sacandaga Road near the entrance to the new resort.”

  Shit. Home late again. “Roger that, Dispatch, I am responding.” She switched on her light bar and sirens, checked her mirrors, and made a U-turn back toward the shortcut to Route 57.

  The entire month of July had been crazy with tourists, and things didn’t look like they were going to let up in August. She called home but only got the answering machine. “Granddad, I’m going to be late. I have frozen barbecue chicken breasts and those green beans the kids like in the freezer. All you have to do is nuke them. Don’t take the kids to McDonald’s again.” It wasn’t so bad for Hudson and Genny—they would have a couple small cheeseburgers, some onion rings, and milk—but Granddad’s idea of a fast-food meal was two Big Macs and a super-sized order of fries, washed down with a large milkshake. Not what the doctor ordered for a man who had heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.

  She swung onto the Sacandaga Road and saw red-and-whites ahead. She triggered her mic. “All channels, this is MKPD fifteen-seventy responding to an accident on Sacandaga Road, over.”

  “Fifteen-seventy, this is fifteen-sixty-three.” Kevin Flynn’s unit. “Responding same. I am westbound on Sacandaga Road. Over.”

  Right on his heels came Eric McCrea’s voice. “Fifteen-seventy, this is fifteen-twenty-five. I am southbound from Old Route 100.”

  Hadley’s stomach churned. As overworked as they were during the summer months, it had to be one hell of a mess for Harlene to send three officers.

  She slowed as she approached the final rise before the entrance to the Algonquin Waters. At the top of the hill, her gaze swept the horizo
n, the scene laid out before her like toys thrown about by a sulky child. Two cars parked on the shoulder. A Ford Taurus skewed across both lanes, an old Saab rammed halfway into its rear quarter. The third car way off in the field. Upside-down, its grill and side crumpled and scored, its make or model unidentifiable. People—good Samaritans or uninjured drivers, she couldn’t tell—on the road and in the field.

  Holy shit. She and Kevin and Eric were it, for the next however many minutes it took for the ambulance and the fire trucks to get here. Hadley followed Flynn’s squad car down and parked in the travel lane, leaving her lights whirling. Flynn swung wide, between the accident and the parked cars, stopping on the other side of the tangle, blocking the northern approach as she blocked the west. In the next second, Eric McCrea’s unit came over the hill. He slowed and pulled in behind her.

  She and Eric got out of their cars. Eric popped his trunk and removed a crowbar. “Kevin!” His shout carried over the wreckage. “Meet me at the off-road vehicle!”

  “I can—” Hadley began.

  “If there’s a fire risk, we’re going to have to get the occupants out.” He strode toward the field, gesturing toward the other two cars. “See if anybody there needs help.”

  I can do that, she wanted to say, but he and Flynn were already heading downslope—steeply downslope, she could see, as they rapidly disappeared from view. Hadley turned her attention to the cars blocking the road.

  A young woman barely out of her teens sat sideways in the front of the Saab, her hands cradling her very pregnant belly, her face red and raw and terrified. A deflated air bag covered the steering wheel. A big, bearded guy crouched in front of her saying something in soothing tones.

  “Hey there.” Hadley squatted beside him. “What do we have here?”

  The man looked as relieved as a con with an eleventh-hour pardon. “Thank God. She says she’s, uh, leaking. Down there.”

  “Are you”—he looked easily old enough to be the girl’s father instead of the baby’s, but you never knew—“related?”

  “No, ma’am. I was just driving home to Millers Kill and came across ’em. There’s an older couple in the Ford, but they were just shaken up some, so I thought I’d better stay with her.”

  “Please help me.” The girl’s voice was wild. “I don’t want to lose my baby.”

  “It’s going to be okay. There are ambulances on the way. They’ll be here any minute. What’s your name?”

  “Christy. Christy Stoner.” Her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow bursts. Shock, or panic? Either way, it couldn’t be good.

  “Christy, how far along are you?”

  “Seven months.”

  “Are you having any contractions?”

  She shook her head. Gulped a breath. Let out a bleating, gasping cry.

  “Okay, Christy, listen to me. Are you listening? You need to calm down. Your baby needs all the air it can get right now.”

  Christy nodded, panting.

  “Is this your first pregnancy?”

  The girl jerked her head up and down. Hadley spotted the rings on her third finger, a skinny little diamond and a big fat band. “Why don’t we call your husband? You can talk to him while we’re checking you out.” That might help the girl relax.

  “He’s in Afghanistan. He’s a marine.”

  Oh, great. Hadley gestured the bearded man to come closer. “Okay, Christy. I want you to hold—what’s your name?”

  “Dennis Walker.”

  “I want you to hold Dennis’s hands and squeeze them tight.” She did so, her knuckles whitening. Walker let out a grunt. “Now I want you to close your eyes and take slow … even … breaths.”

  Christy shut her eyes and opened her mouth.

  “Dennis, I want you to pull her upright. We’re going to move her to the backseat so she can lie down.”

  Christy groaned, then gasped, as they helped her out, but between the two of them, they got her relocated. Hadley had her lie on her left side, a vague memory from her own pregnancies that the left was better for circulation or something.

