One Was a Soldier

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay,” he said in her ear. “He probably thought you were a three-legged dog.”

  She stifled a snort of laughter.

  “You got the key?”

  She handed it to him.

  “I’m going to turn the lights on as soon as we go in. Be ready. You do the talking, but stay behind me.”

  She nodded again. Followed him along the garage wall to the door. He unlocked it and swung it open without a sound. Clare tensed as his footsteps creaked on the wooden steps leading to the kitchen door. He slipped the key into the lock. Opened the door.

  The lights coming on blinded her. She kept her eyes fixed on Russ’s back as he strode through the kitchen, into the living room, turning on the overheads. “Quentan,” she called. “Quentan Nichols! It’s me, Clare Fergusson. We spoke in my church.” She heard a faint thump overhead. Her heart thumped hard in response. He was here. A part of her hadn’t believed it. Russ snapped on the stair light and mounted the steps. She kept close to his heels. He had his sidearm out. In case I’ve misjudged him. “Quentan, Chief Van Alstyne is with me. He knows you were right about Colonel Seelye. He knows she’s after the stolen money. He needs your help to stop her.”

  The bathroom was at the top of the stairs. Russ flicked that light switch, too, and silently pointed at the razor and toothbrush by the sink, the damp towel on the floor.

  Two bedrooms. Left and right. “Quentan. Please.” She cast about for the right words. Was he thinking like a lover? A guilty man? A cop? “You can’t break this case yourself. The Millers Kill police can’t break this case by themselves. We have to work together.” God, that sounded trite.

  Russ pushed her against the wall on the far side of one door. “Stay here until I clear the room.” He positioned himself on the other side and shoved the door open. Nothing happened. He reached around the jamb blindly until he hit the light switch. He turned the lights on in the same instant he stepped into the doorway, crouched low, his gun tracking left-right-left. He stood up. “Okay.”

  Clare peeked around him. Guest bedroom, she thought, furnished with mismatched chairs and a few framed posters. The queen-sized bed was brass, high off the floor, offering a clear view of a few see-through sweater boxes underneath. Unless he was hiding beneath the mound of coats and dresses tossed on the bed, he wasn’t here.

  Russ pointed toward the other room. He turned, and Clare turned with him, and then she caught his arm and looked at the bed again. The pillows were missing, and the clothes all had hangers in them, as if they’d been lifted bodily off the rack. Maybe Mrs. Walters had started sorting Tally’s things already.

  Clare looked at the closet door. Maybe someone else needed the space.

  Russ nodded. Gestured for her to get against the wall next to the closet. He opened the door, stepping out of the line of fire as he did so.

  Quentan Nichols was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He slowly lowered the book he was holding and butted it against the .45 lying in front of him. He gave the book a shove, and the gun slid across the floor. Russ bent down and picked it up.

  * * *

  “Inside the damn closet was the only place I could turn a light on and be sure it wouldn’t be seen.” Nichols was scrambling up a huge skillet of eggs. He had announced that if his hideout was busted, he might as well enjoy a hot meal before they carted him off. “I can live without the Internet, and I don’t mind missing a few games on TV, but damn, if a man can’t read…” Clare glanced at the book, now resting on the mauve-and-gray-speckled counter. At the City’s Edge. It had a silhouette of Chicago’s skyline along the spine. She suppressed a smile. She supposed a big-city boy might get a little homesick, stuck in the closet in Millers Kill.

  Nichols shoveled the scrambled eggs onto three plates and laid them out on the table. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of grated cheese and a bottle of hot sauce.

  “I notice McNabb left in such a hurry he still had a full carton of eggs,” Russ said.

  “And a gallon of milk.” Nichols smiled ruefully as he sat down. “Dig in.” He paused for a second, his hand over his fork. “Unless you want to say a blessing, Reverend.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Not particularly. My grandparents raised me up strict Baptist, but I’ve slid some since then.” He shoveled a bite in. Clare did, too, suddenly ravenously hungry. Nothing like a hunt through a darkened house for an armed man to stimulate the appetite.

