All Mortal Flesh

FOURTEEN

What did you think of Quinn Tracey?”

Clare looked away from the road for a moment. “Of him as a person? Or of what he said?”

“Either. Both.”

She returned her attention to driving. He watched her profile: Roman nose, sharp chin, her hair, by early afternoon, already falling out of its knot. His feelings, about her and for her, were too tangled and painful to contemplate, and he was pathetically grateful to have a mutual puzzle to fall back on. One of the first things that had caught him had been her mind, her easy questions and considered answers.

“I think he was hiding something.”

“More than hanging out with an unapproved friend, you mean?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Good. That’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust my instincts.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m thinking calling him at home would be good. Let him know that one of us will be coming around to talk with him in a day or two. I’m betting his fear of Mom and Dad finding out is greater than his fear of spilling the beans.”

“Do you think he saw more than he admitted to?”

Russ sighed. “No. Chances are the deep dark secret he’s hiding is a six-pack and a fake ID. It’s just… I want it to be more.” He touched his coat pocket, where he kept his small notebook. “I want this license plate and description to lead me straight to a car with the murder weapon in the trunk. That’s what I meant when I said I couldn’t trust my instincts.”

She flicked on her turn signal and swung her car onto Route 57. “Do you have a working theory? About… the crime?”

“Lyle thinks it was someone lashing out at me. That my wife was just an incidental target.”

“Does that mean you might be in danger?”

“I wish. Just let the son of a bitch get within fifty yards of me.”

“Don’t joke about stuff like that.”

“Who’s joking?” He saw her expression and relented. “It’s just a working theory, anyway. A way to organize the investigation. It could be complete bullshit, for all we know.”

“Do you have any other possibilities?”

“You know what I really regret?” It had nothing to do with her question, but he suddenly had to unburden himself. “All those times I discussed cases, like this, without ever really giving a crap. I mean, beyond wanting to catch the bad guys. All those times I talked about the victim as an object. Like a mechanic talks about a broken-down carburetor. For me, the murder or the overdose or the car accident was a piece of the workday. But for somebody else, it was the end of the world.”

“Russ, you’ve just lost your wife. Most people in your circumstances are still popping Prozac and crying their way through a box of Kleenex.” She sounded faintly exasperated, which had the odd effect of cheering him. It was a dose of normal in a world gone strange.

“I just could have been-”

“You’re plenty sympathetic to families and victims. I’ve seen you in action. Don’t start making yourself feel inadequate for no reason.”

He hiccupped a laugh. “Don’t beat yourself up, honey. That’s my job.” He smiled. “Linda used to say that to me.” Suddenly, a black bubble of grief rose up out of his chest and he let out a barking sob. Clare took one hand off the wheel and held it out to him. He clutched it in a bone-cracking grip, his chest heaving as he fought to regain some control.

“Jesus,” he said, when he could speak again. “Jesus Christ. I’m losing my mind.”

Clare shook her head. Her eyes were wet, too, although from sympathy or from the pain where he was grinding her knuckles together, he couldn’t tell. He released her hand.

“You’re not losing your mind. Grief makes us all crazy at times. You read those Kübler-Ross theories and you think grief has all these recognizable levels, like going through school. Once you pass all the tests, you get to leave. But day to day, moment to moment, grief is more like…”

“Losing your mind?”

“Yeah.”

He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. She drove on in silence. He could feel when her car climbed the hill running into town from alongside the river. Could feel the tug of gravity as they swung around the circle and came to a stop. Must be a red light on Main Street. He opened his eyes and twisted in his seat to look through the rear window. Past the circular city park, where the abandoned pavilion lay half buried in drifts like a forgotten dream of summer, the square central tower of St. Alban’s rose to the ice-pale sky.

“You don’t have to go out of your way,” he said. “I can walk from here.”

She snorted. The light changed, and she accelerated down Main.

“When are you going to give me the talk about God?” he asked.

“Which one?”

“You’re a priest. Aren’t you supposed to be comforting me? Telling me about heaven and all that?”

“What do you think heaven is?”

“I don’t believe in it.” Christ, he sounded like a five-year-old. A five-year-old who needed a nap.

“Then don’t worry about it. Whatever happens, happens. It’s the one thing we’re all going to get to learn firsthand, eventually.”

“But… doesn’t it all seem like such a waste?”

She turned toward the police station, thumping over the depression in the sidewalk into the lot. She put the car in park and turned toward him.

“Nothing is a waste. You don’t have to believe in heaven to believe that.” She took his hand again. “All the good things Linda did in her life, all the people she touched, all the work she did, all that lives on. Her life had value. It had weight and meaning. She affected the world around her in ways you will never, ever even know about.”

He sat with that for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I can believe in that.”

She smiled, a little. “Humanist.” She leaned back and unlocked the doors. “I’ll assume you have a ride with one of the guys, but if you need me, give me a call.”

