One Was a Soldier

– The Burial of the Dead: Rite One, The Book of Common Prayer

MONDAY, OCTOBER 3

This week, it was Will who was running late. Sarah looked at the round white clock hanging above the preschoolers’ construction-paper pumpkins and ghosts. It was already five past seven, and the rest of the group had been in their places for ten minutes, listening to the thuds of the basketball and the squeak of sneakers next door. Stillman scratched on his ancient PalmPilot with a stylus. Fergusson’s head was tilted back, and her eyes were half closed; evidently even her coffee wasn’t keeping her awake tonight. McCrea kept glancing at McNabb, frowning, then looking away, only to repeat the whole cycle again a minute later.

Sarah glanced around the circle. “Does anyone know if Will had any VA appointments? Maybe some difficulty with his ride?”

Fergusson roused herself. “His father brings him after dinner. It could be Chris was running late.”

“Okay. Well, I don’t want to waste any more time. Let’s get started, and he can catch up when he gets here.” Sarah looked at McNabb and Stillman. “Last week, Clare and Eric opened up about some of the ways they’re expressing their emotions or not expressing their emotions, as the case may be, and we all talked about some strategies for dealing with those difficult moments when the pain or the anger or the fear breaks through. I want to explore those healthy responses further, but first we need to go back to hear from Trip and Tally about their reasons for attending therapy. Trip, we didn’t have time to get to you last week. Will you start us off?”

“Well.” The doctor fidgeted in his metal chair. “I’ve been under a lot of stress since I came home. Some of it’s the usual-my practice, a surly teen in the house, my older daughter’s financial troubles. Some of it’s been new. A death in the family, problems with-” He clamped his mouth shut. After a moment, he said, “I’ve been having these migraines.”

A pager went off. Fergusson started. She put her paper coffee cup on the floor and dug into the pocket of her ankle-length black skirt. She pulled out her cell phone and read the display. “Excuse me.” She rose. “I have to take this.” She vanished into the hallway.

Stillman sat there. “Migraines,” Sarah prompted. The doctor touched his forehead. There was a small white scar threading across his skin into his bristle-brush gray hair. “I sustained a head injury when a clinic I was working at was blown up by insurgents.” He lapsed into silence.

When nothing else seemed forthcoming, Sarah asked, “Was this the forward response station you were posted to?”

“No. No, this was a civilian clinic. Part of the mission was to treat as many Iraqis as we could. We were supposed to have an actual, honest-to-God reinforced building with a generator and a sterile room, but that never materialized, so we had to make do in whatever facility we could set up shop in. We were in a local medical clinic school when this happened.” He rubbed his scar with his forefinger.

“Mortar fire?” Eric asked.

“Yeah. We had an escort, and marines patrolling the town, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once.”

“Where was this?” Tally asked.

“Haditha, in the Anbar. It was the closest population base to our FRS.”

The hall door opened. Clare strode in, fastening the top two buttons of her black shirt. Beneath the room’s fluorescent light, she looked sickly and washed-out. “That was Chris Ellis. They’re in the hospital. Will tried to kill himself.”

Surprisingly, Sarah and the others arrived before Clare. Tally had stood up, said, “Let’s go,” and gotten her jacket off the hooks on the wall. The men followed her without comment, as if it were simply expected they would all reconvene at the hospital. “Maybe we should wait,” Sarah said, but it was already too late. Nothing to do but get in her car and force herself to drive toward the ultimate verdict on her fitness as a therapist: a client’s suicide.

Attempted suicide, she reminded herself in the ICU waiting room. The pills Will Ellis had swallowed by the handful had been pumped out of his stomach. Now they had to see if that would be enough. Through the archway leading to the hallway and nursing station, she heard a soft ding. The elevator opened. Sarah caught a glimpse of Clare Fergusson, a white collar around her neck, a long satin scarf-thing draped over her shoulders, a black leather box in her hand. The satin flapped around her knees as she strode up the hall and out of sight.

Tally, who had taken the chair kitty-corner to Sarah’s, leaned forward. “Was that Clare?”

“Yes.”

“Geez. I guess she really is a minister.” Tally leaned back. “You’d think if you put that much faith in God, you wouldn’t need to be in counseling.”

“No. Well. God’s not big into talk therapy.”

Stillman rounded the archway, his eyes on his PalmPilot, scratching something with his stylus at what looked like a hundred words a minute. He sank into the chair opposite McNabb.

“Did you find out anything?” Sarah asked. He didn’t look like the bearer of good tidings.

“His respiratory and circulatory systems are collapsing, and he’s experiencing serious bradycardia.”

“What’s that mean?”

Sarah was feeling desperate enough to be glad Tally asked the question, allowing her to look at least marginally competent.

“He’s got what we call combined drug intoxication. He apparently took all his painkillers, his antidepressants, a bottle of cough syrup, a whole lot of acetaminophen, and then washed it all down with booze. Simplified, his system is shutting down. His heart’s pumping too slow, his blood isn’t circulating, and his lungs aren’t working.” Stillman glanced at his PalmPilot. “He’s damaged his liver, too. How much, they won’t know until and unless he survives.” His face was bleak.

“God.” Tally sat for a minute. “Do you think he meant it to work? Or was he just, you know, crying for help?”

“He made a pretty credible attempt.” Stillman rubbed his knuckles hard against the scar on his forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t see any warning signs.”

That same phrase was chasing itself around and around in Sarah’s head. “Why would you?” Why didn’t I?

“I’m seeing him for his amputation follow-up. He’s doing PT at my practice.”

“And I was his therapist.” Sarah stood. Walked toward the archway. If she could, she would have stepped right out of her skin and kept on going. “If anybody should have recognized that he was potentially suicidal, it should have been me.”

“You guys are forgetting something.”

Sarah turned toward Tally, who spread her hands. “He’s a marine. You don’t think of it, because his legs are gone, but he’s still a marine. You know, the jarheads, they do what they gotta do. Maybe he just woke up this morning and realized his body was the enemy.” Tally rubbed her jeans over her thighs and knees, as if trying to feel what Will must have felt. “And you know, he knows what to do with an enemy.”

Eric left first; he had a wife and kid at home, after all, and had to be at work the next morning. Stillman was next, after several short conversations with Will’s red-eyed, lank-haired mother. Tally hung around, whether through curiosity or empathy Sarah didn’t know. Sarah couldn’t leave, couldn’t push herself forward to talk to the parents, couldn’t ask anyone, once Trip Stillman took off, what Will’s prognosis was. She was ready, if approached, to describe her impressions, show her notes, pass on anything that might be useful. She was ready, but she couldn’t bring herself to volunteer. Her thoughts and self-recriminations chased themselves around and around in her head like disease-raddled rats on a rusty wheel.

She didn’t realize she had sunk into a reverie until she heard Tally say, “Major. I mean, Reverend.” Sarah opened her eyes.

Clare Fergusson collapsed onto the chair opposite McNabb. “What are you still doing here?”

Sarah’s heart turned over in one slow despairing beat before she realized Fergusson was speaking to Tally.

“I dunno,” Tally said. “No place better to go, I guess. My husband’s away gambling for a few days.” Her voice made it clear she thought games of chance were a monumental waste of time. Unless, Sarah thought, it was that the husband wasn’t alone at whatever casino he had fled to. “How’s Will doing?” Tally asked.

“He’ll live.” Fergusson slid down until the back of her head could rest against the top of the upholstered chair. “God. I’m so tired. I’d sell my grandmother’s wedding ring for a drink right now.”

“Let’s find a bar,” Sarah said. “I’ll buy the first round.”

Tally’s mouth opened. “What happened to encouraging her to deal with her stress in a healthy way?”

Fergusson started laughing.

“At this point, I’m going to consider alcoholism a viable alternative. All things considering.” Sarah bent over and rubbed her hands over her face.

Fergusson’s smile faded away. “Are you implying I’m an alcoholic?”

Sarah looked at her. “Based on what little I’ve been able to pry out of you, I think you have a problem with alcohol.” She folded her hands and rested her chin on her knuckles. It made a hard, uncomfortable perch, which was just what she needed right now. “Then again, what the hell do I know? I completely missed Will’s suicidal intent.”

“Oh, for chrissakes,” Tally said. “Quit beating yourself up over it. Anybody who’s seen a public service announcement on TV knows what the three or five or seven warning signs are. Will’s not stupid. He didn’t want to tip anybody off. Because then somebody woulda stopped him. It’s the same reason Clare doesn’t want to talk about drinking. Because she’s afraid if she does, somebody will stop her from doing it.”

Fergusson opened her mouth. Closed it again.

“It’s like we’re all sick, you know? Like we all got something wrong with us, but we won’t tell the doctor and get it treated. Because we’re afraid the cure is going to be worse than the disease.”

Sarah was surprised at Tally’s outburst, and by her insight. The young woman hadn’t struck her as being that tuned in to others.

“You don’t cure PTSD,” Fergusson said. “You learn to live with it. I don’t think taking a drink now and then or using a sleeping pill when you can’t get back to sleep after a nightmare is necessarily a bad thing.”

Tally scooted to the edge of her chair and stared at the priest. “Aren’t you tired of being afraid all the time? I am.”

“Then why in God’s name are you thinking about going back to Iraq? What’s that about? Facing your fears? Unit cohesion with the rest of the construction team?”

Tally crossed her arms over her chest. She rubbed the tattoo on her arm. “I’m not going back. I’ve decided.”

“Oh.” Fergusson deflated. “Okay.”

“What’s that going to mean for your job?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her arm again. “Maybe lose it, I guess. It’s not the worst thing that could happen to me.” Her gaze shifted toward the corridor. Somewhere down that hall, Will Ellis lay, broken. “It’s not near the worst thing that could happen to me.”

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5

It was Bev Collins and her home health aide who heard the noise. A boom, then a crack, loud enough to make the aide start and say, “What was that?”

“Gunshot.” Mrs. Collins laid down a set of threes. She and Tracy played canasta every Wednesday, and Tracy allowed her one beer for the game. Her doctor said the sugar in it would kill her, but by God, if she had to do without beer, too, she’d just as soon go anyways.

“It’s too close to be a gunshot. It sounded like it came from next door.”

“Young lady, I have hunted and shot for nigh on seventy years. I’d still be doing it if I could see worth a damn.” Mrs. Collins’s upcountry accent changed “worth” to “wuth.” “That was a small-caliber sidearm. Either somebody’s gotten sick and tired of those damn raccoons taking down the garbage cans, or he don’t know jack about cleaning his weapon and accidentally discharged it.”

“Raccoons aren’t out at three in the afternoon.” Tracy got up from the kitchen table and went to the window. “I can’t see anything through the safety fence. I better go out and take a look.”

“Safety fence.” Mrs. Collins shuffled to the icebox and took out another beer. What Tracy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “Swimming pool. The river’s too good for folks nowadays.” She hadn’t taken more than a few swigs when Tracy tore back into the kitchen.

“It’s-she’s-call the police! She’s killed herself!”

“I would say a single shot, through the mouth, to the back of the head.” Emil Dvorak, the Millers Kill medical examiner, pushed against his silver-headed cane to straighten from his crouched position at the edge of the pool. “I can confirm that, at least, as soon as you remove her from the water.”

There was a faint clicking noise as Sergeant Morin of the New York State Police Criminal Investigation Unit snapped off picture after picture on his digital camera. Tally McNabb was floating on her back, ribbons and streamers of blood trailing over and around and beneath her. Tiny pieces of bone and brain floated on the surface of the pool. “I’d like you to take prints from all the exterior doors,” Russ said.

“Sure.” Morin dropped his camera into his kit. “What about the inside?”

“Depends on what we find in there.” Russ looked up to the open second-floor window. Sheer white curtains fluttered out of the frame to catch in the wind rising from the mountains. From McNabb’s backyard, he could see the edge of the hills, russet and brown and yellow, and a dark wall of clouds moving toward them.

“You think there’s somebody in there?”

Russ shook his head. “Not alive.” He turned to Lyle MacAuley. “Have you raised the husband yet?”

Lyle shoved his phone into his jacket pocket and shook his head. “Nothin’. The foreman at BWI Opperman says he’s on leave for the next two weeks. I got the names of a couple friends, and we can probably get a few more if we canvass the Dew Drop. He was a regular, right?”

“That’s what the owner said.” His eyes were drawn, again, to the open window.

“You thinking murder-suicide?”

“Maybe.”

“If McNabb killed her out here and then offed himself, what in the hell is that.38 doing down there? Or are you going to suggest he switched weapons midstream?”

Both men looked into the pool. The gun, black and malignant, lay in twelve feet of water, according to the warning embossed on the plastic lip of the pool gutter.

Russ pinched the bridge of his nose. “She locks all the doors to her house, comes out to the pool in jeans and a sweater, and shoots herself at the very edge of the water.”

“It does keep things nice and neat. If that matters to you.”

“Maybe McNabb did her and tossed the gun in. Chlorine washes away a lot of evidence. He could already be at the Albany airport.”

“We got a BOLO out on him. If he tries to run, somebody’ll spot him.” Lyle zipped his jacket against the chilly air. “Maybe the disappointed boyfriend did her. Or both of ’em.”

“Quentan Nichols? He hasn’t been back here since August.”

“That you know of. Maybe he just figured out how to keep a lower profile.” Lyle looked up as the locksmith on call crossed the yard, his tools out. “C’mon. Let’s see what’s in there.”

The house was clean and orderly, with no evidence of a struggle and no indication that anyone had been there. The locksmith confirmed that the back door he opened would have latched automatically behind anyone who exited the garage. Lyle pointed out the spare key, hanging from a nail next to the door. “Looks like she didn’t intend to come back inside.”

Russ grunted. “Or someone didn’t intend her to.”

They found a gun locker in the unfinished basement. Russ asked Morin to print the battered metal chest, without much expectation of finding anything.

The message light was blinking on the kitchen phone. Russ tugged on his purple evidence gloves and hit the PLAY button. The first message was a shade above a whisper, as if the woman speaking didn’t want to be overheard. “Tally, where are you? Kirkwood’s having a hissy fit because you haven’t called in sick.” The second message was professionally warm. “Tally? This is Elaine Kirkwood in human resources. Are you ill? Please remember we need you to either phone in or request a personal day in advance.” The final message was a voice that made his skin crawl. “Hi, Tally. This is John Opperman. Please call me at your earliest convenience.”

