One Was a Soldier

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “You know what happened. The guy swung at Eric, they got into it, eventually the perp was subdued.”

  “Right into the hospital. You know, I might have bought that story—might have—if I hadn’t seen Eric go medieval on that emergency room doctor.”

  She looked out the window. “It doesn’t matter to me what you believe. I made my statement. It’s on the record. I’m not changing it.”

  “Hadley. Jesus. You’re not a coward.”

  She turned on him. “Eric McCrea is a red-white-and-blue, yellow-ribbon war hero, Flynn. He’s been on the force for nine years, and everybody knows if MacAuley retires, he’s getting the deputy chief’s slot. I’m the girl. The new girl. Who’s going to get burned if I turn him in?”

  “I’d back you up!”

  She smiled a little. “I know. I knew. Now tell me who else will.”

  “The chief. He suspended Eric on the spot, and he’d stand by you against anyone in the department.”

  “Yeah, and what happens when he’s not around? You know MacAuley and Noble and the other guys are Code Blue, all the way. I heard about what happened to the guy who was here before me. He got frozen out because he called the state police in on a murder case. He had to leave town to get another job!”

  “Mark Durkee.” Flynn shifted in his seat. “That was different.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Let it go, Flynn. I made my choice, and I’ll live with it.”

  His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “I just hate to see you forced to compromise yourself.”

  She almost whooped. “Compromise myself?” She leaned back into the seat. “Flynn, you’re a world too late to stop that from happening.”

  He opened his mouth as they drove into view of the McNabbs’ house. The driveway was empty, both her Navigator and his Escalade gone. Flynn changed whatever he had been about to say into “In the garage?”

  “There wasn’t room last time. Let’s check.”

  They parked. She peered into the garage. He banged on the door. They both turned up empty.

  “Now what?” Hadley said over the hood of the squad car.

  “Could he be at work?”

  “I don’t think he’d be physically able to after—” She couldn’t say it. “What happened. I’ll check. Do you still have your notes from the interviews we did right after the suspicious death?”

  Flynn brandished his pocket-sized notebook.

  She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “Okay. I’ll call BWI while you drive to the closest friend’s house. He’s gotta be around somewhere.” She didn’t have to point out that McNabb wasn’t well enough to take off for another casino vacation.

  The BWI Opperman receptionist transferred her to the construction department, where she hung out on hold for two minutes, three, four, while boring classical music tried to lull her into a stupor. “God.” She turned to Flynn. “They must be hauling some poor guy off his bulldozer to talk to me.”

  The line went live. “Hi! What can I do you for?” The man was shouting over the sound of machinery grinding in the background. Her guess about the work site must have been correct.

  “I’m looking for Wyler McNabb.” She tried not to raise her own voice. “Is he working today?”

  “Naw, he’s off for a few weeks. Try him at home.” The line went dead.

  She stared at her cell, frowning. “Talkative guy.”

  “Don’t worry about it. At least we know he’s not on the job.” Flynn handed her the notebook. “Do me a favor. Figure out who on the list is closest to us if we strike out on the first contact.”

  The first person listed was a co-worker. When they got to the address, a small house on Meersham Street, the only person home was a harried wife with a baby on her hip and a toddler shrieking behind her. Her look of alarm melted into an expression of relief when they asked about McNabb. “Don’t know, and don’t care,” she said. “We didn’t move in the same circles.”

  The next person on Flynn’s list was labeled “drinking buddy.” He lived in a much rattier house on South Street, and his expression wasn’t so much alarm as it was sullen suspicion. He, too, looked relieved when they asked about McNabb, although in his case, Hadley figured it was relief that they weren’t after him.

  “I dunno where he is. I heard he was feeling pretty lousy.” The drinking buddy rubbed his chin. “I wonder if he mighta gone to Tally’s mom’s house? She’s a LPN. What with Tally being gone, she mighta taken him home for a little whaddaya call it.”

  “TLC?” Flynn said.

  “Yeah. They always got on well. Mrs. Walters is pretty laid-back. Not like Wyler’s mom.” He shuddered.

