Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries)

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “Nevertheless, the disciplinary canons are clear. Under Section Four, Title Four, Ms. Fergusson could be brought up on charges of sexual misconduct and conduct unbecoming to a priest.” He raised his hand against the room’s instant uproar. “The bishop has no wish to convene a disciplinary panel. He feels the resulting publicity would reflect poorly on St. Alban’s, the diocese, and the church as a whole.” From across the table, Aberforth pinned her with his black eyes. “Therefore, he is offering you the chance to quietly resign. If you do so, no actions will be taken, and you will be free to seek a parish in another diocese without the taint of charges following you.”

  Resign? Clare swallowed. “Does he … do I have to give you my answer right now?”

  “No. I’ve informed him of your upcoming vacation, and suggested a period of quiet reflection and prayer, away from the press of your day-to-day duties, would be beneficial. You can give us your answer when you return.”

  “So … a week?”

  Aberforth nodded. The vestry erupted into arguments; Geoff threatening, Mrs. Marshall high-handed, Mr. Madsen pointing out the pros and cons of the plan to anyone who would listen.

  The archdeacon continued to look at her intently. What was he trying to say? Should she take the offer? Should she fight? Was the bishop seeing this as a test? Or as an opportunity?

  One week. Her hands curled over the edge of the black oak table as if she could anchor herself to it. One week.

  7.

  Kevin Flynn had expected the wreckage of the burned home to be messy. Cinders, charcoal, melted snow refrozen to ice—picking his way around the rubble of the MacAllens’ life had already coated his boots with a gray slime and stained his uniform pants up to the knee. What he hadn’t expected was the smell.

  “God.” He waved his glove beneath his nose in a vain attempt to clear some breathing space. “Stinks like an industrial accident in New Jersey.”

  “Yeah.” Patrick Lent, the state arson investigator, didn’t look up from his camera, aimed at a stack of debris the rest of the fire marshal’s team was sorting through. “The crap that gets released when a house burns is crazy. Toxic chemicals, asbestos, lead.” He snapped off a series of photos. “The insulation, the electrical system, rubber, plastic—that’s why we’ve got my partner here.” Lent made a gesture, and the dog that had been sitting quietly a few feet away rose and trotted to his side. Unlike most K-9 police dogs, the arson dog wasn’t in a vest or identifying collar. He could have been someone’s mutt, a mix of German shepherd and Lab, maybe, watching the scene.

  “What’s he do?” Kevin asked.

  “Dakota’s trained to sniff out accelerants. Somebody could have gone through this house with a bucket of paraffin-oil blend, and you and I couldn’t tell. But Dakota catches the smallest trace of a fire-starter and can track it for miles.”

  “What about the bodies?” Both men looked to the far corner of the ruined house, where firemen were shifting debris from a towering pile suspected to have been an upstairs bedroom. Part of the second floor had collapsed onto the floor below, making the search a slow excavation rather than a quick retrieval. Nothing had been found yet, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time.

  “He hasn’t been trained to find corpses. He’ll ignore humans, unless they’ve got accelerant on them.” Lent pointed to the charred and listing timbers framing nonexistent rooms. “Dakota. Seek.”

  The dog trotted toward the ruins. He entered through the shell of the front door and veered to the left, picking his way over the wreckage, nosing in what looked to Kevin like a random pattern. Suddenly, he sat.

  “Huh,” Lent said. “That was fast.” He walked toward where the dog was sitting. “Show me.” The dog scratched. Lent bent over and placed a marker where his canine partner had indicated. “I’ll take the evidence sample after Dakota’s run the rest of the house. Seek.”

  The dog sprang up and headed toward what must have been the center hall. Abruptly, he sat again.

  “Does he do that every time?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah. He’ll only scratch to indicate the spot. Keeps him from injuring himself.” The arson investigator set another marker. “Seek.”

  The dog went a few feet and sat again. Kevin and Lent followed the dog throughout the house, walking, sitting, marking. After forty minutes, they had a trail of fluorescent flags streaming in and out of every room.

  “Jesus,” Kevin said. “Whoever did this wasn’t leaving much to chance, was he?”