“Whatever happened, she didn’t plan it in advance,” Lyle said.

“Get back to the HR woman. Let her know we’re investigating Tally’s death. I want to know her work history. Did she report directly to Opperman? Does she have any incidents on her record? Maybe lodged a complaint against him?”

“Russ.” Lyle stepped closer. “There must be two hundred people employed by BWI Opperman, if you count the construction crews and the part-timers. I know how you feel about Opperman, but you can’t automatically make him a person of interest because one of them decides to snuff it.”

“He doesn’t get my back up because he took Linda to the Caribbean, Lyle.”

His deputy chief looked at him.

“Okay, he does, but that’s not the only reason he goes on the list. The man built his company over the dead body of his former partner.”

“Accordin’ to you.”

“If I’m wrong, it’ll be easy enough to find out. It shouldn’t take more than a phone call.”

Lyle sighed. “All right.”

Russ moved on to the den. He poked at a stack of documents and bills next to the computer. “I want her e-mails. Bank statements, travel reservations. Run down her friends. Did she talk to anyone about killing herself? Or about trouble with her husband?”

“I’m going to need Eric.”

Russ blew out a breath. “Okay. Kevin and Knox must be done taking the neighbors’ statements. I’ll release them and set them on patrol.”

“They’ll be on overtime.”

“I know, I know.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll have to take a break soon. Clare and I have another premarital counseling session this evening. I’ll have my phone on, so you can reach me for anything, and I’ll head back here as soon as we’re done.” He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “I’d reschedule, but we’ve only got three more weeks to the wedding.”

“You don’t need to reschedule. Eric and I can handle-”

“Russ?” Dr. Dvorak’s precise European voice cut Lyle off.

“Yeah, Emil.” Russ crossed into the kitchen. Its open door led into the garage, and from there to the yard. “You all set?” The wind had risen, the temperature low fifties and dropping fast. As he and Lyle emerged from the garage, Kevin and Knox rounded the side of the building.

“Yes, the body is in the mortuary transport.” He gestured toward the pool, its bloodstained waters turning gray beneath the looming clouds. “I will want to be able to compare the weapon’s particulars against the cranial damage the deceased sustained.”

“Uh…” Russ looked at Lyle. “Get a diver?”

“You want to call in the staties to get a gun out of a pool? Hell, you can see the thing from here. Just have somebody strip down and jump in.”

“You volunteering?”

“Hell, no. Rank hath its privileges. That’s a job tailor-made for a rookie.”

Russ, Kevin, and Emil Dvorak all looked at the newest member of the department. Russ was trying to manage his newly integrated force in a gender-blind fashion, but he didn’t think letting Hadley peel down to her skivvies was going to fly. Hadley stared back at them wary-eyed.

“No, no, Jesum, not her. I didn’t mean her.” Lyle, for the first time in the nine years Russ had known him, looked embarrassed.

“I’ll do it.” Kevin unbuckled his rig and handed it to Knox. “Can I use one of their towels, Chief?”

“Sure. Don’t leave your prints on anything.”

The young officer disappeared into the garage. Russ looked at Emil. “You said you could confirm she’d been shot through the head when you got her out.”

The medical examiner nodded. “I don’t need to autopsy her to see the bullet went through the back of her throat and exited out the upper rear of her skull.”

“She ate her gun,” Russ said.

“It does have the hallmarks of the classic suicide technique used by someone who wants to leave no chance that his attempt might fail. However, I cannot confirm the wound was self-inflicted. The time of death will be difficult, due to the temperature of the pool, and the presence of water creates a capillary osmosis, drawing blood out of the body even after the heart ceases.”

Lyle translated. “You’re saying there’s a chance she was killed elsewhere and dumped in the pool.”

“I have no evidence yet with which to express my opinion. I do want to make you aware there is a slight possibility you are dealing with a homicide.”

Kevin emerged from the garage wearing his T-shirt and purple evidence gloves, a large floral towel wrapped around his waist. Lyle coughed, a sound suspiciously like a laugh, and Knox said, “Don’t you want to take your shirt off? So it’ll be dry after?”

Kevin shot her a look. “I’m fine.” He dropped the towel, revealing striped boxers, and plunged into the pool. Twenty seconds later, he emerged from the water, teeth chattering, the.38 in one hand. Lyle held an evidence bag out. Kevin kicked to the edge of the pool and dropped the gun in. “D-d-do you want me to look for the casing, Chief?”

The afternoon hour and the approaching storm meant they were losing light fast. Maybe Kevin could strike it lucky. “As long as you’re wet, yeah, go ahead.”

Kevin dove again. He went under two times, three, each time breaking the surface gulping for air and shaking his head. After his fourth dive to the bottom, his lips were tinged blue.

“Come on out, Kevin. No sense in you getting hypothermia.” Russ wondered how difficult it would be to get the pool drained. If Emil Dvorak confirmed the.38 caused her death, they’d be fine. If not, he’d sure like to know if there was a shell casing down there or not.

Kevin hauled himself out of the water and wrapped up in the towel. Russ pointed him toward the garage. “Get yourself dried off and then take a break and go home for dry, uh, clothes. I want you and Knox both back on patrol while Eric and Lyle are working this scene.”

“I’ve g-g-got a complete change at the sh-sh-shop,” Kevin said.

“Go ahead, then.” Russ looked at Knox, who was peering at her watch. “Knox, do you have your kids covered? Or do you need to make arrangements?”

“No, sir. I’ll just call my granddad and let him know I’ll be home late.”

“Do it.” He turned back to Lyle. “The husband.” He held up one finger. “Quentan Nichols.” A second. “Work problems.” A third. “We clear those three, and if Dvorak’s autopsy doesn’t contradict it, we can close this case. Death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

“Hell of a thing,” Lyle said. “Make it through two tours of duty in Iraq just to wind up capping it in your own backyard.”

Russ glanced at the pool again. A trio of sere yellow leaves tore away from a dipping, flailing birch and whirled through the air to touch down on the surface of the water. “Yeah,” he said. “Hell of a thing.”

Clare parked across the street from St. James and turned off the engine. She dropped her head back and simply sat for a moment, as gusting rain rocked her Jeep and rattled across the roof. She’d been going nonstop all day; morning Eucharist and visiting the hospital and dealing with her mother’s drama over the phone and counseling and the teen mothers group. Somewhere in there she had written Sunday’s sermon, which was probably three pages of All work and no play makes Clare a dull girl . The uppers she had popped that morning had long since worn off, and she was craving that kick right now like she craved a good night’s sleep. She felt it in the pressure behind her closed eyes and the hot ache of her muscles.

Around her, the world exploded. Clare hurtled out of the vehicle, flat on the hard, packed ground, shellburst and fireworks and her own terrified shout echoing around her, and there was the road, and the burning truck, and the blood-soaked body with its throat gaping wide and she heard the relentless hail of automatic weapon fire and the dogs barking and her heart pounding out of her chest and they must be everywhere and they were surrounded-

– and then the world tilted again and she was lying on a wet street in Lake George, hard needles of rain pelting her as a late-season thunderstorm roared and crashed overhead.

She staggered up off the road and got back into the Jeep. Her stomach lurched with nausea. She covered her face with her hands and breathed. Eventually, her pulse slowed to something close to normal.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Let’s try this again.” She left her umbrella in the car, figuring the damage had already been done, and crossed the street. Inside, she took the stairs two at a time to the office hallway.

Julie McPartlin’s door was open, but she was on the phone. She flashed Clare five fingers and pointed toward the parish hall. Okay. Her little whatever-it-had-been hadn’t made her late. Clare peeled off her coat and continued down to the large, wooden-floored room.

“Hey, darlin’.” Russ gave her an obvious double take. “What happened to you? You’re half soaked.”

She hesitated. “It’s really coming down out there.”

He frowned as he took her coat. “Here. You’re going to want this.” He handed her a tall cardboard cup of coffee.

“Ohhh, God.” She took a drink. The hot, sweet brew cut through her exhaustion and settled her tight, queasy stomach. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I needed this.”

He wrapped his arms loosely around her. “You look like hell.”

“Flatterer.” He kept on looking at her in that way he had, the way that wouldn’t let her evade or change the subject. “It’s been a long day,” she finally said. “I think this thing with Will Ellis has… shaken me up more than I’d like.” She didn’t want to leave it there. She wasn’t ready to talk to Russ about everything that was going on in her head. “Also, my mother’s driving me crazy about the wedding.”

Russ nodded. “How is the Ellis boy?”

“Better. It looks like he may have missed out on liver damage after all. The hematologist said that aside from his amputations, Will’s about the healthiest teen he’s ever seen.”

“Kids are hard to kill at that age.”

“Thank God for that.”

He smoothed a wet strand of hair away from her face. “What’s going on with your mother?”

She took another long drink of coffee. “You have to understand, she wanted a ballet-dancing, debutante-party-going, white-wedding sort of girl. Instead I fixed airplane engines, played basketball, and joined the army. Grace was the one who fulfilled all Mother’s fantasies.”

“Except for the part where she died.”

“Except for that, yeah. So now I’ve finally found someone willing to marry me-”

Russ snorted.

“-but I only gave her eight weeks to plan the party of her dreams.”

“It’s down to two and a half weeks now.” He smiled. “Anyway, isn’t it supposed to be the party of your dreams?”

“Clearly you do not understand southern women. So all day today I’ve been barraged with photos of mother-of-the-bride dresses, because she has to change her outfit to go with the dress your mother’s chosen, which she does not like. ‘Go with’ in this case means ‘blow out of the water.’ She also called me three times to listen to selections from the DJ she’s hired.”

“Why do we need a DJ?”

“Because there wasn’t enough time to hire a live band, which would have been much more tasteful.”

He stared at her. “But… there’s going to be dancing? Where? The Stuyvesant Inn doesn’t have enough space for that, not with all those Victorian knickknacks all over the place.”

“The dancing will be in a tent, with a dance floor, which she has rented. I’m supposed to drop in Friday after the morning Eucharist to personally agree to everything she’s already decided.”

He shook his head. “And she’s running the whole thing from Virginia. I’m beginning to suspect that if the southerners had put their women in charge, they would have won the Civil War.”

She put her cup on a long table scattered with flyers and brochures and leaned into Russ, laughing because she wanted to scream. “I’m sorry. This isn’t what either of us wanted.”

He hugged her hard and kissed her wet hair. “I don’t mind. As long as you’re there, and you say the right thing at the right time, I’m good with it. You’ve got more than enough on your plate. Your mom can do what she wants as long as it doesn’t add to your burden.”

She let herself rest against him, her cheek pressed into his name tag. She rubbed her hand over the departmental patch on his shoulder. “You didn’t have time to change?”

“I’ve got to go back after we’re done. You remember Tally McNabb? The woman at the center of that bar fight the night you got home?”

Something uneasy slithered through her gut. “Yes…”

“Her neighbor found her dead this afternoon. It looks like she killed herself. Her husband’s missing, so we have to find him and get his story before we can definitely close the case as a suicide, but-”

She opened her mouth, but she didn’t seem to have any air with which to speak. Russ broke off. “Clare? What is it?”

Her skin felt clammy. She shivered. “Tally McNabb.”

He chafed her upper arms. “Yeah.”

She found her voice. “She was in my veterans therapy group. She was in the hospital with me just two nights ago. When Will was admitted. They all came. We all came.”

“Wait. She was in your counseling group?”

Clare nodded.

“Jesus. And she was there the night the Ellis kid tried to off himself.” He rubbed his lips. “That certainly gives more weight to it being suicide.”

“She couldn’t have killed herself. She couldn’t have.”

“C’mon, let’s sit down. You look like you’re about to keel over.” He snagged her coffee and steered her across the high-ceilinged room to a more human-sized alcove furnished with several overstuffed armchairs. “Now.” He handed her the cup. “Tell me why you say she couldn’t have done it.”

She plopped into one of the chairs. “She didn’t have any warning signs. Not one. I think in many ways, she was the least troubled of us.”

Russ sat down opposite her. “Who else is in the group?”

“Russ! I can’t break their confidences. Why do you think I never mentioned Tally to you?”

“It’s not like they were confessing to you as a priest. You’re one of them.”

“Anyone who’s in therapy deserves privacy. It’s not my place to break that trust.”

He held up one hand. “Never mind. Telling me what McNabb said about herself won’t bruise your conscience, will it?”

She glared at him. “No.”

“Good. Did she ever talk about Quentan Nichols?”

“Sort of. She said she regretted what she had done in Iraq, and that she had never expected it to follow her home, but she never specifically mentioned Chief Nichols. I got the feeling she was ashamed of the whole episode.”

“Did she mention him coming to see her again? Or being in contact with her?”

“No.” Talking it over with Russ made her realize how little of herself Tally McNabb had revealed.

He nodded. “How about her husband?”

“I think things were bad with her husband. She was stressed. Plus, she was being sent back to Iraq with the BWI construction unit. She told me-she told us, on Monday, that she was going to quit instead.”

“Would that have left her with money problems?”

“Not that she mentioned.” She leaned back into the chair’s corduroy-covered embrace. “She said her husband was away gambling, and didn’t seem too happy about that. I thought it was because he had gone off without her, but maybe they couldn’t afford his losses.”

“Away gambling? Where?”

“She didn’t say.” She tilted her chin forward to look at him. “Is he really missing?”

“No one knows where he is. The scheduler at BWI Opperman said he hasn’t been working for the past week or so.”

She buried her nose in her coffee cup and breathed in the scent before taking a sip. “Maybe money problems, then-and she has to choose, Iraq or the unemployment office.”

“Not if she quits. No benefits. Maybe no recommendation.”

She thought about Tally in their last group session, frustrated and angry. At the hospital, cynical and resigned. “Her back was up against a wall. She’s alone and upset, with her life and with her husband. Then he finally gets home from a weekend of blowing their money at the casino, and everything she’s been feeling comes to a head. She lights into him, and in the heat of that moment, he kills her.”

“There’s zero evidence of that. The house was clean and orderly. We won’t have any autopsy info until tomorrow, but I can tell you right now, there weren’t any defensive wounds on her hands.”

“He could have restrained her, killed her, and then cleaned up afterward.”

“We’re investigating that possibility right now. That’s why I have to go back after our meeting with Reverend McPartlin.”