  “You said she was leaking.” Hadley addressed Walker over the roof of the car. “Any idea what?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  She ducked back down into the Saab. The girl was wearing a maternity sundress, rucked up around her knees in the move. “Christy, did it feel like your amniotic fluid bursting? Or maybe letting go some pee?”

  Walker made a strangled sound.

  “I couldn’t tell! I don’t know what it feels like when your water breaks.”

  “Okay. I’d like your permission to check your panties to see if I can tell what’s happened.”

  “Oh, jeez!” Walker twisted this way and that, finally turning his back to the car.

  “Okay.” Christy brought her knee up. Hadley bunched the girl’s skirt in her hands and took a look. Oh, shit. She was worried she was going to have to get more personal, but that wouldn’t be necessary. Christy’s white maternity undies were soaked right through with clear amniotic fluid—and streaked with blood.

  “What’s going on?”

  Hadley snapped the girl’s dress back into place and whirled around. She had thought Flynn’s face seemed more mature since his TDY. His bones a little more defined, maybe, or his expression a little more tempered. Standing in front of her now, he looked years older.

  “The other car?”

  He shook his head. “Dead.” His mouth compressed. “No seat belt.” He looked over her shoulder. “Her?”

  “Seven months pregnant.” Hadley dropped her voice. “I think it might be a partial placental abruption.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The placenta peels away some from the uterus. It’s all kinds of bad.” She glared at the road. “Where the hell is that ambulance?”

  “Hey! Officer!”

  They both turned. Walker had squeezed himself between the front and rear seats so Christy could hold his hand again. “She says she’s getting her pains!”

  * * *

  Hadley opened her mouth to either pray or swear, but she was cut short by the whoop whoop whoop of the ambulance cresting the hill, followed by the fire department’s chemical response truck, two volunteer fire police pickups, and, praise God, a second ambulance.

  Duane Adams, one of their own part-time officers, led the EMTs. He prided himself on being fast. With good cause. Within two minutes, he had Christy Stoner on a stretcher, an IV in her arm and a fetal monitor strapped across her belly. They were pulling out, hospital bound, before Walker managed to extricate himself from the floor of the Saab. The last Hadley saw of the pregnant girl was a flip of her sundress over her tan legs as they slid her into the ambulance. God, look out for her and the baby.

  Flynn went over to see what he could get from the elderly couple while they were being examined by the remaining EMTs. Hadley pulled out her own notebook. “Dennis, can I get your statement?”

  The big man tore his gaze away from the now vanished ambulance. “Sure.”

  Hadley checked her watch to note the time. She blinked. It had been exactly ten minutes since she had gotten the call from Harlene. She shook her head to clear it. “Can you tell me what you saw?”

  “I was headed up to town on the Sacandaga Road”—he pointed to a spot south of the accident site—“and the Ford and the young lady’s car were coming down the hill toward me. All of a sudden, that Mini Cooper comes bombing outta the resort road. Musta been going seventy, at least. Those folks”—he thumbed toward the Ford—“kinda spun. I figured he slammed on the brakes and tried to skid himself. Probably woulda gotten by without more’n a scare if, uh, Christy hadn’t been behind him.” Walker gestured to the front of the Saab, accordioned into the rear corner of the Ford. “Wasn’t her fault, I don’t think. She mighta left more room between ’em, but, you know, unless she was a NASCAR racer in her spare time, there’s no way she coulda swerved.” He rubbed his big hands together. “Damn, I hope her and her baby come out okay.”
r />   “Me, too. Then what happened?”

  “Then? I called nine-one-one and got out to see if I could help. There was a lady come down the resort road after the Mini Cooper. She said she was a friend of the woman in the car. She took off down the field to check on her, I guess.” He glanced toward the pasture spreading out beneath the road. The car that had caused the accident, its driver, and her friend were invisible from where Walker and Hadley stood. As they watched, one of the paramedics toiled up the grassy slope into view. “What happened to her?” Walker asked. “The other driver, I mean.”

  “She was killed.”

  “Damn.” He shook his head, his beard swaying along in somber disapproval. “I hate to say it, but I figured something like this was gonna happen sooner or later. There’s a blind spot at the end of that resort road with all them trees and bushes there. Folks build up a good head of steam coming off the mountain and don’t have the sense to stop and look both ways.” He sighed. “It ain’t like it used to be.”

  Hadley was quite sure of that. There were a number of increasingly dangerous intersections in the area, roads meant for farm vehicles and pokey local traffic overwhelmed by tourists and trucks and commuters rushing to get to Saratoga or Albany. Chief Van Alstyne’s wife had died in a collision less than ten miles from this spot.

  She took Walker’s contact information and thanked him again for stopping to help.

  “Anybody woulda done the same.” He rubbed his hands again. “I just hope that girl and her baby do all right.”

  The fields around them were gold and green and bright with the summer sun, still high at six o’clock, but the accident site slid into the cool blue shadow of the mountain as she and Eric and Flynn processed the scene. The elderly couple elected to go to the hospital for a more thorough checkup, and the wrecker arrived. The fire police set up detours, and Hadley called for another tow truck.