I Shall Not Want

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  She could feel her face heat up. “No, sir. My granddad is supposed to be taking care of them.”

  The chief glanced toward Reverend Clare. “At the church?”

  “It’s fine if they’re here, Hadley.” Clare laid her hand on Hadley’s arm. “It’s just a shame—” She glanced at the backpack and bit her lower lip.

  They saw the gun and the drug money?

  “A shame they have to be inside on such a beautiful day.”

  Nice save.

  “You probably don’t know this, being new to town, but Gail Jones, our education director, runs a wonderful day camp for the Millers Kill rec department. Seven weeks in July and August. It’s very affordable.”

  Eight hundred dollars for two kids. The reverend had a different idea of affordable than she did.

  “Told her all about it,” Granddad said. “She just waved me off. Maybe she’ll listen to you, Father.”

  Reverend Clare’s eyes lit with comprehension. She stepped closer to Hadley, turning her back toward the chief, shutting out the two men. “Hadley, have you ever heard of the priest’s purse?” She spoke quietly, but Hadley could see Van Alstyne prick up his ears. “That’s discretionary money, left out of the budget, that I can use as necessary. No questions asked. We have enough to pay for a couple of summer camp memberships.”

  “Thank you,” Hadley said, her voice tight, “but we’ll be fine.” That was it. She was never going to be able to show her face in this church again. She tore herself away from the priest’s sympathetic, understanding, unendurable gaze. “I’m ready to go if you are,” she said to the chief.

  Van Alstyne, thank God, just nodded. “Okay.” He shouldered the backpack before glancing back. “Clare,” he said.

  The rector nodded.

  “Keep the doors locked and the alarms up. Here and at your house. I’m going to put you and the church on the patrol sweep for the next few days, so expect to see squad cars a lot more frequently.”

  She lifted her chin. “Can I expect you to check in as well?”

  Hadley, hugging Genny and Hudson good-bye, couldn’t see the chief’s face, but his tone made her think he was talking about something more than police business.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “You can expect that.”

  V

  Another thing about police work Hadley was discovering: it was nothing like the television shows. For one thing, the uniform didn’t look half as good on her as it did on actresses. She suspected hand tailoring, and maybe a higher quality fabric than poly/rayon Wear-ev-r. For another thing, scoring a bag of money and a gun didn’t immediately open up new avenues for the investigation. Instead, they waited and waited and waited to get a report back from the state ballistics lab.

  In the meantime, she went on patrols with the chief or Eric McCrea, and drove her beater down to Albany for Basic, and worked all day on the Fourth of July. She shopped and trimmed Genny’s hair and kept a worried eye on Granddad, who was smoking again when he didn’t think she’d know and skipping his medication unless she poured it out and handed it to him. “I feel fine,” he’d grumble, all the while looking pale and sweaty. He wouldn’t hear of her mowing the lawn instead of him, and only by sending him to church with the kids Sunday and staying home was she able to sneak the job in. Even then, she lied and told him one of the neighbor’s kids did it to earn a few bucks. In some ways, living with Granddad was as exhausting as living with her ex had been, although with Granddad she didn’t have to worry about drugs or STDs.

  On Monday, assembling for the morning briefing, her head was still half at home, worrying about what the kids would be doing and how Granddad was holding up. If Flynn hadn’t nudged her, she would have forgotten her notebook.

  “Here’s the bad news,” the chief said, hiking himself onto the table. “This is today’s Post-Star.” He held up the front page. CONCERN MOUNTS AS STRING OF MURDERS REMAINS UNSOLVED, the headline read. Squinting, Hadley could make out the subhead: AREA BUSINESSES FEAR TOURISTS WILL STAY AWAY.

  Paul Urquhart snorted. “I say we can do with a few less straphangers. They just grab all the parking spaces and make it so it takes ten minutes to drive up Main Street.”

  “Because they’re shopping at our stores and pumping money into our economy.” The chief folded the paper in half and laid it on the table. “There were a lot fewer people around on the Fourth this year. The local businesses have a right to be concerned.”

