All Mortal Flesh

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “We like as not all shop at the IGA. You think mebbe one o’ them cashiers got it in for us?”

  “Probably not, no. Could you tell me who does your plowing?”

  She wasn’t the least surprised by his answer.

  Clare laid the notebook face up on Lois’s desk. “Look at this. Perkins, Under-kirk, the Campbells, and Liz Garrettson’s mother. All of them hired Quinn Tracey to plow for them, and all of them have an animal or animals killed within the last month. Outdoor animals, living in barns. Not house pets.”

  Lois studied the names and addresses she had written down. “All the roads I recognize here are pretty much out in the country. Nobody living in town.”

  “Like Peekskill Road,” Clare said. “Where the Van Alstynes live.”

  “What are you saying?” Elizabeth pressed her hand against her chest as if to quell the shock. Lois rolled her eyes.

  “I’m saying Quinn Tracey has a direct connection to the locations of four animal deaths and a murder. Russ—Chief Van Alstyne likes to say there’s no such thing as coincidence.”

  “You want me to get the police station back on the phone?” Lois asked.

  “Please.” Clare opened the Millers Kill phone book to see if Dr. Underkirk’s address was listed.

  “I should certainly hope so!” Elizabeth said. “Most of the people involved aren’t even congregants!”

  “On second thought, Lois, I’ll call from my office.” Clare straightened, tucking the phone book and notepad beneath her arm. “Think of it as a sort of outreach, Elizabeth. Maybe the pediatrician and Mr. Perkins will be so grateful we’ve solved the mystery of who killed their animals, they’ll come to church to thank us. Then we’ll snag ’em and make them sit through a nice Evensong. A good choir converts more would-be Episcopalians than any amount of preaching does.”

  In her office, Clare poured more coffee and then picked up the phone before her nerve failed her.

  “Millers Kill Police Department.”

  “Harlene? Hi, it’s Clare Fergusson.”

  “Clare!” Harlene’s voice dropped. “How are you, honey? I just want you to know, no matter what they say, I’ll never believe you did it.”

  “Uh, thanks.” She swallowed some coffee and pressed on. “Look, Harlene, I’ve come across some information that I think might be very important to the investigation. Who should I talk to?”

  “Hmmm.” Clare could picture Harlene’s face furrowing with thought beneath her tightly permed curls. “Well, most all of ’em who investigate are out beating the bushes for this Shambaugh fellow. So you got your choice. Investigator Jensen or Mark Durkee, who hasn’t been given nothing to do yet.”

  “I’m guessing Investigator Jensen is still hot for me as suspect number two?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “How about Officer Durkee?”

  “I don’t think he’s so convinced you did it anymore, but nobody’s talking to him on account of his bringing Jensen here, and since the reason he got the staties involved was because he thought you were a suspect, he might not be feeling too kindly toward you.”

  “I didn’t ask him to run to the state police in order to investigate me.”

  “No, but he’s not the first person to blame someone else for troubles he brought on his own head.”

  Clare sighed. “Give me to Investigator Jensen. At least she doesn’t have anything personal against me.”

  The line buzzed quietly for a moment and then Clare heard, “Emiley Jensen.”

  “Hi, Investigator Jensen. This is the Reverend Clare Fergusson.” Her grandmother Fergusson would be rolling over in her grave at Clare using her own full title to introduce herself, but Clare figured at this point, every advantage counted.

  “Reverend Fergusson. Do you mind if I put you on speakerphone?”

  Clare interpreted that to mean Do you mind if I tape this conversation? “Not at all,” she said.

  The sound in her ear changed. “Can you hear me?” Jensen asked, her voice now distant and tinny.

  “Yes.”

  “So, you wanted to speak to me?”

  “I have some information I think is relevant to the investigation.” Clare started with what she had observed when she met Quinn Tracey at the high school, touched on her talk with Aaron MacEntyre, and finished with what she had learned this morning. When she was done speaking, there was a long, tinny pause.

  “Let me get this straight,” Jensen finally said. “You think this teenager might have killed Audrey Keane?”