  “Doesn’t look like it.” Lent scratched Dakota’s head and gave him a treat.

  In the heap of charred rubble that had been a bedroom, one of the fire marshal’s men straightened. “Hey. Officers. We got remains.”

  Kevin and Lent made their way through the scorched and broken rooms. “If the owners were inside, chances are good it’s not going to be insurance fraud, which is what my first guess would have been.” Lent stepped back while two firemen lifted another timber out of the way. “The other most usual scenario is a pissed-off husband or boyfriend.”

  “They were an older married couple,” Kevin said.

  “Then I’d check out the grown kids. Do they have a daughter who broke up with someone? Left an abusive husband?”

  Two of the fire marshal’s men lifted a ragged panel that might have been attic insulation. “There they come,” another man said.

  Kevin concentrated on keeping his face neutral and his stomach down. He had seen death before, but not like this. The two corpses, blackened, mummylike, were barely identifiable as human. Age, gender, and features had all been burned away. The bodies curled toward one another, as if they had been—“It looks like they were just lying there.”

  “We see that a lot,” Lent said. “The smoke gets them in their sleep. These two probably never even woke up.”

  Thank God for that. Kevin stepped closer as the arson investigator picked up his camera again. “We’ll get the shots, and then you can bag the remains,” Lent told the fire marshal’s men.

  “Wait.” Kevin removed his leather gloves and stuffed them in his parka pocket before tugging on purple evidence gloves in their place. He bent over the two heads. Each skull had charred cracks radiating from a chipped hole. He touched one hole lightly. His finger went all the way through. “The hell? These look like gunshot wounds.” He glanced up at Lent. “Is this some sort of natural result of extreme heat?”

  “No. It’s not.” The arson investigator’s voice was grim. “Better call in your ME.”

  Kevin retreated to his squad car, grateful for the chance to warm up. He held one hand out to the vent as he keyed his mic with the other. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-sixty-three.”

  “Fifteen-sixty-three, go ahead.”

  “Requesting a medical examiner at 52 Crandell Hill Road. We’ve found—” He almost said the MacAllens’ remains, but the chief’s rule stopped him. Never assume. “Human remains. Two adults who appear to have been shot in the head.”

  “Roger that, fifteen-sixty-three. Please hold.” Kevin unscrewed the lid of his thermos and took a swig. He almost spat the mouthful out. His hot chocolate had gone cold and gritty.

  “Kevin?” MacAuley’s voice crackled over the radio. “What’s this about the burn vics having GSWs?”

  “We found remains,” Kevin repeated. “Two adults. Both of them with what appeared to be gunshot wounds to the skull.”

  “What’s the arson guy say?”

  Flynn unzipped his parka and let the heat seep inside. “There was accelerant all over the place. Looks like someone walked around the house with a twenty-five-gallon can of gasoline.”

  There was a pause, during which, Kevin knew, MacAuley was swearing. Finally his radio came on again. “Roger that,” MacAuley said. “Harlene says the ME’s on his way. I’ll let the chief know. I got a feeling this is gonna put a cramp in his honeymoon.”

  8.

  Russ closed his eyes. God. “Okay. Obviously this is top priority.” He opened his eyes again. Ly
le was still standing there, a sorry-to-be-the-bearer-of-bad-tidings expression on his face. “I’m authorizing any overtime necessary. Call me with updates.”

  “You’re still going off on your vacation?”

  “Jesus, Lyle. You take off every other day during hunting season. I can’t get a week off for my damn honeymoon?”

  “We’re looking at a double homicide! Who’s gonna run the investigation if you’re away? Eric’s—” Lyle dropped his voice, even though the only other person in the station was Harlene, and she knew everybody’s business already. “Eric can’t take lead on this. He’s on night shift right now. He’s barely clocking thirty hours with all his…” Lyle made a vague gesture. “Stuff.”

  Sergeant Eric McCrea’s “stuff” was two anger-management sessions a week and therapy with his estranged wife. All of which made him pretty much unavailable for an investigation, a temporary arrangement Russ had signed off on.

