One Was a Soldier

– Reconciliation of a Penitent, The Book of Common Prayer

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10

They were sitting around Will Ellis’s hospital bed, all five of them together. At the end of the sad, short ceremony at the graveside, Sarah had said, “It’s Monday. I expect to see you all tonight.” Trip Stillman had pointed out Will hadn’t been discharged yet. “That’s why the group is meeting in his room,” she had told them.

The three soldiers had changed back into civilian clothes, but Sarah could still conjure the way they had looked, pressed and contained and ramrod straight, as if they were double-exposed in photographs. Sarah wondered, not for the first time, which was the original image and which one had been superimposed.

Fergusson told Will about the people who spoke, and Stillman described the rifle salute. Sarah mentioned how beautiful the flowers were. Everyone tried to keep it upbeat, but there wasn’t really any way to put a good face on the violent death of a twenty-five-year-old woman. Will grew pale and paler as they spoke, as if the light inside him were being turned down by degrees and would soon be extinguished. “I can’t believe it,” he finally said. “I can’t believe she really did it.”

It struck Sarah that the only difference between Will and Tally was lack of access to a gun and seven days of stomach purges and antidepressants. Coming close but no closer seemed to have stripped death of its glamour in Will’s eyes.

Fergusson shook her head. “I don’t believe she did.” Sarah was sure she had been drinking. She was in control-no slurring or listing-but her color was high and her expression unguarded.

“Forget it.” McCrea lifted his head and spoke for the first time. Something was clearly bothering him beyond Tally’s suicide. “I thought she was killed, too, but we’re wrong. Her husband turned out to have an airtight alibi before, during, and after the time of death.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. And her boyfriend from Iraq couldn’t have done it because he was on duty at Fort Gillem. I’m not saying she was killed in some sort of lovers’ quarrel. I think she was killed for money. A whole lot of money.”

“Excuse me?” Sarah said.

“You saw the other officer at the funeral?”

“Yes. I thought she was from Tally’s company.”

“She was. Sort of. She’s with CID, assigned to FINCOM. She’s investigating the theft of a million dollars from the army’s coffers.”

Stillman leaned forward. “She thinks Tally was involved?”

“She thinks Tally’s responsible.”

“What?” Will said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Stillman said.

McCrea rubbed a finger over his mouth and made a humming noise.

Sarah’s first impulse was to view Clare’s statements as a symptom of denial or anger. A projection, thrown up because the bald truth of McNabb’s suicide was too painful. On the other hand, she was engaged to the chief of police. Maybe she knew something the rest of them didn’t. “What evidence does this investigator have?”

“I don’t know. She’s here trying to get a warrant to search Tally’s house and all her financial records. Russ-Chief Van Alstyne believes she’ll probably arrest the husband as an accomplice.”

“Where’s the money?” Will asked. Sarah was glad he had said it first.

“I have no idea. The where isn’t the point. It’s that someone-maybe several someones-had a pretty damn good motive to kill her.”

McCrea shook his head. “If the chief is calling it a suicide, the evidence has got to be locked up solid. He doesn’t cut corners.”

“I know that!” Fergusson sounded exasperated. “I’m not saying it doesn’t look an awful lot like she did it. But think, Eric. You were at the scene. Would it have been impossible for another person to have staged it?”

He paused. “Not impossible, no. Although it would’ve required a hell of a lot of fine-tuned planning to carry it off that convincingly.”

“The sort of planning a lot of money could help with?”

He frowned. “Maybe. Provided the perp had enough brains. Most criminals are dumb as dirt.”

Sarah raised her hands. “I’m feeling as if we’re wandering off track here. We were talking about dealing with Tally’s death-”

“You know what we say in the Corps?” Will’s voice was stronger than it had been. “Nobody gets left behind. Alive, dead, it doesn’t matter. Nobody gets left behind.”

“It’s over,” McCrea said. “There’s nothing else we can do for her.”

Will gave the police officer a look that reminded Sarah of how young he really was. “You can. You could at least dig into it some more.”

“No. I can’t.” Eric bent over in his chair and locked his fingers over the back of his head. Hiding his face from the world. “I’ve been suspended. I can’t do jack shit.”

Will and Stillman stared. Fergusson glanced away. She knew. Sarah leaned toward McCrea. “What happened, Eric?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Before she could prod him into revealing more, he said, “I lost it with a suspect. I was mad, and I couldn’t… I lost it.”

Will flopped back onto his pillows. “Oh, God. Look at us. A cripple, a drunk, a washed-up cop, and-” He looked at Stillman. “I don’t even know what you are. An obsessive note-taker with three-generations-old technology.” The doctor drew his PalmPilot closer to his chest.

“I am not a drunk,” Fergusson said.

“Reverend Clare, you’ve been to my house. I’ve seen you putting away wine like it was Kool-Aid. I’ve heard my parents talking about you.”

Clare breathed in. “They were talking? About me?”

“And we’re what Tally left behind. Her squad mates.” Will closed his eyes. “Losers and failures. You wanna know who’s going to give her justice? Nobody. Not a damn soul.”

The silence that followed was painful. It wasn’t thoughtful or contemplative. It was the silence of despair. Of ending. Of surrender. Sarah should remind them of the grief process. She should help them connect their feelings with their experiences. She should offer them something positive. She couldn’t. The echo of Will and Clare’s words were drowning out all her other ideas. Who will give justice to the dead?

She opened her mouth. “We can try.”

“What?” McCrea looked at her.

“I said we can try. There’s no law against asking questions, is there? Talking with her friends or co-workers?” As she said it, Sarah realized she wanted someone to blame as much as the rest of them. She wanted to know she could not have prevented Tally’s death. This is not a therapeutic response, she told herself. “I suppose we could… we could…” She spread her hands. “Actually, I have no idea what we could do.”

“There might be some people I could call,” Stillman said hesitantly. “To find out about her service in the 10th Soldier Support. I can probably get some information on the man she met in Iraq as well.” He smiled vaguely. “The old doctors’ network.”

Sarah made an encouraging noise.

“I’ve met the officer who’s investigating the theft,” Fergusson said. “I can see if she’ll tell me anything about what they’ve discovered so far.”

“Why don’t you just pump the chief for information?” McCrea asked.

“Euw.” Will made a face. “She’s my priest, remember? TMI.”

“What? It’s okay if she drinks, but it’s not okay if she-”

“That’s enough.” Fergusson sounded every inch the officer. “I know you’re angry with Russ. I’m pretty pissed off at him myself. But don’t take it out on me, Eric.”

McCrea couldn’t meet her gaze. He dropped his head and mumbled something.

“I don’t have any special contacts or anything,” Will said. “I don’t think any of the marines I knew can help us out.”

“She was closer to your age than to any of us,” Fergusson said. “Maybe you can spread the word among your friends. You never know what somebody may have heard on the grapevine.”

Will looked skeptical. “Most of my friends left for college.”

“So e-mail them. Pick up the phone. They’ll be so happy to hear from you, they’ll tell you anything.”

“Well…” He kneaded his thighs. “I guess. It’s been a while since I’ve talked to anybody. Maybe I can call a few guys. Okay.”

If Sarah hadn’t been watching Fergusson instead of Will, she would have missed the flare of triumph on the priest’s face. Doing well by doing good, Reverend? One way or another, something positive might come from this folly. Which made her think. “What about you, Eric?”

McCrea glared at her. “I told you. I’m suspended. I can’t help you.”

“Maybe you should try helping yourself. A structured, goal-oriented activity with no pressure from your work or your family? It could be a good place to work on containing your anger.”

“C’mon, Eric.” Fergusson leaned forward. “We need you.”

“In the first place, I don’t have either my badge or my service piece. In the second, pursuing an active investigation while suspended is grounds for termination.”

Fergusson snorted. “You don’t need a badge to be good at asking questions and figuring things out.”

“Besides, if Tally’s death has been ruled a suicide, you can hardly call it an active investigation.” Stillman didn’t lift his eyes from his PalmPilot while speaking.

“That’s right,” Fergusson agreed.

“Barracks law,” McCrea said.

“Join us, Eric.” Fergusson looked far too sly for someone professing to be religious. “You know you want to.”

“Oh, my God.” McCrea snorted. “This is how you got the chief to do all that crazy stuff with you, isn’t it? You just badgered him until he gave in.”

“Yup.”

“Okay. Okay.” He sighed. “I can question her co-workers. Lyle took statements over the phone from a couple people, but we were looking for evidence of suicidal intent at that point. I’ll see if I can get an idea as to how she might have laundered the money.” He huffed a laugh. “I think you’re all freaking crazy, though.” Then his breath broke, and he bent over again. “I think I’m freaking crazy,” he said in a cracked voice.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11

Eric had hoped that somehow he could get by without telling Jennifer. Dawdle in the morning, maybe, so she didn’t see him not getting into his uniform. It wasn’t until he tried that he realized how set the three of them were in their morning routine. Jen in the shower first while he got Jake up and started the coffee. Then he showered while she dressed and yelled at Jake to hurry up. Downstairs, he and Jake ate breakfast while she blow-dried her hair. He put away the milk and cereal while Jake fed the cats and Jen checked to make sure the boy hadn’t forgotten anything that ought to be in his backpack. Then out of the house, look for the bus, wave good-bye, slamming doors, and they were all on their way, to the middle school and the elementary school and the cop shop.

“What are you doing?” Jennifer bent over, towel-drying her hair. “You’re going to be late.”

He mumbled something. Went into the bathroom. Turned on the shower. Sat on the toilet lid and considered exactly how far he was going to go to keep Jen from knowing about his suspension.

What the hell, he had to take a shower anyway.

He sat at the table and methodically spooned Cheerios into his mouth while Jake read The Last Olympian and occasionally managed to get a bite in without taking his eyes off the book. Jennifer’s blow-dryer cut off, and he could hear her putting it in the drawer. She came into the kitchen. Paused with her hand on the refrigerator handle. “You’re not dressed.”

Eric looked down at his khakis and shirt. “Sure I am.”

“Why aren’t you in uniform? Is there something special going on today?” She frowned. “Are you working plainclothes?” Which he did, once in a blue moon.

It was so tempting to say yes. He wiped his mouth. Stood up. “No,” he said. “I’m off for the next ten days.”

Jennifer glanced at Jake, still lost in Percy Jackson’s adventures. She beckoned Eric into the family room. “What do you mean, off? You don’t have any vacation coming until Christmas.”

He took a breath. “I’m on suspension.”

Jennifer’s eyes widened. “Suspension? Oh, my God. What did you do?”

He felt a flare of irritation at her instant conclusion that he was the problem. It could have been an administrative action. If he had been involved in a shooting, for instance. Which he would have told her about as soon as he got home yesterday. His anger deflated. “I got into it with a suspect who resisted arrest. The chief thought I was too… physical.”

“Physical? As in what? You hit the guy?”

“Look, Jen, he was-”

“You hit some guy, right?”

He looked toward the bookcase, littered with pictures of Jake and half-completed craft projects. “Yeah. I hit him. Put him in the hospital.”

She covered her mouth. “Oh, Jesus,” she said into her palm.

“Listen-”

“No. You listen. First it was yelling at Jake and blowing up at me. Then it was threatening that doctor. Now it’s beating up suspects.”

“For God’s sake, Jen, he threw the first punch-”

She shook her head. “You have a problem, Eric. A serious, serious problem. You need help, and your little group isn’t cutting it. I don’t know if you need psychotherapy or drugs or what, but you find someone who can help you and you get yourself sorted out.” She gulped. “Or I’ll leave and take Jake with me.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to wait around for you to start beating on us, too.”

Her words took his breath away. His stomach ached and his chest was tight. “I would never, ever harm you or Jake. I love you. You two are my whole life.”

Her face fractured. “There was a time when you would have said the same thing about a suspect. That you’d never hurt anyone if you could help it.” She pressed her fingers against her mouth for a second. “You were always the most conscientious, sweet-natured man I knew. Sometimes you had to do hard things, but you never let them make you hard. I loved that about you.”

Loved that. Past tense. His gut knotted itself even tighter. “I just need some more time. To get my bearings again.”

“You’ve been home four months now. It’s getting worse, not better.” She stepped back. Looked around the room. Lifted Jake’s backpack off the desk. “Get help. Or I swear to God, I’m out of here.”

Clare had tried dropping by the Stuyvesant Inn, to see if she could meet with Arlene Seelye, but the two MPs had been out. She lingered as long as she could over her mother’s menu options, but there was only so much time she could kill debating brown sugar versus mustard glaze on the Virginia ham, and eventually she had to leave unsatisfied.

When she got home, she had a message on her machine. “Hey, it’s me. Are you there?… No? Huh. Look, I’m sorry. I know this whole thing with Tally McNabb has been hard on you. I shouldn’t have hammered on you like that. I’m flat out today-I gotta meet with the board of aldermen about Eric’s suspension-but maybe we can have lunch tomorrow? At the diner?”

She tried to reach him but had to settle for playing phone tag. Frustrated, she called her junior warden, Geoffrey Burns, Esq. Not about Russ-there was no love lost between the two men-but about Arlene Seelye. “She’s investigating a theft from the army,” Clare explained. “The suspect is dead, but her husband lives here, and Colonel Seelye thinks he knows something about the missing money. What does she do?”

“She’ll go to Judge Ryswick for a warrant.” Geoff didn’t hesitate. “She’ll want to search the house and, based on what she finds there, any accounts that might be in either spouse’s name or further locations, like a second home, cars, boats.”

“Can she arrest the husband?”

“As an accessory? Possibly. She might get the Feds involved. Undoubtedly, your fiancé as well, since the guy’s in his jurisdiction. Are you sure you want to marry him?”

“Yes.” Despite their disagreement over Tally McNabb. “And I expect you to at least pretend to have a good time at the reception.”

Next, she phoned Assistant District Attorney Amy Nguyen. She had met the woman just enough times to justify calling her on a fishing expedition. Unfortunately, Amy hadn’t seen anyone fitting Seelye’s description at the courthouse, and she hadn’t heard anything about a possible arrest involving the FBI in their area.

That evening, she sat for a long time with one of the sleeping pills Trip had prescribed in one hand, and a highball glass full of Macallan’s in the other. I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.

He’s not going to spring a blood test on me the day after I got the prescription filled.

She chased the pill down with a long swallow of Scotch.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12

Wednesday morning, she told herself the same thing when she popped two Dexedrine. It’s too soon for a blood test. The familiar jittery rush of heat went through her when the pills hit her system, and she thought, Okay. I can get through today. She wouldn’t be tempted to drink before early evening, and she’d burn that bridge when she got to it.