  “I don’t know,” Clare said. “But I do know it’s an awfully weird coincidence that four people have had animals killed recently and all of them are Quinn Tracey’s customers. And, of course, the Van Alstynes had hired him, too.”

  “The murdered woman wasn’t Mrs. Van Alstyne, though. Does Tracey have any connection to Audrey Keane?”

  “Not that I know of. But maybe it’s like the animals. He was in a relatively remote place, no one was around, and so he . . . killed her.” Stated baldly like that for the first time, it sounded lame. “There’s a well-known connection between sadism to animals and violence against humans,” she said defensively.

  “I’ve heard that, yeah. There’s also a well-known connection between being an incredibly bored teen trapped in the countryside and dumb, destructive pranks. Do we know for sure all these animals were killed by a human being instead of a predator?”

  Someone in the room with Jensen spoke to her. The words were too far away and indistinct for Clare to make out, but after the unknown officer had finished, Jensen’s voice came back on. “Okay, I’m told investigation confirmed Perkins’s dog and Underkirk’s pig were killed by someone. The chief suspect in the dog’s case is a neighbor whose favorite snowmobiling course was blocked off by Perkins. The theory about the pig is that somebody wanted it for its meat and got scared off by Underkirk before he could finish the theft.”

  “But you didn’t know about the Quinn Tracey connection then,” Clare said.

  “No, the department didn’t.”

  “Will you have someone look into it?”

  “I’ll pass the information along to Deputy Chief MacAuley. He’ll put someone on it as soon as he can spare the manpower.”

  While Jensen had been talking, Clare had tightened her grip on her coffee mug. Now her knuckles showed white. “You can’t wait until Lyle MacAuley decides there’s nothing more important. You need to investigate this now. Quinn Tracey may have murdered Audrey Keane.”

  “This kid who has no record—you haven’t run into him on anything, have you?” The question was spoken to the anonymous officer. He said something to Jensen. “Okay, he has no record and no encounters with the police,” she told Clare. “And according to his guidance counselor, he’s bright and hardworking, and he evidently has an involved, caring, educated family. And you think because two of his snowplowing clients had animals killed—crimes which were investigated but didn’t implicate him—that last Monday he decided to slash a complete stranger’s throat and cut her face off. Is that about it? Your theory?”

  When you recognize an ambush, Hardball Wright said, don’t think you can turn tables on the enemy. You can’t. Get out while the gettin’s good.

  “Thank you for your time and consideration, Investigator Jensen.” Clare did her best to sound as if she didn’t want to strangle the woman on the other end of the line.

  “Thank you for reporting this possible criminal activity, Reverend Fergusson. I’m sure we’ll be speaking again soon.”

  Clare hung up. God. If Karen Burns were here, she’d probably thump Clare over the head for contacting Jensen without a lawyer standing by.

  The remaining coffee was cooling rapidly. Better chuck it out and start over again. As she passed the office toward the ladies’ room, Lois called out, “What did the police say?”

  Clare allowed herself the detour. She perched on the edge of the secretary’s desk. “I spoke to Investigator Jensen. She didn’t come right out and cal
l me an idiot for conflating a couple of dead cats into a conspiracy theory, but she managed to get her point across.”

  “Sorry,” Lois said.

  “She didn’t dismiss the possibility that the Tracey boy might be involved in some of the animals’ deaths, but she shot down my idea that there might be a connection between them and Audrey Keane’s murder. She thinks it’s just vandalism gone awry.”

  Lois tilted her head, causing her strawberry blond bob to swing along one side of her jaw. “She has a point. When my brother was in his teens, he and his friends used to set haystacks on fire for fun.”

  “You’re kidding. You could burn someone’s house or barn down.”

  “There’s not a lot to do when you’re a kid in the country.” Lois gave her a sympathetic look, then perked up as the sedate fox-trot music on the radio gave way to the thunderous sound of the Storm Center First Response Team’s theme music. Clare retreated with her cold coffee and her shredded enthusiasm, pursued by dire predictions of snow, snow, and more snow.