  Hadley glanced at Flynn. It sounded like a solid lead. “What’s her address?” she asked.

  “Fifty-two MacEachron Hill Road. Up in Cossayuharie.”

  Hadley kept her face neutral while Flynn thanked the guy. They got back into the cruiser. Buckled up. Pulled away from the curb. As soon as Hadley was sure she couldn’t be seen, she turned to Flynn. “Did you hear that? The same place with the B and E last night!”

  He grinned at her. “Oh, man. Maybe we’ll have a major theft fall right in our laps.”

  “You know what the chief says.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” they chorused.

  Flynn’s notes had more details than hers, including the complainant’s name, Evonne Walters. Paul Urquhart had taken the call last night around eleven. A search of the area turned up nothing—knowing Paul, the search probably consisted of him waving his flashlight around the yard—and the complainant believed nothing had been taken. There hadn’t been any mention of a connection to Tally McNabb, which didn’t surprise her. She had heard Paul say that asking questions only led to more work.

  They drove through fields and woodlots as they wound their way up MacEachron Hill Road. Most of the residences they passed were slightly sagging farmhouses, where solid nineteenth-century construction managed to keep the worst ravages of time and poverty at bay. Tally McNabb’s mother’s house, on the other hand, looked like something out of Traditional Homes magazine. The roof was so new it gleamed like fresh blacktop in July; the deep, wide gutters emptied into neat gravel beds; the windows were period reproduction, with built-in storms and freshly painted shutters.

  “Geez,” Flynn said.

  Hadley nodded. “Unless LPNs get paid a lot more than I thought, I think we know where some of the stolen loot went.”

  They got out of the cruiser. At the door—also recently painted, with bright hardware and a fancy, chime-playing bell—Flynn stepped back, letting Hadley take point.

  The woman who answered looked as if she belonged in one of those other houses—shabby, weathered, but with strong bones. She blinked at them. “May I help you?”

  “Ms. Walters? I’m Officer Knox of the Millers Kill Police, and this is Officer Flynn. May we come in?”

  “I already talked with one of your officers last night.” Even as she spoke, the woman opened the door wider and made space for them. “There wasn’t anything missing. I was more scared’n anything else.” Flynn tucked his hat beneath his arm as she ushered them into the kitchen. “I guess you always think nothing bad can happen out here in the country. Tally told me I ought to get a security alarm, living out here on my own.” Her voice cracked.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Hadley said. “I can’t imagine anything worse than the death of a child.”

  The woman nodded. Glanced at Hadley’s ringless finger. “You have children?”

  “Two. A boy and a girl.”

  There was a clatter on the stairs, and a young man in his late teens or early twenties loped into the kitchen. “Ma? What’s going on?”

  “My youngest, Danny. These officers came about the break-in.”

  “Did you find out who did it already?”

  Hadley shook her head. “It’s under investigation. Are you the only other person living here, Danny?”

  “I don’t live here. I’m a sophom
ore at Kenyon. In Ohio.”

  His mother put her arm around him. “First in the family to go to college.”

  He hugged his mom back without embarrassment. Hadley liked that. “I was planning on heading back this weekend, but I hate to leave Ma alone with this hanging over her head.”

  “Danny’s worried it might’a been one of those crazy people who thinks God kills soldiers ’cause we got gay people in the USA.”

  Hadley decided to fudge a bit. “We think it’s more likely someone who read that your daughter died and was hoping to steal some valuables in the confusion. It happens sometimes.” The first time she had dealt with one—the burglary of a house left empty for a funeral—she had thought a human being couldn’t go much lower.

  Evidently Ms. Walters agreed with her. The woman’s face screwed up in disgust. “Well, if that don’t beat all.”

  “Did your daughter ever use your house for storage? Leave anything here for safekeeping?”

  “When she was deployed, yes. I was the one kept her checkbook and paid what bills came due while she was in Iraq.”

  “Not her husband?” Kevin asked.