It was a relentlessly busy morning; a 7:00 A.M. Eucharist, a stack of phone calls to get through, then a sermon to draft. She struggled with it; Sunday’s gospel was Matthew, the Great Commandment, but her attention kept circling back to the beginning of the passage. One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. It brought back the nightmare she had had, with her old SERE instructor quoting scripture at her while Russ’s body burned.

She was grateful when Lois, the church secretary, interrupted her. “Your mother phoned. She asked me to tell you the florist is coming over this afternoon to look at the space and take measurements.” Clare had taken to letting Lois handle as many maternal calls as possible. The secretary actually seemed to enjoy debating the virtues of tulle versus netting for the sugared-almond favor bags. “Magnolia swags and gold-sprayed live oak,” Lois went on. “Very romantic.”

“For Tidewater Virginia in June. Too bad I’m getting married in November in the North Country.” Clare looked down at her crossed-out paragraphs and scribbled notes. “I guess I’m not going to be able to leave until after I’ve spoken to the florist. If I get a call from a Colonel Arlene Seelye, will you keep her on the line and track me down?”

“I will.” Lois retreated down the hall, humming “Here Comes the Bride.”

“No Lohengrin !” Clare shouted.

Her practice of writing her sermon on Wednesday served two functions: It gave her enough time between then and Sunday to come up with something else if her first try was crap, and it made her positively happy to have her solitude broken by the lunchtime vestry meeting.

This week’s meeting was brisk. Twenty minutes to cover Gail Jones’s education budget and the feasibility of an energy audit; forty minutes of Clare listening to Terry McKellan and Norm Madsen and Mrs. Marshall waxing on about their own nuptials. It was sweet and charming, and it made her uncomfortably aware that Russ had been part of this club, too, long married and happy to be so.

Clearly, I should keep out of your business. Like Linda did. God, she was an idiot. As if Russ needed a reminder of the difference between Clare and his late wife. His beloved wife.

She was cleaning up after the meeting when Glenn Hadley stuck his head in the door. “Summun in the sanctuary to see you, Father.”

She was always “Father” to the sexton. She handed him a tray loaded with uneaten sandwiches. “Thanks, Mr. Hadley. Would you put this in the icebox downstairs?”

“Ayuh.”

She sniffed. “Were you smoking?” The sexton’s granddaughter, Hadley Knox, had enlisted Clare’s help in keeping the seventy-six-year-old diabetic away from cigarettes.

“Me, Father? You know the doctors told me not to.”

She rolled her eyes as she walked down the hall toward the church. Short of following him around all day, she didn’t know how anyone could keep the old fellow from indulging. She switched on the nave lights and hauled the oak door open. If a heart attack and a quadruple bypass couldn’t convince him to-

Quentan Nichols was standing in the center aisle.

Clare froze. Behind her, the heavy door whispered closed. Despite the soaring space, the thick stone walls of St. Alban’s seemed to close in around her. Lois was running errands on her lunch hour. Mr. Hadley was in the undercroft. No one would hear her if she screamed.

Nichols took a step toward her. Frowned. She tensed, ready to bolt for the hall.

“Major Fergusson?” His voice was uncertain. He took another step toward her. “I mean, Reverend Fergusson?”

Clare nodded. Cleared her throat. “Chief Nichols. I’m…” Surprised didn’t begin to cover it. “What are you doing here?”

“It is you.” He relaxed, which wasn’t the relief it might have been, since he seemed to be all muscle. He was in mufti-khakis and a turtleneck sweater. “You look different.” He touched his throat. “I mean, beyond the collar and all.”

“I’m growing my hair out.” Idiot. The man was a possible killer, a probable thief, and likely absent without leave as well. And she was talking about her hair. “There are several people here. In the offices. And I’m expecting a visitor any moment.”

He held up his hands. “Whoa. I’m not gonna hurt you.” He took one step, two, and as Clare rocked onto the balls of her feet, ready to run, he sat in the first pew. At the far side of the aisle. He spread his arms across the back of the pew and rested his hands over the smooth, dark wood. “I need your help.”

Well. That, at least, was familiar. “Go on.”

“You knew Tally.”

“Yes, I did.” She relaxed enough to take a more comfortable stance. “I don’t know how you knew that, though.”

“She told me about her therapy group. The doctor, the cop, the Marine and Episcopal priest.” He shrugged. “I Googled ‘Episcopal church in Millers Kill.’ When I saw your name, I figured there’s no way there are two woman priests who were also vets. Leastways not in a dinky town like this.”

“Tally told you about her group.”

“We talked, yeah. A couple times. I was-” He shook his head. “It’s complicated. I don’t know where to start.”

“How about where you helped her steal a million dollars?”

“I didn’t! I mean, yeah, I guess in a way I did.” He looked ahead, at the stained glass triptych behind the high altar. Christus Victor. Christ, victorious over death and sin. “I didn’t mean to.”

This, too, was familiar. A person sitting opposite her, talking around and over and between the problem, taking his time because getting to the point meant getting to the pain. She sighed. Sat down in the pew on the near side of the aisle. Faced Nichols, her hands relaxed and open. Listening. “Tell me about when you met Tally.”

He smiled a little. “It was my second tour. Hers, too. I was stationed at Balad. After the insurgency took hold, it was the most secure airfield in the country. Crazy busy. Planes flying in from everywhere, day and night. Everybody in the world passing through-reporters and security contractors and politicians. I saw that guy from The Daily Show once. Anyway, Tally’s company was staging out of there. They had a construction project going, shoring up some old buildings. Tally told me it was going to be the in-country version of a Federal Reserve Bank. She was going back and forth between Balad and Camp Anaconda, which was stressing her big-time.”

Clare nodded. Ground travel was tense. Taking long trips over the same highways, you figured every time you didn’t get blown up just brought you closer to the time you would.

“We met at the club. She asked me if I knew where she could get some booze, and she just about died when I told her I was a cop.” He glanced at Clare’s collar. “We, um, started spending time together. You know.”

“Uh-huh.” She wondered where Wyler McNabb fit into the picture. “Did she ever mention her husband?”

“She said he was a civilian.” He shrugged. “At the start, I didn’t care. I mean, people were jumping in and out of the sack all the time. Nobody checking for rings. By the end”-he tilted his head back-“I pretty much convinced myself he was history.” He looked at her. Smiled humorlessly. “To look at me, you wouldn’t think I could get played so bad, would you?”

“She asked you to do something for her.”

“Oh, yeah.” He heaved a breath. “She did. Asked me to keep my patrol away from a storage building. Tell my team anything they saw around one of the hangars was authorized. For one day. That should have been the tip-off it was something big. People smuggle in booze or dope or other contraband, they’ve got drops. Regular customers. A supply chain. One-off, that’s got to be something big.”

“You didn’t know what was going on?”

“I didn’t want to know.” He bent over, resting his elbows on his knees. “Jesus help me. She could have been smuggling those WMDs out of the country. I didn’t want to know.”

“So then what happened?”

“Nothing. The finance building got finished, and she went back to Anaconda for good. We e-mailed and IM’d back and forth as much as we could.” He gave her a challenging look. “It wasn’t just sex. She was really easy to talk to. I felt like-like she got me, you know? Even though she was from this pissant little town in upstate New York and I’m from Chicago. Like those differences didn’t matter at all.”

“I know.” Did she ever. “When did you start to think there was something more than just a romance going on?”

“When she shipped home. All of a sudden, she’s not answering my e-mails, she’s not taking my calls. I knew she was separating, and I thought maybe the readjustment to civilian life was hitting her hard. I had leave after I cycled back stateside, so I decided to come out here and talk to her in person.”

“Which is where you and I met.”

“Yeah.” He paused for a long moment. “After that’s when I started looking into what actually happened. It took a while, because I wasn’t officially investigating and I wanted to keep things on the down low.”

“To avoid incriminating yourself?”

“Hell, yeah. She already made an idiot out of me. I didn’t want to lose my career, too.”

“So you found out she had gotten away with a million dollars.”

“The building I was supposed to keep my patrols away from was a transshipping facility, right next to the airfield. Usually, any cash coming in would have been secured, but this stuff was transiting, off one Herky Bird and onto another within a few hours.”

“Do you know how she moved it?”

He shook his head. “There were quite a few finance people at the base. She might have gotten help there. Or who knows, maybe she had a string of guys she was playing along. One with a forklift, another with a truck.”

Clare rubbed her arms. “That doesn’t sound like Tally.”

“Yeah. Well. She had friends. It was her second tour. She knew people.”

“I take it you don’t know where the money is right now?”

He gave her a look. “Would I be here asking for help if I did?”

Clare spread her hands. “What sort of help are you looking for, Chief? What do you want? The money? Revenge? You want to find out who killed her?”

He frowned. “I thought she killed herself.”

Clare made a noise. “Officially, yes.”

“You think-oh, God. Yeah. If somebody was trying to get her out of the way.” He closed his eyes. Opened them. “Will I sound like a sick bastard if I say that would be a relief? I called her just a couple days before she died to tell her the investigation had been taken away from me. I thought maybe the news-”

“Wait. She knew about the investigation?”

“That’s why I’m here. I was putting together the pieces, slow, like I told you. I had a pretty good idea of what she’d done. I figured she doctored the manifests, so the paperwork that came from stateside matched the paperwork from inside the theater and the numbers all lined up. Nobody checks against the originals if they think they have authentic copies in hand, right?”

“I guess.”

“I needed to see the original invoices. The ones that were generated stateside. U.S. Army Finance Command has a small group of MPs and CIDs attached-specialists in fraud and financial crimes and all that. I made the request through them. A week goes by, and then two weeks. Then I get a surprise visit in person from Colonel Arlene Seelye.”

Clare blinked. “She’s the one who’s here, investigating the missing funds.”

“She asks me to turn over everything I have on the case, which was weird, because I hadn’t put any other info on my request form. Then she says she’s taking over the investigation. I’m thinking I’m screwed, that somehow she’s been able to figure out I was the guy who looked the other way and let it happen. So I handed over my stuff and sat down to wait for the arrest. The next day-two weeks ago-I was reassigned to Fort Gillem. Courtesy of Colonel Arlene Seelye.”

Clare frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s what I thought. I went back and forth, trying to figure out the right thing to do. About telling Tally or not.” He propped his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor. “Up to that point, I guess I was still hoping there was going to be some way I could have my cake and eat it, too. Get the money back without Tally taking the fall. At the end, I called her. Told her I’d been working on an investigation. Told her what I found.” He glanced up at Clare. “I warned her that there was a CID finance investigator on her trail. The next thing I heard…”

“She was dead.”

“Yeah.”

They both sat with that in silence for a while. Finally, Clare said, “I still don’t understand Colonel Seelye’s actions. If she knew you were involved, why not place you in custody? And if she didn’t know, why didn’t she ask you to back her up, since you knew about the investigation? The only other guy she’s got here is a buck-green private.”

“Huh.” He sat up again. “I figured at first she wanted the cred for the discovery all to herself. Policing in the army isn’t all that different than policing on the outside when it comes to being judged on the number of collars you make or the cases you clear. Then I got to thinking. Nobody else in my chain of command knew what I was doing, and if she’s the one who fielded my request for information, nobody else in her unit knows about the missing money, either.”

“That sounds consistent with not wanting to give anyone else credit for the arrest.”

“Yeah-but I think she’s after more than a nice write-up from her superiors. I think she’s after the money.”

“You mean… for herself. To keep.” Clare sat back in her pew. She stared at the reredos behind the high altar, at the dozens of saints and angels carved into the fine-grained mahogany. “Tally died last Wednesday.”

“Yeah?”

“Stephen Obrowski, the innkeeper at the Stuyvesant Inn, said Colonel Seelye checked in Wednesday evening. He said she was upset there hadn’t been any other accommodations available.” If she had thought about it before, she would have passed it off as the normal annoyance of someone who was going to have to explain blowing her travel budget to the quartermaster. She would have missed the other implication. “Her trip was so spur-of-the-moment, she didn’t take time to make any reservations.” She turned to Nichols. “What if she came here to confront Tally? To see if she could force the location of the money out of her? Maybe she went too far. Or maybe she scared Tally into telling her and then decided to get rid of her.” She stood up. “You stay here.”

Nichols got up from his pew, frowning. “Where are you going?”

“To tell the chief of police that he can’t rule Tally’s death a suicide just yet.”

Entering the Kreemy Kakes diner, Russ spotted Clare in what he thought of as her usual spot, the red vinyl banquette against the wall, the wide window behind her showing the granite-and-marble facade of Allbanc and an unusual number of pedestrians on Main Street. Tourists, enjoying the last week of prime fall foliage.

She was in her clericals, of course, rosy-cheeked in the heat from the crowd. She was finally putting on some weight again, and it looked good on her. Real good. Down, boy. Russ dropped his jacket over the back of a chair and sat.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

He reached across the red-tiled table. “I’m sorry.”

“I am, too.” She took his hand. “Friends?”

He grinned. “Among other things.”

Erla Davis appeared at his side, menus in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. “Well, howdy, strangers!” She beamed at Clare, then at Russ. “It does my heart good to see you two back in the old spot. Reverend, you still partial to a cup?”

Clare turned her mug over. “Erla, I’ll be partial to your coffee three days after I’m dead.”

The waitress eyed Russ as she filled Clare’s cup. “I heard you two are getting married the end of this month. Never saw that one coming.”

Russ laughed.

Erla served up his coffee and then tapped the large plastic sheets against the table. “You need to look at the menu?”

“I’ll have the chili, please,” Clare said.

“Reuben with fries.”

“That’s what I like,” Erla said. “Folks that know what they want without shilly-shallying.” She winked like a burlesque performer and whisked away, menus in hand.

Clare leaned forward, but instead of making a joke, she said, “Quentan Nichols is here. In town.”

The clatter and conversation in the Kreemy Kakes diner created a kind of homey white noise, loud enough to keep a private discussion private, soft enough to hear the person across the table. “Huh,” he said. “Okay. It looks like I really do owe you an apology.” He rubbed his lips. “I’d better tell Seelye.” Then the meaning of her statement caught up with his brain. “Wait. How do you know he’s in Millers Kill?”

“He’s at St. Alban’s, right now.”

“Oh, for chrissakes, Clare-” Erla appeared again with their order. “’Scuse my French,” he said as she unloaded the thick china dishes. He waved away the waitress’s offer to bring them anything else. “Nichols may not have killed Tally, but he sure as hell has his hands dirty.” He shoved against the table and stood up. “I’m going to take him into custody for questioning.”

“Sit down.”

The steel in Clare’s command voice dropped his ass back into his chair before he could think about it. “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

“Oh, cut it out. I just want you to hear me out before you run off half-cocked.”