  FORTY

  Humility. That, Russ decided, was the lesson the universe wanted to teach him. Certainly, the value he placed on his wife and marriage first. He would never, as long as he lived, forget the horrible pithed feeling of hearing Linda was dead and the soul-lifting experience of having her resurrected by Sergeant Morin’s fingerprint kit. It was almost—not quite, but almost—enough to make him believe in God.

  Which is where the humility came in. He had spent the morning visiting all Linda’s most recent job sites: a second home for skiing, a mother-in-law apartment, a charming farmhouse trying desperately to be a stately home with curtains swagged and draped and pelmeted up to the not-high-enough ceiling.

  In each location, he had to explain that he had lost his wife. That she had left without word and had not contacted him in close to a week. Had anyone heard her mention a man? Or seen her with anyone other than one of her freelance seamstresses?

  Humility. Clare would probably say it was good for him. He might have swallowed it with more grace if he had gotten anything other than embarrassed, sympathetic looks and “Sorry, I don’t know anything that can help you.”

  He tightened his hands on the wheel of his truck and flicked on his wipers to rid the windshield of its steadily accumulating snow. Noon. The forecaster hit it dead on. He ought to call Harlene, make sure she got Duane and Tim, the part-timers, suited up for emergency response. If what the weatherman predicted was to be believed, they’d be coming up deep snow and whiteout conditions. He should also—

  He caught himself short. He couldn’t do a damn thing. He was an acting civilian until Jensen decided to give him back his badge. It was up to Lyle to make sure the department was ready for the Blizzard of the Century or the Killer Storm or whatever theme name the television stations would come up with to describe it. His job was to make it to his last stop. Linda’s most recent work site. The Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort. He didn’t hold out high hopes. It seemed like every time he came near the place, it was a disaster. The summer it was being built, he had taken off from its helipad in a chopper—the first one he had ridden in in decades—and promptly crashed. This past fall, he had the worst dinner of his life there, seated next to his wife and across the table from Clare. Christ, he was still suffering indigestion from that one. The ballroom and most of the ground floor going up in flames was sort of an anticlimax.

  He knew what he was doing, recounting his past miseries at the Algonquin. He was avoiding thinking about what he was going to do if he didn’t turn up any trace of Linda. He had no other leads. He had nothing. And the thought of returning to his freezing cold house, with its bloodstained kitchen and the fluttering ghosts of disappeared identities . . .

  He shook his head, concentrated on the road. Past the turnoff, the hotel’s private road was almost dry, the heavy-hanging pines sheltering it from the early snow. The road switched back and forth, climbing the mountain, until it opened out to the parking area, the wide portico, and the snow-covered, rock-walled gardens. He was surprised to see so many trucks and SUVs parked along the curving drive. While the Algonquin was planned as a year-round resort, it was supposed to be closed for rebuilding until spring.

  The answer came when Russ pulled into a spot next to a big Ford 350. DONALDSON ELECTRICS was plated to the side. Construction workers. He got out of his truck, tugging his hat on to shield himself from the snow. Management must be in one all-fired hurry to finish the job if they had guys out working on a day like this. Maybe the hotel would put ’em up if they got snowed in?

  He stepped through the front doors onto a sea of plastic sheeting. The sweeping wooden floor was covered with the sawdust and grit-spattered stuff, just as the few remaining pieces of furniture were obscured by drop cloths. The two-story stone wall at the far end of the lobby was still scorched and streaked with soot, and the open doorways to the ballroom were hung with dusty plastic tarps. No sign of any workmen or hotel employees, but beyond the canvas-covered reception desk, a light shone through a half-open door.

  He crossed behind the desk. “Hello?” he said. “Anybody here?”

  “Mmm.” He heard something clatter against a desktop. A slim woman in jeans and a turtleneck appeared in the doorway, dabbing at her face with a paper napkin. “Sorry,” she said around a mouthful. She beckoned him into the office. “Lunch.”

  He held up one hand. “No need to apologize. I probably should have called before coming over.”

  She finished chewing and swallowed with evident relief. “I’m afraid we’re closed. As you can see, we’re in the middle of a major rebuilding project.”

  “I’m not here for a room.” He unzipped his parka.

