One Was a Soldier

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “I think he’s going to stay Law-Enforcementarian,” he said under his breath. She snickered.

  The choir stood and the organ started up, a soft, rhythmic beat that sounded almost like the beginning of a sixties tune. “Ooo! I know this,” Hudson said. “We’re doing this with the adult choir at Christmas.”

  “Tomorrow will be my dancing day,” the choir sang, and Reverend Clare and the chief walked back down the aisle, both of them looking as if they’d been lit up from inside. The music and voices soared, sharp and sweet. On every side of her, people’s eyes were wet, and Harlene was honking, and Flynn turned to Hadley and smiled.

  Weddings. It was like they put some sort of drug in with the flower arrangements.

  “Do you think it’ll last?” Hadley said, determined to break the spell.

  Flynn looked at her as if she had asked if he thought the sun would rise in the east tomorrow. “Are you kidding?” He leaned in so his breath was warm in her ear. “It’s true love.”

  “There’s no such thing.”

  He thumbed toward Hudson. “Tell him that.”

  Her son was looking up at the choir, his hand keeping the irregular beat. “To call my true love to my dance,” he sang in his piping soprano, “Sing O! my love, O! my love, my love, my love; This I have done for my true love.”

  Flynn smiled at her. “Let’s go dance.”

  * * *

  The reception was a blast, despite—or maybe because of—the rich Virginians and the priests. There were other kids there, nieces and nephews and the children of friends, so after they had bolted down some dinner, Hadley let Hudson and Genny join the others playing flashlight tag in the field next to the tents.

  The chief and Reverend Clare kicked off the dancing to the old Beach Boys tune “God Only Knows,” and soon the floor was packed with everyone from Mrs. Marshall and Norm Madsen, sedately fox-trotting, to the youngest Ellis boy, popping and locking. Hadley danced with Nathan Andernach, the perpetual bachelor of St. Alban’s, and with Nathan Bougeron, who had left the MKPD before she arrived for a job with the state police, and with a good-looking guy from Maryland who turned out to be a priest, which kind of freaked her out. She danced with Lyle MacAuley, and with Noble Entwhistle, and with Duane Adams, one of the part-time officers.

  She didn’t dance with Kevin Flynn. She had thought about it, driving over to the Stuyvesant Inn, and realized all those throat-closing, eyes-meeting moments were based on the fact that he was the only unattached guy remotely her age she saw on a regular basis. But, hey, at a wedding reception? Lots of possibilities. So she smiled at men she didn’t know and said yes to anyone who asked her, and stayed away from Flynn.

  After the cake cutting, Granddad announced he was taking Hudson and Genny home. “You stay put and have a good time,” he said, when she protested she should leave, too. “’Tain’t natural for a girl pretty as you to sit home all the time.” He winked. “I’ll leave a light on for ya.”

  So she stayed. She danced and chatted and laughed. She congratulated the newlyweds. “Are you Clare Van Alstyne now?” she asked the reverend.

  “No, I’m Russ Fergusson,” the chief said.

  Reverend Clare elbowed him. “We’re keeping our names just as they are.”

  “Good idea,” Dr. Anne said, sipping a drink. “Professional identity and all that. How about you, Hadley? Is Knox your maiden name?”

  Hadley shook her head. “No. It was Potts.”

  Reverend Clare frowned. “Didn’t your grandfather tell me you changed your first name from Honey to Hadley?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Honey Potts,” the chief said.

  “My God, that sounds like a porn star name.” Dr. Anne patted her shoulder. “You poor thing. What were your parents thinking of?”

  “I suspect they were stoned when they came up with it,” Hadley said. “When do we get to do the Chicken Dance?”

  “Shortly after my mother is dead and buried in the family plot,” Reverend Clare said.

  Instead the guests twisted and jived and even swung to some country songs the chief had managed to sneak in past his mother-in-law. Eventually, steaming hot and out of breath, Hadley snuck out for some fresh air.