  Mrs. Walters hesitated. “He’s not so good with that sort of thing.” She smiled a little. “Those two were together since tenth grade. Ten years later, Mary was still head-over-heels for Wyler. Never mind in some ways he’s still in high school.”

  Danny made a face that suggested he minded his brother-in-law’s immaturity.

  “Anything else?” Hadley asked. “Other than the checkbook?”

  “The cars,” Danny said.

  “Well, if the burglar was after the cars, he wun’t too smart, now, was he? Looking in the house instead of the garage.”

  Flynn glanced at Hadley before looking at the Walterses. “What vehicles are you talking about?”

  “Wyler and Tally’s cars. They keep them—” Danny caught himself. “They kept them here when they were both overseas. Wyler and I brought them up here yesterday.”

  “I want you to have her SUV. It’ll be a load off my mind to not have you driving halfway ’cross the country in that old beater of yours.”

  “Ma—”

  “You brought both their cars here?” Hadley frowned. “Why?”

  Danny looked at them. “Wyler’s gone back over. To join the construction team in Iraq. He left yesterday.”

  * * *

  Clare hadn’t intended to swing by the Stuyvesant Inn on the way back from the Infirmary. Her plan to fit in a short visit with two of her elderly parishioners expanded as she saw one senior that she knew, and then another, so that twenty minutes became an hour and a half of looking at photos and holding hands and listening to stories. Then the nursing director, Paul Foubert, had dragged her into his office to complain that she and Russ weren’t registered anywhere and to unsubtly interrogate her about the perfect wedding gift.

  “Nothing, Paul. We don’t need anything. Make a donation to a good cause in our names if you have to do something.”

  “Hmph,” he rumbled. “You only get married once, knock on wood. You ought to milk it for what it’s worth.”

  When she finally emerged into sunshine and a brisk easterly wind, she realized she was never going to make the diocesan development committee lunch scheduled for noon in Schenectady. She had to admit giving up boxed sandwiches and a tedious meeting wasn’t a hardship. Plus, she now had a legitimate couple of hours free before her afternoon counseling sessions.

  She considered going back to the rectory for a nap. Trip’s prescribed ten milligrams of Dexedrine was clearly a much lower dosage than she’d been taking out of her go-bag. She felt like she was wearing an overcoat of fatigue. Trip surely wouldn’t call her in for a blood test this soon. He wouldn’t know if she upped her dose for a day or two. She climbed behind the wheel of her Jeep and headed toward Millers Kill.

  She thought about the therapy group. If she could get hold of Colonel Seelye, she could ask the others what they thought about the situation. Get their take on Quentan Nichols’s surprise visit, too. He was obviously in it up to his neck, as Russ would say. In town and looking for his money. Which was … where? Who knew? Had Tally had someone helping her stateside? There must have been other people involved in Iraq, if only to move the cash from point A to point B. What if Nichols knew the other accomplice? Knew, and had struck a deal with him. Or them. After all, taking even one person out of the pool left considerably more money for everyone else to divide.

  Clare drove over a hill and blinked at the sight of the Stuyvesant Inn. She had driven the entire way on autopilot. So much for her vaunted observational skills—and so much for her nap. She turned into the drive and pulled into one of two empty parking places. The leaf peepers must have decamped to the city.

  The inn’s enormous maple was half-stripped of leaves, the remainder looking like the tattered red pennants of a defeated army. The wind across the valley, which cooled the sprawling Victorian all summer long, was a cold slice against her back as she got out of her car.

  The door opened while she was climbing the porch steps. “You must be psychic,” Ron Handler said. “We just got another fax from your mother.” He stepped to one side and let her into the wide front hall.

  “Lord help us.” Clare shucked her jacket off. “What is it now?”

  “Oh, a bunch of stuff. She wants to make sure we’re coordinating with the baker and the patisserie. A rundown on the linens. She has a sketch of how she wants the presents displayed—what’s a ‘sip and see’?”