  “Along with the groceries, McNabb left behind his calendar.” Nichols reached for the hot sauce. “Seems he had a man-date to some truck show and a dental appointment next week.”

  “The head of the company told me the overseas construction unit did a six-months-on, six-months-off shift, and it was McNabb’s time to go.”

  Nichols shook his head. “Bullshit. Excuse me, Reverend.” She glanced toward Russ and found him looking at her, amused. “I mean, yeah, maybe that’s the drill, but no way he’d been planning to go this past Wednesday. My guess is, he offered to swap with whoever really was scheduled to join the crew in Iraq.”

  Russ nodded. “I think Seelye scared him and he ran.”

  “You don’t think they’re in it together?”

  “No. She came with me to the hospital when I interviewed him. I’d lay money he’d never seen her before. He didn’t recognize her name, either. When she asked him about the missing money, he lawyered up and wouldn’t say another word to either of us.”

  “Coulda been an act.”

  “Yeah, it could have—but then why bug out for Iraq?”

  “Maybe he was personally afraid of the colonel,” Clare said. “Maybe she threatened him. Maybe she told him she killed Tally and she’d do him, too, if he didn’t cough up the money.”

  Russ propped his arms on the table. Its uneven legs clunked toward his side. “Tally McNabb’s death was a suicide. There’s no doubt about that.”

  “Yes, there is!” Clare put her fork down and glared at Russ.

  “Only in your imagination.”

  Nichols paused, his loaded fork halfway to his mouth. He looked at her, then Russ, then back to her. “What … are you guys…? You’re a minister, right?”

  “Episcopalians use the term ‘priest.’” Clare nodded. “But, yes, I am.”

  “Police chaplain?”

  Russ snorted. “Only unofficially.” He crumpled his paper napkin. “For our purposes, it doesn’t matter why McNabb ran. He’s obviously in it up to his neck. The thing to figure out is—”

  Clare pointed her fork at him. “Why did John Opperman tell us he’d been assigned to leave?”

  “Who’s John Opperman?” Nichols asked.

  “Opperman saw a chance to dick me over at no cost to himself and he took it,” Russ said.

  Clare turned to Nichols. “The CEO of BWI Opperman, where Tally worked. They run the resort, which you’ve seen, and the construction company where McNabb works.”

  Russ made a noise. “As I was saying—”

  A sharp rap on the door interrupted him. “Millers Kill police,” a voice called. “Please open the door and identify yourself.”

  Russ raised his eyebrows. He held his hands up, indicating Clare and Nichols should stay put. He rose and crossed the kitchen.

  “I’m opening the door. I’m unarmed.” Which wasn’t strictly true. There were two 9 mm automatics on the counter next to the sink. Russ swung the door open to reveal Kevin Flynn.

  “Chief?” His gaze swept the kitchen. “Reverend? Wait a minute, isn’t that—”

  “Quentan Nichols, yeah. Come on in, Kevin.”

  “Um…” Kevin stepped past Russ, his eyes still on Nichols. “We got a report from the old lady next door that the place was lit up like Christmas. I figured maybe Mrs. Walters was here going through her daughter’s things…” His voice faded as he took in the three plates and the remains of a scrambled egg dinner. “What’s going on, Chief?”

  “Quentan Nichols, t
his is Officer Kevin Flynn.” Kevin nodded warily toward Nichols, who still sat, seemingly relaxed. Clare suspected she was the only one who could see the pale crescents beneath his fingernails from pressing hard into the table.

  “So … I guess he’s no longer on our BOLO list?” Kevin’s voice had a pinch-me quality.

  Russ crossed his arms and looked at Nichols. “I think Mr. Nichols is willing to cooperate with us.”

  Nichols nodded slowly. “I get the credit if we find the money. From the army, I mean.”

  “Still hoping to avoid a court-martial?”

  Nichols dropped his gaze, but his voice was steady. “I got twelve years invested. Eight more to go. I’m not gonna flush it all down the toilet because of one stupid mistake. Not if I can fix it.”

  * * *

  It was the weirdest case briefing Kevin had ever been to. Him and the chief, in his civvies, sitting around the table in a dead woman’s home with Reverend Clare and the guy they’d all been looking for as a POI.