A possibility struck her. “Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”

He shook his head. “She was shot in the head. Through her mouth.”

“Oh, God.”

He flipped his phone open and dialed. “Anything else? Drugs? Alcohol?”

“I never saw any sign she was using.” Her rapidly dwindling secret stash swelled in her conscience, filling her mouth with the words that would confess; uppers, downers, pain pills. She swallowed her own guilt. “There was very open access to sleeping pills and stimulants in Iraq. She may have brought some back with her.”

“Hmn.” His glance shifted toward his phone. “Lyle? Russ. How’s it going?”

Across the hall, the Reverend Julie McPartlin came through the door. She spread her hands. What’s up?

Clare flashed her the same five-fingered signal Julie had given her earlier. Five minutes.

“No, no, that’s fine. Look, evidently Wyler McNabb was away gambling as of Monday night.”

Julie shrugged and tapped her watch.

“I have no idea. Could be Las Vegas or Atlantic City, could be Akwesasne or Turning Stone. Find a picture and have Kevin pick it up. He can start faxing it around to the state casinos.”

Clare nodded. This might be a short session.

“Then call Ed in to cover for him. Yeah, I know he’s on overtime. Just do it.”

Julie disappeared back down the hallway.

“McNabb was in a veterans support group over at the community center.” He covered his phone with one hand. “You don’t mind if I tell them you were in the group with her, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Yeah, Clare’s taking part in it, too. She said McNabb never mentioned seeing Nichols but that she was stressed about work and her marriage.” He paused. “Yeah, it does. She might have been under treatment for depression or something.” He cupped his hand over the phone again. “Can your therapist prescribe?”

She shook her head.

“Clare says she would have had to get scrip somewhere else if that was the case. Have you found anything?” He paused. “Okay. Yeah. The husband’s the number one priority. I’ll see you when I’m finished up here. I know.” He let out a weary laugh. “I’m going to be the only guy not on overtime.”

Russ snapped his phone shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know what I want for Christmas? Another officer.”

“She didn’t commit suicide, Russ. I know she didn’t.”

He stood up. Held out his hand to help her. “We’re not closing the door on the possibility someone else was involved, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Perps may try to hide evidence, but outside of movies, they don’t create elaborate scenarios making it look like the victim killed him or herself.”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6

“Tally McNabb, death by gunshot, probable suicide.” The chief flipped open a folder and draped it over his knee.

Hadley stifled a yawn and flipped her own notebook to a fresh page. She had gotten in last night at eleven, to discover Hudson half-asleep over an unfinished history project. She had sent him up to bed and stayed up until midnight gluing bark onto a cardboard longhouse.

“I got the medical examiner’s report this morning.” The chief picked his mug off the scarred wooden table he preferred to sit on and took a long drink of coffee. “ Earlier this morning,” he amended. “His finding is death consistent with suicide, but he won’t go further than that. Her injuries were caused by a Taurus.38 ACP, the weapon at the bottom of the pool”-he pointed toward one of several color pictures pinned to the corkboard-“which has her prints all over it.”

“Nitrate patterns on her firing hand?” Lyle MacAuley asked.

“If she had ’em, they were washed away by the chlorinated water.”

The dep straightened from his slouch and jotted the facts on the whiteboard.

“There’s no way she was killed anywhere else on the property,” Eric McCrea said. “We sprayed with luminol. The place was clean.”

The chief nodded. “Dr. Dvorak felt the”-he glanced down at the file-“the residual biological matter in the pool was consistent with her dying at that spot.”

Hadley tried not to think about what “residual biological matter” meant.

“The neighbors heard one shot at approximately 2:00 P.M. and discovered her shortly thereafter,” the chief went on. “Dr. Dvorak places TOD between noon and two o’clock. Nobody was seen coming or going from the place, although that’s not definitive since it was during the workday and most folks weren’t even home.”

“It reads like suicide to me,” MacAuley said.

“But we’re still missing the husband,” Eric pointed out.

“Wyler McNabb.” The chief took another drink of coffee. “The victim described him as ‘away gambling’ on Monday night, but at this point, we haven’t gotten any hits from the casinos Kevin sent his picture to. The Albany airport doesn’t have a record of him transiting this past week. His Escalade and her Navigator are still parked in the driveway of their house.”

“He could have driven home Tuesday or Wednesday, done her, and then fled the scene,” Eric said.

The chief tilted his head in agreement. “Besides his boat and his ATV, he has no other vehicles registered in his name. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t have access to something.”

“Hadley and I checked out the backyard yesterday afternoon,” Flynn said. “There’s kind of a tangle behind the utility shed, and then a beat-down fence, and then you’re onto the neighbor’s property. Someone could’ve gone straight through to the next street over.”

“Did you include them in the canvass yesterday?”

Flynn looked at Hadley. “I did,” she said. “There was no one at home at the Saber Drive address behind McNabb’s house, or at the ones on either side. There was a retired couple across the street, but they didn’t see anything.”

“Where’s that street come out?”

Noble answered the chief. “Musket, Drum, and Saber all dead-end at the western side. Easterly, they all join up with Meersham Street. No other way out.”

“Eric’s right.” The chief rubbed a finger over his lips. “If McNabb had a car waiting for him, he could have done her, walked to Saber Drive, and been five miles down the road before the FR arrived.”

Hadley, who had been the first responder, nodded. “I got there eleven minutes after logging the call.”

“Of course, now you’re talking conspiracy to murder, with at least one accessory.” Lyle tapped the tip of his marker against the board. “That’s awfully complicated, for something that looks like suicide to begin with.”

“I agree. Eric. What did you get from the electronic trail?”

Eric set his coffee on the floor and flipped his notepad back several pages. “No travel arrangements. No e-mails that seemed significant.” He looked over the edge of his pad. “She shared the account with McNabb, though, so if she was still swapping love notes with the MP boyfriend, she might have had some Web-based mail service. She had a Facebook page that hadn’t been updated in five months.”

“That’s it?”

“I’m not any sort of computer whiz, Chief. If you want the guts vacuumed out, you’ll have to get the state cybercrime unit to do it.”

The chief shook his head. “That’ll be a last-resort item. Lyle?”

“She was a bookkeeper for BWI Opperman. Hired this past August, a few months after she got back. Wyler McNabb works there as well; he may have gotten her an in with the job. The company has a construction contract in Iraq. He’s worked over there, and she’s had”-he looked at his notebook-“two tours of duty, so it was a good fit. Our girl was scheduled to return to Iraq as part of the team’s administrative support.” He looked at McCrea. “Maybe she didn’t like that idea.”

McCrea picked up his tall cardboard cup. “Are you asking me my opinion? It’s no tropical vacation paradise, but I wouldn’t eat my gun to avoid going back.”

Hadley glanced at Flynn, but he was busy writing notes. MacAuley continued. “The HR director described her as reliable, skilled, no problems with anyone she worked with.” He shot the chief a meaningful glance. “At home, she kept their financial records real neat, like you’d expect. There might have been money stress-most of those fancy SUVs and stuff were less’n a year old, and they didn’t have very much in checking or savings, according to her most recent statement, which is the only one I could find. There were some receipts for winnings and expenses from several casinos in an accordion file marked TAXES, so the gambling was not a one-off. There’s a single mortgage on the house, payments current. The only thing that I flagged was his life insurance policy. It was underwritten by his employer to the tune of a cool half mil.”

Hadley couldn’t help it; she whistled.

“That’s a helluva lot for a construction worker with no dependents,” the chief said.

“Judging by the tax returns I saw, he was the big earner, not her. Which means if he was about to pull the plug on the relationship, she’d be pretty much left out in the cold, as far as money went.” He made a gesture toward the chief. “You know, your first thought mighta been the right one.”

“Murder-suicide?”

“Could be the reason McNabb hasn’t turned up yet is that she did him somewhere else and hid the body.”

“Then came back home to top herself? Maybe.”

“I disagree. I think we’re going to find the husband.” Eric crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his chair back. “I think he did her.”

The chief raised his eyebrows. “Based on…?”

“I can’t see her killing herself. She’s got relationship problems, and job problems, but let’s face it, there was obviously a lot of marital property to go around even if they did split up. And how hard can it be for a good bookkeeper to find employment?” Eric let his chair drop to the floor again. “I’m betting they had a roaring fight, he did her, and then dropped her in the pool.”

The chief dropped the folder back onto the table. “We can all agree that finding Wyler McNabb is the top priority. Once we’ve got him, we’ll be able to pin this thing down.” He glanced around the squad room. “Any other questions? No? Okay, then. Lyle, Eric, with me.”

Hadley glanced at Flynn, and then toward McCrea, who was following the chief and MacAuley out the door.

Flynn paused in the act of tucking his notebook away. “What?”

“She was a veteran.”

“Yeah?”

She dropped her voice. “Eric was awfully insistent on her death being a homicide. Do you think it’s a warning sign? Like he couldn’t stand the idea that another veteran might have killed herself?”

“She might not have.” Flynn collected his hat and handed Hadley hers. “Sure, it looks a lot like suicide, but she’s got a missing husband who likes to throw money around like rice at a wedding. An Escalade. A plasma-screen TV. An in-ground swimming pool, for chrissakes.”

She couldn’t stop her grin. He sounded so outraged. “Flynn, I had an in-ground pool in California.”

He stood to one side and let her precede him out the squad room door. “It makes sense out there. Here, where you can only use it a few months out of the year?” He shook his head. “It’s just a big concrete sign that reads Money means nothing to me. They could have stapled twenties on the front of the house and sent the same message. At least that way, they wouldn’t have had to keep the thing clean and chlorinated.”

They walked down the hall side by side. Money means nothing to me. She bit her lip.

“What?” He opened the station house door.

Hadley zipped her jacket against the cool breeze. “What do you mean, what?”

“You thought of something. You always bite your lip like that when you’re thinking.” Flynn clattered down the steps toward the parking lot, a small smile on his face.

She forced herself not to bite her lip again as she followed him. “Of all the stuff they have at the McNabbs’ house, what do you think cost the most?”

“The pool.”

“Really? More than the cars?”

“Yeah. You have to dig them out crazy deep and wide, and surround them with layers and layers of crushed gravel and stuff to keep them from cracking when everything freezes. It’s a huge job.”

She paused by her cruiser. “I wonder… Eric and MacAuley didn’t turn up a note.”

He looked at her intently. “No.”

“Maybe where she did it was her note. She kills herself in the most expensive, wasteful thing they own.”

“What’s her message? F-you?”

“No.” Hadley opened the car door and tossed her lid and notebook in. “‘Money means nothing to me.’”

Hadley had been on patrol for three hours when she got the call to respond to army personnel trying to get into the McNabb house.

“Are you sure?” she asked Harlene.

The dispatcher’s voice was tart. “That’s what the neighbor said. If you go over there in your unit, you can find out for yourself.”

Hadley was extra polite when she signed off. She was pretty sure Harlene liked her, but Hadley’s position as low man on the totem pole meant she got the least amount of slack.

Quentan Nichols, she thought. Back for another shot at love. Boy, was he in for an unpleasant surprise. The surprise, however, was on Hadley, when she pulled in behind an anonymous government-issued car and found a tall white woman standing in the front yard, talking on a cell phone.

The woman hung up as Hadley opened the driver’s side door. She was dressed in a green suit instead of those blurry camouflage outfits soldiers wore, with a lot of ribbons and stuff pinned to a jacket that must have been tailored but still didn’t fit quite right. Hadley, whose uniforms came in any size as long as it was men’s, recognized the look.

“Ma’am? Can I help you?”

A flicker at the corner of the garage. Hadley twitched toward the movement, then relaxed when she saw another army guy coming toward them. This one was in urban camo, like Nichols had been, but was younger and lighter-skinned. He was also carrying a sidearm.

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye.” The woman stepped toward her. She was older than Hadley had thought at first, midforties at least. “I’m looking for Mary McNabb, also known as Tally McNabb.”

“You’re military police?”

Colonel Seelye nodded. “Specialist McNabb is absent without leave. We’re here to return her to her battalion.”

Hadley tried not to let that little piece of info rock her back. AWOL? They had all been working on the assumption that McNabb was quit of the army. The chief needed to be in on this. “Can you wait here a moment, ma’am? I’ve got to report back to my dispatcher and tell her what’s going on.”

Colonel Seelye cut her eyes toward the small houses flanking the McNabb place. “Observant neighbors.”

“It’s a small town, ma’am. We try to look out for each other.” Hadley walked back to her unit with the cop strut she had picked up from watching Deputy Chief MacAuley-not too fast, not too slow. Owning the situation. Inside, she raised Harlene and let her know what was going on.

“Hold on a sec,” Harlene said. “The chief’s just calling in.” Hadley’s line went dead. She looked through the windshield at the two MPs. They had turned toward the house, so their backs were toward her. She wondered what they were saying to each other.

“Hadley?”

“Yeah. I mean, here.”

“The chief is on his way. He wants to talk to ’em, so don’t let ’em leave before he gets there.”

Hadley almost asked how she was supposed to accomplish that, but she knew what Harlene would say. Think of something! “Will do,” she said. “Knox out.”

As she crunched across the leaf-strewn lawn, the colonel and her backup turned again to face her. Detective and beat cop, Hadley thought. Plainclothes and uniform. The look was familiar, even if the outfits were different.

“So…” Colonel Seelye squinted at Hadley’s name badge, causing fine lines to radiate from the corners of her eyes. “Officer Knox. Can you tell us where we can find Mary McNabb?”

Harlene hadn’t said anything about concealing the truth from them. “I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but Tally McNabb is dead. She was found floating in her backyard pool yesterday.”

The younger guy’s head jerked toward Seelye, but the officer only blinked slowly. “That would explain the crime scene tape around the fence.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And your department is investigating this as…?”

“Death by gunshot, probable suicide, ma’am.”

The colonel held herself very still. Finally she said, “Who is the lead investigator on the case?”

“I guess that would be the chief. Although the dep-the deputy chief and Sergeant McCrea are working it, too.”

“The chief of police.” Seelye raised one eyebrow. “How many sworn officers does the Millers Kill Police Department have, Officer Knox?”

There was something in her voice that kind of went up Hadley’s spine and made the answers to her questions pop out. “Eight, if you include the chief, ma’am. Plus two part-time auxiliaries.”