  “I know it’s a bad time. And I know if I stay and work the case we won’t have as much overtime. But let’s face it, there’s never a good time.” Russ looked at the corkboard, full to overflowing with circ sheets, alerts, and be-on-lookout faxes. “There’s always going to be some case going on. There’s always going to be a good reason to come in early and stay late and drop in on the weekend and postpone the vacation.” He looked at Lyle. “I screwed up my first marriage because whenever the choice came between Linda and my job, I picked the job. Every. Damn. Time. I’m not going to make the same mistake with Clare.”

  “You’ve got some all-new mistakes to make with her, huh?”

  Russ snorted. “No doubt.” He picked up the case file Lyle had thrust into his hands and gave it back it to his deputy. “You already know you can run this place without me. Put Kevin on as lead investigator with Knox as his support.”

  “Kevin? The guy who trips over himself with excitement when we’ve got a homicide? Paired with Knox, who was working as a California car-show model two years ago.” Lyle stuck out his leg. “Pull the other one.”

  “They’re perfectly capable. We sent Kevin off on those TDYs to upgrade his skill set. Time to get our money’s worth out of him.” Before he jumped ship for Syracuse. “And Knox may still be a little green, but she’s smart and tough. She wasn’t showing off cars on a turntable when she was working for the DOC.” In fact, it had been Hadley’s stint as a prison guard that had convinced Russ to hire her.

  Lyle made a noise that was a cross between skepticism and surrender. Russ slapped his arm. “You and I aren’t going to be here forever. We’ve got to give the next generation a chance to step into our shoes once in a while.” He grinned. “I can just see it now. Chief Flynn and Deputy Chief Knox.”

  “The day Kevin Flynn puts on your badge is the day I hole up in my fishing shack on Raquette Lake. Stock the place with a few hundred pounds of that freeze-dried crap and wait for the end of the world.”

  “Well, don’t plan your retirement yet. You and I—”

  “Chief!” Harlene called. “Better get in here.”

  “What?” Russ looked at his watch. “Is it Clare?”

  “No. Get over here.” In times of stress, the dispatcher ignored the convenient fiction that Russ was her boss. He and Lyle crossed the hall into the dispatch room.

  Harlene waved them closer, setting her springy gray curls in motion. “Hold on a sec, Merva,” she said into her headset. She snapped a switch. “Okay, I’ve put you on the speaker. The chief’s right here.”

  “Russell?”

  He recognized the voice. Merva was one of his father’s cousins, halfway between his parents’ generation and his own. She worked in the town clerk’s office. “Yeah, Merva, I’m here. What’s up?”

  “You need to get over here to the town hall and you need to do it right now. They’re talking about the police department.”

  Russ frowned. “Who is?”

  “The aldermen. They’re going into a closed-door meeting.” Meaning the public hadn’t been notified in advance.

  “It’s okay, Merva. I’ve put in a request to hire another officer. They’re probably in there complaining about the cost.” The only thing they liked to bitch about more than the MKPD was the road department.

  “They’re not complain’ about hiring a new officer.” Merva dropped her voice. “They’re talking about getting rid of you.”

  “Me? What do you mean?” Russ’s contract had just been renewed at the start of the fiscal year.

  “No, no, not you, personally.” She sounded flustered. “The department. The whole police department. They’re talking about getting the state police to take over patrolling here and Cossayuharie and Fort Henry. There’s been other towns done it and saved lots of money.”

  Lyle and Harlene stared at him. What the hell? Russ took a deep breath. “I’ll be there in five minutes. Thanks, Merva.” He nodded. Harlene switched the call off. “Christ on a bike. What the hell is Jim Cameron thinking?”

  “It might not be the mayor’s idea,” Lyle said. “The aldermen’ve been pushing hard to shrink the budget.”

  “On the backs of our department? Those penny-pinching sons of bitches.” Russ ducked into his office and snatched his parka off its hook. “Harlene, I’m supposed to meet Clare by three thirty. Will you call her and tell her I’ll be late?”

  “I’m coming with you.” Lyle, his parka in hand, fell into step as Russ strode down the hall. “You need somebody to stop you from going in there with guns blazing.”