“Right. Wouldn’t want to do anything without assessing all the information and thinking it through carefully.”

She gave him a look. “Listen. Nichols admits he enabled the theft by steering his patrols away from the transit warehouse where the money was stored.” She dug her spoon into her chili. “He says he didn’t know what she was doing and he didn’t want to know. He thought it was all love’s sweet bliss until she got back stateside and dropped him like a hot rock.”

“More like a hot million,” he said around a bite of his sandwich.

“After he came here to try to see her-that was the night I got home, you remember?”

He smiled slowly. She pinked up. “Yes, well. Anyway, after that, he decided to figure out what it was, exactly, that he had done for her back at Balad Air Base. He spent a month or two digging around and figured out she must have altered the invoices coming from the States to hide the theft. So he sent a request in to USAFINCOM’s attached investigators, asking them for copies of the original invoices. Guess who shows up in person?”

“Colonel Arlene Seelye?”

She frowned. “Yes, Arlene Seelye. She confiscates all the stuff he’s amassed in the course of his investigation, tells him she’s taking over, and then-get this!-has him transferred to Fort Gillem.”

He had a good idea where this was going, but he let her spin it out.

“ She’s after the money. For herself.” Clare emphasized her point with her spoon, dropping a blob of chili on her paper place mat.

He finished chewing a bite of Reuben. Wiped his mouth. “Did he happen to say why he showed up at your church?”

“I was the only one of the therapy group he could track down. He needs help if he’s going to find the money before she does.”

Russ held up his hands. “I want you to repeat that last sentence to yourself. Tell me what it sounds like.”

“He’s not going to keep it!”

He looked at her steadily. She bit the corner of her lip. “He’s going to keep it?” Sighed. “He’s going to keep it.” Then she frowned. “Wait, what about Colonel Seelye transferring him? That’s way too easy to be checked. He couldn’t have made that up, could he?”

“If I were running this investigation, and I suspected an MP of involvement in the crime, but didn’t have enough evidence to charge him, the first thing I’d do would be to contain him. So he can’t muck up any evidence or help out his co-conspirators.” He shoved the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth. Clare stared into her coffee, still frowning. Probably trying to figure out a way to redeem Nichols. He felt himself smiling like an idiot around the bread and pastrami.

Clare raised her eyebrows at him. “What?”

He swallowed. “Just you.” He stood up and pulled out his wallet. “C’mon. I want to talk to this guy.”

“Russ. He came to me for help. I told him to wait in the parish hall. I can’t lead the local police in to clap him in irons.”

“I think we’ve been over the fact that the church as sanctuary doesn’t fly in the twenty-first century.” They had had this same lunch so many times he didn’t have to see the bill to know the total and tip. He tossed the money onto the table and stood aside to let Clare out. “Besides. If Nichols is still there, I will wear a kilt to the wedding.”

Nichols wasn’t in the sanctuary. Nor in the sacristy, the parish hall, or the undercroft. He had picked up a great deal about church architecture for a nonreligious man, Russ realized.

“Sorry, Clare.” They surprised her secretary eating freeze-dried tuna out of a pouch. “He must have left before I got back from lunch.” She waved her plastic fork. “Obviously not lunch-lunch. I was running errands. I found a great dress for your wedding, and I’m getting it altered. It was a size six. A little bit too big.” She beamed. “Hi, Russ.”

“Hi, Lois.”

“A little bit too big, Lois? Really?”

The secretary smiled smugly.

In her office, Clare tossed her coat onto her battered love seat and flung herself into her desk chair. “Dang it!” She tilted back with a creak and a snap. “What are you going to do now?”

He leaned against the tall bookcases lining one wall. “I’m going to call his command and find out if he’s unauthorized absence. If he is, they’ll have people after him. Then I’ll tell Seelye. Based on what he told you, he’s definitely an accessory. If she wants, we’ll put a BOLO on him.”

“What about her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nichols may be after the money for himself. I’m willing to accept that.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She frowned at him. “There’s still the matter of Colonel Seelye. She found out about the theft, got Nichols out of the way, and hightailed it here, conveniently just after Tally was found dead.”

“What are you saying? Are you trying to implicate Seelye in McNabb’s death?”

“The timing works. She doesn’t have any airtight alibi. She could have-”

“Okay, first”-Russ held up one finger-“Tally McNabb committed suicide. All the physical evidence points to that conclusion. There is no evidence supporting any other conclusion. Second”-he held up another finger-“Colonel Seelye’s a CID investigator chasing down the theft of one million dollars. Of course she hightailed it over here. What do you think she’d do? Sit on her ass until Tally McNabb finished laundering the money?”

“Exactly!” Clare sprang her chair forward, jumping to her feet. “One million dollars! Which is up for grabs now that Tally McNabb is out of the way.”

“Oh, for chrissakes. Will you give it a rest already?”

She strode toward him, her cheeks flushed, her hazel eyes glinting brown. He wanted to shake her shoulders until she dropped this fact-free victim fantasy she’d dreamed up for Tally McNabb. He wanted to strip her naked and fling her on the lumpy love seat and not let her up until he had wrung them both dry. How could one woman make him so batshit crazy?

She stopped maybe two inches away, close enough for him to feel the heat she was throwing off. “You’re wrong,” she said. “You’re wrong, and I’m going to prove it.”

“Do not go chasing after Nichols on your own, Clare. You don’t know what he’s after or what he’s capable of.”

“I can take care of myself. As I’ve told you.”

“Is that the deal? Either I knuckle under and drive an investigation in the direction you want, or you put yourself in danger? Is that how you’re going to get your way when we’re married? Forget about talking things out and making compromises, just go straight for the nuclear option?”

Her face went pale. She turned. Opened her office door. Pointed toward the hall.

“Clare. For God’s sake. I don’t want to fight like this.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Please, love. I don’t understand why this is so important to you.”

Her face wavered. He pulled her toward him. She resisted for a second, then collapsed against him. He wrapped his arms tight around her. “Why can’t you trust me on this? Why can’t you let it go?”

“It’s all wrong.” Her voice was muffled against his chest, but he realized she was crying. “It’s all gone wrong, and I have to make it right.”

He had a sick feeling that she wasn’t talking about Tally McNabb. Not talking about Tally McNabb at all.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13

Hadley’s notes for the morning briefing were about as abbreviated as she could get. 1. Tourists in town. 2. Check kiting IGA. 3. B and E 52 MacEachron Hill Rd. Cossayuharie, interrupted, no loss. She wrote more detailed grocery lists. Well, this was all penny-ante stuff. There was only one really big case going on in Millers Kill right now, and it wasn’t even theirs.

“I’ve been trying to get hold of Colonel Seelye, the Army CID who’s heading up their investigation. I’ve left her a couple of messages on her cell.” The chief squared his boots on the chairs again. “Here’s the deal. The theft from the army isn’t technically in our jurisdiction, as you all know.”

Hadley glanced at Flynn, who looked disappointed. The man was way too invested in policing. He needed a hobby.

“However. Both Wyler McNabb and Quentan Nichols, whom some of you will remember”-he nodded at Hadley and Flynn-“are in town right now. Nichols has admitted to direct involvement with the theft, and it’s a sure bet McNabb has some knowledge of it.”

“Wait a minute.” Lyle MacAuley rousted himself from his usual slumped posture against the whiteboard. “How do we know Nichols is back in town?”

The chief rubbed the back of his neck. “He came to St. Alban’s looking for Clare. Asked her to help him find the money.”

“I’ll be damned. Where is he now?”

The chief shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I faxed his name and description around to area hotels and motels last night before I left. Nothing yet.”

“That guy is better at disappearing than a bowl of shrimp at the all-you-can-eat buffet. You sure he’s not really a Green Beret or something?”

“I’m more worried about him reappearing. In Wyler McNabb’s driveway.” The chief pointed at Hadley. “Knox, I want you and Kevin to go by there and pick him up for questioning. I was willing to wait for Seelye, but she’s dragging her tail. I want to find out what he knows before something bad happens.”

Hadley felt her face heating up. He knew she had lied. He didn’t trust her to pick up the guy by herself.

“Both of us?” Flynn asked. “I didn’t think he was in any shape to put up a fight.”

“I’m not worried about him resisting arrest. I’m worried about him being alone with an officer and no witness to say what happened or didn’t happen. I don’t want to give McNabb an opportunity to lodge a false complaint on top of the real one he’s got going.” The chief pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses.

“What do we do if Colonel Seelye is already there?” Hadley asked. “She’s going for a warrant to search the place, right?”

“If she’s there, tell her unless she’s immediately placing McNabb under arrest, we’re taking him in for protective custody. She can come over to the station and question him here.” He slid off the table and thudded to the floor. “That’s all. Lyle?”

Kevin drove. She took shotgun. It was the first time they’d been alone together in at least a week. So of course, he led off with “What happened with you and Eric at this guy’s house?”

“You know what happened. The guy swung at Eric, they got into it, eventually the perp was subdued.”

“Right into the hospital. You know, I might have bought that story- might have-if I hadn’t seen Eric go medieval on that emergency room doctor.”

She looked out the window. “It doesn’t matter to me what you believe. I made my statement. It’s on the record. I’m not changing it.”

“Hadley. Jesus. You’re not a coward.”

She turned on him. “Eric McCrea is a red-white-and-blue, yellow-ribbon war hero, Flynn. He’s been on the force for nine years, and everybody knows if MacAuley retires, he’s getting the deputy chief’s slot. I’m the girl. The new girl. Who’s going to get burned if I turn him in?”

“I’d back you up!”

She smiled a little. “I know. I knew. Now tell me who else will.”

“The chief. He suspended Eric on the spot, and he’d stand by you against anyone in the department.”

“Yeah, and what happens when he’s not around? You know MacAuley and Noble and the other guys are Code Blue, all the way. I heard about what happened to the guy who was here before me. He got frozen out because he called the state police in on a murder case. He had to leave town to get another job!”

“Mark Durkee.” Flynn shifted in his seat. “That was different.”

“No, it wasn’t. Let it go, Flynn. I made my choice, and I’ll live with it.”

His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “I just hate to see you forced to compromise yourself.”

She almost whooped. “Compromise myself?” She leaned back into the seat. “Flynn, you’re a world too late to stop that from happening.”

He opened his mouth as they drove into view of the McNabbs’ house. The driveway was empty, both her Navigator and his Escalade gone. Flynn changed whatever he had been about to say into “In the garage?”

“There wasn’t room last time. Let’s check.”

They parked. She peered into the garage. He banged on the door. They both turned up empty.

“Now what?” Hadley said over the hood of the squad car.

“Could he be at work?”

“I don’t think he’d be physically able to after-” She couldn’t say it. “What happened. I’ll check. Do you still have your notes from the interviews we did right after the suspicious death?”

Flynn brandished his pocket-sized notebook.

She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “Okay. I’ll call BWI while you drive to the closest friend’s house. He’s gotta be around somewhere.” She didn’t have to point out that McNabb wasn’t well enough to take off for another casino vacation.

The BWI Opperman receptionist transferred her to the construction department, where she hung out on hold for two minutes, three, four, while boring classical music tried to lull her into a stupor. “God.” She turned to Flynn. “They must be hauling some poor guy off his bulldozer to talk to me.”

The line went live. “Hi! What can I do you for?” The man was shouting over the sound of machinery grinding in the background. Her guess about the work site must have been correct.

“I’m looking for Wyler McNabb.” She tried not to raise her own voice. “Is he working today?”

“Naw, he’s off for a few weeks. Try him at home.” The line went dead.

She stared at her cell, frowning. “Talkative guy.”

“Don’t worry about it. At least we know he’s not on the job.” Flynn handed her the notebook. “Do me a favor. Figure out who on the list is closest to us if we strike out on the first contact.”

The first person listed was a co-worker. When they got to the address, a small house on Meersham Street, the only person home was a harried wife with a baby on her hip and a toddler shrieking behind her. Her look of alarm melted into an expression of relief when they asked about McNabb. “Don’t know, and don’t care,” she said. “We didn’t move in the same circles.”

The next person on Flynn’s list was labeled “drinking buddy.” He lived in a much rattier house on South Street, and his expression wasn’t so much alarm as it was sullen suspicion. He, too, looked relieved when they asked about McNabb, although in his case, Hadley figured it was relief that they weren’t after him.

“I dunno where he is. I heard he was feeling pretty lousy.” The drinking buddy rubbed his chin. “I wonder if he mighta gone to Tally’s mom’s house? She’s a LPN. What with Tally being gone, she mighta taken him home for a little whaddaya call it.”

“TLC?” Flynn said.

“Yeah. They always got on well. Mrs. Walters is pretty laid-back. Not like Wyler’s mom.” He shuddered.

Hadley glanced at Flynn. It sounded like a solid lead. “What’s her address?” she asked.

“Fifty-two MacEachron Hill Road. Up in Cossayuharie.”

Hadley kept her face neutral while Flynn thanked the guy. They got back into the cruiser. Buckled up. Pulled away from the curb. As soon as Hadley was sure she couldn’t be seen, she turned to Flynn. “Did you hear that? The same place with the B and E last night!”

He grinned at her. “Oh, man. Maybe we’ll have a major theft fall right in our laps.”

“You know what the chief says.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” they chorused.

Flynn’s notes had more details than hers, including the complainant’s name, Evonne Walters. Paul Urquhart had taken the call last night around eleven. A search of the area turned up nothing-knowing Paul, the search probably consisted of him waving his flashlight around the yard-and the complainant believed nothing had been taken. There hadn’t been any mention of a connection to Tally McNabb, which didn’t surprise her. She had heard Paul say that asking questions only led to more work.

They drove through fields and woodlots as they wound their way up MacEachron Hill Road. Most of the residences they passed were slightly sagging farmhouses, where solid nineteenth-century construction managed to keep the worst ravages of time and poverty at bay. Tally McNabb’s mother’s house, on the other hand, looked like something out of Traditional Homes magazine. The roof was so new it gleamed like fresh blacktop in July; the deep, wide gutters emptied into neat gravel beds; the windows were period reproduction, with built-in storms and freshly painted shutters.

“Geez,” Flynn said.

Hadley nodded. “Unless LPNs get paid a lot more than I thought, I think we know where some of the stolen loot went.”

They got out of the cruiser. At the door-also recently painted, with bright hardware and a fancy, chime-playing bell-Flynn stepped back, letting Hadley take point.

The woman who answered looked as if she belonged in one of those other houses-shabby, weathered, but with strong bones. She blinked at them. “May I help you?”