  “Does this mean the board of aldermen’s gonna be on your tail, Chief?” Noble Entwhistle asked.

  “You let me worry about them. The rest of you need to be prepared to field even more questions about the investigation. Here’s the company line: it’s proceeding well, leads are developing, and there’s no reason to be afraid.”

  “That’d be more convincing if we knew whether Amado Esfuentes was snatched or not,” Eric McCrea pointed out.

  “Which brings me to the good news. We’ve got ballistics on the gun found in Esfuentes’ backpack.”

  “You’re kidding,” Lyle MacAuley said, from his position propping up the whiteboard. “Less’n two weeks? How much extra did you grease ’em?”

  The chief grinned. “As Noble guessed, the mayor and the board of aldermen were screaming at me. I suggested they’d be of more use screaming to our assemblyman and representative. I understand several phone calls were made.”

  “Hah! Finally. Our tax dollars at work.”

  The chief pulled a stack of papers from a folder and handed them to Flynn, who took two, for himself and Hadley, then passed them back. “Here are your copies. The gun was a Taurus three-fifty-seven Magnum, not used in any of our unsub killings. We already knew that, because it wasn’t a twenty-two. However, the CAF lab says there’s a good chance it was a three-fifty-seven Magnum that fired on Sister Lucia’s van back in April.” He nodded toward Hadley and Flynn. “First District Anti-Gang Task Force says Taurus three-fifty-sevens are a hot item with various gangs in New York.”

  “Mexicans?” MacAuley asked.

  “Yeah,” the chief said. He flipped to the second page. “Fingerprints matched those taken from Reverend Fergusson’s house and identified as Amado Esfuentes’s. There are several good prints from a second—unknown—handler, and a third set on the cartridges. Those prints are nowhere else on the gun, and the second set don’t appear on the cartridges.”

  MacAuley jotted down the info on the whiteboard. “Guy number one was the last to load, he hands it to guy number two, who gives it to our missing boy.”

  “That’s my thought,” the chief said.

  Hadley looked around. No one was sitting poised at the edge of his chair, waiting to ask the question percolating in her mind. She sighed. “Chief, why wasn’t the gun wiped down? If it’s connected to the money, and we think the money comes from the drug trade, we’re talking about professionals, right? Why wouldn’t they take a basic precaution like getting rid of their fingerprints?”

  “They’re stupid. Or cocky,” Eric McCrea said.

  “Or,” MacAuley said, “they’re amateurs.” He set the marker down and reoriented himself to face the chief. “You’ve never liked the serial killer angle.”

  “Damn right, I haven’t.”

  “What if what we’re seeing here is the fallout from a turf war? What if we’ve got a group of guys up from Mexico on work passes who’ve figured out that selling pot is a lot more profitable than milking cows? Maybe they’ve got connections back home, relatives already in the trade in Central America or something?”

  “Or raising it here,” Flynn said. “There’re always farmers growing plants between rows of corn or guys up in the mountains with microplots.”

  The chief shook his head. “Homegrown is a little cash on the side up here. The weather’s too harsh for any kind of major cultivation, unless you’ve got a greenhouse, and that’s a hell of a job to conceal.” He twisted to face the deputy chief. “What about distribution? If somebody’s going head to head with the big boys, they’ve got
to have distributors up here. Those guys sell wholesale, not retail. CADEA thinks the various gangs that control the trade have been building up their networks for years. You’re not going to replace that overnight, no matter how many relatives you’ve got growing the stuff down in Guadalajara.”

  MacAuley flipped his hand open, as if throwing a card into play. “The guys on the street will go with whoever has the product. You replace the wholesaler, the rest of the organization falls into line.”

  “If you know who and where the dealers are. This isn’t Brooklyn or Manhattan. This is the North Country.” He pointed, and they all stared at the big map, three counties and a state park the size of Massachusetts splashed out in pastels against the stucco wall. “How the hell do you find the dealers in a territory this size? Not even counting the difficulties of being a Spanish-speaking alien in one of the least ethnically diverse parts of America.”

