Time to play one of his cards. “How about seeing Dr. Rouse today? Was that hard, emotionally?”
Her eyes went wide, showing white like a spooked calf’s. For a moment, all she did was blink at him. He held her gaze. “He was the one who called me,” she said, her voice loud. “He wanted to see me, not the other way around. I knew I wasn’t supposed to go near him. I told him so.”
He half closed his eyes to shield his satisfaction. “So why did you agree to get together?”
She sat up, away from the sheltering corner of the couch. “Because he said he had some important information about the vaccinations. I asked him to just tell me over the phone, I did! He was the one who insisted he had to show me in person.”
“Where did you meet him?”
She looked down at the floor. “This place. Out by Stewart’s Pond. He called it the Ketchem cemetery.”
He had one of those unpleasant moments when the inside of his head tilted and everything he had assumed he knew changed. “The Ketchem cemetery? Where is that?”
Debba seemed more exasperated than upset at this point. “I can give you exact directions, ’cause he gave them to me. Take Old Route 100 north. Turn off on the Old Sacandaga Road, cross the Hudson, and go another mile and a half until you see County Road 57 on the left. Follow that past-”
“A boat launch site,” he interrupted.
“Yeah,” she said.
“You go up a short hill, then at the top you pull off.”
She was looking at him oddly. “Yeah. You know the place.”
He thought of the gravestones clustering beneath the black pines. Cold, dark water. An old woman with her hair like a shroud of seaweed, staring at him. Staring at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know the place.” He dragged himself back to the moment. “You two met there. Was he driving his own car?”
“Of course he was.” She suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth. “There hasn’t been an accident, has there? I didn’t know-” She twisted in her seat, looking up at Clare. “He hurt himself, after we talked, I didn’t tell you. He slipped in the snow and smacked his head against one of the headstones.” She twisted back, facing Russ. “I tried to help him. Really. But he wouldn’t let me drive him. He said he had a first-aid kit in his own car.” She twisted again, the very picture of concern. “I shouldn’t have left him there all alone.” Back toward Russ. “Has there been an accident? Is he okay?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” he said, his voice mild. “He seems to have gone missing.” He rose from the oversized chair. “Can I use your phone?” he asked Clare.
She nodded, still gazing distractedly at the woman on her couch.
“Maybe you can show me where it is?” He had hung up his coat less than a foot away from where the phone hung.
Her eyes sharpened. “Certainly,” she said. “Follow me.”
Once through the swinging doors at the end of the living room, she turned to him. “What’s going on?” Her voice was pitched low.
He kept his at the same level. “Dr. Rouse’s wife reported him missing. Last time anyone’s seen him was two o’clock. She really didn’t say anything to you about this alleged slip and fall?”
She frowned up at him.
“C’mon, Clare, you can’t claim priestly confidence if she’s just told both of us.”
She worried her lower lip. “No. This is the first I heard of it.”
“But she did tell you about meeting with the doctor?”
She nodded.
“Funny detail to leave out, don’t you think?”
She looked miserably toward the swinging door. “I’d better get back.”
“Go ’head. I’m going to call in that location, get one of the patrol cars over there.” He caught her arm as she stepped toward the door. “You might want to encourage Ms. Clow to dredge up any other details she forgot to mention to you.”
He reached Harlene, gave her the directions, and was relieved to hear that Mark Durkee was already up on Old Route 100, probably on his way to the nightly swing past Russ’s mother’s house. Russ told Harlene to patch Mark through to Clare’s if and when he turned up anything.
“I’d love to know how you managed to work Reverend Fergusson into this one,” Harlene said.
“Reverend Fergusson manages to work herself into these things all on her own,” he said. “She doesn’t need any pushing from me.”
“So you’re going to be staying over there.”
“Since Debba Clow, the last person known to have seen the doctor alive, is here, yeah. I am.”
He heard a snort over the phone. “Isn’t this Linda’s week to be visiting in Florida?”
He exhaled slowly, counting to-well, he didn’t make it to ten. “Don’t you have any police business you could be attending to? As I am doing, right now, keeping tabs on this witness?”
There was another snort. He gave up. “Make sure Mark calls me ASAP. Fifteen fifty-seven over.” He hung up.
Clare looked up as he came through the doors. She was sitting in the other armchair, kitty-corner to Debba Clow. She tilted her head slightly. Any information?
He shook his head. Aloud he said, “Is there any coffee?”
Clare rose. “I’ll make some up. I could use a cup, too. Debba?”
Debba nodded. Clare vanished through the swinging doors, giving Russ a look as she passed him.
He sat in the armchair. “An officer is headed for the Ketchem cemetery right now. He was up in the area, so we should hear back from him shortly.”
Debba pushed her cloud of kinky hair back from her face. “I didn’t think about the possibility that he could really have been hurt. Are you sure he’s not…” Her voice trailed off.
“We don’t know what’s going on at this point,” he said. “We’re trying to eliminate possibilities. What did you do after Dr. Rouse hit his head?”
“We went back to the cars. He was bleeding, but he didn’t want any help. He pointed out that he was the doctor, not me.” She raised her eyes, as if to say, What can you do? “He got in his car, I got in mine, and then I took off.”