“Ms. Walters? I’m Officer Knox of the Millers Kill Police, and this is Officer Flynn. May we come in?”

“I already talked with one of your officers last night.” Even as she spoke, the woman opened the door wider and made space for them. “There wasn’t anything missing. I was more scared’n anything else.” Flynn tucked his hat beneath his arm as she ushered them into the kitchen. “I guess you always think nothing bad can happen out here in the country. Tally told me I ought to get a security alarm, living out here on my own.” Her voice cracked.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Hadley said. “I can’t imagine anything worse than the death of a child.”

The woman nodded. Glanced at Hadley’s ringless finger. “You have children?”

“Two. A boy and a girl.”

There was a clatter on the stairs, and a young man in his late teens or early twenties loped into the kitchen. “Ma? What’s going on?”

“My youngest, Danny. These officers came about the break-in.”

“Did you find out who did it already?”

Hadley shook her head. “It’s under investigation. Are you the only other person living here, Danny?”

“I don’t live here. I’m a sophomore at Kenyon. In Ohio.”

His mother put her arm around him. “First in the family to go to college.”

He hugged his mom back without embarrassment. Hadley liked that. “I was planning on heading back this weekend, but I hate to leave Ma alone with this hanging over her head.”

“Danny’s worried it might’a been one of those crazy people who thinks God kills soldiers ’cause we got gay people in the USA.”

Hadley decided to fudge a bit. “We think it’s more likely someone who read that your daughter died and was hoping to steal some valuables in the confusion. It happens sometimes.” The first time she had dealt with one-the burglary of a house left empty for a funeral-she had thought a human being couldn’t go much lower.

Evidently Ms. Walters agreed with her. The woman’s face screwed up in disgust. “Well, if that don’t beat all.”

“Did your daughter ever use your house for storage? Leave anything here for safekeeping?”

“When she was deployed, yes. I was the one kept her checkbook and paid what bills came due while she was in Iraq.”

“Not her husband?” Kevin asked.

Mrs. Walters hesitated. “He’s not so good with that sort of thing.” She smiled a little. “Those two were together since tenth grade. Ten years later, Mary was still head-over-heels for Wyler. Never mind in some ways he’s still in high school.”

Danny made a face that suggested he minded his brother-in-law’s immaturity.

“Anything else?” Hadley asked. “Other than the checkbook?”

“The cars,” Danny said.

“Well, if the burglar was after the cars, he wun’t too smart, now, was he? Looking in the house instead of the garage.”

Flynn glanced at Hadley before looking at the Walterses. “What vehicles are you talking about?”

“Wyler and Tally’s cars. They keep them-” Danny caught himself. “They kept them here when they were both overseas. Wyler and I brought them up here yesterday.”

“I want you to have her SUV. It’ll be a load off my mind to not have you driving halfway ’cross the country in that old beater of yours.”

“Ma-”

“You brought both their cars here?” Hadley frowned. “Why?”

Danny looked at them. “Wyler’s gone back over. To join the construction team in Iraq. He left yesterday.”

Clare hadn’t intended to swing by the Stuyvesant Inn on the way back from the Infirmary. Her plan to fit in a short visit with two of her elderly parishioners expanded as she saw one senior that she knew, and then another, so that twenty minutes became an hour and a half of looking at photos and holding hands and listening to stories. Then the nursing director, Paul Foubert, had dragged her into his office to complain that she and Russ weren’t registered anywhere and to unsubtly interrogate her about the perfect wedding gift.

“Nothing, Paul. We don’t need anything. Make a donation to a good cause in our names if you have to do something.”

“Hmph,” he rumbled. “You only get married once, knock on wood. You ought to milk it for what it’s worth.”

When she finally emerged into sunshine and a brisk easterly wind, she realized she was never going to make the diocesan development committee lunch scheduled for noon in Schenectady. She had to admit giving up boxed sandwiches and a tedious meeting wasn’t a hardship. Plus, she now had a legitimate couple of hours free before her afternoon counseling sessions.

She considered going back to the rectory for a nap. Trip’s prescribed ten milligrams of Dexedrine was clearly a much lower dosage than she’d been taking out of her go-bag. She felt like she was wearing an overcoat of fatigue. Trip surely wouldn’t call her in for a blood test this soon. He wouldn’t know if she upped her dose for a day or two. She climbed behind the wheel of her Jeep and headed toward Millers Kill.

She thought about the therapy group. If she could get hold of Colonel Seelye, she could ask the others what they thought about the situation. Get their take on Quentan Nichols’s surprise visit, too. He was obviously in it up to his neck, as Russ would say. In town and looking for his money. Which was… where? Who knew? Had Tally had someone helping her stateside? There must have been other people involved in Iraq, if only to move the cash from point A to point B. What if Nichols knew the other accomplice? Knew, and had struck a deal with him. Or them. After all, taking even one person out of the pool left considerably more money for everyone else to divide.

Clare drove over a hill and blinked at the sight of the Stuyvesant Inn. She had driven the entire way on autopilot. So much for her vaunted observational skills-and so much for her nap. She turned into the drive and pulled into one of two empty parking places. The leaf peepers must have decamped to the city.

The inn’s enormous maple was half-stripped of leaves, the remainder looking like the tattered red pennants of a defeated army. The wind across the valley, which cooled the sprawling Victorian all summer long, was a cold slice against her back as she got out of her car.

The door opened while she was climbing the porch steps. “You must be psychic,” Ron Handler said. “We just got another fax from your mother.” He stepped to one side and let her into the wide front hall.

“Lord help us.” Clare shucked her jacket off. “What is it now?”

“Oh, a bunch of stuff. She wants to make sure we’re coordinating with the baker and the patisserie. A rundown on the linens. She has a sketch of how she wants the presents displayed-what’s a ‘sip and see’?”

“A party for silver fetishists.” She glanced at the hallway’s étagère, where an authentic nineteenth-century feather bouquet bloomed eternally beneath a glass bell. “Don’t worry about it, though. There aren’t going to be any presents.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Your Reverence, but they’re already arriving. Your mother’s been forwarding the ones sent to your parents’ house.”

“Oh, for…” She scrubbed her hands over her face. Wished she had some cold water to splash there. “Look. I didn’t actually come over here to discuss the reception. I was hoping to talk to Colonel Seelye. She never returned my phone messages.”

“Rude, but not unexpected. I’m sorry, but she’s gone.”

“Any idea when she’ll be back?”

Ron shook his head. “I mean she’s gone. Checked out. Took her luggage, her car, and her life-sized GI Joe doll with her.”

Russ was negotiating the turn off of Route 57 when his cell phone rang. He picked it up without looking. “Van Alstyne here.”

“Hey. It’s me,” Clare said.

“Hey, you. Are you feeling better?”

“I guess so.” She paused. “I think I know why we’ve been so snippy with each other lately.”

“Snippy” wasn’t the word he would have used, but what the hell. “Why?”

“Because we’re not having sex.”

He grinned. “I sure am thinking about it a lot, if that’s any consolation.”

“Oh, yeah? What sort of things are you thinking about?”

“Stop that. Are you calling about Nichols?”

“What? No. Why?”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“No. Sorry. I didn’t check before I called you. What’s going on?”

“Wyler McNabb has flown the coop. He left his car with his in-laws and told ’em he was off to join the BWI Opperman construction team in Iraq.”

“Wasn’t he out on bail?”

“Uh-huh.”

“With a broken cheekbone?”

“Plus a hairline fracture in his skull.”

“And they let him go to a construction site in a war zone?” Clare’s voice carried all the disbelief his had when Knox and Flynn had reported in.

“That’s what I’m about to find out. I called the construction depot in Plattsburgh, but the guy there didn’t know anything except that the monthly flight to Iraq left yesterday evening. All the operations-level stuff is handled at headquarters. I’m headed for the Algonquin Waters to get the truth out of somebody.”

“I’m at the Stuyvesant Inn. I’ll meet you there.”

“No. Do not go to the resort. I don’t want you anywhere near there if you can help it.”

“Why were you calling about Nichols?”

He hissed frustration as he swung his squad car onto the Sacandaga Road. “Clare, I mean it. I don’t want you-”

“Oh, honestly, Russ, you’re not going up against a terrorist cell holding the hotel with guns and explosives. You’re going to ask the human resources manager if they authorized McNabb to get on their plane. I think I can survive the danger. I’ll see you over there.” She hung up.

He swore under his breath. The wedding, which she had just been complaining about, was in nine days. She was carrying her usual overfull schedule at St. Alban’s. On top of it all, he knew, despite her being less than forthcoming about therapy, that she was still struggling with her experiences in Iraq. So what does she do? Go chasing after Tally McNabb’s nonexistent killer.

He switched his light bar on and stepped on the gas when he hit the resort’s road, causing a car speeding down the mountain to brake hard enough to spew dirt and leaf mold into the air. He was going to have to lobby the aldermen to install a traffic light on the Sacandaga Road, or sooner or later there was going to be another fatality like this summer’s. Of course, the aldermen, who liked spending money as much as Clare liked sitting quietly at home, would make him choose: traffic control or a new officer’s position.

He saw Clare’s ratty old Jeep as soon as he drove into the parking lot. That was another thing on his list. The first weekend after they were married he was marching her over to Fort Henry Ford and buying her a reliable four-wheel drive with all-weather tires and side-door air bags.

She hopped out of her clunker when he got out of the cruiser. She tugged a wool cardigan over her clerical blouse. “So why were you calling me about Nichols?”

He zipped his jacket up. “I wanted to ask you if you had any idea where he might be. If he said anything to you. Why are you so keen on Wyler McNabb’s whereabouts?”

She looked up at him. “I told you. I think Tally McNabb was killed for a million dollars. I want to find out everything I can about the money, because if I know that, I’ll know who murdered her.”

It came to him as he spoke the words. “You know, distracting yourself by playing private eye won’t make the bad stuff in your head go away.”

She opened her mouth. Shut it. “Is that why you became an MP? Because focusing on other people’s problems helped you ignore your own?”

His breath hitched in his chest. Jesus. Sometimes she pulled truth out of him like a magician conjuring scarves. Then he saw her eyes, wide and white-edged, and realized she was feeling the same way he was right now. Because he had done the same thing to her. Truth for truth. He took her hand, holding her palm open as if he could see the future there. “You know what’s scary about being with you?”

She shook her head.

“There’s not anyplace to hide. For either of us.”

She smiled a little. “You chickening out?”

“Not a chance.” He started for the hotel’s entrance. She fell into step beside him.

“So,” she said. “Nichols.”

“I figure there are three possibilities behind McNabb’s disappearance. One, he really was shipped off to Iraq as a BWI contractor.”

“That sounds flat-out strange to me.”

“Yeah. Two, he told people he was going to Iraq on a job and skipped town for places unknown.”

“Let me guess the third. Nichols took him out in a bid to be the last man standing.”

“Like you said, a million bucks is a powerful incentive to murder.”

They thumped through one of the revolving doors and crossed to the gleaming reception desk. A cute young woman with dark hair perked up at them. “Welcome to the Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort, Reverend. Chief.”

Clare’s title was self-evident, but how had she known he was-he spotted her first name pinned to her chest. “Christy McAlistair,” he said.

“Yup. It’s Christy Stoner now, though.”

He knew Wayne and Mindy Stoner’s boy had gotten married between deployments, but he hadn’t put that fact together with the name on the Bain accident report. “How are you doing?” He glanced at her trim waistline. “Everything, uh, okay?”

“You mean after the accident? I’m fine. Zachary-our baby boy?-came early, but he was already almost six pounds, so my OB said it was probably just as well he was born at seven months.” She laughed. “Then-because the driver who caused the accident had been working up here?-Mr. Opperman offered me a job. Wasn’t that amazingly nice of him?”

Amazingly smart of him to avoid a lawsuit. Ellen Bain had been drinking at the lobby bar before taking her fatal drive.

“Zach and I are living with my parents while Ethan’s in Afghanistan, so everything I earn can go toward a down payment on a house when he gets out of the marines.”

“You’re Ethan Stoner’s wife.” Clare put the pieces together.

Christy’s eyes lit up. “Do you know Ethan?”

“We haven’t met, formally. I know of him.”

The girl laughed again. “Yeah, he was kind of wild when he was young. He’s settled down now.”

Clare glanced at him, and he knew just what she was thinking. When he was young? For all that she was a wife and mother, Christy Stoner looked to him like she ought to be cheering on the Minutemen football team. God, he was old.

“Well.” The voice behind him was as smooth as a well-oiled gun. “What have we here? The Church and the State. Together.” Russ and Clare turned around. Opperman’s mouth curved up as he looked at them. “How unconstitutional.”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” Christy said. “I didn’t know you were waiting for them, Mr. Opperman.”

“That’s all right, Christy.” Opperman gestured toward the elevators. “My office is this way.”

Russ threw out his arm, blocking Clare’s way. He didn’t want her anywhere near the resort’s CEO. Irrational, but there it was. If he had kept Linda away from Opperman, she never would have gone to the Caribbean with the man, never would have been driving home from the resort in a blizzard, never would have died-and he never would have been marrying Clare, which brought him back to irrational. “We don’t need to take up your time,” he said. “I came here to speak to your HR director.”

Opperman gazed at him coolly. “It’s no bother. I should be able to answer anything you might ask her.”

“Look, I just need to know-”

“Let’s not keep our paying guests from the desk.” Opperman strolled across the expansive lobby toward a riverstone fireplace big enough to roast an ox in. The small fire burning in its center made it look like the entrance to a prehistoric cave. Opperman sat in one of a group of chairs clustered to the side of the hearth. He held out his hand toward the remaining chairs.

Russ grudgingly sat down. Clare settled beside him.

“You just need to know…” Opperman began.

“If Wyler McNabb was transferred to your operation in Iraq.”

“Yes. Employees working on the Provisional Authority contract are on a six-month cycle, six months in-country, six months at home. Wyler returned in mid-April, and so…” He spread his hands. His nails were clean and shining.

“Were you aware Wyler McNabb was out on bail?”

Opperman’s eyebrows went up. “I was not. What are the charges?”

“Resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.”

Opperman nodded. “Does he have a trial date?”

“Sometime in January.”

“We have a monthly flight to and from Balad Airport. If you let us know the exact date, I’ll have the crew supervisor make sure he’s on it in time to make his appearance.”

“Just like that.”

“Even highly skilled construction workers tend to be, shall we say, rough around the edges. This isn’t the first time one of my employees has been extra-jurisdiction, and it won’t be the last.” He placed his hands on the chair’s arms and prepared to rise. “If that’s all-”

“Were you aware McNabb was released from the hospital five days ago with several broken bones in his face?”