  The open spaces between the inn and the tents were strung with small clear lights, giving a deceptively summerlike look to the autumn landscape. The near-freezing temperature was shocking on her bare skin, but it felt good. She tipped her head back and looked at the bright cold stars, like God’s wedding decorations. A man came out of the dance tent. Long and lean, and for a moment she couldn’t see him clearly. Then he walked toward her, and the soft light fell on his thick red hair, and she said, “Oh. Here you are.”

  Here you are. As if she’d been looking for him, not avoiding him.

  Flynn held out a glass. “I thought you might like something cold.”

  “I’m driving, so I’m not—”

  “It’s ginger ale.”

  “Oh.” She took the drink. “Thanks.”

  Here you are.

  She was parched, she discovered. She drained the glass dry and handed it back to him.

  “We haven’t danced yet.” His jacket was gone. He had loosened his tie and rolled his shirtsleeves up.

  “No,” she agreed. No? Real swift. She must have left her brains inside the tent.

  “I figured it was because of the work thing.” He took a step closer to her. “We’re both young, we’re both single, you don’t want people to misinterpret what’s going on.”

  That sounded reasonable to her. “That’s right. Nobody ever believes you when you say you’re just friends.”

  From the speaker near the tent flap, Bonnie Raitt sang, “People are talking…”

  “So let’s dance out here.” He rested the empty glass against the canvas.

  “Here?”

  He held out his hand. “Okay. A little further away.” Some force not under her conscious control lifted her hand and placed it in his. He walked backward, away from the door, away from the lights, until they were at the edge of the field, outlined in starlight and the glow from the inn.

  “Could you be falling for me?” Bonnie sang.

  Flynn put his hand at the small of her back and somehow her arms went around his neck and they were swaying together in time to the whisky voice and blues guitar. Dancing with Nathan Bougeron or the cute priest hadn’t felt like this. She tried keeping younger and work and bad idea in the front of her mind, but he was so warm, and he smelled so good, and he was touching her, and all she could think of was the night they had spent together, the way his eyes had closed and he had cried out, turning his face into her shoulder.

  Her body was tightening and loosening and she knew at any moment she was going to tip her face up and slide her fingers through his hair and pull him toward her—

  Here you are.

  —and then they were kissing, his lips soft and dry, sweet and tender, moving lightly over her cupid’s bow, the swell of her lower lip, the corners of her mouth.

  “Flynn,” she gasped.

  He pulled away slightly. “What?”

  “Do you remember when we slept together?”

  “Hadley.” He let out a huff that was almost a laugh. “I’d have to be dead to forget that.”

  “Let’s do it again.”

  He breathed in. He bent to her, kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her temples. “Why?”

  Her eyes flew open. “Why?” She stared at him. She knew what she looked like. She wasn’t vain, she was realistic. When she invited men into her bed, they said Yes or I thought you’d never ask or Thank you Jesus. Not Why? “Because we were good together, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex, and here we both are.”

  “Because it’s convenient, you mean?”

  She could tell from his voice she had hurt his feelings. “Not just that. I like you. I’m not dating anybody else—I don’t want to date, I don’t do it anymore—” A thought stopped her. “Are you seeing someone?”


  “No.” He slid his hands along her jaw and tilted her face toward him. He kissed her again, and this time there was nothing sweet about it. It was hot and hard and deep and wet. Hadley swayed against him, moaning, her knees buckling, her hands digging into his thick hair. If his arm hadn’t been braced across her back, she would have fallen open on the ground right then and there, wedding party be damned.

  When he pulled away, they were both heaving for breath. “See?” she said, when she found her voice. “Good. Together.”

  “I’m not seeing anyone—” He sucked in air. “Because I want to be with you.”

  “You can be with me.” She deliberately misunderstood him. “Take me back to your place.” She ran her hand up his chest. His shirt was damp with sweat.