  There was a long pause as they all stared at the map. Hadley thought about how she, moving into a town she had only known as a visitor, found a hairdresser, a second-hand clothing store, the day-old bakery outlet. She had to ask around. It didn’t seem a likely technique for would-be drug lords.

  “Maybe someone’s switched sides?” The chief and MacAuley turned their attention to Flynn, who looked surprised that he had spoken out loud. “I mean, say you have the established distributor,” he went on. “It works a lot like any other company, right? A couple CEOs at the top make a lot of money, a few middle managers make decent money, and the rest of them are living from hand to mouth. Then some competition shows up. Maybe one of the little guys decides there’s a lot more potential for advancement if he takes what he knows and starts working for his bosses’ rivals.”

  MacAuley shook his head. “The little guys know whoever shows up and gets the stuff out of the back of the truck. They don’t have the big picture.”

  “Kevin’s got the right idea, though.” The chief reached for the coffee mug on the table beside him. “A turncoat makes the scenario more feasible.” He took a long pull, then sat cradling the mug in his hands. “The part that doesn’t fit is the timing of the murders. One in March, one roughly a year ago, and one older than that. If it’s intergang rivalry, it’s the slowest conflict in history.”

  MacAuley rubbed his lips with two fingers and nodded.

  “Okay, send everything we’ve got to the First District Anti-Gang Task Force. See if something rings a bell with them.”

  “You got it,” MacAuley said.

  “Eric, you’re continuing with background checks. See if you can get anything out of the CADEA.”

  “Yep.”

  “Everybody else is on patrol. I’ve called in Duane and Tim to handle the radar guns, so I want the rest of you very visible in town and in Cossayuharie. I want the community to know we’re on the job, looking out for them.”

  “What about the migrant workers?” Urquhart asked.

  The chief raised his eyebrows. “What about them?”

  “Well, if we think some of ’em might be moving pot, shouldn’t we round ’em up and fingerprint ’em? Send the info back to Mexico and see if anything pops up? They got some sort of Mexican FBI, don’t they?”

  Hadley could see the chief trying not to roll his eyes. “Yeah, they do. It’s the Agencia Federal de Investigación. However, we can’t just go rounding up migrants because we’ve been tossing around theories in the bullpen.”

  “Don’t see why in th’ hell not.” Urquhart crossed his arms.

  “Because nonresident aliens in the United States are protected by the same constitutional criminal protections as the rest of us,” Hadley said. “Oberlinski v. United States.” Jerk.

  The chief cracked a sideways smile. “Glad to see you’re paying attention at the Academy, Officer Knox.”

  She felt her face heat up.

  “On a happier note, I was checking the funds for the police basketball association, and there’s still money left for this year.” The chief looked somewhere over Hadley’s head, his face bland. “Since the PBA was meant to give kids something constructive to do—”

  “You mean, keep ’em from knocking over convenience stores,” MacAuley said.

  “—I’ve decided to use the remaining money to fund some campers at the rec department’s summer camp. I’ve already given the director enrollment info for two kids; if any of you know a family that could benefit from this, have ’em call Gail Jones at her office at the town hall.” He picked up his folders and his coffee cup and slid off the table. “That’s all, folks.”

  Hadley sat, frozen, while chairs scraped and shoes slapped and belts jingled. Something bumped against her, and she looked up to see Eric McCrea. “You feeling okay?” He squinted at her. “You look kind of feverish.”

  She nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, no.” She stood up, forcing Eric to scramble out of her way. “Excuse me.”

  She caught up with the chief right before he entered his office. “Chief,” she said. “About the summer camp thing—”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right.” He glanced at the clock. “The drop-off is at the middle school. If you hurry, you can get your kids there and be back in about forty-five minutes. You can work through lunch to make it up.”

  “Sir.” Her voice sounded strangled. “I can’t accept—”

  He looked down at her. “Officer Knox. This department is spending a good chunk of change on your training. I count a few hundred bucks to safeguard that investment as money well spent.”