“That’s… small. Your department can’t have had much experience with homicide or violent crime.”

“You’d be surprised, ma’am.”

Whatever the colonel was going to say was cut off by the grind of tires on asphalt. Hadley kept her eyes on the MPs. Behind her, a car door thunked. The young guy darted glances to Seelye, but Seelye simply watched, not asking anything, not registering any surprise. Hadley thought she’d never seen such a self-contained woman before.

“Officer Knox.” When the chief greeted her, she turned to him. He gave her a nod and continued on toward the colonel. “I’m Russell Van Alstyne.” He held out his hand. “Chief of police.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye, U.S. Army Military Police, attached to the 10th Soldier Support Battalion.” They shook hands. “I came here to pick up one of our soldiers who was absent without leave, but your officer here tells me we’re too late.”

The chief nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

“Can you tell me what your investigation has turned up so far, Chief?”

“Tally McNabb’s autopsy indicated death consistent with suicide by handgun, although we haven’t found any note. She seemed to be under some marital and job stress.” The chief glanced at the younger, armed soldier. “Of course, if she was hiding out from you folks, that would have been a whole other problem that we weren’t aware of.”

“Are you considering her death as a possible homicide?”

The chief shot a look at Hadley. She straightened. “Her husband’s been missing since before her body was discovered. We have a BOLO out on Wyler McNabb. I suspect that we’ll be able to clear the case pretty quick once we find him.” He looked assessingly at the house. “One way or the other. What’s the army’s story?”

The colonel shrugged. “McNabb went on leave in May, a couple months after her last deployment, and never came back. Her case kept getting shuffled to the bottom of the pile-you can imagine the sort of stuff we have to deal with when an entire battalion of young men and women get back to the States after a year. However, her company went back on alert this month, which shot her file to the top of our roster. So here we are.”

The chief nodded. “So here you are. Was there anything else going on with her? Was she in trouble?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you said, we ought to at least consider the possibility that she was killed. If McNabb was involved with something criminal, that would open up some new lines of inquiry for us.”

Colonel Seelye smiled faintly. “I assure you, Chief Van Alstyne, as far as the army is concerned, not showing up for work is a crime. Let me ask you something. Other than the autopsy, what is your evidence for suicide?”

“Well”-the chief hitched his thumbs in his gun belt and spread his legs a little-“we checked for a note, like I said, and we went over her credit card statements and her mortgage book to see if she had money troubles.”

“Did she?”

“Not that we could tell.” He scratched the back of his head. In the two years she had been on the force, Hadley had never seen him do that. It made him look like a hayseed.

There was something wrong here. The chief was the original what-you-see-is-what-you-get guy. Why was he suddenly acting like an ignorant small-town sheriff?

“You know, it would be very helpful to us if we could take a look at her effects,” the colonel said.

“For someone AWOL?” The chief huffed a laugh. “Why on earth for?”

Colonel Seelye tilted her head. “She may have had help in keeping out of sight and off the battalion’s radar screen, so to speak. If she had any accomplices, we’d like to know.”

“Hmn.” The chief rubbed his chin. “Well, the problem with that is, this is Wyler McNabb’s house, and you’ve got no cause to enter a civilian’s home.”

“He’s wanted for questioning in a violent death.”

“Yeah, but wanted ain’t proved, as we say up here. If he checks out clean, my department could be in a heap of trouble if we let some army investigators paw through his things.” He grinned at the MPs. “Unless you think her being AWOL had some bearing on her being dead.”

Seelye shook her head. “No, of course not.” She smiled back at the chief. “Still, you can understand our position, can’t you? If we have soldiers evading their sworn duty, morale drops, training suffers, and eventually, you have men and women in harm’s way who know that their brother and sister soldiers have sold them out.” She clipped her jaw shut, as if she realized she had gone overboard.

“That’s a problem, all right.” The chief frowned. “Tell you what, let me run it by Judge Ryswick. If he says it’s okay, we’re covered. I wouldn’t have an answer for you until at least tomorrow, though. Are you staying in the area?”

Colonel Seelye unbuttoned her jacket and slipped her hand into an inside pocket. “Let me give you my cell number.” She retrieved a business card and a pen. She flipped the card over and scribbled on the back. “Just give me a call as soon as you know. Fort Drum isn’t nearby, but it’s not at the other end of the country.”

She handed her card to the chief, who took it, smiling. “I’ll do that.”

“Then we’re all set for now.” She looked at the private. “Let’s go.”

The younger man nodded. He headed for their car, the colonel two steps behind him.

“And let me just say, on behalf of my whole department”-the chief had the solemn sincerity of a six-dollar Hallmark card-“thank you for your service.”

Both the MPs paused. A twinge passed over Colonel Seelye’s face so fast Hadley would have missed it if she hadn’t been watching her closely. “Um. Thank you, Chief Van Alstyne.”

The chief stood there, a sticky-sweet smile on his face, as they got into the government car and as they drove away. When the MPs were out of sight, the smile dropped away. His face set in grim lines.

“What was that all about?”

“I’m not sure, but it wasn’t about Tally McNabb being AWOL.” He dug his phone out of his pants pocket. “When a soldier’s missing, the battalion’s military police post sends a couple low-level warrant officers out. Like you and Kevin hauling in someone who’s blown off a court date.” His eyes narrowed. “That colonel is an investigator. She doesn’t waste her time on fugitive specialists. She’s not attached to the 10th Soldier Support Battalion in Fort Drum, New York, either. She’s with the U.S. Army Finance Command. Which is based in Indianapolis.”

“How could you tell?”

He tapped his shoulder. “Her patches.” He flipped open the phone. Thumbed a number. “Hi, Lyle? Russ. I have a question about the paperwork you went through at McNabb’s house.” He paused. “You said she was pretty well organized, right? Did you see any documents related to her service? Could have been enlistment papers, evaluations-yeah? Okay, did you see anything indicating she had been discharged or separated?” He nodded to the phone. “Okay. Thanks.” Another pause. “I’ll catch you up at the five o’clock. ’Bye.” He flipped the phone shut. “Lyle says she had her whole service record in one folder. Including discharge papers from this past May.”

“Is it a bad time?” In the bright afternoon sunlight streaming through Will Ellis’s hospital window, Clare could see the white-coated outline of the man sitting next to the bed, but she couldn’t make out the details.

“No, it’s me.” Trip Stillman stood up. “I’m not officially here. I mean, I’m not here as Will’s doctor.”

Clare came into the room, half-closing the door behind her. “I’m not officially here, either.”

“Does that mean you’re not here as my priest or not here as my mom’s friend?” Will’s voice was weak but welcome. The fact that he had already been moved to a regular room was a testament to his physical strength.

“I guess I’m here as your brother in arms. Sister in arms?” She took Will’s hand. “How are you doing?”

“Better.” He gripped her hand. It felt like a small child squeezing a stuffed animal. “Really. Better. There’s this hospital counselor I’ve been talking to, and Sarah’s come to see me…” He took a breath, as if speaking two sentences in a row tired him out. “Mostly, I was finally honest with my parents about how freaking mad I’ve been.” He looked at Clare. “It was like you said, remember? Everybody wanted so much for me to feel better. It was like I was letting the team down if I felt pissed off or screwed over.”

“How do you feel now?” Clare asked.

“Like I want my damn legs back. Every minute of every day, I wish I was normal again. That’s not going to change.” He shook his head, a slow roll back and forth against the hospital pillow. “But, Jesus, I’m glad I’m not dead.”

Stillman leaned forward and awkwardly touched Will’s shoulder. “We’re all glad you’re not dead.”

Clare took a deep breath. “Listen. I’ve got something to tell you, and it’s not good news, but I think you should hear it first from me instead of stumbling over it in the paper or something.”

Stillman rose. “I’ll give you your privacy, then.”

“No, Trip, wait. This is for you, too.” The doctor sank back into his chair, frowning. Clare blanked for a moment. Then she remembered what Russ had said once about delivering bad news. Get to the worst of it fast. “Tally McNabb was found dead at her home yesterday afternoon.”

“What?” Both men spoke at once.

“She died from a single gunshot to the head. The police are investigating. They say it looks like suicide, but they can’t confirm it yet.”

“Oh, God.” Will shut his eyes. “Did I-do you think she got the idea from me?”

“No, I don’t. I was here the night they brought you in. I talked with her. There wasn’t anything in what she said or how she acted that made me think she wanted to do herself harm.”

Stillman had slid his PalmPilot from his coat and was tapping through screen after screen. “I don’t think she was suicidal,” he said. “I don’t see anything here suggesting that was an issue.”

Clare raised both eyebrows. “You keep notes on our therapy sessions?” Her voice was pointed.

“Yes. Not to show them to anyone.” He sat stiffly upright. “It’s an old habit instilled in medical school. Over the years, it’s been very useful. Lifesaving, at times.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little-” She cut herself off. One of their group was dead. Another hospitalized. Compared to that, a crack in the wall of confidentiality was nothing. “Never mind. I agree with you. About her frame of mind. I don’t think she killed herself.”

“You mean she was murdered?” Will’s shocked voice was a reminder of how young he really was.

“Do the police have a suspect?” Stillman asked.

“They’re looking for her husband. He hasn’t been seen since sometime before her body was found.”

Stillman nodded. “I’ve heard it’s usually the husband or boyfriend in situations like this.”

“In Tally’s case, you can take your pick. She had an affair with an MP when she was in-country. He came looking for her twice this past summer.” Clare’s shoulders twitched. “Maybe he finally caught up with her.”

They all sat with that thought for a while. Finally, Will said, “I feel like we let her down.”

Clare shook her head. “No. What could we have done? She didn’t show any signs that she was in an abusive relationship.” Even as she said it, she thought of Tally’s disappearance back in the summer. Moving from friend to friend, eating at the soup kitchen.

“She said she was tired of always being afraid. Remember?” Will looked to Stillman for confirmation.

The doctor bit the inside of his cheek. “That phrase suggests to me she was tired of the fear you bring back with you.” He spoke carefully, doling out his words one by one. “The stuff you know is foolish, but you just can’t put it behind you. Like trying to find a mortar shelter when the town fire alarm whistle goes off.”

“Or being afraid to fall asleep.” Clare didn’t realize she had spoken out loud until both men looked at her. She shrugged. “Nightmares.”

“Me, too,” Will said. “What if that wasn’t it, though? What if she was afraid of something going on in her life right here and now?”

“The MKPD is looking into it. They’ll get to the bottom of it.” She took his hand again and squeezed it, ignoring the niggling voice in the back of her head reminding her of how sure Russ had been that Tally’s death was a suicide.

A pretty young girl stuck her head in the door. “Bookmobile,” she sang. “Ready to pick out a good read?”

“I’d better go,” Clare said. “I don’t want to tire you out. I’ll be by tomorrow.”

“As will I.” Trip Stillman pocketed his PalmPilot as he rose. “Tell your mother I said hi.”

“Thanks. For coming to see me.” Will lifted his hand in a feeble salute.

The bookmobile girl rolled back to let them out of the room. Clare recognized her as one of the youngest and chattiest of the hospital’s aides. In her apron and ponytail, she looked like a nurse in a World War II flick, come to bring cheer to the wounded boys.

“I notice they’re not sending him the grandmotherly candy stripers,” she said.

“Might as well give him an eyeful of what he has to live for.” Stillman pressed the elevator button. “My niece used to volunteer here. She would have loved to spend time with a good-looking boy Will’s age.”

“Tell him that.”

“I will.”

Clare looked at her scratched and blurred reflection in the elevator’s doors. She was suddenly so tired she thought she might fall over. She leaned against the wall. “Do you think he’ll make it? Not now, I mean. In the long haul. Are his doctors just patching him up so he can try again?”

“I don’t think so. Will’s already done the hardest work of recovery.”

She made a little go-on gesture.

“His life’s been divided into before and after, and he’s in the after.” The elevator pinged, and Stillman held the door open for her. “I think he’s finally accepted that. That’s the first step toward going forward.” He stabbed the floor button.

The car jerked precipitously beneath them, and the lights dimmed.

Clare heard the sounds of the mortars in the distance as she looked frantically around the bunker. Dim emergency lights, and the smell of mouse shit and rotting wood, and where was the chem hazard locker and where was the bulkhead door and where was her mask and the blare of the klaxon and the thud of the shells getting nearer and the slosh of the river water rising higher and higher-

Clare found herself on the elevator floor, legs tucked, arms wrapped around her head. She opened her eyes. Trip Stillman was looking at her from exactly the same position.

The car jerked again, upward, quivered, and then began its descent. For a second, she couldn’t move. It’s getting worse. It’s supposed to be getting better, but it’s getting worse.

“Are you okay?” Stillman whispered.

She scrambled to her feet. Stillman got up more slowly. “Like I said. The foolish stuff.” His voice was thin and dry.

“Trip, I need sleeping pills and amphetamines and Tylenol Three.” Like falling into the duck-and-cover, the words came out without conscious control. “I had them when I came back and I’m almost out and I need more.” She looked at him. “I don’t have any good medical reason. I just need them. Will you help me?”

He stared at her. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. They got out. He glanced at the people walking past them; a pair of doctors, a technician in scrubs, a man toting a potted plant. He beckoned her around the corner, into a niche formed by a vending machine and a stainless steel crib frame. “What have you been taking?”

“I don’t know. They’re go pills and no-go pills. The only bags that had labels were the antibiotic and the Tylenol.” He frowned. “I’m cutting back on the sleeping pills. Really. With everything going on, I’ve been falling into bed at the end of the day. It’s just-” She swallowed. “When I wake up. If I have a nightmare. I need one then to get back to sleep.”

“Are you mixing them with alcohol?”

“Sometimes. Yes. Usually.”

He shook his head. “You don’t need more, you need to get off them. Amphetamines and sleeping pills just feed into each other.”

“I can’t!” To her horror, her voice cracked. “Trip, I’ve got nightmares and flashbacks and parishioners to take care of and a wedding to get through. I can’t talk to my spiritual adviser about this, and I’m not going to dump it on my fiancé. I just need to keep on an even keel for a few more weeks.”