  He turned her around until her back was pressed against his chest. “I want to make love to you,” he said in her ear. She shivered. “I want to go to the movies with you.” He stroked her neck, her collarbone, her shoulders. “I want to take you and your kids skiing.” He pushed her dress and strapless bra out of the way, exposing her to the cold night air. She breathed in sharply. “I want to have you over to meet my parents.” His hands were doing unbearably erotic things to her breasts. “I vant to be,” he said in an exaggerated German accent, “your boyfriend!”

  She laughed, one sharp laugh that speared painfully through her. No one had ever tried to seduce her with Young Frankenstein before. Kevin Flynn was a dangerous, dangerous man. She stepped away from him, tugging her bodice back into place. She wiped beneath her eyes with her fingertips. Took a deep breath. Turned around. “I’m sorry, Flynn. This is a onetime offer.”

  He was very still. Finally, he said, “We are good together, Hadley. As partners. As friends. When we’re with your children. When we’re alone.” He opened his hands. “Why won’t you give us a chance?”

  “You’re too young.”

  “I’m twenty-six. My dad was married with two kids when he was my age.”

  “We work together.”

  “So we tell the chief. Get it out in the open.”

  “And when we break up? Then what happens? I have to leave the best job in town and what? Waitress? Commute an hour away from my kids every day?” The heat he had roused in her leached away. She twitched with cold.

  Flynn bent down and retrieved her shawl from where it had fallen in the frost-touched grass. “Do you start every relationship with an exit plan? Or is it just me?”

  She took the shawl and wrapped it around herself. “When I didn’t have an escape plan, I wound up regretting it.”

  “Okay, then. If we break up, I’ll resign. I could get a job with the staties or in the Albany force, no problem.”

  She laughed shortly. “You’re crazy.”

  He took a step toward her. “No, I’m not. I’m just not going to assume it won’t work out between us. Hadley—” He reached out, as if he were going to take her in his arms again, then curled his hands into fists instead. “I’m sick of trying to stuff my feelings for you into an acceptable box. I like you. I respect you. I admire you. But I also love you, and it’s killing me to see you every day and not be able to be honest about that.”

  “You don’t love me. You just loved the sex.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Hadley. Are you even listening to yourself? If all I wanted was a roll in the hay, we’d be headed for my apartment right now.”

  She felt brittle, exposed, like the fragile, half-frozen wildflowers around them. “You can’t love me, Kevin. You don’t even know me.”

  “I love what I do know.” This time, he did wrap his arms around her. “Let me in, Hadley. Let me see the rest of you.” He kissed her, lightly at first, then deeper, pulling her hard against his body. Oh, God. She wanted him. He was young and strong and ardent and more innocent than she had ever been. She wanted to crawl inside him and forget herself for a while.

  He eased away from her just enough to speak. “Give me a try, Hadley.”

  She pictured letting him get to know her. To know her history, all the crappy things she’d done, all the terrible choices she’d made, all the shit she had dealt with. She pictured him backing away, not showing up, making excuses. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stand it when that happened. “No.” She pushed him to arm’s length. “You were a good lay, Flynn.” She marveled at how she sounded. So cool, so unemotional. “But I’m not interested in a relationship with you.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe you. Tell me you don’t feel anything for me. Look me in the eyes and tell me all of this”—he pressed her hand to his chest—“is just one-sided.”

  God. He still thought lovers couldn’t lie to him face-to-face. She looked into his eyes. “I don’t feel anything for you. It’s all one-sided.” She thought she might throw up the ginger ale.

  He dropped her hand. Stepped away. Turned his back to her. “God,” he whispered. “God.” He drew his forearm across his eyes. Finally he turned around again. “Okay. Okay.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I guess I really should’ve listened the first five or six times you slapped me down.” He laughed without humor. It was a sound so foreign to him it made her heart twist.

  “Look, Flynn, we can still be—”

  “Friends?” His voice cracked. “With me slicing myself open every day and you waiting and dreading the next time I break down and beg you to love me? Is that what you really want?”