The hands relaxed. “I was not.”

Russ waited, but Opperman didn’t seem to have anything else to say. “Don’t you have some sort of basic health requirement for your construction workers?”

“I’m moved by your concern, Chief Van Alstyne. Since you seem so much better informed than I, perhaps you can tell me how Wyler was injured.”

Russ tried to keep the tension out of his voice. “As I said, he assaulted an officer and resisted arrest.”

“And as a result, someone in your police department smashed his skull in?” Opperman shook his head. “Funny. You see it in the news, but you don’t expect something like that in a small town like Millers Kill.” He laced his fingers together and looked straight at Russ. “I hope this is an isolated incident of police brutality. The tourism-dependent businesses in this area can’t afford to have their customers frightened of the very men and women they rely on for protection.”

A scalding cloud of shame and rage surrounded Russ, burning his chest and face, tightening his throat. Clare laid her hand on his arm. “Mr. Opperman, have you met Lieutenant Colonel Seelye? She’s an Army CID investigator.”

Opperman blinked at her. Then looked at Russ. “Are you delegating your work to the clergy these days?”

“It’s a simple yes or no question,” Clare said. “Have you met the colonel?”

“Yes.” Opperman’s voice was short. “I met with Arlene Seelye a day or two ago. She was investigating something to do with the unfortunate Tally McNabb, and she wanted to know what kind of employee Tally was.”

“All right. Thank you.” Clare got up. Russ frowned. He wasn’t certain what she had been after, but he stood with her.

Opperman rose as well. He smiled broadly. “I understand you two are planning to get married.” He captured Clare’s hand in both of his and raised it almost to his lips. “I imagine you’ll be a ravishing bride, Reverend.”

Russ balled his hand into a fist to keep from reaching over and tearing out Opperman’s throat. Clare snatched her hand away.

“I hope you’ll consider the Algonquin for your reception,” Opperman continued smoothly.

“We’ve already booked the Stuyvesant Inn.” Russ’s voice was harsh.

“Now that’s a shame.” Opperman looked at him regretfully. “You’re settling for second best.”

Clare went pale. Russ put his hand in the small of her back and steered her toward the hotel’s entrance. “Come back anytime,” Opperman called.

Walking out into the cold mountain air was like bathing in a clear, clean fountain after wading through muck. “Are you okay?” he said.

“Yeah.” She twitched her shoulders, a movement that became a full-body shiver.

“I’m sorry. God.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

“He was playing you. When he almost kissed my hand? He was trying to stir you up.”

“It worked.” He kept his arm tight around her as they descended the steps to the parking lot.

“He knew about Wyler McNabb’s injuries. Before you told him. It’s unlocked,” she said to his outstretched hand.

He opened the Jeep’s door. “What makes you think that?”

She climbed into the driver’s seat and swiveled to face him. “He didn’t ask anything about Wyler’s condition, or about how you knew. The only thing he asked was the one thing guaranteed to embarrass you and throw you off balance.”

“Hmn.” He braced his arm on top of her door and leaned forward. “Why’d you ask him about Arlene Seelye?”

“She’s gone. I went to the Stuyvesant Inn to talk with her, and she had upped stakes. I wanted to know if she’d investigated Opperman first.”

“Gone? Huh. Although if she got a lead on Tally stashing the missing loot elsewhere, there wouldn’t be any reason for her to hang around. Especially at what the Stuyvesant charges for a room.”

“Do you think Opperman is involved? I mean, Wyler McNabb was working for him, then he hired Tally.”

“What, with the theft? I’d like to think so, because I can’t stand the smug sonofabitch. I believe right down to the bottom he got control of that company by killing off his partners.” He shook his head. “That was for high stakes. Huge money. To you and me and Tally, a million bucks would be life-changing, but to a guy like Opperman? It’s a couple months’ salary. Not worth the risk.”

“Shame.” She smiled a little. “He makes such a satisfying bad guy.”

“He is a bad guy. Just not the one we want.”

“Who is, then? Wyler McNabb? Are you going to try to get him back?”

“Extradite him from Iraq? Hell, no. I can’t even imagine what kind of hoops I’d have to jump through for that.”

“Oh, come on. He’s got to be in on the theft.”

“Agreed. Unfortunately, it’s not my case. It’s the army’s. If Seelye wants him, she can try to reel him in. He’s left town, and she’s left town, and if there’s a merciful God-”

“There is.”

He smiled at her. “Then Quentan Nichols will also have left town. Let ’em all chase their money somewhere else. We’ve got more important things to do.” He kissed her, slow and easy, an apology for mixing her up in this business. Pulled away and looked at her, her lips parted, her eyes half closed. He kissed her again, harder, wrapping one hand around the back of her head, the other tracing the barrier of her collar until he found the tiny button in the back. He twisted, tugged, and her neck was bare.

“Smooth,” she gasped, as he put his teeth and tongue to her throat. The sound she made jacked him up even higher. Beneath his coat, she clutched at his shoulders, his chest, his sides. Even through his uniform blouse and undershirt, the bite of her fingers into his muscles sent electric jolts skittering over his skin. She took hold of his rig, pulling him closer, rattling the baton, clinking the magazine pouch.

“Damn.” Her voice was husky. “This thing is worse than a chastity belt.”

He broke off, panting, hard, and realized they were still in the Algonquin’s parking lot. Any guests looking out their windows were going to see a lot more than foliage. “Shit.” His own voice was pretty far gone, too. “I’m sorry.” He laughed harshly. “So much for discretion.”

She shook her head. “It’s Opperman.”

He reached down to adjust himself. “Darlin’, I can guarantee you it’s not Opperman did this to me.”

“No, I meant-” She grinned at him. “Never mind. Come back to the rectory with me. I’ve got a couple of hours before my afternoon appointments.”

“No.”

“Your mother’s place.”

“ God, no.”

“Your truck.”

He paused at that one. Sighed. “Regretfully, no. Nice idea, though.” He searched her face for a safe spot and settled for kissing the tip of her nose. “I’ve got to get back to the station. Hold that thought.”

At his desk at the end of the afternoon, his vision blurring from the small print the state used on its crime stats reporting forms, his mind kept going back to Clare. Not the good stuff: He packed the image of Clare, nude and in his pickup, into a box labeled LATER . Instead, he thought about her exchange with Opperman. Something about it was sticking in his brain.

Lyle came in without knocking, which made him grateful he hadn’t been sitting there trying to figure out how to fit a mattress in the bed of his truck.

“I finished the rest of the midmonth stuff we gotta send on to CADEA for you.” Lyle tossed a folder on his already overcrowded desk before collapsing in the one chair still empty of booklets, bulletins, and circ sheets. “Kevin says in Syracuse they got two full-time civilian employees to deal with the paperwork. Think about that, will you?”

“First another officer. Then a second-shift dispatcher. Third, Tasers. A paper pusher comes fourth after that.”

“Tasers.” Lyle snorted. “When I started out, all you needed was a club. My first sergeant taught me how to break open hippies’ heads with a nightstick. Good times.” He sighed. “You find out anything about Wyler McNabb?”

“According to John Opperman, he was, in fact, sent back to Iraq to join the construction team. They get six months on, six off, and his time card was punched.”

“With a busted jaw. Right.”

“Opperman claimed he didn’t know the guy was out on bail.”

“You believe him?”

“I did at the time. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t doubt Opperman could have sent McNabb off and lied about it just to make my life more difficult.”

Lyle shrugged. “No skin off his nose. He’s not the one posted bail.”

“Yeah. Here’s the thing. He said Arlene Seelye had interviewed him. Asked him about Tally McNabb.” Russ crossed his arms on top of the drifts of paperwork. “Wouldn’t she have also asked him about Wyler McNabb? He was her biggest lead. She knew he worked for BWI Opperman.”

Lyle nodded. “Makes sense. I would’ve.”

“But she also knew McNabb was under arrest.”

“So she told Opperman. You already said he might have known, and sent the guy off to Iraq anyway. He doesn’t care if he takes a dump on Seelye’s investigation.”

“Maybe, but think about it. He’s got a lucrative contract with the army. Why would he chance jerking them around?”

“What chance? When was the last time somebody complained and got rid of Halliburton? Or Blackwater?”

“Those are the big boys. The T. rexes of the contracting world. Opperman’s one of the little guys, comparatively speaking. He’s got to make nice and deliver the goods and keep his accounts clean, because there are five other guys just like him waiting to take his place if he goes down.”

“Then what? It can’t be the money. Opperman’s the CEO and majority stockholder of BWI Opperman. The damn company’s estimated worth is five hundred million.”

Russ raised his eyebrows. “And here I was, thinking you were just a pretty face.”

“I read more’n Guns and Ammo, you know.”

“I’m agreeing with you. A million’s small potatoes for him.” He folded his hands. “It’s a hell of a lot for a lieutenant colonel, though.”

“Seelye?”

“The way things played out doesn’t make a lot of sense if she went in there asking questions like we would, right?”

Lyle made a noise of cautious assent.

“What if she never mentioned Wyler McNabb because she had already suborned him? Or because they were already accomplices? She was in Iraq. She told me so herself.”

Lyle sat for a moment, his woolly eyebrows drawn down in thought. “That’s a mighty thin thread to hang her on.”

“What if I told you she left town yesterday? The same day Wyler McNabb did?”

“I’d say it’s likely her investigation petered out here and she went after the next lead. We’re talking cash, stolen overseas by a bookkeeper. It’s probably sitting in an account in the Cayman Islands right now.”

“Which is one of the reasons Seelye wanted to search McNabb’s house so bad. We were just looking for evidence pointing to suicide. She’s a financial crimes specialist. If there’s anything to lead her to an offshore bank or some other money-laundering operation, she’s going to find it at Tally’s house. Or at her place of employment. Or at her family’s or friends’ houses.” He reached for the phone. “Hang on. I want to check something out.” He dialed the courthouse.

“H’lo Washington County Courthouse Lila Greuling speaking may I help you please.”

“Lila, it’s Russ Van Alstyne.” When he had worked for her dad back in high school, he’d always let talkative little Lila follow him around, “helping.” His patience with an eight-year-old paid off when she became a clerk of the court.

“Well, hel-lo, handsome. What can I do you for?”

“I’m looking to find out if Judge Ryswick issued a residence-and-accounts warrant on Wyler McNabb, 16 Musket Way, Millers Kill.”

“Not through me, he didn’t. When would this have been?”

“Sometime in the past week. The investigating officer was an army MP, but it might have come through the DA or the Feds.”

“Lemme check with the other girls.” The line went to music. She was back in less than a minute. “Last thing fitting that description came out of your own department on the thirteenth. Deputy Chief MacAuley got a warrant against Mary McNabb’s Allbanc accounts.”

“Okay. Thanks much, Lila.” He hung up. “Seelye never searched the house.”

“Legally,” Lyle said.

“Or the accounts. A suspect has money hidden away. What’s the first thing you do?”

“Search all the accounts I can find.” Lyle rubbed his lips. “Damn, I wish I’da spread the net wider when we asked Ryswick for that first warrant.”

Russ shook his head. “Not your fault. We didn’t know McNabb had stolen the money at that point.”

“We’ll never get another warrant out of him. The case is in Seelye’s jurisdiction, not ours.” Lyle straightened in his chair. “Wait a minute. If she’s looking for the money for herself, how come she didn’t go ahead and search those accounts?”

“Maybe she already found out where it’s hidden. She might have talked to McNabb. Or like you said, she could’ve searched his place illegally.”

“Or she might have been behind the B and E at Tally McNabb’s mom’s place.”

“Maybe. If she’s dirty, everything’s up for grabs.”

“Your fingers are twitching.”

Russ looked down to where his hands were resting atop paperwork. “Yeah?”

“You do that when you’re trying to figure something out.”

Russ sighed. “Yeah.”

“Army property. Stolen in Iraq. No way it’s our case.” Lyle buffed his nails against his pants. “Officially.”

“It’s definitely not our case.”

“So there’s no call for us to do any investigating.” Lyle looked up at him again. “Officially.”

“Nope.”

“It sure is interesting, though.” Lyle grinned at him.

Russ found himself grinning back at his deputy chief. “It sure is that.”

Russ picked up and put down the telephone three times after Lyle left. He had been an MP for a long time, but he was a civilian cop now, and he knew the kind of runaround he would get if he tried to trace Colonel Seelye through the usual channels. If he was going to ignore his good sense and pursue this, he had to figure a different way in, but it was getting late, and his brain kept stalling out. The mental snapshot of Clare in his truck had become a motion picture, complete with interesting sound effects. He’d have thought after all those years of holding himself in check, he’d be able to do without for a few lousy weeks, but Jesus, he was going cross-eyed from wanting her.

The hell with it. He shelved the problem of the out-of-his-jurisdiction theft in favor of loading the pickup with quilts and driving over to Clare’s place.

Unfortunately, when he got home he discovered a dead furnace, a rapidly cooling house, and a mother who had been waiting for him to play handyman.

“I’m sorry, Russell, but you know the repairman charges sixty dollars just to come out, let alone the cost of fixing up the old beast.” His mom fussed around him as he disassembled the pilot light, looking for the problem. “You didn’t have any plans, did you?”

“No, Mom, it’s fine.” He managed a quick call to Clare between flushing out the draw line and his trip to Tim’s Hardware for new spark plugs. She commiserated with his oil-stained, thwarted lust, told him he was a good son, and then hammered the nail in his coffin when she said she was headed out the door to the Foyers’ dinner, and no, she didn’t expect to be home before ten or eleven.

As a result, he went to bed as frustrated physically as he had been mentally, and he woke up like a man who had been bitten by bedbugs, his involuntary abstinence transformed into an itch to find out the truth about Arlene Seelye.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14

It was an itch he didn’t have a chance to scratch until after he had given the morning briefing and taken an A.M. patrol. He got back to the station at lunchtime, shut the door to his office, and tossed his lunch bag onto his desk.

He needed a favor. Who did he know who could help him? He had been out of the army for a decade now, an eternity in an organization where twenty years meant a career and the unwritten law was up or out-rise in the ranks or leave. He flipped through his ancient Rolodex, passing on one name and discarding another until he came to the card for Major Anthony Usher.

Tony Usher had been a raw WO1 when Russ took him under his wing during the brief, intense days of Desert Storm. Impressed by Usher’s combination of careful attention to detail and sheer smarts, he boosted him into the ranks of the CID. After several years of solid investigative work, Usher decided his true calling was on the other side of the aisle. He applied for and was accepted to OCS and from there went on to law school. He’d been with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps for three years now, and if he didn’t know everyone involved in army law enforcement, he knew someone who knew someone.