Trip looked at the floor. Finally, he sighed. “I won’t give you any painkillers. Forget about it.” He pulled out his PalmPilot. “I’ll give you a two-week prescription for Ambien and Dexedrine. Here’s the deal.” He speared her with a look. “You take the Dexedrine as prescribed-no more than ten migs a day, to start. No booze when you take the Ambien and for twelve hours after. I’m going to call you for a blood test some time during the next two weeks. If I find you’ve been mixing, I’ll cut you off. If I find you have a higher concentration of dextroamphetamine than you ought to, I’ll cut you off. No second chances, no do-overs.”

She nodded.

He tapped something into his PalmPilot. “I’m e-mailing myself the instructions. I’ll give you the scrip Monday, at group. Can you hold out until then?”

She nodded.

“I shouldn’t be doing this.” He rubbed the scar along his forehead.

“Thank you.”

He sighed again. “I’ll see you on Monday.” He looked for a moment as if he were going to say something else. Instead, he turned and walked away. She stayed against the wall, half hidden, for a moment, turning the whole thing over in her head. Telling herself she was going to be okay. Wondering if this was her own before and after.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7

Clare hadn’t taken a sleeping pill the night before, and she hadn’t had a nightmare, but she was still sodden with fatigue when she rolled out of bed at 6:30 A.M. for the 7:00 Eucharist. She debated taking an upper for twenty seconds before popping one in her mouth. By the time she closed the rectory door behind her, she was feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, congratulating herself for making a smart choice.

She wrapped up the Eucharist in thirty-five minutes and was standing by the great double doors, bidding farewell to the communicants-all seven of them-when Russ wedged his way past Mrs. Mairs into the narthex.

“I didn’t expect to see you today. What are you doing here?” Clare asked.

Mrs. Mairs tittered. “Can’t wait to see the bride-to-be. That’s a good sign.”

Russ smiled patiently at the octogenarian before turning to Clare. “You said we had to go to the Stuyvesant Inn, remember? To okay the napkins or mints or whatever?”

Clare waited until the last of the congregation left the narthex. She kicked away the stand and let the heavy double-braced door glide slowly closed on its hydraulic hinges. “I said I have to go. I didn’t mean to drag you into this.” She headed up the aisle. Russ fell into step beside her. “If I hadn’t been sure my mother never would have spoken to me again, I would have just asked Julie McPartlin to do the deed in her office.” She opened the door to the hallway. “It’s still awfully tempting.”

He laughed. “You may be the only southern woman in existence who prefers elopements to white weddings.”

She went into the sacristy. “Me and every other clergywoman. Do you know how many weddings I’ve officiated at? And I haven’t been ordained five years yet.” She stripped her alb over her head and snapped it to get the wrinkles out. “Another five years and I’ll run screaming when I hear the opening strains of Pachelbel’s Canon .” She slid the alb onto a wooden hanger and replaced it in the closet. “Which reminds me. If you have any musical preferences, speak now or forever hold your peace, because Betsy Young has announced she and the choir will be providing the wedding music as a gift to us.” She removed the stole from around her neck, kissed it, and draped it over a padded dowel with the others.

“Hmn. I was thinking you could walk up the aisle to ‘She Drives Me Crazy.’”

She gave him a look.

“Then we could come back down to “Goody Two Shoes.’” He swiveled his hips in a surprisingly agile figure eight. “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?”

“I drink.”

“Who says the song is about you?”

She shoved him. “I’ll tell Betsy we’d like ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ and ‘Come Down, O Love Divine.’”

He laughed. “Chicken.”

She grabbed her keys and her coat from the hook inside the sacristy closet and ushered him out. “Seriously. You don’t have to do this. I know you’re flat out with Tally McNabb’s murder investigation.”

He let her lead him back to the narthex. “First, we’re nowhere near to calling it a homicide. Second, if my department can’t get along without me for an hour, I’m not doing my job right. Third”-he stepped into the early morning sunshine and stood to one side as she locked the great doors-“I put my work ahead of everything else when I was married to Linda. It didn’t turn out so well.” She turned to look at him, and he braced his hands against the wooden door, trapping her between his arms. “I want to do it differently with you. You deserve the best I can bring to the table.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. “Thank you.”

“C’mon. I parked over in Tick Solway’s lot across the street.” It hadn’t been Tick’s lot since he died two years back and his son inherited, but that was the way things worked in Millers Kill. Clare was sure half the town still referred to the rectory as Father Hames’s house, and that paragon of virtue had been gathered into Abraham’s bosom six years ago.

It was five minutes before traffic thinned enough to allow Russ to pull his truck onto Church Street. “What’s with all the cars?” Clare looked at her battered Seiko. “The morning rush to Glens Falls ought to be over by now.”

“Leaf peepers. For the next two weeks or so we’ll see almost as many tourists as we get during ski season.” He braked as an Explorer with New Jersey plates cut in front of him to turn onto Main.

“I’ve never quite understood how driving an SUV three hundred miles expresses your love of nature.”

“Don’t say that in front of any local business owners.”

A thought struck her. “Aren’t you going to be short on manpower? With an investigation and a boatload of tourists in town?”

“Yep.” He cut the wheel, and they made the sharp turn onto Route 57. “I can already hear Lyle. ‘Ask not for whom the overtime tolls, it tolls for thee.’ What we really need is another sworn officer.”

“What about trainees from the police academy?”

“That was fine to plug the gap while Eric and Kevin were away, but in the long run, I need someone full-time. Someone who can cover me or Lyle or Eric when things get tight.”

He swung onto the bridge. Up and down the river, the trees reflected in the calm water, red and gold, yellow and bronze, green and copper. It was made more beautiful by its brevity; the glory of a few days, a week, and then it was gone.

Russ sighed with pleasure. “Poor bastards.”

“Who?”

“Those folks you were talking about who have to drive three hundred miles for this. Looks like someone set the river on fire, doesn’t it?”

The river. The fire. The pale Nile green water and the buildings beyond, stone blocks and mud bricks baking in the endless sun. The car exploding, and the barn burning and the fire racing across the dry field. The column of oily smoke, and the chunks of masonry smashing into the hard-baked dirt. The blood. The screams.

“Clare?”

She shuddered back into the here-and-now.

“Are you all right?” Russ’s voice was concerned.

“Yeah. I’m-” not fine. Just tell him. I’m. Not. Fine. “Okay. Just a little tired.”

She was a coward. She was straight-up chickenshit. He thought she deserved the best he had to offer. She knew better. She had something ugly living in her, no different in its way than the colon cancer that had eaten up her sister from the inside out.

She just wanted it to be over and done with so she didn’t have to think about it ever again. The moment the idea touched down in her head, her skin goosefleshed. Was that what Tally McNabb had come to?

“Do you want to go home? We can reschedule. Or, hell, just have your mother decide everything.”

“My mother?” She breathed in. She was a big girl. She could handle a few bad memories. “You mean, my mother who wants you to wear a kilt?”

“What?”

The horror in Russ’s voice made her laugh, thank God. “That was her suggestion after I told her it was unlikely you’d agree to your police dress uniform. She thought all the men could wear kilts.”

“That’s the nuttiest-”

“They did it at my brother Doug’s wedding.”

He was silent as he slowed the truck and made the turn onto the Sacandaga Road. Finally, he said, “It might be worthwhile just to see how Lyle reacts.”

She laughed, and the moment was behind her, left beside the river as they rolled up and up through the stone-and-wire-rimmed pastures until they crested a rise and there was the Stuyvesant Inn, looking like a painted Florodora Girl in a wide green skirt sitting in the middle of dairy country.

It seemed Stephen and Ron were reaping the leaf-peeper bounty as well; their small three-car parking area was filled, and the sign pointing vehicles to the back was in its wooden frame. Russ ignored it in favor of pulling his truck half on, half off the grass beneath a blazing red maple near the road. “Fast getaway,” he said, when she looked pointedly at the parking sign. “In case of a police emergency.”

“Uh-huh.” They walked up the curving drive and mounted the steps to the wide front porch. In honor of the season, the chintz pillows on the curlicued wicker furniture had been replaced with needlepoint. Lacy throws and plaid lap robes draped over scrollwork settees and fan-back armchairs.

Russ pressed the brass buzzer. “I always feel like I’m going to break some god-awful piece of bric-a-brac worth a fortune when I’m here.”

“Maybe we can bypass the house and walk straight around to the tent for the reception,” she said, and then the door opened and Stephen Obrowski was there. “Welcome! Welcome!” He pumped both their hands at once, so it appeared, for a moment, as if they were about to begin a folk dance. “Congratulations,” he said to Russ. “You’re a lucky man.”

“Thanks. I agree.”

Stephen tugged them inside. Gray-haired, red-cheeked, Obrowski always reminded her of some jolly British print of a century ago: The Genial Innkeeper or The Happy Host. Instead of a buxom wife in an apron, however, he had the tall and Teutonic-looking Ron Handler, emerging from the kitchen at the end of the hall wiping his hands on a dish towel.

“Great to see you, Clare.” Ron kissed her cheeks. “And Chief Van Alstyne. You’re looking as butch as ever.”

“Ron,” Stephen warned.

“I kid, I kid. Look, why don’t you show them where everything will be set up, and then we can go over the menu and the notes Mrs. Fergusson faxed.” Ron tilted his head toward Clare. “I don’t like to leave the kitchen while we still have guests eating breakfast.”

“Notes Mrs. Fergusson faxed?” Russ said, at the same moment Clare said, “If this is a bad time…”

“Of course not.” Obrowski steered them toward the archway on the left while his partner vanished back down the hall. “Now, we thought we’d put the pianist here in the double parlor”-he pointed to a grand piano-“and leave the rest of the furniture pretty much as it is, to encourage folks to sit and talk.”

“There’s a pianist?” Russ looked at Clare. “I thought it was a DJ.”

“The DJ will be outside, in the dancing tent,” Stephen said.

Clare was starting to get a bad feeling. “When you say ‘dancing tent,’ does that imply there’s going to be a non dancing tent?”

“That’s right. The dining tent will have roll-down walls and heaters, to keep everyone comfortable through dinner and the toasts and all that.” Obrowski looped them through the second parlor, emerging back in the wide entrance hall. “We’re going to have the coat check back here, with a rolling rack tucked beneath the stairs, and then right here in the hallway, we’ll have one of the bars.” He looked at Clare hesitantly. “I know it’s a little unorthodox, but I thought it would keep traffic flowing and prevent the guests from bunching up around the drinks.”

“ One of the bars?” Russ shook his head. “Christ on a bicycle. It’s like the sacking of Richmond in reverse.”

Clare caught the look on the innkeeper’s face. “It’s fine, Stephen. Russ’s idea of a wedding is fifteen minutes in front of Judge Ryswick.” And boy, wasn’t that getting more appealing by the minute?

“Ah. Of course. I understand. Trust me, it sounds like a lot of fussy details right now, but the night of your wedding, when you’re here with your beautiful bride on your arm, you’ll be glad we took pains to get everything just so.” Stephen hurried ahead and cracked open the doors on the other side of the hall. He peeked inside.

“Having you on my arm is not what I’m looking forward to on our wedding night,” Russ said into her ear.

“Hold that thought.”

Stephen beckoned to them. “We have a couple of guests eating breakfast, so we’re just going to walk through the dining room and then on to the kitchen. We can collapse the dining room table by a few feet, but we can’t remove it from the room, so the plan is to have the desserts and coffee served from here.” He opened one door. “Excuse us, folks. We’re just doing a wedding walk-through.” He led them into the elaborately paneled room. “We’ll take the chairs out, of course, and put the tea service on the sideboard-”

Beside her, she could feel Russ stiffen. He was staring at the other end of the mahogany dining table, where a forty-something woman in a starched shirt was buttering toast and a young black man with very little hair was working his way through eggs and sausage. The woman’s eyes opened wide. She put her toast and her knife on her plate. “Chief Van Alstyne.”

“I see you decided not to head all the way back to Fort Drum. You hoping to become better acquainted with our little town?” Russ’s tone triggered Clare’s early alert system. This wasn’t some tourist whose purse had been returned by the police department.

The woman’s nose pinched in and her mouth thinned. “I did a little research and became better acquainted with you last night. Twenty-two years in the army, twenty of them as an MP, retired as a CW5. Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Presidential Commendation with Valor. Investigator in chief for the 6th Military Police Group, Fort Lewis, training command at Fort Leonard Wood…” She steepled her fingers. “So what was the Deputy Dawg act yesterday?”

His service records, Clare thought. The only place that information was accessible-and then only by authorized military personnel.

Russ crossed his arms. “Why don’t you tell me why you really came here looking for Tally McNabb?”

The woman’s eyes flicked toward Clare and Obrowski. Clare would go if Russ asked her, but she was damned if she was going to back down for anyone else. The innkeeper was another matter. “Stephen,” she said, “can we meet you in the kitchen in a few minutes?”

“Absolutely,” Stephen said, with the gratitude of a man whose job made him privy to more dirty laundry than he wanted to hear. He headed for the door. Paused. “I’ll have Ron make a fresh pot of coffee.” That thought seemed to make him happy again.

When the door swung shut behind him, the woman stared at Clare with a gaze like a dissecting knife. “Who’s she?”

Instead of answering her, Russ pulled a chair away from the table. “Clare?” She sat. “I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye of the U.S. Army Finance Command.” He gestured toward Clare. “The Reverend Clare Fergusson.”

She wasn’t sure what was going on, but since it looked like Russ had already taken the role of bad cop, she figured she ought to be the good cop. She smiled, showing many, many teeth. “Hello!”

“This isn’t a matter for a civilian, Chief. Even if she is a priest.”

“Didn’t I mention?” Russ took the chair next to her. “This is also Major Clare Fergusson of the 142nd Aviation Support Battalion.”

The private, who had stopped eating when it was clear Russ wasn’t going to keep moving along, straightened in his seat.

“I don’t care if she’s commander of the Big Red One. I’m not going to-” Seelye slapped her napkin down. She looked at Russ. Despite the heat in her voice, her gaze was cool. Assessing. Whatever she saw, she decided to change tactics. “Mary McNabb, a.k.a. Tally McNabb, was under investigation for peculation.”

Russ cocked an eyebrow. “She had her hand in the battalion cookie jar?”

“We believe she made off with a considerable sum.”

“I have a feeling the army and I probably have different ideas as to what constitutes a considerable sum.”

Colonel Seelye paused. “In the neighborhood of a million dollars.”

Russ whistled.

“Nice neighborhood,” Clare said. Seelye looked at her as if she had just spat chewing tobacco on the table. Clare tried not to let her cheeks pink up.