His next question was cut off by the faint sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen. He had half raised himself out of his chair when Clare pushed through the door. “It’s for you. Officer Durkee.”
In the kitchen, he took the phone from Clare and waited until she removed herself to the living room. “Mark? Russ. What have you got?”
“I’ve been tramping around the area. Freezing my butt off. I haven’t seen any sight of the doctor, but I found his car. It’s a good ten yards off the road, smashed into a tree. Abandoned.”
Chapter 13
NOW
Russ faced toward Clare’s wall and pitched his voice low. “Have you called the state crime scene folks yet?”
“I had Harlene send for them and notify the mountain rescue squad. I told ’em it’s still officially a missing person. I mean, he was a pretty old guy, after all.” Russ reflected that Dr. Rouse was-or had been-maybe fifteen years older than he was. Mark went on, “But if he wandered away in a confused state when the dark came on, he’s a corpsicle by now.”
“I agree. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t wander off. Maybe he was removed from the scene.” He pressed his forehead against Clare’s calendar, right over a florid picture of an angel and the Virgin Mary. THE ANNUNCIATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, the tag read. He was eyeball to eyeball with the Virgin, who didn’t look all that pleased that she was about to become an unwed mother. He thought about Allan Rouse. Confused and elderly? No way. But calling Debba Clow and asking her to meet him at some old cemetery was way out of character. If that’s what he did. Maybe she confronted him, whacked him over the head, and drove him out there in his own car to dispose of the body. No, that didn’t work. She would have had to walk at least two hours to her house to retrieve her car before driving into town to see Clare, and he would lay money that Debba Clow wasn’t t
he sort to go on long walks along dark, icy mountain roads. No matter what the provocation.
“Chief?”
“Sorry, Mark. I was thinking. I don’t know what to make of this. There’s too much unexplained stuff, and I hate unexplained stuff.” He pushed away from the wall, setting his thoughts in order. “We have to act as if this is a missing-person case, because if Rouse did somehow wander off, we have a chance of finding him alive if we move fast. So I’ll call out the volunteer fire department search team as well. They’ll get there faster than the mountain rescue team.”
“Okay.”
“On the other hand, when the statie gets there with the CSU kit, I want every print that can be lifted off Rouse’s car. We’ve already got Debba Clow’s prints on record, so we won’t need to get a warrant to check for a match.”
“Hang on a sec.” There were sounds over the line, someone talking, muffled. Mark came back on. “We’re in luck. The crime scene guys are here.”
“That’s a land speed record.”
“They were taking the shortcut along the Old Lake George Road, coming back from a demo at the Troop C barracks.”
“Look, what I said about Debba Clow’s fingerprints? Don’t mention we’ve already got a suspect. I can think of some scenarios where somebody else might have whacked the doctor, and I don’t want those guys taking shortcuts because they think we’ve got it all sewn up.”
“You mean, like the unknown girlfriend idea?”
“Or the fact that he had access to major amounts of prescription drugs.”
“I don’t know.” Mark sounded doubtful. “Seeing as how Clow admitted she was here with the guy…”
“I know, I know. But I don’t want to miss anything just because it’s less likely than Debba doing it.”
“Debba does doctor,” Mark said, sniggering. “Has a ring to it. So what are you going to do with her?”
Russ glanced over his shoulder and made a snap decision. “I’m bringing her out there with me.”
“Why?”
“If he’s gone missing, she might be able to remember a detail that she’s overlooked.”
“Or she might be able to invent something that jibes with the physical evidence once she’s back out here.”
“I’m aware of that. Mostly, I want to keep her out of her car until the staties have a chance to sweep it.”
“Why not just impound it?”
“I intend to. But I’d like her permission to search it. I have a feeling if we go to Judge Ryswick with what we’ve got-most notably, what we haven’t got, a body-he’ll laugh at a warrant request. That man’s enough to make me yearn for the good old days, when we could just look for whatever we wanted.”
“Chief, the Miranda rules went into effect before you became a cop.”
“I know. But I can dream.” He brought himself back to the subject. “If she’s out at Stewart’s Pond and her car’s back here, it’ll be easier to get her to say yes. Her attention will be split, and she’ll be thinking more about what we might find out there, not about trace evidence in her vehicle.”
“If she just dumped him out here, there might not be anything in her car anyway.”
“That’s right. And in that case, bringing her back to the scene might just sweat something out of her.”
“Okay. I’ll see you when you get here. Make sure you got your boots on. It’s colder’n a witch’s tit out here.”
Russ laughed as he hung up. He skipped Harlene and called John Huggins, the volunteer fire department chief, directly. He explained the situation and asked John to turn out his men in their cold-weather gear for a search.
“I’ll call Glens Falls and tell them to take any calls we might get,” Huggins said. “This’ll be good for my boys. We been practicing turning out for lost hikers and whatnot. Nighttime work’ll be a challenge. See ya there in twenty.”
“Drive carefully-,” Russ said, but Huggins had already hung up. Sometimes Russ suspected the main reason John Huggins had devoted years of his life to the squad was because it gave him a legal excuse to drive like a bat out of hell.
