To Darkness and to Death

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “Are you having second thoughts?”

  Clare’s voice broke him out of his reverie. “About what?”

  She jammed her hands into her bomber jacket pockets and stared straight ahead. “Walking with me. In public.”

  He laughed. “Are you kidding?” He looked at her more closely. Under a sodium streetlight, she was burnished orange, striped by black shadows from a leafless maple arcing over them. Like a kid wearing tiger face paint for Halloween. “No,” he said more seriously. “I don’t worry about stuff like that.” He hesitated. “Do you? Did—has anyone said anything to you?” By anyone, he meant Hugh Parteger. He was trying, he really was, not to be unreasonably jealous, especially because he recognized that if he were a better friend to Clare, he’d be throwing her toward the rich, single guy who was obviously nuts for her, instead of snarling like a dog in the manger.

  She glanced behind her. “I had a visit from the diocesan deacon this afternoon. Before you, uh, arrived.”

  “I hope you didn’t entertain him in your bathrobe, too.”

  She glared at him, then blew at a strand of hair that had worked its way free of her usual knot. “It turns out the bishop sent Father Aberforth to—”

  “Wait a sec. Who’s Father Aberforth?”

  “The diocesan deacon.”

  “Shouldn’t he be Deacon Aberforth?”

  She glanced up at him sideways, the ghost of a smile in her eyes. “Somebody hasn’t been reading The History and Customs of the Episcopal Church in America. Career deacons are, in fact, properly designated ‘Father.’ Unless, of course, they’re women, in which case I’m sure Aberforth refers to them as ‘Ms.’ ” She snorted. “Anyway, he was there to call me out on a serious matter. One that he attributed to my inexperience and to not understanding how people will talk in a small town. A matter he wanted to keep quiet so as not to give any other priests bad ideas.”

  His stomach sank.

  “Us?” “Ha! Exactly what I thought. I was sure someone had come tattling to the bishop about seeing the two of us together.”

  “We’re not doing anything wrong,” he said automatically.

  “Oh, Russ.” She looked up at him ruefully. “Tell me you’d have no qualms describing our relationship to your wife. And make me believe it.”

  He kept his mouth shut.

  “Anyway, it turned out he and the bishop are hot under the collar about Emil Dvorak’s and Paul Foubert’s union ceremony. I was supposed to apologize and repent, and I wouldn’t—”

  “What a surprise,” he said under his breath.

  “—so Father Aberforth is going to talk to the bishop and let me know what shape my discipline will take.”

  “Discipline? This isn’t just them getting cranky?”

  She shook her head, sending another strand of hair floating loose.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “I could be removed. Have to try to find a position in another diocese with a disrecommendation from my bishop.”

  “Another diocese. In New York?” Leave? Leave? How could you leave?

  “Maybe. I’d probably have better luck in one of the more liberal dioceses, like Maine or New Hampshire.”

  Okay. New Hampshire wasn’t that far away. Of course, coming up with an excuse to visit there would be a challenge. And traveling to see Clare would be tantamount to acknowledging, to himself at least, that they were having an affair. Whether or not they were sleeping together. He tasted the idea: him and Clare, together, somewhere no one knew his name or marital status. How long would his self-control and fidelity to his vows, both of which he took great pride in, last under those circumstances?

  About forty minutes, was his guess.

  She looked up at him, her face grim, and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing. “It’s not getting censured that upsets me. It’s the fact that the whole time I thought Father Aberforth was talking about us, I was frantically thinking of ways to discredit what he might have heard.”

  “That’s natural. Your bishop can’t get on you for your thoughts, Clare. Only for your actions.”

  “Don’t you see? I wasn’t thinking about what was true, or what was right, or about being honest in my relationship with my church. I was thinking about covering my ass. Period.”