He nodded. Opened the door.

“Russ?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m praying for you. Day and night.”

He nodded again. “Thanks.” He watched her reverse, then pull into the light Tuesday afternoon traffic.

When he turned toward the entrance, Lyle and Mark were waiting for him in their shirtsleeves. He raised his eyebrows. “Mighty cold to be hanging around outside without a coat on.”

“Then let’s get inside,” Lyle snapped.

Russ let the two of them precede him through the old bronze doors and up the marble steps. Decades ago, when the force had been twice the size it was now, there had been a sergeant’s desk here at the top of the stairs, with room for a half-dozen chairs against the wall. Now it was just a bare stretch of marble you had to cross on your way down the hall, furnished with nothing except two flagpoles, one for the American flag and the other bearing the state flag.

Lyle stopped him with a hand to his chest right in front of the Great Seal of New York. Mark sidled farther down the hall and stopped, clearly listening for anyone who might come their way.

“What is this?” Even the comparatively chilly entranceway was warm enough to make Russ’s glasses cloud over. He took them off. “You guys hitting me up for my lunch money?”

“Russ.” Lyle sounded dead serious. “I’m not telling you this as your second in command. I’m telling you this as a friend. You’re going to wind up in a boatload of trouble if you’re seen driving around town with Clare Fergusson.”

“She gave me a ride back into town after paying a condolence call on my mother. For chrissakes, what do you think is going on? My wife just died!”

Lyle thumped him in the chest. “That’s right. Your wife just died. And half the town has heard one sort of rumor or another about you and Reverend Fergusson.” Russ opened his mouth, outraged, but Lyle cut him off. “I don’t want to hear about how innocent it all is! If you don’t have any sense of self-preservation, at least you could think about the lady. What’re the folks who go to her church going to think of her if they see you holding hands and whispering sweet nothings before Linda’s even in the ground?”

Russ reared back. His hands clenched involuntarily. “You’re damn lucky you’re in uniform, MacAuley, because if we were on our own time, I’d be kicking your ass right now.”

“And I’m trying to save yours. What the hell took you so long? Your mom called, and I expected you a half hour ago.”

Through his anger, he felt a twinge of guilt. His men shouldn’t have to rely on his mother to tell them his whereabouts. “I went straight to the high school.”

“Alone?”

He paused.

“Oh, for-Don’t tell me Reverend Fergusson went with you.”

“I got the description and license number of a car that was sitting in my drive Sunday afternoon. No sign of anybody, but the kid who reported it may know more than he’s telling.”

“Did it even occur to you that sharing details about this case with her might not be a good idea?”

That stopped him. The hand-holding jibe pissed him off, but this was just bewildering. “Why not?”

“Because Clare Fergusson falls within the circle of possible suspects.”

“Clare?” He couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud. Replacing his glasses, he looked at Lyle. In focus, his deputy chief appeared even more upset. “I’m sorry,” Russ said. “You’re right. I can see where people might get the wrong idea seeing me and Clare together. Trust me, it won’t happen again anytime soon.” And God, wasn’t that a depressing thought? “You don’t need to worry about the case, either. We didn’t really discuss it. Just talked about our impressions of Quinn Tracey-he’s the kid who saw the car-and your theory of the case. Mostly it was, you know, grief stuff.” Lyle still looked skeptical. “She is a priest, you know.”

“I know, Chief. I know.”

From his post, Mark coughed and clomped around in an unsubtle way. Lyle gestured, and they both crossed to the hallway. Harlene was hustling toward them, her unhooked headpiece trailing wires behind her.

“There you are,” she said. She looked at the three of them skeptically. “You all right?” She flapped her hands. “Never mind. Dr. Dvorak just called. He has the preliminary autopsy results.”

An icy boulder rolled down Russ’s gullet and lodged there. “Okay,” he said. He nodded at Lyle. “Let’s go.”

Harlene goggled at him. “You some sort of masochist, or what?”

“Harlene-” Lyle warned.

Russ shook his head. He looked into Harlene’s round eyes and felt a surge of gratitude for all the people who cared for him. None of whom, of course, had the least bit of tact. “I need to do this,” he told her. “Whatever it takes to find her killer, I need to do it.”

“Damn fool,” she said under her breath.

“But I do think we ought to bring Mark,” he said to Lyle.

“Me?” Mark snapped to attention like a Labrador sighting a duck. He had never attended a briefing at the ME’s office.

“You. I gotta be realistic. I may not absorb everything, so an extra pair of ears will be helpful. Plus”-Russ shrugged-“you’re detective material. We got to get you out there, exposed to this stuff.”

“I’ll go get our coats,” Mark said, and bolted down the hall toward the squad room.

Lyle looked at him assessingly. “I guess you’re not completely lost to reason.”

Russ ran one hand through his hair. God, he felt old, old, old. “Don’t count on it,” he said.