  “Report in your break,” the chief said. “Keep your radio on in case you get a squawk.”

  Nichols got up and made coffee while Kevin signed out with dispatch. The chief let the guy have his run of the kitchen, so Kevin guessed that was all right. When they had all taken a seat, he ventured a question.

  “Uh, Chief? What exactly are we doing here?”

  The chief took a deep whiff of his coffee, a gesture so familiar Kevin could see an image of him, uniformed, sitting on the squad room table, superimposed over this flannel-shirted man in a pine-paneled kitchen.

  “We’re going to find the money Tally McNabb stole. Then we’re going to use it to prove Colonel Arlene Seelye is dirty.”

  Nichols paused from getting the milk out of the fridge. “How the hell will finding the money get you to Seelye?”

  “We’ll let her think she’s the one finding it.”

  “Set it up as bait?” Nichols thunked the carton onto the table. “That might work.”

  “You really think their army investigator is after it?” Kevin couldn’t keep the doubt from his voice.

  “Let’s just say I’d like to see how she reacts to the opportunity to make off with the money undetected. What’s that saying you told me, Clare?”

  “Honi soit qui mal y pense.”

  “Evil be to him who evil thinks,” Kevin translated. The chief raised his eyebrows.

  Reverend Clare smiled. “Someone knows his English history.” Kevin felt the color rise to his cheeks.

  The chief spooned sugar into his cup. “I have a contact in the JAG Corps who looked into her alleged investigation. There’s no file on the case. No log of Mr. Nichols contacting her office, nothing. My contact thinks she may have stumbled over the theft while she was overseeing the financial office in Camp Anaconda. I think Mr. Nichols’s investigation tipped her off. Either way, she’s in prime position to collect that million for herself.”

  “But she left town,” Kevin said. “If a financial crimes expert thought she’d have better luck finding the loot elsewhere, why do you think it’s here?”

  The chief blew across his coffee. His gaze slid sideways toward Nichols. “Because Mr. Nichols is still here. The colonel may know all about money laundering and bank fraud, but Mr. Nichols knows Tally McNabb.” He rested his arm on the table and turned toward the MP. “You told Clare you had talked to Tally a couple times since this summer. That’s how you knew they were in counseling together.” He glanced at Reverend Clare, then back to Nichols. “What do you know that we don’t?”

  Nichols was silent for a long moment. Finally, he pulled out his chair and sat down. “She never told me where it was. She just said that they had brought it back home.”

  “They?”

  Nichols nodded. “She didn’t say much about it. She never admitted right out that she’d stolen the money.” He made a noise that resembled a laugh. “I guess she still didn’t trust me. She talked around it. Talked about her feelings, you know.”

  “What were her feelings, Quentan?” The reverend’s voice was quiet.

  “She said money didn’t make you happy. She said she didn’t think it was worth it.”

  “It presumably being the theft?” The chief’s voice was dry. “Yet somehow, she forced herself to hang on to the loot.”

  Kevin couldn’t help it. “No, Chief, it tracks.” Everyone looked at him. “The dep said most of the stuff here was new—within the last year or so. You know, the pool and the ATV and the pimped-up SUVs. She was spending money on him. Her mom said they’d been together since high school, and Tally was still head-over-heels for him.”

  He happened to be looking at Nichols, which is why he saw the expression flash over the man’s face and disappear. Poor bastard, he thought, and on its heels came another, just like me. Only in his case, the woman he loved wasn’t crazy about anyone else. She just didn’t want him. Kevin tightened his grip on his mug of coffee and forced himself to continue. “Her mom’s house in Cossayuharie looks like it’s been renovated from the ground up. Inside and out. Now compare that to this house. They’ve got a giant flat-screen hanging in the living room, but everything else is kind of old and basic. So it’s not that Tally had to have the best of everything herself. She just wanted the people she loved to have whatever they wanted.”

  “I think Kevin’s right.” Reverend Clare glanced around the room. “I can’t imagine anyone with unlimited funds not updating this kitchen.”

  “That’s ’cause it’s the first thing you’d do.” The chief smiled a little. “But I agree. Kevin has a point.”