“That’s a hell of a lot of money to sneak off with under the army’s nose,” Russ said. “Didn’t she have any oversight?”

“McNabb altered the records. Destroyed data. She was very skilled. And the chief financial officer of her unit was… lax.”

Clare nudged Russ’s thigh. He nodded to her. Go ahead. “Tally had been stateside since March,” she said. “Her discharge came through in May, and she’s been living openly in Millers Kill since then. How come you’re only now showing up to investigate her?”

Seelye crossed her arms over her chest. The private stared at the eggs congealing on his plate. Clare looked at Russ. What did I say?

“I don’t think it’s because they’ve been taking their own sweet time. I think they didn’t know about it before now.” He twisted in his chair and propped an elbow on the table, for all the world as if he and Clare were having a postbreakfast chat over the paper. “Tally McNabb may have been a damn good bookkeeper, but she wasn’t any sort of criminal mastermind. I think she had help covering the theft up. From the inside.” He glanced toward Seelye, then back to Clare. She frowned. From the inside? The whole Army was one big “inside.” “From another MP,” he clarified.

Quentan Nichols. Clare’s mouth formed an O. Russ swept his lashes low in acknowledgment.

Seelye didn’t react. “I need to search that house, Chief.”

“That house is the property of a civilian who isn’t here to give his consent. You take what you have to a judge, you get a warrant, and I’ll be glad to help you execute it. Hell, I’ll have my whole department pitch in.”

“This case is not in your jurisdiction.”

“Maybe not, but Tally McNabb’s death is.”

“Your people searched their house.”

“With probable cause, post death by gunshot.”

“I want to see your files.”

“You want a lot, don’t you?” He stood. “C’mon, Clare. We have some faxes to decipher.”

Clare rose to her feet. A hundred questions were screaming in her head, but she smiled and nodded at the soldiers. “Colonel. Private.”

“Ma’am,” the young man said.

Seelye shot him an icy look. She steepled her fingers again. “This isn’t over, Chief. If you try to play hardball with the United States Army, I will have your ass hanging from my company flagpole. That’s a promise.”

Russ flattened his hands against the table and leaned forward. “I was playing hardball with the army back when you were still buffing up your butter bars and trying to memorize the ten-code.” He straightened. “Get a warrant, and we’ll talk. Until then…” He flipped his hand open.

He gestured Clare ahead of him. She felt as if she had a gun sighted between her shoulder blades as she walked to the kitchen door. As soon as the door had swung shut behind them, she opened her mouth.

Russ held a finger to his lips and dragged her around the industrial-sized center island toward Ron and Stephen, who immediately stopped talking. Ron twisted around and moved a stovetop percolator off the enormous gas range. “What was that all about?” Stephen asked.

“Police business,” Russ said.

Ron rolled his eyes.

Russ ignored him. “How long have they been here?”

“They checked in late Wednesday night,” Stephen said. “They were complaining about not being able to get a room at any of the motels.”

“They were damn lucky we had a party cancel. The Adirondacks during peak foliage?” Ron blew a raspberry.

Stephen frowned at his partner.

“Don’t give me that Mrs. Grundy look,” Ron said. “I told you they weren’t here for antiques and cider.” He pointed to Russ. “Is there anything we need to worry about? Seeing as they’re involved in police business ?”

“No. They’re cops. Military police.” He turned to Clare. “I’ve got to get back to the station. Do you mind handling the rest of the wedding hoopla without me?”

“No-o-o. I would mind the walk back to town, though.”

Russ made a frustrated sound. “Sorry. I forgot. Okay, let’s go.” He took off toward the hallway.

“Uh-” She looked helplessly at Stephen and Ron.

“Go, go.” Stephen flapped his hands at her. “Call us when you’re free. We can set up another time. Just don’t leave it too long!”

“Unless you want to think twice about the whole thing.” Ron indicated the door Russ had disappeared behind. “As I recall, Prince Charming is supposed to chase after Cinderella, not the other way around.”

Russ had already backed the truck onto the drive when she caught up to him. She swung the door open and jumped in. He started down the road before she had finished buckling her seat belt.

He unhooked the mic from its mount. “Dispatch, this is Van Alstyne, IOV.”

The radio cracked. “Chief, this is Dispatch, go ahead.”

“Is Lyle or Eric in?”

“Eric’s out interviewing friends and family. Lyle just headed to the courthouse with a warrant request. He’s fixing to get into McNabb’s bank account. The rest of ’em are in the seat.”

“Anybody not on patrol yet?”

“Hadley. She got in late.”

“Good. Have her contact McNabb’s telephone carriers. Landline and cell. I want a record of all incoming calls for the week up to her death. She’s looking for out-of-state numbers, especially ones originating from a Missouri or an Illinois area code.”

“Roger that.”

“And Harlene? Do we still have the hard copy of the intake file for Quentan Nichols? It would have been late June.”

“Probably.”

“Find it and put it on my desk. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Van Alstyne out.”

He hung up the mic.

“You think she and Nichols stole the money together.”

“If she took it, she didn’t do it alone. Do you know anything about how you draw pay during deployment?”

“Um… I showed up at the quartermaster’s and signed for it. At the bigger camps, like Liberty or Anaconda, you could use a card at the CX or to get cash.”

“Where’s the cash come from?”

She blinked. “I never thought about it.”

“It’s just like a civilian bank. The army flies it in, shrink-wrapped on pallets. The cash is transferred under guard to a secure location, where it’s locked into a vault and disbursed as necessary.”

“Huh. So when Seelye said upwards of a million, she meant one million actual dollars ?” Clare shook her head. “That’s gotta be a big amount. Physically, I mean.”

Russ flicked on his signal and turned onto River Road. “Yeah. McNabb was a finance company specialist. That means she only intersected with the cash at the end, when it was in a vault, under tight control. Or maybe not even then. It sounded as if she was in accounts management, not dispersal.”

“A bookkeeper, not a teller.” Clare scarcely noticed when they crossed the bridge. “She can cover up the loss, but not remove the actual loot from where it’s supposed to be.”

“That’s right. She would have needed an accomplice who had access to the money earlier. One of the ground crew. Or a truck driver. Or one of the MPs assigned to guard the cash.”

“Quentan Nichols. Do you think he gave Tally advance warning that the investigators were after her?”

“That’s why I’m having Knox pull the phone records.”

She stared out the side window. The sun made the autumn leaves look like they had been lit from inside. Almost too bright to look at against the white clapboard farmhouses and the October blue sky. She turned back toward Russ. “Maybe it wasn’t love that kept him coming back trying to talk with her. Maybe it was one million dollars.”

“Well, you know what they say. Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a cool million in the bank.” His mouth quirked. “Either Nichols had already gotten his cut, and he called to warn her in order to save his own skin, or she still owed him money, and he called to warn her in order to keep the cash flowing.”

“Or he showed up in person to collect.” She watched as he swung onto Church Street. The gazebo in the center of the park was still hung with red-white-and-blue bunting. Maybe one more concert this weekend before the town boarded it up for the winter. “Where does her husband fit in?”

“I’m sure he was happy to accept whatever money she gave him, no questions asked.” He braked to let a handful of shoppers cross the street. “I still want to question him, but unless there’s some evidence of domestic abuse we haven’t turned up yet, he’s dropped down several notches on my list.”

Clare could think of other reasons Wyler McNabb night have killed his wife. A million of them. Maybe she was going to break it off and take the money with her. Maybe he was going to break it off and he wanted it all for himself. Maybe only she knew where it was hidden, and his attempts to wring the location out of her went south. “Where do you suppose she stashed it?”

“That’s not my problem, thank God.” He drove past the church, past the boxwood hedge, and turned into her drive.

“What do you mean? A million in untraceable cash? If that’s not motive for murder, what is?”

He engaged the parking brake but kept the engine running. He turned, slinging his arm across the seat back. “You’re not seeing the whole picture. The McNabbs spent money like water in the past couple of years, buying cars, a boat, a swimming pool, and God knows how much in useless crap and rounds of drinks at the Dew Drop. Their relationship, by all accounts, was rocky. She was stressed by two tours of duty in Iraq, one of which included grand larceny. One of the guys in her group just tried to kill himself. Then she finds out the CID is about to show up. She’s looking at fifteen years’ hard time in Leavenworth and complete financial ruin from the restitution order.” He laid his hand over Clare’s. His voice gentled. “I know it’s hard to accept-but her.38 must have looked like her only friend in the world at that point.”

Eric McCrea knew that most cases were cleared with systematic, step-by-step investigation, methodical and well analyzed. Still, there was an element of luck to police work, too, and he didn’t know a single cop who’d disagree with him on that score.

Eric McCrea was about to get lucky.

He had been working his way down the list of McNabb’s family and friends, trying to find someone who might give the weasel up or at least tell the truth about his relationship with his wife. Eric had spoken to two co-workers already that morning, respectable, solid family guys who lived on quiet streets and kept their lawns mowed. Neither of them had ever socialized with Wyler McNabb, except for the company parties BWI Opperman put on. Neither of them knew much about Tally McNabb other than that the couple had been together since high school. No one recalled Wyler talking about or spending time with another woman.

“He sucked when he was on construction,” one man said. “Got fired off the resort here. He got rehired as a foreman, though, and he actually did better at that. He wasn’t dumb. Just allergic to hard work.”

An opportunist, Eric thought. Lives off others.

“He was kind of an asshole,” the other man said. “Thought he was smarter than he was and wanted you to think so, too.”

Arrogant, Eric thought. Confident he can get away with murder.

The next stop on the list was in an entirely different neighborhood-the Meadowbrook Estates Park, a tightly packed collection of rusting, rattling single-wides that had neither a meadow nor a brook to soften the hard-packed dirt between the concrete slabs and hook-ups. This was the home of Morris Slinger Jr. Fetch, as he was known, was one of those guys who managed to live off a combination of disability, small-time dealing, and the generosity of his friends. The most generous of whom was Wyler McNabb.

Eric was pleased to see Fetch’s Camaro beneath a fabric-topped, PVC-pole car park. He had tried the place yesterday, but his target had been gone. He pulled in, blocking the Camaro, and got out.

He banged on the door. Behind and around him, he could hear the pop and scrape of aluminum latches on aluminum frames, as Fetch’s neighbors stuck their heads out to watch the show.

“This is the Millers Kill police,” Eric roared. “Open the door!”

The door opened. Fetch stood inside, tall, blond, and still gangly, even though his teens were well past him now. “Hey. Sergeant McCrea.” He was trying for some enthusiasm. “What’s up, man?” He plucked at his T-shirt. “I’m clean. You can walk right in and see for yourself. Clean as a whistle.”

“I’m looking for a buddy of yours. Wyler McNabb.”

“Wyler.” Fletch’s voice relaxed. He stopped tugging his shirt out of shape. “Yeah, man, I just dropped him off at his house, like, less than an hour ago. What’s up?”

A flare of excitement shot up Eric’s spine and detonated inside his skull. He kept his face blank and his voice hard. “Where were the two of you?”

“At the Mohegan Sun. They had this off-season special, Monday night to Friday morning. Our room was, like, dirt cheap and we got free breakfast, too.”

The Mohegan Sun. The Connecticut casino was on Kevin’s list of out-of-state locations. Easy to follow up on.

“You were both there. The whole week.”

“Yeah.” Fetch mimed pulling a slot machine lever with one long, skinny arm. “It was just for the gambling, man. The casinos, they’re way strict. They even think you’re carrying, next thing you know security’s tossed your ass out the door and you ain’t gettin’ in again.”

“Why’d you take your car instead of his?”

Fetch shrugged. “He asked me if I wanted to drive. He paid for the gas and tolls and shit.” His face creased with concern. “You know, for real, Wyler likes a good time, but he don’t party. He don’t use shit, and he don’t move it. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re going to come up with nothing.”

Eric thought, for a moment, about calling in the CSI and impounding Fetch’s Camaro. Just because they had spent four glorious nights in some resort didn’t mean they hadn’t snuck back home for a little wet work. In which case, there might be fiber or skin or hair inside that car. He decided against it. If they hadn’t already cleaned and vacuumed after McNabb’s death, he was pretty sure Fetch wasn’t up to the task of sanitizing the environment himself.

“I want you to stay here.” He jabbed his finger at Fetch, not quite touching him. “You stay here, and the car stays here.”

Fetch’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Okay. Uh, for how long?”

“Until I tell you. Got it?”

Fetch nodded.

Eric gave him one more look, the one that said, I will mess you up if you cross me , and strode back to his unit. He waited until he had pulled out of the mobile home park to pick up his mic. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-twenty-five.”

“Fifteen-twenty-five, this is Dispatch, go ahead.”

“I’ve got a forty on Wyler McNabb. He was dropped off at his house within the last hour. He was supposedly at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut since Monday afternoon. Can somebody verify that stay for me?”

“Roger that, fifteen-twenty-five.”

“I’m proceeding to 16 Musket Way to bring the suspect in for questioning.”

“Roger that, fifteen-twenty-five. Do you require backup?”

Did he require backup? Hell no. Not against a limp-dicked woman-killer like McNabb. “Negative on that, Dispatch.” If McNabb did come after him, so much the better. He told Harlene what she would want to hear. “I’ll proceed with caution, Dispatch. If anything looks off, I’ll call for support.”

He hadn’t thought much of Tally McNabb’s cheating. Sure, it had been common among troops in Iraq, but so were sand fleas-and he sure wouldn’t have taken one of those into his bunk. Even if she had slept with every guy in her unit and then shown pictures of it to her husband, by God she had been one of their own. A brother in arms. He wasn’t going to let her down at the last.

Approaching the house, Eric saw the first sign McNabb was home. The garage doors were open, and McNabb’s ATV had been rolled onto the blacktop. Eric entered through the overcluttered garage and pounded on the kitchen door. “This is the Millers Kill police. Open up!”

There was a long pause. Finally, a voice said, “Prove it.”

Oh, for chrissake. “Look out your front window, asshole. You can see my cruiser sitting at the foot of your drive.”

Another period of silence. Then, “Whaddaya want?”

“I want you to open up this goddamn door before I kick it in!”

The door cracked open. Eric slid his boot into the opening, leaned against the edge of the door with his shoulder, and greased right through. “Hey!” McNabb backed away, bunching his hands into fists. “You can’t do that.”