  “No?” She took a plate holding tangerine peels and the remains of a sandwich and slid it onto a credenza. “Please,” she said, gesturing to one of two upholstered chairs across from the desk. She sat opposite him. “I’m Barbara LeBlanc,” she said. “General manager.”

  “I know,” he said. “We’ve met before.”

  She tucked a strand of dark auburn hair behind her ear and looked at him more closely. Her face lit with recognition. “The police chief! You were here the night of the fire. It’s good to see you again . . .”

  “Russ Van Alstyne,” he supplied. “You have a good memory.”

  “In the hospitality business, it’s a must. We’re working with a curtain designer named Linda Van Alstyne. Any relation?”

  “She’s my wife.”

  Barbara LeBlanc smiled. “She does wonderful work. You must be very proud of her.”

  Ms. LeBlanc evidently remembered names but didn’t keep up with the news. “I am. Proud.” He had been spared having to tell everyone who might not have known that Linda was dead. Thank God for that.

  She folded her hands and rested them on the desk. “So. What can I help you with?”

  He felt his face getting hot, just as it had the last three times he launched into his spiel. “It’s my wife. Linda Van Alstyne. She left our house without a word last Saturday or Sunday, and I haven’t heard from her since. I’m hoping you might have some idea where she’s gone, since she’s still replacing the curtains and stuff that was lost in the fire.”

  Barbara LeBlanc’s pleasant expression didn’t alter, but it didn’t reach her eyes, which became opaque. “She left Saturday or Sunday? You’re not sure which?”

  He sighed. “We’re temporarily separated. I’ve been living at my mother’s house for the past few weeks.” Embarrassing as it was, he figured admitting he lived with his mom made him sound less like a potentially abusive husband trying to recapture a runaway wife.

  LeBlanc shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve met your wife, of course, and we’ve spoken about payments for materials and things like that, but I don’t have any idea where she could have gone.”

  She would make a good poker player. He had no idea whether she was telling him the truth or not.

  “Is there anyone else she would have worked with here? B
esides her seam-stresses, I mean?” He had already called the three women who sewed for Linda.

  “There’s Mr. Opperman, of course. The owner. He makes all the design decisions. And I think she had one or two of Ray’s crew help her with some of the heavy work. Installations she couldn’t handle on her own.”

  It looked like he wasn’t going to get out of this without speaking to Opperman. Another exercise in humility. “Can I speak to the foreman? And is there a number where I could contact Mr. Opperman?”

  “He’s supposed to be back this afternoon,” Barbara said.

  “The foreman?”

  “Mr. Opperman.”

  “Here?” he said. “I thought the business was based in Baltimore.”

  “He’s found it more . . . feasible to live here during the rebuilding. He’s been away in New York City for a few days. He was going to drive up today, but I’m not sure if he’ll make it, with the storm coming on.”

  Away for a few days? Oh, God, could it be that simple? “Was he alone in New York? Could Linda have been with him?”

  Now he could make out what was behind her eyes. Pity. “As far as I know, he was alone. He’s been meeting with travel companies about promoting the Algonquin. I can’t vouch for his off-hours, but he’s been in touch with me every day, either by phone or by fax.”

  “But you don’t know for sure, do you? Is there any way to find out? If she’s there?”

  You really have been left behind like a three-legged dog, her expression said. She crossed her arms over her chest and bent her head. Russ sat, literally on the edge of his seat, afraid to breathe for fear of making her jump the wrong way. Come on, come on.

  “Let me try something.” She stood up and went around to her side of the desk. She picked up her phone and punched in a shortcut number.

  “Hello,” she said. “This is Barbara LeBlanc of the Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort. May I speak to Mr. Sacramone?” There was a pause. Then: “Fine, thanks. And you?” She smiled. “You flatterer. Watch out, one of these days I’m going to take you up on your offer.” The flattering Mr. Sacramone went on for a half minute or so. “He has?” She looked at Russ. “He said he’d try to get back today. He can always stop in Albany if the weather gets too bad.” A pause. She laughed. “Yes, I’m sure I’ll be the one booking him a room in a snowstorm.”