  “No.” Her throat was raw and tight. “I guess I don’t.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He gestured toward the tent, glowing in the darkness. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  She didn’t argue. They walked through the field, side by side, separated by cold air and unspoken words. He left her at the entrance to the tent. “Aren’t you coming in?” she said.

  He shook his head. In the light, he looked like he had at Ellen Bain’s fatal accident. Weary and sad and older than his years. “My coat’s in the inn. I’m going to go home. Good night.”

  She watched him cross the plush yard. Mount the terrace. Disappear through the inn’s French doors. She was strong. She could let him go.

  She couldn’t stop the voice in her head, though.

  There you are.

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27

  When they went for Opperman, they let Russ tag along. It wasn’t his arrest—in the ten days since he had called in Ellen Bain’s evidence, the Army CID, the FBI, and the Treasury Department and the GAO had all jumped on board. He was low man on that totem pole. The army guys were respectful, and the Feds were polite, but every investigator and agent he met let him know—subtly or baldly—that this case and this collar were way out of his league. He just smiled and let his Cossayuharie accent thicken until Tony Usher, who was on the prosecution team, said, “Cut it out, goddammit. You sound like you’re auditioning for the lead in Li’l Abner.”

  Waiting in an unmarked government vehicle outside the Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort, it was worth it. They could have called him a traffic crossing guard and asked him to fetch the coffee, and it would have been worth it.

  “You ready?” Tony put on sunglasses against the early morning sunshine.

  Russ checked his gun and reholstered it. “Oh, yeah.”

  Tony looked at his watch. “The MPs should be pulling Wyler McNabb in just about now.” He glanced over the seat to the CID investigator waiting with them. “And Arlene Seelye.”

  The radio crackled. “Hotel team, this is Square One.” An anonymous van held the FBI control team, which would be coordinating the raids on BWI Opperman’s Plattsburgh matériel depot as well as their offices in Baltimore. “We are good to go.”

  Russ, Tony, and the CID investigator got out. Throughout the parking lot, car doors slammed as agents and accountants and lawyers and evidence techs finally made their move. Bellhops stared and guests scrambled out of the way of the entrance and then the team was inside, barked comma
nds echoing off the paneled walls, a rumble of feet as they spread out to the offices, the computer room, the registration desk, locking down all communication, seizing every workstation, evidence-wrapping every file cabinet.

  Russ caught a glimpse of the manager, her mouth open, as he led the arrest team toward the stairs. “Two flights up here, then stairs on either end the rest of the way up,” he reminded them. “One elevator for the guests, one for the employees.”

  The FBI agent in charge, a short, curly-haired woman who looked way too young for her position, nodded. “You four, secure the elevators, Lofland and Born, with me.” She gestured toward the stairs. “You can wait here if you want, Chief.”

  “I can manage it,” he said dryly. They ran up the stairs, one flight, two, three, until they reached the top floor and Opperman’s personal suite. They flanked the door, two on each side. Russ had just enough time to wonder who was bringing the battering ram when the teeny-bopper agent pulled out a magnetized card and sliced it through the keyslot. She swung the door open and she and her partner stormed in, shouting, “Federal agents! Stand up and place your hands on your head!” The other agent was right behind them, and then Russ. It wasn’t his collar. It didn’t matter. They would get the credit, but he got to watch John Opperman slowly rise to his feet, his face twisted in shock and fear. He got to watch Opperman’s eyes darting from side to side, looking for a way out, looking for some flunky to make it all go away. He got to watch the moment when Opperman spotted him, his eyes narrowing, the fear on his face curdling into hatred.

  “Gotcha,” Russ mouthed.

  * * *

  They held the CEO in his four-room apartment as the GAO and Defense accountants ransacked the place, loading banker’s boxes with papers and external drives and a laptop. Downstairs, and in Plattsburgh and Baltimore, the same evidence hunt was going on.

  Opperman lawyered up immediately, and the first suit arrived before they had even moved downstairs. The second and third got there while the first was still haranguing the agent in charge. Russ was impressed. BWI must have hot-and-cold running attorneys, to get them out to this remote corner of New York State so fast.