  “A party for silver fetishists.” She glanced at the hallway’s étagère, where an authentic nineteenth-century feather bouquet bloomed eternally beneath a glass bell. “Don’t worry about it, though. There aren’t going to be any presents.”

  “I hate to burst your bubble, Your Reverence, but they’re already arriving. Your mother’s been forwarding the ones sent to your parents’ house.”

  “Oh, for…” She scrubbed her hands over her face. Wished she had some cold water to splash there. “Look. I didn’t actually come over here to discuss the reception. I was hoping to talk to Colonel Seelye. She never returned my phone messages.”

  “Rude, but not unexpected. I’m sorry, but she’s gone.”

  “Any idea when she’ll be back?”

  Ron shook his head. “I mean she’s gone. Checked out. Took her luggage, her car, and her life-sized GI Joe doll with her.”

  * * *

  Russ was negotiating the turn off of Route 57 when his cell phone rang. He picked it up without looking. “Van Alstyne here.”

  “Hey. It’s me,” Clare said.

  “Hey, you. Are you feeling better?”

  “I guess so.” She paused. “I think I know why we’ve been so snippy with each other lately.”

  “Snippy” wasn’t the word he would have used, but what the hell. “Why?”

  “Because we’re not having sex.”

  He grinned. “I sure am thinking about it a lot, if that’s any consolation.”

  “Oh, yeah? What sort of things are you thinking about?”

  “Stop that. Are you calling about Nichols?”

  “What? No. Why?”

  “Didn’t you get my message?”

  “No. Sorry. I didn’t check before I called you. What’s going on?”

  “Wyler McNabb has flown the coop. He left his car with his in-laws and told ’em he was off to join the BWI Opperman construction team in Iraq.”

  “Wasn’t he out on bail?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “With a broken cheekbone?”

  “Plus a hairline fracture in his skull.”

  “And they let him go to a construction site in a war zone?” Clare’s voice carried all the disbelief his had when Knox and Flynn had reported in.

  “That’s what I’m about to find out. I called the construction depot in Plattsburgh, but the guy there didn’t know anything except that the monthly flight to Iraq left yesterday evening. All the operations-level stuff is handled at headqu
arters. I’m headed for the Algonquin Waters to get the truth out of somebody.”

  “I’m at the Stuyvesant Inn. I’ll meet you there.”

  “No. Do not go to the resort. I don’t want you anywhere near there if you can help it.”

  “Why were you calling about Nichols?”

  He hissed frustration as he swung his squad car onto the Sacandaga Road. “Clare, I mean it. I don’t want you—”

  “Oh, honestly, Russ, you’re not going up against a terrorist cell holding the hotel with guns and explosives. You’re going to ask the human resources manager if they authorized McNabb to get on their plane. I think I can survive the danger. I’ll see you over there.” She hung up.

  He swore under his breath. The wedding, which she had just been complaining about, was in nine days. She was carrying her usual overfull schedule at St. Alban’s. On top of it all, he knew, despite her being less than forthcoming about therapy, that she was still struggling with her experiences in Iraq. So what does she do? Go chasing after Tally McNabb’s nonexistent killer.

  He switched his light bar on and stepped on the gas when he hit the resort’s road, causing a car speeding down the mountain to brake hard enough to spew dirt and leaf mold into the air. He was going to have to lobby the aldermen to install a traffic light on the Sacandaga Road, or sooner or later there was going to be another fatality like this summer’s. Of course, the aldermen, who liked spending money as much as Clare liked sitting quietly at home, would make him choose: traffic control or a new officer’s position.

  He saw Clare’s ratty old Jeep as soon as he drove into the parking lot. That was another thing on his list. The first weekend after they were married he was marching her over to Fort Henry Ford and buying her a reliable four-wheel drive with all-weather tires and side-door air bags.

  She hopped out of her clunker when he got out of the cruiser. She tugged a wool cardigan over her clerical blouse. “So why were you calling me about Nichols?”

  He zipped his jacket up. “I wanted to ask you if you had any idea where he might be. If he said anything to you. Why are you so keen on Wyler McNabb’s whereabouts?”