“We’re like vampires, asshole. You open the door, we get to come in and stay.”

“What the hell do you want?” McNabb was dressed for the outdoors: ripstop woodlands camo pants and a matching shirt. A blaze-orange vest and bill cap were hooked over a kitchen chair.

“Going someplace?”

“I’m meeting some buddies. We’re going riding. No law against that.”

“Riding where?”

“We got a course set up behind the resort. Anybody who works for the company can use it. You can check. Nobody’s trespassing.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass whose woods you’re tearing up on that oversized roller skate. I want you to come with me to the station. We need to have a talk with you.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet.”

“Then screw you. I know my rights. I don’t have to talk with you or with anyone.”

Eric lunged forward. Twisted his fingers in McNabb’s collar and contracted his bicep, jerking the younger man up until he was dangling, boot toes pattering against the kitchen floor. McNabb gurgled. Clawed at Eric’s hand. “You can come with me conscious, or you can come with me unconscious. That’s as far as your rights go.”

“Uck oo!” McNabb swung wildly, unaimed blows Eric deflected with his forearms.

“That’s it, asshole, you just assaulted an officer. You’re under-” McNabb’s boot connected solidly to his knee. Eric howled, dropped the perp, staggered back, swearing, sweating, eyes watering. Jesus! It felt like his fucking kneecap was broken.

He raised his head. McNabb was at the other end of the kitchen. Gasping. Spitting. Receiver in one hand. Dialing with the other. Calling a lawyer. Calling the press. Calling his wife. Tattletale. Fucking little tattletale. He charged McNabb, knocking him into the wall. The receiver clattered to the floor. Eric stomped it, once, twice, until it broke into black shards and green chips.

“C’mon, asshole,” Eric rasped. “C’mon. Just you and me now. Let’s do it. Let’s do it.”

“Fifteen-seventy, this is Dispatch, do you copy?”

Hadley unhooked her mic. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-seventy, go ahead.”

“I’ve just had a nine hundred from the McNabb house. That’s 16 Musket Way.”

A nine hundred. A 911 call that was broken off before any communication could take place. Most times, it was a four-year-old after a preschool trip to the fire station. Occasionally, a teen who didn’t realize his prank call could be traced. Sometimes, it was bad. Real bad.

“Eric McCrea reported Wyler McNabb had returned home this morning. Eric was headed there to bring him in. My last contact with him was at oh-nine-forty. He’s not answering my hails.”

Hadley’s stomach rose and lodged in her esophagus, even as her hand flicked on her light bar and siren and her foot tromped on the gas. “Roger that, Dispatch. I am responding.”

“I’m sending in whoever else I can raise, so you’ll have backup.” Harlene’s matter-of-fact recitation faltered. “Be careful, Hadley. Remember what the chief says.”

“Don’t be a hero. Don’t worry. I’m not planning on it.”

Hadley Knox hated suspense movies. Couldn’t watch horror. Any scene involving the hero walking warily into an unknown situation had her holding a pillow over her face and fast-forwarding to the next part.

So she recognized the irony of her position. She had taken on a job that kept requiring her to do the exact same thing she wouldn’t watch in a DVD. The training helped, and the past two years’ experience helped, and practicing three times weekly at the range helped a lot, as she now felt sure she could hit a target smaller than the side of a barn if necessary. Even so, she still felt as if a swarm of half-frozen ants were crawling up her skin as she pulled her unit in behind Eric’s and got out.

One glance told her McCrea hadn’t returned to his vehicle, either to call for help or to secure a prisoner. She unsnapped her holster. Drew her Glock 9. Positioned her arm, straight down and slightly outward, the carrying stance that would, her instructors at the Police Basic course had promised, keep her from shooting her own foot off.

She heard the first noise as she entered the garage. A thud, like a bag of flour being dropped from a height. Then a mangled, indistinct sound, something that had come out of a human throat, something that made those ants march double-time up the back of her neck.

The door that led into the kitchen from the garage was ajar. Not far enough to see inside. Another cry, or shout. Then another. No time to weigh the situation. No time. She took a stance at the door, shoulder-on, presenting the smallest target. Took a deep breath. Raised her near foot and kicked the door in, almost bouncing it back in her face because she overestimated its hollow-core weight. Came down hard on the same foot, still shoulder-on, swept the room with her Glock, yelling, “Police! Drop your weapon and get on the ground!”

She saw McCrea at the same instant, straddling a perp who was already on the floor, and she had a second to think Oh, thank God, he’s okay and then she registered the blood, and saw that McCrea had his service piece in his hand, a big SIG SAUER.45, three pounds of steel, and he raised it up and whack, bludgeoned McNabb in the face with it. Whack! Blood sprayed across the no-wax flooring. Whack! McNabb wasn’t moving, wasn’t resisting, wasn’t making a sound, so Hadley did it for him, let out a screech that would have embarrassed her if she had been able to think about it and launched her whole body forward. She tackled Eric, knocked him to his side, scrabbled for his weapon, all the while screaming, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

He rolled over her, banging her head so hard against the floor she saw stars. He gripped her wrist and banged it again, harder, then again, until her bruised knuckles released and her gun clunked to the floor. He hit it with his other hand and sent it spinning into an overturned chair. She kicked and bucked beneath him, thinking he’s snapped thinking rape thinking I lost my piece, oh, God and the shame and fear and anger coalesced inside her and she head-butted him, then punched him one-two in the diaphragm as he reared back in pain, and as he turned red and choked for air she twisted, rolling to her stomach beneath him, and pushed onto her hands and knees, throwing him off her.

She scrambled for her gun. Seized it. Assumed the stance. Pointed it, not at the feebly croaking Wyler McNabb, but at her fellow officer.

An outline at the door made her jerk her gun up. The chief. His own weapon out, down, to the side. He raised his hands, showing his finger was off the trigger. “Knox?” He glanced at her, at McNabb, at McCrea, half-sprawled on the floor with blood dripping from his nose. “What the hell just happened here?”

“Sorry, Chief.” She was amazed to hear her voice sounding so normal. She holstered her gun and saw that she looked normal as well, blouse still tucked in, service belt still centered. Her awful polyester pants weren’t even creased.

“I asked what’s going on.” The chief’s voice was hard.

She looked at Eric. His arms were shaking. The chief couldn’t see his face, but she could. Terrified. Desperate. Just like she had felt, when he was on top of her.

She opened her mouth to tell the chief everything, and at the same moment she saw what would happen. She was the newest. The only woman. Not really from this town. Flynn would stand by her, but the rest of her brother officers would turn their backs on her. Freeze her out. Their conversations dying away. Her questions and comments ignored.

She would be alone.

“The suspect resisted arrest and assaulted Officer McCrea. Officer McCrea managed to subdue the suspect, sustaining injury in the process. I was about to cuff the suspect and Mirandize him when you came in.”

The chief let his gaze travel around the kitchen. The blood spattered on the floor, the broken phone, the toppled chair. When he spoke, his voice snapped like a broken branch. “Subduing an arrestee means physically restraining him, not hitting him until he can’t fight back.”

Hadley swallowed. “I was knocked down and away in the struggle. I wasn’t able to assist for several… seconds.” She had no idea if that was plausible or not. “I wasn’t able to control the situation with my sidearm until Officer McCrea was… until the perp was…” She made a motion like pulling dough apart.

“Eric?” McCrea got to his feet. He stumbled and listed to one side, favoring his right knee. The chief looked at him a long moment. “Get out to your unit and wait for me there.”

McCrea nodded. He limped out the kitchen door, not looking at Hadley. When he was gone, the chief crossed the floor. Got down on one knee next to McNabb. Took the man’s chin and gently turned his face side to side. McNabb moaned. “Jesus,” the chief said.

He stood. Fished his phone out of his pocket. Punched a single button. “Harlene? Russ. I want you to send an ambulance to 16 Musket Way.” He paused. “No. They’re fine. It’s for Wyler McNabb.” Another pause. “Just tell ’em it’s not a gunshot or a heart attack. And Harlene? Keep it off the radio. Use the phone.”

He hung up. Looked down at Hadley, looked into her, like he could see everything she had hidden away. Her stomach fluttered. She had to force herself not to drop her gaze. God. No wonder he got such good results in interrogations. “Knox. Hadley. What really happened?”

“What I told you, Chief. That’s what happened.”

“What you told me.”

She tucked her chin.

“That’s your story.”

She licked her lips. “That’s what happened.” To her horror, her eyes welled with tears. “I know I should have done better, Chief. I’m sorry.”

The chief sighed. “So am I, Hadley. So am I.”

The fifteen minutes before the ambulance arrived were some of the longest in Hadley’s life, and that included labor and delivery. When the EMTs finally bustled in, they were efficient and cheerful, taking McNabb’s vital signs, reporting to the ER by radio, not by word or glance suggesting something had gone badly wrong in this kitchen. When they hoisted McNabb on a stretcher and wheeled him outside, the chief jerked his head, indicating Hadley should follow.

He stopped her with a gesture beside McCrea’s car. Eric sat in the driver’s seat, staring out the windshield with unfixed eyes. His usual sharp edges seemed blurred, as if someone had taken his picture and half-erased it.

“I want you to accompany the ambulance,” the chief told Hadley. She nodded. “Eric?” McCrea looked up. “Knox maintains that McNabb was injured because he resisted and attacked you.”

Eric glanced up at her, then dropped his eyes.

“ Even if that is true, you used excessive force. I’m suspending you. Two weeks without pay. Starting now. You’ll return your vehicle to the department and leave it there.” The chief held out his hand. “I want your service weapon and your badge now.”

McCrea gaped. “But…”

The chief braced a hand on the top of the car and leaned in. “If McNabb retains a lawyer, and if the board of aldermen demands an investigation, it’ll be a lot longer. Now give me your gun.”

“I have the right to a review.” McCrea’s voice was panicked. “I have that right.”

“Call your union rep and set up an appointment. In the meantime, I’m exercising my right to suspend you.”

McCrea looked at his lap, out the door, at the passenger seat of his cruiser. Anywhere except at the chief. Finally he retrieved his badge and passed it through the window to the chief. Then he leaned to one side and removed his gun from its holster. Handed it, butt side up, to the chief. The chief held the SIG SAUER up where they could all see it. He stared at the tracery of blood on the grip. “The authority we hold is based on the trust of the citizens of this town.” His voice was hard and tight. “When you abuse that trust, you shame yourself. You shame me. You shame everyone who wears our uniform.” He turned his head and stared at Hadley. She wanted to die. He pointed toward the ambulance, pulling into the road, its blue lights flashing. “Go.”

She fled to her car. Dove in, slamming the door behind her as if she could keep the shrieking harpies of her own conscience out with steel and glass. She started the ignition with a shaking hand. Wondered, as she lurched into gear and rolled after the ambulance, if any amount of shunning from her fellow officers could possibly feel as bad as this.

Russ stood outside the main entrance to the Washington County Hospital and shivered. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees when the sun went down, and there was for sure going to be frost on the pumpkin tonight. He should have worn his MKPD-issue parka.

The tap-tap of heels made him turn around. Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye strode up the walk, her khaki skirt and trench coat standing in for a uniform. No matter how casually dressed, active duty military personnel never quite managed to look like civilians. Seelye didn’t.

“I appreciate you for inviting me along on this, Chief.” Her tone wasn’t warm, but she held out her hand.

He shook it. “Don’t thank me yet, Colonel. You can see if McNabb will agree to let you search the house. That’s as far as it goes.”

“I plan on asking him about his wife’s finances.”

He tilted his head. “After I find out what he knows about her death.”

“As you say.”

They entered the building side by side. It was eight fifteen, after visiting hours, and the corridors were mostly empty. Russ led her to the right elevator bank, and they rode to the third floor in silence. One of the hospital security guards was sitting outside McNabb’s room, scratching away with a pencil in a fat, floppy book. Russ plucked the man’s name from the back of his memory. “Hank. Hi. How’s he been?”

“Heya, Chief. Quiet as a mouse. He had a couple guys from work come to visit, and his mama and then his papa. She left mad, promisin’ she was gonna call a lawyer, and he left mad, saying the same thing. I guess they’ll have to hash it out between ’em.”

“Thanks. Why don’t you take a break while I talk with him?”

“Don’t mind if I do. My bladder can’t sit still more’n two hours these days anyway.” The guard ambled off, Sudoku puzzles flashing them at every step.

“He’s already in custody?” Seelye said.

“For resisting and assaulting an officer.” As much as it turned his stomach to do it, Russ was going to stand by the arrest. It was obvious, from Eric’s limp and his bloody nose, that McNabb had gotten a few good hits in.

They entered the single-bed room. Seelye inhaled sharply. Unfortunately, it was obvious that Eric had gotten in a hell of a lot more hits. The colonel looked at Russ like he was something nasty she found underneath the leaf pile. He wanted to explain, wanted to tell her We’re better than this, but what could he say? McNabb’s pulpy, bandaged, purpling face spoke damningly for itself.

McNabb stared at them while Russ pulled out a chair for Seelye and then sat down himself. “Wyler? I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Russ Van Alstyne, chief of police. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“He hit me. ” McNabb’s words were slurred by the damage to his cheek and jaw, but his tone was clear. “That bastard hit me. I didn’t do nothin’. I’m gonna sue him, and you, and the rest of the cops, and the goddamn town. You all gonna be taking tickets at the movies for a living when my lawyer gets through with you.”

“I’m not here to discuss what happened today.”

“Oh, I jus’ bet you’re not. How’m I supposed to work like this? I’m due to head off for another construction job at the end of this week. Who’s gonna make up for that if the doctor don’t clear me to go?”

“You’re not going anywhere in the immediate future, Wyler. You’re under arrest, remember?”

“Under arrest my ass. I was defending myself. No judge’s gonna hold me when they see what your cop did to me.”

Russ smothered a sigh. “I want to ask you about your wife.”

McNabb went quiet. He turned his face toward the ceiling. “If you’re gonna break the bad news to me, save your breath. M’mother told me. She killed herself.”

“When was the last time you saw Tally?”

“Monday morning. ’Fore she went to work.”

“How was she when you saw her? Happy? Sad? Did you two argue?”

“Argue? Hell. We fought. I was headed off with Fetch for the week. Going to a big casino in Connecticut. She din’t like Fetch, and she din’t like gambling, and she sure as hell din’t like me being out from under her thumb.”