Russ had copied Usher’s latest contact information from the annual Christmas letter he got. He figured it was a fifty-fifty chance the man was at the same posting, so he felt he’d already accomplished something when the private who answered put him through.

“Major Usher.”

“Tony? It’s Russ Van Alstyne.”

“Chief Van Alstyne! Well, I’ll be damned. How are you? Hey, Latice and I were so sorry to hear your news about Linda.”

“Thanks. I appreciated the card. I’m doing well. I’m actually getting married again. End of this month.”

“Well, hush my mouth. Good for you. Let me guess, high school sweetheart?”

“Nope. She’s an Episcopal priest from southern Virginia who’s fourteen years younger than me.”

Usher roared. “Damn, Chief, you always could land in a pile of horse shit and come up smelling like roses.” His laughter died down to a wheeze. “So. Sweet as your life is, I don’t think you’re calling me just to brag.”

“Got a favor to ask.” He outlined the situation with Seelye, what he knew about her so-called investigation, what he had heard about Quentan Nichols, and what he suspected, based on the events of the past week and a half.

“Hm-mm. It does sound like sloppy police work, to say the very least. Can I ask your part in this? I’m not seeing where you have a duty to investigate.”

“I don’t. Which is why I’m calling in a favor instead of going through official channels. There’s been no crime in my jurisdiction-yet-but several persons of interest live in my town, or worked in my town, or keep popping up in my town. I want to be prepared, and for that, I need more info.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Might take me a while. I’ll try and get back to you before the end of the day.”

As it turned out, Russ had logged out and swapped his uniform for jeans and a flannel shirt and was headed to the parking lot before Usher called again. He checked the number on his cell phone to make sure it wasn’t his mom-if her furnace acted up again, she could start a fire and wait till he got home. He was looking forward to an entirely different sort of hot date tonight.

“Van Alstyne here.”

“Hey, Chief, it’s Tony Usher.”

Russ climbed into the cab of his truck to escape the cold wind blowing off the mountains. “You know, Tony, you can call me Russ. You outrank me now.”

Usher laughed. “Right. How many people you know in that little burg of yours call you Russ?”

“Well… the Episcopal priest does, but I call her ma’am.”

“Mm-hm. That’s what I call Latice. You know the three little words every woman wants to hear? ‘Right away, honey.’”

Russ laughed.

“Okay, I got the skinny on this lieutenant colonel of yours. She’s U.S. Army Financial Command, attached to the 10th Soldier Support Battalion, but you probably knew that already. Her specialty is financial fraud and loss prevention, which makes her a logical go-to person when you’ve got a theft of this size. She has a good record, nose clean. Married, with two kids in college.”

Russ started up the truck’s engine. “That must call for some money.”

“Tell me about it. The schools Kanisha’s looking at run to fifty thousand a year. I may have to rob a bank next fall to pay for it.”

Russ twisted the temperature control to hot and turned the blower on. “What about the investigation?”

“Well, that’s the real interesting part. I asked a JAG who’s prosecuted several fraud cases to talk to her contact in FINCOM. As far as she could tell, no one in that office has seen a major theft investigation come across the transom. Now, Seelye is high enough up there to take a case without having to run it by her colleagues, but regs state everything must be logged and a file started, both hard copy and electronic.”

“Let me guess. There’s no record of the missing million or Tally McNabb.”

“You got it. No log, no file, no nothing.”

Quentan Nichols had told Clare that he was the one who had started the investigation, and when he went looking for more help from FINCOM, Colonel Seelye had shown up and taken the case away from him.

“Tony, did you get a sense of what Seelye was doing in Iraq? Could she have been part of the plot to steal the cash from the start?”

“She was doing loss prevention in Camp Anaconda, according to my contact. Reviewing contracts, running spot accounting checks, the sort of thing a bank’s financial control officer does-and don’t forget, we’re running the biggest bank in the country. I have to say, though, you’re not talking about a high level of sophistication here. This is basically a couple guys shifting a box out of a warehouse. It doesn’t take any special knowledge.”

“Except knowing that the box had a million inside.”

“Right. My guess-and you can take it for what it’s worth-is that she spotted something that tipped her off to the missing money. It was her job to pass on all accounts coming in and out of Anaconda. For whatever reason, she decided she could use that money more than the army could. I bet if you dug into her personal life, you’d find a major weak spot. Husband’s business failed, or they lost all the kids’ college money.”

Russ smiled. “Good to know you can still think like a cop, counselor.”

“Hey. I learned from the best.”

“Thanks-and thanks for getting me the info. I owe you a big one.”

“You can pay it off by sending us a picture of your wedding. I want proof you’re not getting hitched to some gap-toothed second cousin. I know how you northern rednecks roll.”

Russ was still laughing when he said good-bye. His smile faded as he thought about Seelye, and the money, and about Nichols and McNabb. McNabb and Seelye were out of his reach. Nichols, on the other hand…

He glanced at the instrument panel clock. Five thirty. He made another call, to the same Fort Gillem MP station that had sent him a copy of Nichols’s transfer orders. “This is Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne from Millers Kill, New York,” he said when he had gotten hold of the officer of the day. “Chief Nichols was consulting with me about a veteran’s suicide we had here.” That wasn’t stretching the truth too much. “I need to follow up with him.”

“Sorry, sir, but Chief Nichols is off base at this time.”

“Can I reach him later?”

“No, sir, he’s been temporarily detached to Fort Drum to assist in an investigation. I can look the number up for you if you want to contact their MP station.”

“Thanks, no. I’ll try them later.” Russ hung up. Fort Drum. Four hours away by car. That was quite a coincidence. He wondered who Nichols knew in their MP post. Obviously, Seelye wasn’t the only officer who could pull a string and get someone reassigned.

Russ tried on the idea that Nichols had been telling Clare the God’s honest truth. He wasn’t prepared to credit the man with no interest in getting the monies for himself, but it was sure looking more and more likely that he had been right when he said Seelye was on the take.

He needed to talk to Clare. He shifted the truck into gear and pulled out of the station parking lot. Traffic at this hour was as heavy as it ever got out of tourist season. Brake lights bloomed and faded in the twilight as cars and SUVs stopped and started their way up Main toward Church Street. Which is why Russ was able to spot Clare, in jeans and a jacket, coming out of the Rexall.

He jerked his truck out of traffic and pulled into a no-parking tow zone. He unrolled the passenger-side window and leaned over. “Hey!”

She looked up, surprised.

“Didja walk?”

“Of course.”

“Get in.”

She hopped into the cab, stuffing the small paper pharmacy bag into her coat pocket. “When you said you wanted to take care of me, I didn’t think it would involve driving around town looking for a chance to pick me up.”

“I was on my way to talk to you. Were you getting a prescription filled?”

“Mmm. I know things are cheaper at the Super Kmart in Fort Henry, but shop local and all that. What did you need me for?”

He saw a break in the traffic and took it. “What? Oh. Quentan Nichols.”

“You’ve found him?”

“Nope. Although I found out how he’s been able to do his little appearing acts here. He’s still posted to Fort Gillem, but he’s TDY to Fort Drum.”

“Ah.”

He swung into the wide curve of Church Street. The single spot on the flagpole was the only light in the park now; the bandstand was a pale outline in the shadow of the maples. “Tell me what he said about Seelye.”

“I already told you everything I heard. He applied to her office for the original shipping manifests, and she showed up in person a couple weeks later and took him off the case.”

He turned onto Elm. They passed the stone bulk of St. Alban’s. “How did he seem when he was talking about her? Emotionally?”

“A little frustrated, maybe.”

“Did he seem angry? Make any threats against Seelye?”

She turned to him as he rolled his truck up her drive and put it into park. “Oh, my God. You don’t think she disappeared because he killed her, do you?” She frowned. “No, that couldn’t be it. Ron Handler at the inn saw her check out.”

“I’m just trying to sort out the possibilities. Could she be after the million for herself? Or is she just an ambitious officer who doesn’t want to share the limelight when she gets it back? Is Nichols trying to stop Seelye, or is he trying to screw her out of the money?”

“One doesn’t preclude the other.”

“No.” He unbuckled and slung his arm over the back of the seat. It was familiar, talking to her like this, sitting in the cab of his truck in her driveway. There was a time-a long time-when it was the only safe and private place for them. “I want to find that cash.”

“Get to the back of the line.”

“We should be able to figure it out. There has to be some evidence of what happened stateside in her house, or her mother’s house or her bank. If we had Nichols to tell us what went down at Balad Air Base, we could do it. It’s an equation. Millers Kill plus Iraq equals one million dollars. Which means he ought to be somewhere around here, looking for that evidence.” His chain of thought unlinked at the sight of her smile. “What?”

“Just you. I like watching your mind work. It’s sexy.”

“It is, is it?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She smiled again.

He mentally tossed the missing million aside. “You know, I just happen to have a box full of quilts in the back. Feel like taking a ride?”

She laughed. “When I suggested the truck bed, it was a sunny afternoon. Not nighttime, thirty-eight degrees and falling.”

“Chicken. What happened to army tough?”

“You’re the one who always knows when the snowbirds have flown. Don’t you have some friend or acquaintance with an empty house and a working furnace?”

The answer hit him hard enough to snap him upright in his seat.

“What?” Clare sounded alarmed.

“I know where Nichols is.”

“You do?”

He buckled up and threw the truck into reverse. “He has a friend with an empty house and a working furnace.”

Clare looked up from fastening her own seat belt. “Tally McNabb’s place.” Russ nodded. He threaded through the Friday evening traffic, surprising her when he turned off onto the Cossayuharie Road and began the twisting drive through the hilly farmland. He pulled into the driveway of a large, well-lit home and disappeared inside, returning five minutes later with a key and an expression of grim satisfaction. He dropped the key into her hand. “We have Evonne Walters’s permission to enter her daughter’s residence.”

“Oh. Does this mean you can legally search the place?”

“Hell, no.” He peeled out of the drive. “Anything I found would be tossed out before it reached trial. I don’t want to search the house tonight. I want Nichols.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“No. I want his cooperation.” The truck jounced down the road. “Which is why you’re coming along. He trusted you enough to talk to you. I want you to get him to trust me.”

“He might not believe me. I’m a little biased.”

“You? Darlin’, if you thought he was right and I was wrong, you’d not only refuse to give him up, you’d hand over half your paycheck and drive him up to Canada personally.”

She laughed.

“Which is why, if you say he can trust me, he’ll believe it.”

They left the truck on Saber Drive. Russ retrieved his Glock from the truck’s gun locker and slipped it into a flat holster he hung from the back of his belt. She frowned at it. “Just in case I’ve misjudged him,” Russ said.

They walked through the neighbor’s yard silently. Past the tangle of brush between the properties it became much harder to stay quiet; no one had raked in a long time, and the ground was littered with dead leaves. “Don’t walk. Shuffle,” Russ whispered. He demonstrated. It looked like he was ice-skating beneath the leaves, and all she could hear was a rustle, as if the wind were passing by. Her attempts were less successful. She swish-crunch, swish-crunched past the pool fence to the far side of the garage, where Russ was waiting.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s okay,” he said in her ear. “He probably thought you were a three-legged dog.”

She stifled a snort of laughter.

“You got the key?”

She handed it to him.

“I’m going to turn the lights on as soon as we go in. Be ready. You do the talking, but stay behind me.”

She nodded again. Followed him along the garage wall to the door. He unlocked it and swung it open without a sound. Clare tensed as his footsteps creaked on the wooden steps leading to the kitchen door. He slipped the key into the lock. Opened the door.

The lights coming on blinded her. She kept her eyes fixed on Russ’s back as he strode through the kitchen, into the living room, turning on the overheads. “Quentan,” she called. “Quentan Nichols! It’s me, Clare Fergusson. We spoke in my church.” She heard a faint thump overhead. Her heart thumped hard in response. He was here. A part of her hadn’t believed it. Russ snapped on the stair light and mounted the steps. She kept close to his heels. He had his sidearm out. In case I’ve misjudged him. “Quentan, Chief Van Alstyne is with me. He knows you were right about Colonel Seelye. He knows she’s after the stolen money. He needs your help to stop her.”

The bathroom was at the top of the stairs. Russ flicked that light switch, too, and silently pointed at the razor and toothbrush by the sink, the damp towel on the floor.

Two bedrooms. Left and right. “Quentan. Please.” She cast about for the right words. Was he thinking like a lover? A guilty man? A cop? “You can’t break this case yourself. The Millers Kill police can’t break this case by themselves. We have to work together.” God, that sounded trite.

Russ pushed her against the wall on the far side of one door. “Stay here until I clear the room.” He positioned himself on the other side and shoved the door open. Nothing happened. He reached around the jamb blindly until he hit the light switch. He turned the lights on in the same instant he stepped into the doorway, crouched low, his gun tracking left-right-left. He stood up. “Okay.”

Clare peeked around him. Guest bedroom, she thought, furnished with mismatched chairs and a few framed posters. The queen-sized bed was brass, high off the floor, offering a clear view of a few see-through sweater boxes underneath. Unless he was hiding beneath the mound of coats and dresses tossed on the bed, he wasn’t here.

Russ pointed toward the other room. He turned, and Clare turned with him, and then she caught his arm and looked at the bed again. The pillows were missing, and the clothes all had hangers in them, as if they’d been lifted bodily off the rack. Maybe Mrs. Walters had started sorting Tally’s things already.

Clare looked at the closet door. Maybe someone else needed the space.

Russ nodded. Gestured for her to get against the wall next to the closet. He opened the door, stepping out of the line of fire as he did so.

Quentan Nichols was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He slowly lowered the book he was holding and butted it against the.45 lying in front of him. He gave the book a shove, and the gun slid across the floor. Russ bent down and picked it up.

“Inside the damn closet was the only place I could turn a light on and be sure it wouldn’t be seen.” Nichols was scrambling up a huge skillet of eggs. He had announced that if his hideout was busted, he might as well enjoy a hot meal before they carted him off. “I can live without the Internet, and I don’t mind missing a few games on TV, but damn, if a man can’t read…” Clare glanced at the book, now resting on the mauve-and-gray-speckled counter. At the City’s Edge. It had a silhouette of Chicago’s skyline along the spine. She suppressed a smile. She supposed a big-city boy might get a little homesick, stuck in the closet in Millers Kill.

Nichols shoveled the scrambled eggs onto three plates and laid them out on the table. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of grated cheese and a bottle of hot sauce.

“I notice McNabb left in such a hurry he still had a full carton of eggs,” Russ said.