He hung up the phone and walked back into the living room. Clare was down on one knee in front of the fireplace, nudging a log into place with an iron poker. Debba was sitting where he had left her, tucked into the corner of the sofa, arms wrapped around her knees. “Dr. Rouse’s car is still there, but he’s nowhere to be found. The fire department search team and the mountain rescue folks are on their way, and I’d like you to come back there with me, Debba.”
“Me?”
“You’re the last person known to have spoken to the doctor. You may be able to help the searchers in some way.” Clare rose, looking at him suspiciously. He was willing to bet that the next words out of her mouth would cut right though that bit of tissue paper he had just hung up, so he went right for her weak spot. “If he got confused and wandered off, there’s a chance we can still save him. But we don’t have much time. The mountains are a bad place to be lost on a bitter cold night.”
As Clare knew firsthand, having narrowly escaped hypothermia and frostbite last winter. He could see the unpleasant memories flicker behind her eyes, erasing, at least for the moment, her doubts about Russ’s motives in bringing Debba along. He felt a twinge of guilt, but absolved himself with the thought that it might, after all, be true.
Debba uncurled from her protective position and stood up.
“Do you want me to make you a thermos of hot coffee?” Clare asked her. “To take in your car?”
“We’ll take my truck,” Russ said. Both women looked at him. This time, it was Debba who frowned.
“It’ll be a lot simpler for me to go home from the reservoir,” she said. “Unless you don’t think I’ll be going home?” Her voice held a challenge.
He tucked his thumbs into his belt. “Your tire tracks are already part of the scene. No need to add confusion by having another set around.”
Clare frowned, too. No wonder. That sounded lame, even to him.
“I don’t feel comfortable with that,” Debba said.
“I’m sorry about that. But I need your car to stay here, away from the scene.” He kept his tone even, glossing over the fact that he had almost said “the crime scene.”
Debba looked at Clare. “I’ll drive you,” Clare said.
“Wait a minute-” Russ began.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s no problem.”
“I have a problem with-”
“Okay, I’ll hit the bathroom and then we can go.” Debba vanished upstairs.
“You can’t-,” he tried again.
“I don’t know what you’re up to,” Clare said, rounding on him, “but I don’t entirely trust you.”
“This is police business, Clare-”
“This is human business, Russ,” she said, mimicking his tone. Her voice softened. A little. “I know you’ll stay meticulously within the law. But you wouldn’t see anything wrong with manipulating that woman into getting whatever you need out of her.”
“A life may be at stake.”
She jerked her chin up. “Tell me you think Dr. Rouse is still alive. And make me believe it.”
He was silent.
“If he is alive, another pair of eyes won’t hurt. And if he’s dead, and you’re planning on pinning it on Debba, well, then she’ll need a friend.”
He felt his hands clenching and forced them to relax. “God save me from do-gooders.”
She grinned. “Not a chance. God has plans for you.”
He shook his head. “Keep out of the way. Do not talk to anyone at the scene. And for God’s sake, put something warm on.”
Chapter 14
NOW
Well, she thought, two out of three’s not bad. She might not have been prepared for her first North Country winter, but she was a fast learner, and thanks to last spring’s sales and this year’s Christmas presents, she was as well protected from the cold as any of the men clumped around the hood of the
volunteer fire chief’s Jeep Cherokee.
The chief, who had introduced himself as “Huggins-John Huggins,” was scoping out her qualifications. “You ever done anything like this before?” He was a short, well-braced two-by-four of a man, wearing a hat with flaps that fell to his chin and a suspicious expression. He reminded her of a crew chief she had met on her first posting, a lifer who had called her “girly.” One of the guys handing out equipment from the Jeep looked over at her, and she felt uncomfortably like the shaky second lieutenant she had been back then.
“I was a helicopter pilot in the army for nine years,” she said. “I’ve been trained in search and rescue.” Admittedly, that was searching and rescuing from the air. Who would waste a pilot by having her walk grids on the ground? But there wasn’t any air support for this operation, and if she couldn’t persuade Huggins-John Huggins to let her join in the search party, she’d be stuck sitting in her car, going crazy.
She had driven to this spot in the middle of County Road nowhere, parked obediently where Officer Durkee directed her, and sat patiently in her Shelby while Russ escorted Debba past the halogen-light poles shoved upright in the snowbanks on the opposite side of the road and the two of them disappeared into the shadows leading toward the reservoir.
But when the cars and pickups and SUVs started to arrive, stringing along the edge of the narrow roadside and disgorging members of the volunteer fire department, it suddenly struck her: Maybe Allan Rouse really was alive, injured, disoriented, slowly freezing to death in the snowy woods. And here she was, sitting on her tail in her comfy car while other people prepared to turn out and look for him. It wasn’t so much that she decided to volunteer, but that she was out of the car, pulling on her hat, before she decided not to.
“You. Were in the army.” Huggins squinted at her. He unsnapped a kangaroo pouch on his anorak and pulled out a topographical map, similar to the ones his men were spreading out over the hood of his truck. He folded it open and handed it to her. “Can you locate us on this map?”
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