  They had come to the intersection of Main and Radcliff. A wind off the mountains skirled across the open streets, rustling dried leaves and drawing a shiver from Clare. At least, he hoped it was the wind making her cold. They turned left toward the hospital. He considered, and rejected, several variations on Buck up! It’s not so bad! Finally he settled on “What can I do to help?”

  Her lips curved. “You make me think of that Star Trek episode. Where Captain Kirk tells his love interest ‘Can I help’ is the most beautiful phrase in the universe.”

  “Yeah, and then she gets run over by a truck. Let’s not go there.”

  She looked away from him. “I’m wondering if I ought to talk with someone. About”—she waved a hand, indicating him, her, the town, everything— “the situation.” She glanced up at him again, and in the streetlight he could see her anxiety. “I wouldn’t have to name you.”

  He was embarrassed. That had been his first thought, that he would be exposed. “To Father Aberforth?”

  “Probably not. He hasn’t struck me as the sympathetic sort so far.”

  He gagged the part of him that was yelling, Tell? Are you crazy? This was about her, not about him. “Is that what you want?” he asked carefully. “Sympathy?”

  Her shoulder sagged. “I don’t know what I want. Absolution, I guess. For someone to tell me that I can sustain this tightrope act with you without hopelessly compromising my standards. For someone to confirm that what I feel for you isn’t wrong, that it’s a gift from God.”

  “Some gift.” They rounded the corner and saw the Washington County Hospital sign glowing white and blue in the darkness. “ ‘Here, here’s your soul mate, the person who completes you. Whoops, did I mention you can’t actually be together? Have a nice day.’ ”

  He glanced down at her. She was looking ahead, a complicated smile on her face. “That’s the nature of His gifts. He wants to see what you do with them.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll stick to stuff from stores that take a return with receipt.” They had reached the walkway to the admissions lobby. Smokers clustered along the wall, the tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark. From the parking lot, visitors drifted up in twos and threes toward the doors. A nurse and a man in a wheelchair waited for a car making its way along the circular drive.

  He turned to Clare. “If you need to talk with someone, do it.”

  She looked at him doubtfully.

  “I mean it. This”—he waved his hand in exactly the same way she had earlier, wondering why he couldn’t come up with a better way to indicate an emotional tidal wave threatening to swamp his life— “shouldn’t make you less of who you are. I don’t want that, and if you have to go to confession or talk to the bishop or whatever, you should do it.”

  “And name names?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “If you have to. Although, I gotta tell you the truth, I’d rather you fudged the identity thing if you can. But if you have to, go ahead.” He settled his glasses firmly over his ears. “Just don’t make yourself smaller for me.”

  She nodded.

  “Let’s get inside. Talk to people who have worse problems than we do.”

  6:10 P.M.

  The first thing Rachel said when Lisa opened the door was “You do know your house is being watched, don’t you?” “What? Where?” Lisa stepped past her sister onto the doorstep. The automatic floodlight had come on when Rachel drove into the dooryard, and the beaten dirt and withered grass were brilliantly, if temporarily, lit. “I don’t see anybody.”

  “Across the road from the start of your drive. I could see the squad car. I don’t know who’s staking you out, but it’s not Mark.”


  Lisa stepped back inside and pulled the door shut behind her. “How do you know?”

  Madeline was sound asleep on her sister’s shoulder, her eyelids almost translucent to her fine blue veins, her pink mouth open. A tiny snore bubbled from her nose. “Here, take her for a moment,” Rachel said, easing the five-year-old off her shoulder. Lisa took her niece, grunting slightly. Maddy’s frail baby-girl look was deceiving.

  Rachel stripped off her coat. “Whoever was in the squad car waved to me. Mark would’ve flashed his lights.” She wiggled Madeline’s jacket off the little girl. “She fell asleep in the car,” she explained. “Mark dropped her off with the Tuckers when he was called in. Three little girls and a hyperactive dog—she probably didn’t stop running the whole time she was there.”

  “You want to put her down in my bed?”

  “Thanks.”