“And a gallon of milk.” Nichols smiled ruefully as he sat down. “Dig in.” He paused for a second, his hand over his fork. “Unless you want to say a blessing, Reverend.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Not particularly. My grandparents raised me up strict Baptist, but I’ve slid some since then.” He shoveled a bite in. Clare did, too, suddenly ravenously hungry. Nothing like a hunt through a darkened house for an armed man to stimulate the appetite.

“Along with the groceries, McNabb left behind his calendar.” Nichols reached for the hot sauce. “Seems he had a man-date to some truck show and a dental appointment next week.”

“The head of the company told me the overseas construction unit did a six-months-on, six-months-off shift, and it was McNabb’s time to go.”

Nichols shook his head. “Bullshit. Excuse me, Reverend.” She glanced toward Russ and found him looking at her, amused. “I mean, yeah, maybe that’s the drill, but no way he’d been planning to go this past Wednesday. My guess is, he offered to swap with whoever really was scheduled to join the crew in Iraq.”

Russ nodded. “I think Seelye scared him and he ran.”

“You don’t think they’re in it together?”

“No. She came with me to the hospital when I interviewed him. I’d lay money he’d never seen her before. He didn’t recognize her name, either. When she asked him about the missing money, he lawyered up and wouldn’t say another word to either of us.”

“Coulda been an act.”

“Yeah, it could have-but then why bug out for Iraq?”

“Maybe he was personally afraid of the colonel,” Clare said. “Maybe she threatened him. Maybe she told him she killed Tally and she’d do him, too, if he didn’t cough up the money.”

Russ propped his arms on the table. Its uneven legs clunked toward his side. “Tally McNabb’s death was a suicide. There’s no doubt about that.”

“Yes, there is!” Clare put her fork down and glared at Russ.

“Only in your imagination.”

Nichols paused, his loaded fork halfway to his mouth. He looked at her, then Russ, then back to her. “What… are you guys…? You’re a minister, right?”

“Episcopalians use the term ‘priest.’” Clare nodded. “But, yes, I am.”

“Police chaplain?”

Russ snorted. “Only unofficially.” He crumpled his paper napkin. “For our purposes, it doesn’t matter why McNabb ran. He’s obviously in it up to his neck. The thing to figure out is-”

Clare pointed her fork at him. “Why did John Opperman tell us he’d been assigned to leave?”

“Who’s John Opperman?” Nichols asked.

“Opperman saw a chance to dick me over at no cost to himself and he took it,” Russ said.

Clare turned to Nichols. “The CEO of BWI Opperman, where Tally worked. They run the resort, which you’ve seen, and the construction company where McNabb works.”

Russ made a noise. “As I was saying-”

A sharp rap on the door interrupted him. “Millers Kill police,” a voice called. “Please open the door and identify yourself.”

Russ raised his eyebrows. He held his hands up, indicating Clare and Nichols should stay put. He rose and crossed the kitchen.

“I’m opening the door. I’m unarmed.” Which wasn’t strictly true. There were two 9 mm automatics on the counter next to the sink. Russ swung the door open to reveal Kevin Flynn.

“Chief?” His gaze swept the kitchen. “Reverend? Wait a minute, isn’t that-”

“Quentan Nichols, yeah. Come on in, Kevin.”

“Um…” Kevin stepped past Russ, his eyes still on Nichols. “We got a report from the old lady next door that the place was lit up like Christmas. I figured maybe Mrs. Walters was here going through her daughter’s things…” His voice faded as he took in the three plates and the remains of a scrambled egg dinner. “What’s going on, Chief?”

“Quentan Nichols, this is Officer Kevin Flynn.” Kevin nodded warily toward Nichols, who still sat, seemingly relaxed. Clare suspected she was the only one who could see the pale crescents beneath his fingernails from pressing hard into the table.

“So… I guess he’s no longer on our BOLO list?” Kevin’s voice had a pinch-me quality.

Russ crossed his arms and looked at Nichols. “I think Mr. Nichols is willing to cooperate with us.”

Nichols nodded slowly. “I get the credit if we find the money. From the army, I mean.”

“Still hoping to avoid a court-martial?”

Nichols dropped his gaze, but his voice was steady. “I got twelve years invested. Eight more to go. I’m not gonna flush it all down the toilet because of one stupid mistake. Not if I can fix it.”

It was the weirdest case briefing Kevin had ever been to. Him and the chief, in his civvies, sitting around the table in a dead woman’s home with Reverend Clare and the guy they’d all been looking for as a POI.

“Report in your break,” the chief said. “Keep your radio on in case you get a squawk.”

Nichols got up and made coffee while Kevin signed out with dispatch. The chief let the guy have his run of the kitchen, so Kevin guessed that was all right. When they had all taken a seat, he ventured a question.

“Uh, Chief? What exactly are we doing here?”

The chief took a deep whiff of his coffee, a gesture so familiar Kevin could see an image of him, uniformed, sitting on the squad room table, superimposed over this flannel-shirted man in a pine-paneled kitchen.

“We’re going to find the money Tally McNabb stole. Then we’re going to use it to prove Colonel Arlene Seelye is dirty.”

Nichols paused from getting the milk out of the fridge. “How the hell will finding the money get you to Seelye?”

“We’ll let her think she’s the one finding it.”

“Set it up as bait?” Nichols thunked the carton onto the table. “That might work.”

“You really think their army investigator is after it?” Kevin couldn’t keep the doubt from his voice.

“Let’s just say I’d like to see how she reacts to the opportunity to make off with the money undetected. What’s that saying you told me, Clare?”

“Honi soit qui mal y pense.”

“Evil be to him who evil thinks,” Kevin translated. The chief raised his eyebrows.

Reverend Clare smiled. “Someone knows his English history.” Kevin felt the color rise to his cheeks.

The chief spooned sugar into his cup. “I have a contact in the JAG Corps who looked into her alleged investigation. There’s no file on the case. No log of Mr. Nichols contacting her office, nothing. My contact thinks she may have stumbled over the theft while she was overseeing the financial office in Camp Anaconda. I think Mr. Nichols’s investigation tipped her off. Either way, she’s in prime position to collect that million for herself.”

“But she left town,” Kevin said. “If a financial crimes expert thought she’d have better luck finding the loot elsewhere, why do you think it’s here?”

The chief blew across his coffee. His gaze slid sideways toward Nichols. “Because Mr. Nichols is still here. The colonel may know all about money laundering and bank fraud, but Mr. Nichols knows Tally McNabb.” He rested his arm on the table and turned toward the MP. “You told Clare you had talked to Tally a couple times since this summer. That’s how you knew they were in counseling together.” He glanced at Reverend Clare, then back to Nichols. “What do you know that we don’t?”

Nichols was silent for a long moment. Finally, he pulled out his chair and sat down. “She never told me where it was. She just said that they had brought it back home.”

“They?”

Nichols nodded. “She didn’t say much about it. She never admitted right out that she’d stolen the money.” He made a noise that resembled a laugh. “I guess she still didn’t trust me. She talked around it. Talked about her feelings, you know.”

“What were her feelings, Quentan?” The reverend’s voice was quiet.

“She said money didn’t make you happy. She said she didn’t think it was worth it.”

“ It presumably being the theft?” The chief’s voice was dry. “Yet somehow, she forced herself to hang on to the loot.”

Kevin couldn’t help it. “No, Chief, it tracks.” Everyone looked at him. “The dep said most of the stuff here was new-within the last year or so. You know, the pool and the ATV and the pimped-up SUVs. She was spending money on him . Her mom said they’d been together since high school, and Tally was still head-over-heels for him.”

He happened to be looking at Nichols, which is why he saw the expression flash over the man’s face and disappear. Poor bastard, he thought, and on its heels came another, just like me. Only in his case, the woman he loved wasn’t crazy about anyone else. She just didn’t want him. Kevin tightened his grip on his mug of coffee and forced himself to continue. “Her mom’s house in Cossayuharie looks like it’s been renovated from the ground up. Inside and out. Now compare that to this house. They’ve got a giant flat-screen hanging in the living room, but everything else is kind of old and basic. So it’s not that Tally had to have the best of everything herself. She just wanted the people she loved to have whatever they wanted.”

“I think Kevin’s right.” Reverend Clare glanced around the room. “I can’t imagine anyone with unlimited funds not updating this kitchen.”

“That’s ’cause it’s the first thing you’d do.” The chief smiled a little. “But I agree. Kevin has a point.”

“There’s your motivation for murder.” The reverend thunked her mug on the table hard enough to slosh her coffee. “She held the purse strings and was feeling remorseful. Maybe she was going to give back everything she hadn’t spent. So Wyler killed her.”

The chief shook his head. “There’s no evidence to support a homicide, Clare.”

“Besides, McNabb made good money himself, working construction for BWI Opperman.” Kevin leaned forward, addressing the reverend. “The guys who go overseas really rake it in.”

The chief rubbed his lips. “Wyler McNabb’s first shift in Iraq overlapped Tally McNabb’s second tour of duty.”

“He was there ? In-country?” Nichols sat back. “She never told me that.”

“They,” the chief said. “ They had brought it back home.” He tapped the worn surface of the table. “Tally and Wyler did it together.”

“Didn’t Eric say he was the materials guy?” Kevin tried to remember the rest of the case file. “Would that mean he’d have been the one in charge of getting stuff to and from the States?”

“Yeah. On their monthly flight out of Plattsburgh.” The chief had that look on his face, the one he got when pieces started falling into place.

“How far away is Plattsburgh?” Nichols asked.

“An hour and a half, if it’s not snowing,” Reverend Clare said.

The chief shook his head. “I don’t think it would still be there.”

“Why not?” Nichols looked at him. “Just one more pallet, sitting around? Who’s going to know?”

“They’d need to have it someplace Tally could access. McNabb could have manufactured an excuse for being at the depot in Plattsburgh once in a while, but if they were laundering cash, they needed to keep a small, steady stream going. I’m betting that would have been her job.”

Nichols propped his elbows on the table, interlacing his fingers. “Okay, what about this: Either McNabb brings it back from Iraq himself, or he ships it back to their materials depot. Then he gets some of his co-workers to help him move the thing.”

“More accomplices?” Kevin asked.

“Not necessarily. He could have it marked up as unused PVC or grout or whatever. Something nobody would care much about. All he needed was some muscle to help him get it into a truck.”

“Then the television falls off the back of the truck.” The chief’s voice was knowing. Kevin found himself nodding along with Nichols.

“What?” Reverend Clare said.

“It means he reports it stolen. Or lost in transit.”

“Okay.” Her voice was cautious. “How does that tell us where it is now?”

That one stalled out the conversation. Kevin tried to imagine the places where you could hide two square meters of cash and not have it seen. Old barns. Abandoned houses. A root cellar or summer kitchen or even up on blocks in the woods, protected by a tarp. A lot of ground to cover. Too much ground. “We need to question other members of the construction team,” he said. “Somebody must have seen something. Or heard about it.”

The chief shook his head again. “We’ve got no jurisdiction. The crime was committed on army property by army personnel. We have no legal justification for investigating unless we’re asked to by the army.”

Everyone looked at Nichols. He raised his hands. “Not me. I’m supposed to be tracking down steroid pushers who’ve been supplying Fort Drum. If I raise my head on this case, Seelye will have my ass posted to Fort Wainwright before you can say boo. Excuse me, Reverend.”

“Fort Wainwright?” Kevin asked.

“Alaska,” the chief said.

“ Fairbanks, Alaska.” Nichols shivered.

The reverend wrapped her hands around her mug. “I know someone I can ask.”

The chief frowned. “What? Who?”

“Dragojesich. The big guy Tally and I were talking with the night we got engaged.” A look passed between them, tender and soft, like the last warm day in October. Kevin dropped his gaze to the table. “He was with the construction team in Iraq the same time as Tally. So he was probably there with McNabb.”

“Do you know his first name?”

“No-but how many Dragojesiches could there be in the phone book?”

She could find one. G. Dragojesich. In Fort Henry, not Millers Kill. Russ had sent Kevin on his way, with an admonition to say nothing about their less than legal visit to the McNabb house. Then they dropped Nichols off at his rental car-he had parked it on Morningside Drive and hiked the mile to his hideaway-with directions to the Sleepy Hollow Motor Lodge and a promise to call him first thing in the morning.

“Don’t you worry he’s going to bolt again?” Clare asked.

Russ glanced away from the road for a second. His mouth tipped up at one corner. “That sounds like something I’d say.” He faced forward again. “No, I don’t. First, even if he originally planned to get ahold of the money, he knows that’s not going to happen now. If he disappears, I’ll blow the whistle on him. His best bet is to do just as he said, help us out in the hope that returning the loot will squeak him past any damaging questions.”

“And second?”

“Second, the man’s a cop. I think he’s probably a good one. Were you watching him when we were laying out the investigation? He wanted in. He wants to break this case as bad as we do. More.”

“Do you think he’s hoping it’ll give him a lead on Tally’s murder?”

“Clare…”

“I don’t want to fight with you. Honestly, I don’t. I just want you to admit-”

“That I should have ignored the evidence and the ME’s report and kept the case open?”

“I’d settle for you keeping your mind open!” She looked out the window at the orange sodium lights of the Super Kmart. “I have a personal stake in this.”

“She knocked you down, sprained your ankle-and gave you an infected gash in your back, remember that? Then you met her once a week for an hour with a bunch of other people. How on God’s green earth does that translate into a personal stake?”

“She was one of us.” Clare’s voice was low. “I can’t just turn my back on her.”

“Look. I understand that. I meet a guy who served in Nam, I feel a spark of connection with him. It doesn’t matter if we have nothing in common. It doesn’t matter that we’re old and gray now. He was there, and I was there, and we remember.”

She turned toward him. Looked at his hands, big and steady on the wheel, his forearms exposed where he’d rolled his flannel shirt up.

“But here’s the thing. That connection doesn’t overshadow the ones I’ve made with people I’ve lived with and worked with and served with.” He glanced at her. “We’re supposed to be getting married in a week. You need to decide which connection is more important. The one with your brothers in arms? Or the one with your husband?”

“So I should support you, no matter how I feel? Pretend I think you’re right?”

“No. You should respect my professional judgment and realize that I only rejected your point of view after careful consideration.” He flicked on his signal and turned onto the street whose name they had copied out of the phone book.

We’re supposed to get married. Was he having second thoughts? Linda never critiqued his investigations. Linda never called him names. Linda never, ever slammed out of his office, swearing she was going to prove him wrong. God. Clare hadn’t even been married yet, and she was already a failure at being Mrs. Van Alstyne.

“We’re here.” Russ pulled into one of Fort Henry’s small condo complexes, the sort of place where couples commuting to Albany or singles with good jobs in Glens Falls touched down until they’d saved up the down payment for a house. “Will you take the lead? Since you’ve already met him?”