  “I’m handling my home situation fine. I don’t need charity.” Now she sounded like a bitch. It was his fault. She didn’t ask to be put in this situation.

  He stepped into his office. Beckoned her in. Nudged the door half shut. He dropped his voice. “Look, Knox—Hadley. When Noble’s mother started to wander away from her house at odd hours, we wired her doors with a security alarm and checked in on her four times a day. When Harlene’s husband, Harold, got sick and had to go down to the Albany medical center twice a week, we drove him. This isn’t an insurance office or a restaurant. We have to trust each other with our lives. And that means we take care of our own.”

  There was a knock, and the deputy chief stuck his head in the door. “Hey,” he said. “You got a minute?”

  The chief looked at MacAuley a long moment, an expression on his face Hadley couldn’t make out. Then he nodded. “Sure.” He turned back to Hadley. “Go ahead. When you get back, you’ll patrol with me.”

  Hell. She’d look like an antisocial loner if she continued to protest. She tried to say thank you, but she couldn’t get the words out. She settled for jerking her head up and down before fleeing the office. Out in the hall, she heard MacAuley ask, “What was that all about?”

  “Oh, just touching base,” the chief said. “What was it you wanted?”

  She took off before she could start to feel grateful.

  VI

  Driving back to the station, Russ thought he had never been so busy doing so little in his entire career. He had dropped into enough stores, galleries, roadside stands, and mom-and-pops to write a shoppers’ guidebook. He checked in with anxious proprietors, listened to their worries, and assured them they and their customers would be safe and protected. In between, he and Knox responded to at least a dozen reports of possible intruders and suspicious persons, every one of which was either nonexistent or a befuddled innocent.

  The last call of the day—surprise, surprise—was Mrs. Bain. He groaned when Harlene gave him the report. “She says she’s heard thumping and clattering noises out back of her barn, and she says there was a carload of real suspicious-looking Hispanic men driving slowly past her house, checking it out.”

  He keyed the mic. “Hispanic men. That’s a new one. What about the prowler?”

  “Ayeah, the prowler’s back.”

  “Okay, copy the last report, change the date, and add in the Hispanics. Oh, and call one of the Bains and see if someone can come over, will you?”

  “Yo
u got it. Dispatch out.”

  Knox was looking at him with a doubtful expression. “Shirley Bain,” he explained, heeling the car around toward Cossayuharie. “Her only son lives down in Westchester. He likes to forget he grew up with manure on his boots, which I could forgive, except he also forgets to spend any time with his mother. So every three–four months she sees a prowler. We come out, look the place over, and write up a report, which we send to the son. He comes home for a weekend to make her feel safe, and then a few months later we do it all over again.”

  Mrs. Bain was sweet and apologetic and even more worried than usual as they walked around the barn, past clumps of day lilies and rhubarb gone to flower. Russ pointed out where some of her wood stack, drying in the late afternoon sun, had fallen.

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry, Russell. I guess I’m just a silly old woman. But with all these terrible things happening to the Mexicans, I’ve been so frightened. I have half a mind to buy myself a gun.”

  Russ spent the walk back to her house convincing her that would be a bad, bad idea. Mrs. Bain had, as always, baked before they arrived, and in the kitchen she bustled about serving chocolate chip cookies and iced tea. Russ silently drew Knox’s attention to the stack of recent Post-Stars in the recycling basket and the pile of true crime books waiting to go back to the library.

  When the elderly woman found out Knox had children, she was in ecstasy. She insisted on emptying the owl-in-spectacles cookie jar and giving the entire paper-bagged contents to the junior officer to take home.

  Russ was beginning to worry they weren’t going to escape before dinner, but then there was a knock at the door and Geraldine Bain yodeled, “Shirley? Let me in.”

  Mrs. Bain unlocked the door for her sister-in-law. At seventy, Geraldine was well past retirement age but kept her position in the Millers Kill Post Office through sheer determination not to miss a word of gossip circulating through the town.