“So you fought. Were you mad at her?”

“Not mad enough for her to want to kill herself.” He rolled his head back toward them. “Look, she was screwed up in her head about the war. Lots of soldiers come back that way. I saw it on the news. She was going to this counselor. You go ask her if you want to know why Tally did it.” For the first time, his voice shook. His eyes sheened over. “Goddammit. She always was a pain in my ass. Always had to have things her way. Didn’t even wait to tell me good-bye, the-” His voice cracked.

McNabb blinked ferociously and hacked. Russ handed him a tissue, and McNabb spat into it, balling it up in his fist. “When did you get back from the casino?” Russ asked.

“This morning. About an hour before your guy comes along like Vin freaking Diesel.”

“Were you alone at the casino?”

“I told you, Fetch was with me.” McNabb’s mouth dropped open. “Ohh, I get it. You think I was cheatin’ on Tally, and that’s what set her off. Well, I wun’t. One woman is more’n enough trouble for me. I don’t need that kind of complication. Closest I got to girls was the tits and ass show.”

“Did you leave the resort for any length of time?”

“Nope.”

“Did you get any calls from Tally? Or call her?”

“Nope.”

Kevin, who had been detailed the task of faxing McNabb’s picture to area casinos, had already gotten in touch with Mohegan Sun’s security. They were reviewing their camera footage and would send the MKPD the relevant pictures and a summary of McNabb’s movements. It would have taken a seven-hour window to get from Uncasville to Millers Kill and back again. If McNabb had been gone that long, they would know it.

“One more question,” Russ said. “Do you know of anyone who might want to kill Tally? Or any reason why?”

McNabb’s mouth sagged. His eyes bugged. “What? No!”

Russ waited to see if more was forthcoming. It wasn’t. “Okay. Thank you, Wyler.”

“I’m still gonna sue your ass,” the younger man mumbled.

Seelye leaned forward. “I’d like to ask you a few questions now, Wyler. About Mary-Tally’s service in Iraq.”

McNabb made a face that would have been a frown if his eyebrows could have moved. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye.”

For the first time, Russ saw apprehension on McNabb’s face. “What do you do? What, you know, branch are you in?”

Seelye hesitated. Glanced at Russ. “I’m with the military police.”

McNabb turned toward the ceiling again. Clicked his mouth shut. “I’m not saying nothing without my lawyer.”

It was colder outside now. A raw, damp cold that promised more rain in the next day or two. Seelye shivered and buttoned her trench coat. “You folks ever have anything approaching warm weather?”

“July and August. First half of September.”

“And you came here voluntarily?”

He shrugged. “It’s home.”

She made a noise. Fished in her coat for a tissue and blew her nose. “So what do you think?”

“He didn’t do it.” He jammed his hands in his jacket pockets. “Unless he’s the greatest actor since Laurence Olivier. I’ll take a look at the casino report, but I’m betting it’ll show us he was there the whole time. Just like he said he was.”

“You going to clear it as a suicide?”

He nodded. “I’ll give the ME the results of the investigation. He’ll make the ruling. Release the body.”

“And that concludes your interest in McNabb.”

“Unless you’ve got information suggesting someone else might have had the means, motive, and opportunity. Like maybe a co-conspirator.”

She looked at him. “Did you find any anomalous prints at the scene?”

“No.”

“Then, no. I have no reason to suspect anyone else is complicit in her death.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes. Unless it would torpedo my own investigation.” Her wide mouth twisted. “The army’s interest is in getting its money back, after all.”

“Wyler McNabb knows something.”

“Oh, yes. I’m quite sure Mr. McNabb knows a great deal about that money.”

“Let me give you some free advice. John Ryswick is the judge you’re going to be dealing with for the warrants. Give him more information than you think he could possibly need, and make sure you cross your t’s and dot your i’s. Have you gotten the federal district attorney in the loop?”

“Not yet.”

“Hold off as long as you can. Ryswick doesn’t like the Feds.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

He held out his hand. “Let me know if we can assist.”

She shook it. “I will. I plan on wrapping this up and getting out of here as quickly as possible.” She hunched her shoulders against the chill. “This weather is actually making me miss Iraq.”

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10

The rain that had drifted in patchy showers through the weekend was on again Monday morning, a cold drizzle from a blank gray sky. Perfect weather for a funeral. Clare could have walked-the cemetery was barely a mile away-but she had pressed her Class A uniform and polished her regulation one-and-three-quarter-inch heels, and she wanted to look parade-ground ready for the interment. So she climbed into the rattleclank Jeep and drove.

The new cemetery, as it was called, had been new in 1870, when the dead from the Civil War had claimed the last of the original settlers’ burying ground. Clare rolled through the iron-framed gate and crunched along the twisting gravel drive, past Victorian marble obelisks and yellow weeping willows, past Depression-era granite and dark red alders, until she reached a treeless plain of flat stamped-metal markers and high-gloss composite memorial stones. She parked behind a line of cars. She left her coat in the car but took her hat.

She picked her way through the grass, her heels sinking into the ground with every step. A small striped awning had been erected next to a large mound of excavated soil discreetly covered with bright green outdoor carpeting. She hated that carpeting. She always wanted to roll it away at her interments. Show the reality. Earth to earth.

There were more people than she expected; far more than the number of folding chairs set up beneath the awning. Good. She spotted Trip Stillman and Sarah Dowling standing near the back of the crowd, Sarah in Quaker gray and Trip, like Clare, in an immaculate green uniform whose shoulders were blotched with rain. She joined them.

“Do you know the minister?” Sarah asked quietly.

“That’s the funeral director.” Clare spoke in the same undertone. “They’re not having a religious service. Just a few people speaking. Mr. Kilmer will make sure things move along smoothly.”

The first person to the podium was a cousin. Good choice. Close enough to have some warm anecdotes, not so attached to the deceased that she was in danger of losing it. Clare let her mind and her eyes wander. The woman in the front row who looked a thousand years old must be Tally’s mother. With his face varying shades of purple, green, and yellow, Wyler McNabb was very visible a few seats down from her. Russ had told her Tally’s husband had been discharged, been arraigned, and posted bail all on the same day.

Farther back, Clare spotted the kind-hearted Dragojesich, already wiping his eyes with fists the size of softball mitts. She caught a glimpse of army green at the other edge of the crowd and was surprised to see Colonel Seelye, also in her dress uniform. Perhaps not so surprising, though. Russ had told her the MP wanted access to Tally’s house, bank accounts, and records. Maybe she was trying to get in good with the family. Or maybe she was watching to see who showed up. She spotted Clare looking at her and nodded coolly.

Next up was one of Tally’s friends, a young woman with two-toned hair and way too much eye makeup for a funeral. She was only a few sentences into her remembrances of Tally and Wyler in high school when she started to gulp and cry and her mascara began to run black down her cheeks. Clare felt a nudge. Looked at Trip. The doctor nodded toward the line of parked cars. Eric McCrea, spit-and-polished in his own Class A’s, was striding toward them. She was amazed. Given what Russ had told her about Eric’s treatment of Wyler McNabb, she had expected the sergeant to be holed up with his union representative right now. Or with his lawyer.

McCrea fell in between Clare and Sarah, so that the four of them made a wall of hawkish green punctuated by dove gray. Like Trip, he stood at ease, facing the speaker. His eyes cut toward Clare. “The chief isn’t here with you?”

Clare shook her head minutely. “He offered.” She kept her own spine straight, her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes forward. “The husband is here. Is your presence going to be a problem?”

From the corner of her eye, she could see the ribbons on his chest rise and fall. “You know about that?”

This time she looked at him directly.

Eric’s mouth compressed. “No one’s going to notice me. They’ll just see the uniform.” He faced front again. “I had to come. She was one of us.” Sarah leaned forward and glared at them, her finger to her lips. McCrea dropped his voice to a whisper. “She was one of us.”

There was no honor guard. Clare didn’t know if that was because the area commandant was so overwhelmed with requests he couldn’t supply one, or if the army didn’t send a team for soldiers who had died after walking away with a million dollars of army money. There was a group from the local VFW, though, one big-bellied guy, a pair who looked too thin and frail to hold up their rifles, and a bearded man of about forty. Three of them fired the volley while everyone in uniform saluted and the older folks placed their hands over their hearts and the younger ones stared.

Clare and Eric and Trip and Colonel Seelye kept their salutes as the bearded man and the big-bellied guy- Desert Storm and Vietnam, Clare thought-folded the casket flag into a sharp-edged triangle and presented it to Tally’s mother. She clutched it, as mothers always did, and for a moment Clare could see in her every woman standing at a graveside, left with nothing but a flag to hold. Those hands, digging into the star-spangled twill, seemed to reach into Clare’s chest and squeeze her heart. She stopped analyzing the ceremony. Stopped comparing and critiquing it against the dozens of funerals she had officiated at. Her eyes filled with tears and the bitter, salt-rimed taste of grief stung the back of her throat.

She turned her face away from the childless mother, struggling to master herself. She stared hard at the trees fringing the older section of the cemetery, their autumn colors burning like banked coals against the heavy gray sky. She paid attention to the details, slick stone and dripping branch, because focusing on the sodden scenery meant she wasn’t falling apart.

That was how she saw Quentan Nichols.

“It was him. I’m sure of it.”

Russ relocated a pile of reports and newsletters from the extra chair to his desk. “Sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down.” Clare paced from the desk to the filing cabinets to one of the tall windows. It was streaked and spotted, the watery afternoon light held at bay by the bright fluorescents inside the office. “I want you to do something.”

There was a knock on the door. Harlene stuck her head in. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Clare?”

“I’d love one, Harlene. Thank you.”

“Hey!” Russ crossed his arms and leaned against his desk. “What about me?”

“You got two legs, don’t you?” The dispatcher nodded at Clare. “You look a right treat in that uniform.” She shut the door.

“So what do you think?”

“Sorry, Major, the uniform doesn’t do it for me. Too many bad memories of idiot officers.”

“Russ!”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry.” He straightened and went around his desk. He picked up a file. “Here.”

She took the slim folder. Inside was a fax from Fort Leonard Wood acknowledging the MKPD’s request, blah, blah… she found the information halfway down the sheet. Nichols, Quentan L., posted to Fort Gillem, Georgia, September 26. Copies of the travel order and the transportation receipts. She flipped the page. A different fax headlined Office of the Commandant, Fort Gillem, told her Sergeant Nichols had arrived on October 4 and was currently listed as active duty assigned to the military police post.

She looked at Russ. “He’s in Georgia?”

“Since a week before Tally McNabb’s death.” He took the folder from her. “Did you think I wouldn’t take a look at Nichols? Rule him out as a suspect?”

“But I saw him. Today. At the cemetery.”

“Did you go after him?”

“Of course not! I had to stay till the end of the ceremony, and then I had to introduce myself to Tally’s mother and offer my condolences.” She ground the sole of her ugly regulation pump against the floor. “I should be at her house right now.”

“I bet you made a casserole.”

She glared at him.

“Okay. So today you saw a youngish black man of average height, standing maybe a hundred yards away, through the mist and rain.”

The door bumped open and Harlene entered, carrying two mugs and a sugar bowl on a wooden tray that looked as if it had been someone’s shop project in high school. She set it atop the most stable stack of papers on Russ’s desk. “I got one for you, too,” she told Russ. “Don’t get used to it.”

After she closed the door behind her, Russ spooned a generous helping of sugar into one cup and handed it to Clare. The oversized mugs were decorated with fat, parasol-carrying geese. Too cutesy-poo for his wife, he had once told her, so they had donated the set to the department.

Clare took a sip of the sweet and bitter brew from Linda Van Alstyne’s rejected kitchenware. “Yes, okay, I was a long way away and conditions were cloudy-but I have very good eyesight, and it’s not as if Millers Kill is crowded with black men in uniforms.”

“What about the private who’s here with Seelye? Was he with her during the ceremony?”

“No, but-”

“She probably set him at a distance to observe. Maybe follow Wyler McNabb.” He blew on his coffee. “If I were investigating the theft, I’d have him dogged. See if he led me to the money.”

“I know what I saw! It was Quentan Nichols!”

“Clare, it doesn’t matter. Let’s say you did see Nichols. Let’s say he took a leave of absence and drove a thousand miles north to lurk outside his girlfriend’s funeral. He didn’t kill her. Her husband didn’t kill her. She committed suicide. The case is closed.”

“I cannot believe you’d dismiss her death that-that-casually!”

He stepped away from the desk. “I’m not dismissing her death. I’m making a judgment based on physical evidence and solid investigating. You, on the other hand, are pulling crap from thin air because you don’t want to believe the plain facts.”

“The plain facts? You mean, like the fact that she may have a fortune stashed away somewhere? The fact that she must have had accomplices who helped her steal the money? The fact that she was troubled and under investigation-”

“Which led to her suicide!”

Clare stabbed a finger against his khaki-covered chest. “So she knew, one way or the other, that the party was over. Anyone who wanted to keep that money or keep their involvement in the crime a secret had a million reasons to shut her up before she could talk to anyone. I don’t see how you can just blindly ignore that!”

He leaned forward in a way she had seen before, when he was trying to use his size to intimidate people. “The theft of U.S. Army property is outside my jurisdiction.”

“Tally McNabb’s death is in your jurisdiction-and you’re failing her.”

His mouth thinned until it was a hard line. “I’m sorry you can’t accept the death of someone in your therapy group. I’m sorry you didn’t see where she was going ahead of time and stop her. But I’m not going to waste my department’s resources on an imaginary murder because you feel guilty for not helping her.”

His words hit like a sucker punch. When she could find the air, she said, “I see. Clearly, I should keep out of your business. Like Linda did.”

“Goddammit!” He slammed his mug on his desk, sloshing coffee over folders and papers and blotter. “That is not what I said.”

“You think I’m overreacting because-what? She was in Iraq, like me? Because she was in therapy, like me? Because she was screwed up, like me?”

He looked at her. “Yes.” His voice was flat.

“I’m out of here.” She grabbed her purse and hat from the top of one of the filing cabinets.

“Clare-”

“And I want you to think, very carefully, about whether you really want to marry someone like me.” She swung open the door and dropped her voice. “Because God knows, I might snap and decide to kill myself for no good reason.”