  Lisa mounted the stairs, one hand on the banister to keep her from keeling over backward beneath the unexpected weight. Rachel slipped past her in the hall, and by the time Lisa reached her bedroom, her sister had the covers drawn back on the double bed. Lisa laid her niece down. The little girl curled like a bear cub in its den and buried her face in the pillow. Rachel tucked the bedclothes around Madeline, and the two sisters stood looking at her in the light shafting in from the hallway.

  “She looks like a total angel,” Lisa said quietly.

  “It’s an adaptive trait,” her sister said in the same low voice. “The child who looks sweet and adorable while sleeping is the child whose parents forget what a pain in the butt she can be when awake.”

  Lisa smiled lopsidedly. Rachel could afford to be cynical about kids. She already had one. Lisa had hoped, this year, maybe . . . but if Randy went to prison, there weren’t going to be any kids, not this year. Maybe not ever.

  Rachel, perhaps reading her mind, wrapped an arm around Lisa’s waist and hugged her. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go downstairs and have a drink.”

  In the kitchen, Lisa ladled out two bowls of stew to go with their rum and Cokes. Rachel dug into hers, but Lisa had no appetite. She sat and watched her sister eat and listened to her dole out sensible advice between bites.

  “You have got to call an attorney. Forget the whole court-appointed thing. Believe me, when it comes to criminal trials, you get what you pay for, and you have to be willing to pay for the best.”

  “How are we going to afford that?”

  “Mortgage your house? Sell it? You’ll find a way. Mom and Dad may help out.”

  Lisa stared into her stew. “Great. Then we can spend the rest of our lives getting out from under a mountain of debt.”

  “I’m only saying. If it was Mark, that’s what I’d do.”

  “What if they don’t find Randy?”

  Rachel wiped her mouth and pointed the napkin at her sister. “Lisa, you can’t get on a Greyhound bus nowadays without showing some ID. Even tiny little police departments like ours have computerized records and access to national databases. How long do you think Randy could last out there under those circumstances?”

  “But you’re always hearing about crimes where no one was caught.”

  “No one was caught because no one was ever identified as the perpetrator. That’s not what’s happening here. The woman ID’d Randy.”

  “Then it’s her word against his! And he has an alibi!”

  Rachel put her spoon down. “And that’s exactly why he needs a sharp laywer. Somebody who can take whatever holes exist and tear ’em open enough so that the jury has a reasonable doubt about whether Randy did it.”

  Lisa wanted to shove her bowl and spoon out of the way, to set her forehead against the table and weep. She wanted a way out of this nightmare, and her sister, with her steady, implacable voice, was telling her there was none.

  The phone rang.

  “You want me to get that?” Rachel said.

  “No.” Lisa rose from her chair and crossed the kitchen. “Hello,” she said into the receiver, already thinking about how quickly she could get off the phone and how on earth she was supposed to find a good criminal lawyer.

  “Hey, honey. It’s me. Can you talk?”

  “Randy!” Across the kitchen, Rachel sat up straighter. “Babe, where are you? No, wait, don’t tell me yet. Are you safe?”

  “I’m fine. Look, I need to talk with you.”

  “So talk.”

  “In person.”

  Her eyes widened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “It’s really important. I think I have a way to get out of this mess. Remember how I told you I left some stuff in Mr. Reid’s office? To, you know, make him look suspicious instead of me?”

  “I do, babe. That was so smart of you.”

  “What if I told you I might have a way to get him to confess that he beat up Becky Castle?”

  Lisa stared at the phone. Now what was he thinking? She couldn’t begin to imagine, which probably meant it wasn’t that good an idea. “I’d say that sounds . . . not very likely,” she said.

  “I don’t want to get into all the details right now,” he said. “Please, honey. You gotta trust me. I need you to help me pull this off.”

  Oh, boy, she was going to regret this. “Okay.”

  “Great! Come to the Reid-Gruyn mill. Park in the back of the employee parking lot. You’ll see my truck. I’ll meet you there.”