“Of course.” She half-expected Dragojesich to be out on a Friday night, so when the door opened moments after she rang the bell, the sight of him filling the entryway knocked her opening line out of her head.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“Mr. Dragojesich? I don’t know if you remember me, but I met you at the BWI Opperman party at the end of August. I was with Tally McNabb?”

His forehead creased, then cleared. “The major! Who likes Canadian Club!” He looked past her to Russ. “And the boyfriend, right?”

“Fiancé,” Russ said.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about Tally, if we could.”

“Oh, cripes, that was you at her funeral, wasn’t it? Yeah, sure, come on in.” He stepped back to let them pass. “She was such a sweet girl. Give you the shirt off her back.” He ushered them into his living room and snapped off the television. “Can I get you something? Sit down, sit down.”

“Nothing, thanks,” Russ said as Clare perched on a chair wide enough to pass as a love seat.

“Mr. Dragojesich-”

“Call me Drago.” He took the opposite seat. Dressed in a Syracuse Orange sweatshirt, he resembled a black-haired, black-browed snowplow. There was enough room on the chair for Russ to sit down next to her. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything? A small whisky?”

Clare thought of the pills in her coat pocket and swallowed her desire for a drink. “No, thank you. You were in Iraq the same time Tally was, is that right?”

“Yeah, sure, during her second tour. She hadda spend a lot of time at Balad, setting up some finance thing. That was where we staged out of. She would hang out with the crew, ’cause her husband worked with us. We became buds.”

“How about Wyler McNabb? Were you friends with him as well?”

Drago’s face crunched in thought. “Not really. I mean, I got nothing against him, but Wyler was more of a party kind of guy. He liked to live large. Me, I like it nice and peaceful. Do my work, come home to my babies.”

She could feel, rather than see, Russ’s eyebrows rise.

“You haven’t seen ’em yet.” Drago whistled. “Hey, my puppies!” Clare heard yipping and the scrabble of nails, and then three toy poodles bounded into the living room. They leaped onto Drago’s lap-he could have fit several more-and the big man crooned to them, lifting the whole pack in his hands. “Who’s Daddy’s good girl? Is it you? Is it you?”

Check your assumptions at the door, Clare reminded herself.

“We’re trying to track a shipment McNabb would have made from Balad back to the States.” Russ’s voice was as coplike as ever.

“Anything more specific?” Drago let the dogs down on the floor. They immediately scuttled over and began exploring Russ’s boots. “Wyler was in charge of ordering matériel. He was usually pretty accurate, but he did overestimate at times.”

Russ reached down and scratched a tiny head. “This would have been a pallet, maybe a couple meters square, shrink-wrapped. It would have been marked for transit beyond your Plattsburgh depot.”

“The bedding!” Drago nodded. “It’s gotta be the bedding. Everything else stayed in Plattsburgh.”

Clare and Russ looked at each other.

“It was a big, dumb mistake. We got sent a load of the sheets they order for the resort. They’re all fancy and stuff, Egyptian cotton and a zillion thread count.” His eyes, which had been lit with pleasure at being able to answer their questions, clouded over. “What’s this got to do with Tally? We kept it on the q.t. so’s not to get the clerk on the other side of the operation in trouble. But Tally couldn’tuv been responsible. She didn’t work for BWI until this summer.”

“Drago”-Clare tried to keep her voice neutral-“do you have any idea of the final destination of the, um, sheets?”

He looked at her as if she were cracked. “Where do you think they went? The resort.”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15

“I don’t like this,” Lyle said.

Russ didn’t pause in his march up the stone steps from the parking lot to the Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort. There wasn’t a leaf to be seen on the stairs or the flower beds beside them. The staff probably vacuumed them up when no one was looking. “There’s nothing illegal in stopping by the resort to give our regards to the manager. We’re off duty.”

“Who are you kidding? If we’re not made as plainclothes thirty seconds after we hit the lobby, I’ll eat my shorts. I bet you’re even carrying under that coat.”

Russ glanced down at his navy jacket. “Can you tell?”

Lyle made a noise.

“How ’bout you?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“You?” Russ looked across Lyle to where Quentan Nichols climbed in lockstep with the two Millers Kill police.

“I always carry. I figure it’s like an American Express card. Don’t leave home without it.”

Lyle was right. With phone instructions to look “well dressed, but casual,” they had all turned out in coats and ties. Too dressed up to be end-of-the-season golfers, not spiffy enough to be businessmen.

“And him. I don’t see why he’s gotta be here. You don’t think they’ll remember his face?”

“I’m not trying to sneak us in, Lyle. We just need to not be here in our official capacity. Now can it.” They crossed the portico, Russ and Nichols smiling at the bellhops and the valets, Lyle scowling.

Inside, Russ steered them to the far edge of the reception desk, the one closest to the door leading into the offices. A quick glance reassured him that Ethan Stoner’s child bride wasn’t working this morning. No loud greetings of “Hi there, Chief Van Alstyne.” He leaned on the gleaming rosewood counter. “Good morning. I’d like to speak to Barbara LeBlanc, please.”

The young woman across from him looked at the three of them, stricken. “Is there anything wrong, sir?”

“No. We just want to speak to her. If she’s in.” He had assumed she would be. Saturday at 9:00 A.M. had to be one of the busiest times of the week.

The girl looked doubtful. “May I say who’s asking?”

Lyle sidled up to the counter and gave her a smile to charm the birds out of the trees. “Just tell her Lyle MacAuley’s back. With a… special request.”

“Oh!” The girl blinked rapidly. “I’ll go get her right away.” She vanished through the door.

Russ glanced at his second in command. “It never gets old for you, does it?”

“Nope.”

Barbara LeBlanc emerged from the office, her expression half welcoming, half wary. “Deputy Chief MacAuley? And-” Her gaze slid past Russ to Nichols. “Good heavens.”

Russ stepped forward. “Can we talk in private, Ms. LeBlanc?”

The manager nodded, her eyes still on Nichols. She led the way back into her office. She was in a silk blouse and form-fitting skirt, just like the last time they had been here, and just like the last time, Lyle kept his eyes on her posterior, jerking his gaze up to a respectable height a scant second before she turned and gestured for them to seat themselves.

“First,” Russ said, “let me explain that when Chief Warrant Officer Nichols was here at the end of August, he was working as an undercover investigator.” That was sort of true.

“But-”

“I know. We hadn’t been notified by the army.” Definitely true. “We’ve sorted out the mix-up. We’re here because we’re assisting with the inquiry in an informal capacity.”

“What does that mean?”

What did it mean? He was a terrible liar. He was getting spun in his own gobbledygook.

“Chief Nichols hasn’t yet been authorized to involve civilian law enforcement.” Lyle propped an arm against the edge of LeBlanc’s desk and leaned closer. “I always thought we had it bad. You can imagine what army bureaucracy is like.” He smiled. “He thinks there may be contraband, stolen from the U.S. Army, hidden right here in your hotel.”

Barbara LeBlanc shook her head. “Impossible.”

“I know, I know. He wanted to come in here with a warrant and a bunch of MPs.” Before the expression of horror could settle on the manager’s face, Lyle went on. “Now, the chief and I know BWI Opperman is the largest employer in town. We want to handle things discreetly.”

LeBlanc nodded. She gave Russ a look of melting gratitude.

“So what we’d like to do is this. You allow us behind the scenes in the basement. We’ll take a quiet, low-key look around the shipping dock and the storage areas and that big corridor.”

“Broadway.”

“Broadway, right. If we find anything, we’ll consult with you about the best way to deal with it without kicking up a fuss and scaring off the trade. If we don’t find anything”-he shrugged-“no one’s the wiser.”

Three minutes later, Barbara LeBlanc was opening the heavy door labeled EMPLOYEES ONLY that divided the hotel into above and below stairs.

“He’s good,” Nichols said to Russ.

“Uh-huh.”

“I have to get back to reception,” LeBlanc said, “but if you need me for anything, you have my cell number.” More specifically, Lyle had her number. He ran a finger along one bushy eyebrow as she shut the door behind her, leaving them in the spottily lit concrete corridor.

“Let’s start with the shipping dock and work inward,” Russ said.

So they began the job of pushing and pulling and lifting and opening every box, carton, canister, and cart they could find. Russ discarded his jacket in the first five minutes and his tie in the next five. They cleared the shipping dock quickly. Its echoing, oil-stained interior had a few piles of boxes and several heaping laundry carts, but the efficient staff had obviously been moving goods in and out of the area as soon as they arrived.

The storage rooms were fast work as well-they were smaller spaces with industrial shelving up to the ceiling. Two were for the kitchen, stacked with ten-gallon jugs of mayonnaise and garbage cans loaded with cornmeal and flour. Three more looked like the staging room Russ had seen last summer-towers of toilet paper and tubloads of shampoo.

“Anything?” Russ emerged from the last supply closet with the smell of Lysol clogging his nose.

“Nothing.” Lyle sounded personally offended.

They all gazed down the length of Broadway. It ran from one end of the hotel to another. Empty, it would have been as wide as a two-lane road, but the stacks and shelves and dollies crowding either side narrowed it to a concrete gulch just wide enough for a golf cart or a loader.

Nichols put his hands on his hips and whistled. “Looks like the Federal Depository in Raiders of the Lost Ark .”

“Why’n the hell didn’t we bring more help?” Lyle asked.

Russ didn’t point out that his deputy hadn’t even wanted Nichols along. He thought for a moment. “Would they have wanted it nearer to the employee entrance, or farther away?”

“I think they’d have to load it wherever there was room.” Nichols gestured toward a teetering jumble of gilt-painted chairs, some with cracked legs, some missing seats. “This is like a bad combination of your gramma’s attic and Home Depot.”

“Okay, then. Lyle, you and Quentan start up at this end. The left side. I’ll take the far end and yell if I need help moving anything. We’ll meet in the middle.”

“About the time I’m due to retire,” Lyle said.

Russ suspected his deputy was right, but he didn’t say anything. He hiked down the corridor and got to work.

Boxes and cartons and bundles strapped to pallets. Vacuum cleaners and lamps and pillows in plastic. Russ looked into and behind and around everything, wondering if the money had been broken down into briefcase-sized packages, wondering if it had gone missing between Plattsburgh and the resort and they were barking up the wrong tree, wondering why he was spending his Saturday here, in a place he loathed, instead of looking at properties with Clare, wondering where she was, what she was doing, what she was wearing-

“Russ! Get up here.” Lyle’s shout snapped him out of his reverie. Jesus H. Mud-Wrestling Christ. Love was making him soft in the head.

He trotted back up the corridor. “Look at this.” Nichols pointed to a narrow door set into the corridor. It must have swung inward, because boxes marked LATEX PAINT and H-455 AC FILTERS were stacked tight on either side.

“Locked?”

“Uh-huh. Deputy Chief MacAuley is on the phone with the manager right now.”

“She’s coming down with the keys.” MacAuley stepped back within hearing range, snapping his phone shut.

Within minutes, they heard the brisk tap-tap-tap of LeBlanc’s heels. She had pulled her chatelaine off her waistband and was flipping through the keys and cards. “Oh.” She stopped when she saw where they were. “I’m afraid that’s just the alcohol lockup. The wine cellar, if you will.” She held up a key. “Do you want to look anyway?”

“Yeah.” Russ tried to keep the doubt out of his voice.

She opened the door. It was, as promised, stacked with crates of booze and racks of bottles. No shrink-wrapped pallet. No stacks of cling-sealed money.

Russ walked away as the manager resealed the room. He listened with half an ear to Lyle, asking her about other rooms, asking her where a bookkeeper or a construction worker might go with no questions asked.

“I’m sorry,” LeBlanc said, “there’s really no order to the storage in this area. It’s just shove it in where you can. If it was important to be able to access something quickly, it would have been unpacked and put somewhere else. The garage, or the tool shed, or the power plant-this is a big complex.”

Important to be able to access something quickly . McNabb delivered a pallet here. He’d want to be able to find it again, no matter what outdated appliances or busted furniture got stacked on top or in front of it. So how would you mark it? Not on the floor. People would notice. Nothing right by the thing-it might get moved. He looked up, to the shadowy space above the hanging fluorescent lights. Cement blocks rose smooth and unmarked to where massive I-beams transected a dim, unfinished ceiling. Pipes and conduits and electrical wires, barely visible but there, open for fast repairs. Hard to reach, unless you were authorized to work in the area, but-he made a tossing motion, as if he had a ball in his hand. You could throw something.

He spotted it. A length of bright orange twine, the stuff you could pick up at any sporting goods store. Each end was tied to what looked to be, in the half-light, a stack of heavy-duty washers. A homemade bolo. Curled around a cold water pipe, hanging a few inches off either side. You’d never notice it unless you were looking straight up-and who would be staring past the lights instead of getting in and out as fast as possible?

“Here,” he said.

“What?” Nichols trotted down the corridor toward him. “How do you know?”

Russ pointed at the dangling cord.

“I’ll be damned,” Nichols whispered.

“Help me move this stuff.” He and Nichols started removing the plastic five-gallon buckets piled like a wall beneath the marker.

“Wait. Look.” Nichols leaned against the stack of boxes to the left of the buckets and pushed. The cardboard tower slid away, revealing a dolly, empty except for a blue plastic tarp. Nichols pulled it toward himself. It rolled easily out into the open corridor.

Peering into the narrow, shadowy space they had revealed, Nichols breathed in. “I think this may be it.”

“Let me see.” Russ replaced Nichols in the gap. He could see white opaque plastic stretched over a cracked and splintered wooden pallet. The corner closest to the wall had been ripped open and resealed with duct tape. Russ tried to reach it, but he couldn’t fit.

“Let me try.” Lyle was five inches shorter and a good fifty pounds lighter than Russ. He squeezed into the angular space sideways. Past the rest of the buckets, he was able to turn toward the wall. He got down on one knee. Russ could hear the ripping sound of tape being torn away.

“Well?” Russ wanted to shove the buckets aside and get in there himself.

Lyle grunted. Stood up. Shifted to the side and edged back toward them. He had a wad of heavy plastic in his hand.

“Well?”

Barbara LeBlanc butted up against Russ. “What is it?”

Lyle stepped free. “This is one of the empties.” He handed Russ the stiff, crumpled plastic, and then, like a magician producing a rabbit, held up more of the stuff, wrapped crudely around stacks and stacks of cash. Twenties, in bricks of five hundred, enough to fill a small suitcase.

“Oh. My. God.” Barbara LeBlanc’s voice was faint.

“Gotcha,” Russ said.