  “Fine. You can be the good cop.” He paused in front of the outside door and tugged his MKPD watch cap on. Lyle opened the door, letting a gust of icy air into the hall. “Wait a sec.” Russ wheeled around and jogged back up the hall to dispatch. “Harlene? You got my wife on the line yet?”

  “Just about to call her now.”

  “Good. Listen. Just tell her I had to respond to a call.” He grimaced. “She doesn’t need one more thing to worry about.”

  9.

  Clare was about to head back to the rectory when Lois caught her with the message from Harlene. She checked her watch, looked out the diamond-paned windows of her office at the late-afternoon slant of the sun, and frowned. Russ was the one who had wanted to be on the road by three, so they wouldn’t be unloading the truck after dark. It figured. Her earlier hesitation about going had vanished in the wake of the bishop’s ultimatum. Questions, decisions, explanations, apologies—suddenly, sitting alone in a cabin staring at a frozen lake for a few days sounded pretty damn good.

  She sighed and headed to the undercroft to see if she could lend a hand with the the Young Mothers program. At three o’clock, the teens and their children would have just arrived. The young moms would be doing their homework or talking with one of the mentors about job hunting or child rearing, while their kids were cared for next door.

  The nursery in St. Alban’s undercroft was as cheery as two windowless rooms could be, with lemon yellow walls and puffy white painted clouds forever floating over a blue painted sky. Sundays, the space sheltered the youngest members of her congregation. The rest of the week, it served as day care, homework spot, and employment center for teen mothers.

  Clare opened the playroom door, bumping into a toddler and sending him staggering forward. Another two-year-old, taking advantage of his loss of balance, rammed into him and grabbed the doll he’d been holding. The little boy screeched, the thief laughed, and another child at the play kitchen started banging pots together. “Oh, Lord.” Clare didn’t know which one to deal with first. “I’m sorry.”

  “Clare! What are you doing here?” Karen Burns, one of the volunteers, laid an infant in a playpen and expertly scooped up the red-faced little boy. “Here you go, Braeden, here’s a baby for you.” She wiggled a doll in Braeden’s face. He snatched the substitute. When Karen let him down, the avaricious little girl came at him again. “Uh-uh, Jazmin.” Karen performed a knee block that would have done the New York Rangers proud. She steered Jazmin toward the low table at the other
end of the room. “You and I can change our babies together.” Karen lifted the infant back out of the playpen, then handed the pots-and-pans musician a basket of fake food. “Kiefer, can you make us all a yummy meal?” The boy accepted the container and began laying plastic pork chops and burgers on wooden skillets. Karen did a sort of shift-and-flip and the baby on her arm was lying on the changing table with its feet waving in the air.

  “Oh my God, Karen.” Clare shook her head. “I’m never going to be able to do this. I mean it. I am so unprepared for motherhood, it’s not funny.”

  Karen’s hands flew as she unsnapped, ripped, folded, and tossed. “You’ll learn. We all do.”

  “I don’t even know how to change a diaper.”

  Karen held out a box of wipes. “Want to learn?”

  Clare wrinkled her nose. “Not really.”

  Karen laughed. “Trust me, I felt the same way the first time we brought a foster child home. Utterly incompetent in the face of a six-month-old. But I figured if I could make it through law school and pass the New York bar, I could learn how to mash bananas and give baths in the sink.”

  “You bathe them in the sink?”

  Karen gave her an amused look. “I have some books I can pass on to you.” She hoisted the now-fresh baby into the air, kissed her terry-covered tummy, and handed her to Clare. “Here.”

  Clare reflexively accepted the bundle.

  “So what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be off for seven glorious days and six fun-filled nights in an ice-fishing shack?” Karen moved to the sink and turned on the faucet. “For which, by the way, you earn the saintly wife award. If Geoff had suggested something like that for our honeymoon, our marriage would’ve ended after the reception.”

  “It’s a beautiful vacation cabin with eight hundred feet of shoreline. It’s the ideal year-round getaway.” At least that’s what the Realtor had said. Russ’s description had been more succinct. No phone, no neighbors, and too far for your parishioners to just drop in. “This is our chance to try it before we buy it.”