  The Reid-Gruyn mill? She had figured he would be halfway to Plattsburgh, holed up in a motel by now. “Where are you calling from?”

  “The employee break room.”

  “That’s crazy! Somebody will spot you!”

  “That’s why I want to get off the phone.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said. “I love you. Bye.” She hung up without waiting to hear his reply.

  “What’s going on?” Rachel’s voice, behind her, startled her. While she was wrapped up in the call, Rachel had risen from the table and was now standing in the doorway.

  “He wants me to meet him.”

  “Where is he?”

  Lisa looked at her sister. Rachel’s face colored. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! What do you think I’m going to do?”

  “Oh, Rache.” Lisa opened her arms and gathered her reluctant sister into an embrace. “If you don’t know anything, you won’t have to choose between protecting me or lying to Mark.”

  Rachel took Lisa by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “Please, please promise me you’ll consider what I said. About getting a lawyer.”

  “I will. I am.”

  Lisa broke away and strode through the living room. She had opened the closet door and had her hand on her jacket when Rachel said, “Not that way. You’ll be followed.”

  “Huh?”

  Rachel pushed Lisa’s jacket back into the closet. She grabbed her bright red parka from where she had tossed it over the back of a chair. “Wear this.”

  Lisa put it on.

  “My keys are in the car,” Rachel said. “Wave to the cop watching the end of your drive. If any car flashes its lights at you, flash back.”

  “What about Maddy’s booster seat? Will he notice that it’s empty?”

  “I’ve got a tote bag full of books and Maddy’s backpack in there. Stack them in the seat and drape one of her blankies over everything.” She hugged her sister. “For God’s sake, be careful.”

  The expression on Rachel’s face made Lisa pause. “Are you sure?” she said. “I don’t want to screw up your marriage or get you into trouble.”

  Rachel smiled an echo of a smile. “We’re sisters. Of course I’m sure. Now go. The faster you get to wherever it is, the faster you can get back.”

  There was something about starting up Rachel’s car, wearing Rachel’s parka, that made Lisa feel less like a desperate wife out to help her fugitive husband and more like a teenager breaking curfew. Her hands shook with nervous excitement as she shifted into gear, and she held her breath as she rolled down the length of her drive.

&nb
sp; She reached the hardtop road and put on her blinkers in the opposite direction from where she intended to go—just in case. Sure enough, parked in the darkness, sat a squad car, just as Rachel had said. Lisa hunched into the parka, and as she turned onto the road and passed the cop car, she raised her whole arm and waved, putting as much sleeve between her face and the window as possible.

  She drove in a state of suspended animation for the next several minutes, her eyes on the rearview mirror instead of the road, expecting at any moment to see swirling red lights and headlights flashing her to the side of the road. But nothing happened. No one was following her. She had gotten away with it. She grinned, and the feeling of power and relief that flooded her body was almost enough to make the earlier fear and anxiety worthwhile. She switched her attention to the road in front of her. She had to find a crossroad to take her to one of the roads that would set her on the route to the Reid-Gruyn mill.

  6:15 P.M.

  The first thing Clare heard was raised voices. Halfway down the hall from Becky Castle’s room, she stopped in her tracks as Ed Castle bellowed, “Goddammit, whyn’t you stop harassing her and find the son of a bitch who put her here!”

  Russ frowned and quickened his pace. In other rooms, behind half-closed doors, hushed visitors clutched bouquets and green plants and peered toward the hall. Suzanne Castle’s voice fed the interest: “Will you be quiet, Ed! You’re upsetting her!”

  Clare broke into a jog, catching up with Russ in time to round the corner and see him plunge through the door to Becky’s room.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Ed Castle snarled. She couldn’t see his expression, but he didn’t sound like a man ready to forgive and forget.

  Clare hovered in the doorway. Russ filled the minuscule hallway between the toilet and the rest of the room, and she didn’t want to squeeze past him and stick her foot through the moment.