  “There’s your motivation for murder.” The reverend thunked her mug on the table hard enough to slosh her coffee. “She held the purse strings and was feeling remorseful. Maybe she was going to give back everything she hadn’t spent. So Wyler killed her.”

  The chief shook his head. “There’s no evidence to support a homicide, Clare.”

  “Besides, McNabb made good money himself, working construction for BWI Opperman.” Kevin leaned forward, addressing the reverend. “The guys who go overseas really rake it in.”

  The chief rubbed his lips. “Wyler McNabb’s first shift in Iraq overlapped Tally McNabb’s second tour of duty.”

  “He was there? In-country?” Nichols sat back. “She never told me that.”

  “They,” the chief said. “They had brought it back home.” He tapped the worn surface of the table. “Tally and Wyler did it together.”

  “Didn’t Eric say he was the materials guy?” Kevin tried to remember the rest of the case file. “Would that mean he’d have been the one in charge of getting stuff to and from the States?”

  “Yeah. On their monthly flight out of Plattsburgh.” The chief had that look on his face, the one he got when pieces started falling into place.

  “How far away is Plattsburgh?” Nichols asked.

  “An hour and a half, if it’s not snowing,” Reverend Clare said.

  The chief shook his head. “I don’t think it would still be there.”

  “Why not?” Nichols looked at him. “Just one more pallet, sitting around? Who’s going to know?”

  “They’d need to have it someplace Tally could access. McNabb could have manufactured an excuse for being at the depot in Plattsburgh once in a while, but if they were laundering cash, they needed to keep a small, steady stream going. I’m betting that would have been her job.”

  Nichols propped his elbows on the table, interlacing his fingers. “Okay, what about this: Either McNabb brings it back from Iraq himself, or he ships it back to their materials depot. Then he gets some of his co-workers to help him move the thing.”

  “More accomplices?” Kevin asked.

  “Not necessarily. He could have it marked up as unused PVC or grout or whatever. Something nobody would care much about. All he needed was some muscle to help him get it into a truck.”

  “Then the television falls off the back of the truck.” The chief’s voice was knowing. Kevin found himself
nodding along with Nichols.

  “What?” Reverend Clare said.

  “It means he reports it stolen. Or lost in transit.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was cautious. “How does that tell us where it is now?”

  That one stalled out the conversation. Kevin tried to imagine the places where you could hide two square meters of cash and not have it seen. Old barns. Abandoned houses. A root cellar or summer kitchen or even up on blocks in the woods, protected by a tarp. A lot of ground to cover. Too much ground. “We need to question other members of the construction team,” he said. “Somebody must have seen something. Or heard about it.”

  The chief shook his head again. “We’ve got no jurisdiction. The crime was committed on army property by army personnel. We have no legal justification for investigating unless we’re asked to by the army.”

  Everyone looked at Nichols. He raised his hands. “Not me. I’m supposed to be tracking down steroid pushers who’ve been supplying Fort Drum. If I raise my head on this case, Seelye will have my ass posted to Fort Wainwright before you can say boo. Excuse me, Reverend.”

  “Fort Wainwright?” Kevin asked.

  “Alaska,” the chief said.

  “Fairbanks, Alaska.” Nichols shivered.

  The reverend wrapped her hands around her mug. “I know someone I can ask.”

  The chief frowned. “What? Who?”

  “Dragojesich. The big guy Tally and I were talking with the night we got engaged.” A look passed between them, tender and soft, like the last warm day in October. Kevin dropped his gaze to the table. “He was with the construction team in Iraq the same time as Tally. So he was probably there with McNabb.”

  “Do you know his first name?”

  “No—but how many Dragojesiches could there be in the phone book?”

  * * *

  She could find one. G. Dragojesich. In Fort Henry, not Millers Kill. Russ had sent Kevin on his way, with an admonition to say nothing about their less than legal visit to the McNabb house. Then they dropped Nichols off at his rental car—he had parked it on Morningside Drive and hiked the mile to his hideaway—with directions to the Sleepy Hollow Motor Lodge and a promise to call him first thing in the morning.