The Feast of St. Alban was traditionally celebrated, in Millers Kill, with a bake and white-elephant sale, the sort of fund-raiser designed to maximize the work required of parish volunteers and minimize the return. In the three years Clare had been rector, she’d been inching the senior festival committee members—a blue-rinse bunch who had controlled the event for close to two decades—toward a more active and profitable fund-raiser.
The arrival of Elizabeth de Groot in January, followed by the unfortunate slip-and-fall of the committee chair later that month, opened the door for a change. With half the committee in Florida for the winter months, the new deacon and the equally ruthless-in-a-good-cause Karen Burns engineered a bloodless coup, inserting themselves as “temporary chairs.” They shot down the white elephant, source of so much of Clare’s office furniture, and took the bake sale off the table.
In its place, on Sunday night they were having an all-you-can-eat dinner (one ticket), a silent and live auction (another), and, as an inducement to hang around till the end of the bidding, a public dance in the park across the street from the church with Curtis Maurand and his Little Big Band (free, but contributions accepted).
Thanks to Elizabeth’s ability to wheedle donations—she got such extraordinary results Clare wondered if threats of force were involved—they were having a blowout that, with luck, would fund half their yearly outreach program.
Elizabeth and Karen agreed that well-lubricated bidders were free-spending bidders, so the auctions were accompanied with cheese, hors d’oeuvres, and a never-ending stream of donated bottles—one of which was clutched in the hands of Clare’s date.
“Vicar! Mrs. Burns!” Hugh Parteger waved plastic glasses toward an auction table, where Clare and Karen were counting their chickens before they hatched. “Merlot? Or Cabernet?” Several female committee members behind the silent auction tables stared at Hugh. With his British accent, double-pleated trousers, and two-hundred-dollar haircut, the New York resident was an exotic specimen for Millers Kill.
“Merlot,” Karen said.
“For me, too.” Clare glanced at the bid sheet for a weekend of sailing and catered meals at Robert Corlew’s summer home on Lake George. Her eyes bugged out. “I knew we had some reasonably affluent folks here, but I didn’t expect this.” She kept her voice low.
“They’re not all ours. Elizabeth has a ton of contacts in Saratoga, and she got the word out.” Karen also spoke under her breath. An older gentleman Clare had seen at the dinner approached the table, and Clare and Karen drifted out of his way. “I was afraid with this serial killer scare on, people would be reluctant to come out at night,” Karen went on. “Thank heavens it’s not holding anyone back.”
“Maybe folks feel there’s safety in numbers,” Clare said.
Hugh appeared again, brimming plastic cups in hand. “Maybe they feel there’s safety in being white. I read the murders may be race-related.” He handed one cup to Clare
“Read?” Karen accepted a glass. “Where?”
“Oh, there were several news sources with stories. I get Google alerts for anything containing the phrase ‘Millers Kill,’ did I tell you? That, and ‘hot-n-sexy Episcopal priests.’ ”
Karen coughed out half a mouthful of wine.
“Ignore him,” Clare said. “He’s only a few Internet sites away from complete deviancy.”
“You can leave your collar on,” Hugh sang.
“Remind me to take you to the church’s next General Convention. There are a number of my sister priests I’d love to introduce you to.”
He sighed. “You see what I have to fight against?” he asked Karen. “I travel up here from New York, I wine her and dine her, and she’s still trying to foist other women on me. I may as well wander out into the night and let myself fall victim to the Cossayuharie Killer.”
“You travel to Saratoga from New York,” Clare pointed out. “I’m just conveniently located. And you might have trouble locating the alleged serial killer, since the town’s promised us a police presence at the dance.”
“Oh, goody.” She could have dehumidified the undercroft with that tone.
Karen, no slouch when it came to managing awkward social moments, smiled brightly and handed Hugh her plastic cup.
He stared at it for a half second before his usual good manners reasserted themselves. “May I freshen you up?” he asked.
“And get some for yourself,” she encouraged.
“Alas, I’m not indulging. I have to drive to the Stuyvesant Inn, and”—his mouth twisted—“I have no wish to attract the attention of local law enforcement.”
There was a moment of silence as Clare examined the nearby air molecules and Karen did not look at Clare.
“Of course,” Hugh said, “if I could stay at the vicarage . . .” It was almost, but not quite, a joke. Karen, thank God, looked more amused than scandalized.
“Hugh.”
He raised his hands. “Sorry, sorry.” He assumed a pained expression. “She is an unassailable tower of virtue,” he told Karen.
“I’ve been assailed once or twice in the past,” Clare said.
“Yet you never sail with me.”
“You’re a venture capitalist. Go venture,” Clare said. “Talk up the auction. Run up the bids. Loosen some purse strings.”
“Sadly, the only strings I’ll be loosening tonight.” He took Karen’s hand and squeezed it before pointing a finger at Clare. “Don’t forget, I have the first dance, Vicar.”
They watched him cross the floor, working the crowd.
“He’s awfully nice,” Karen said.
“Yes, he is,” Clare said. They had met at a party three summers ago and had managed a weekend together every couple of months since then.
“He seems pretty fond of you.”
“Yes, he is.” He’d been pushing to move their relationship up a notch since the past fall. Nothing obnoxious, nothing that backed her into a corner. Reasonable, considering the dinners in Saratoga, the phone calls, the trips she had made to New York.
“It’s so pleasant being around someone happy and uncomplicated, isn’t it?”
Clare’s mouth quirked. “You mean like Geoff?”
Karen sighed. “I know. I could never fall for the easy guys either.” She looked at Clare. “It’s always the difficult ones that get under your skin, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” The two women looked at each other in perfect understanding.
Clare didn’t know if it was Hugh’s influence or not, but they topped out the silent auction almost 20 percent above projections, according to financial officer Terry McKellan’s calculations. The live auction following went faster than Clare had expected, much faster, and an hour after it had started, St. Alban’s was close to four thousand dollars richer and Terry and his volunteers were shooing her out of the sanctuary. “Go,” Terry said. “Dance.”
“I should help with the checks,” Clare said, almost convincingly.
The finance officer grinned, his luxurious mustache spreading like two glossy brown wings. “Think of it as an act of mercy, then. Logging in these checks is going to be the highlight of my week. Dancing? Not so much.”
She decided not to push her luck by arguing further. She slipped into her office, locked the door, and shucked off her clericals in favor of a poppy-red dress whose skinny-strapped top was balanced by yards and yards of skirt that made her look like Ginger Rogers whenever she twirled.
There was already a modest crowd across the street, diners who had skipped the auctions and dancers drawn by the free music. The sky over the mountains glowed with sunset’s red and orange and pink, but the fairy lights twining the gazebo and hanging over the park were lit, twinkling like a thousand lightning bugs against the green leaves and the violet shadows. Clare stopped on the church steps, listening to the laughter and the chatter and the squeals and squonks of Curtis Maurand and his Little Big Band tuning up.
Impossible, for a moment, to believe anything bad could ever happen here.
Then a flash of tan beneath one of the cast-iron street lamps caught her eye. Their police presence. Officer Flynn, pressed and shined and looking ready to help little old ladies across the street. And the chief himself, solid, steady, every line of his body a reassurance that they were safe. Protected. Because bad things could happen here. She smiled a little. But not if Russ Van Alstyne had anything to say about it.
He turned. Saw her watching him. Her thread of wistful amusement tightened into a prickly awareness. She hadn’t seen him since she’d kicked her way out of his office more than three weeks ago, swallowing bile and several bad words. For which, yes, she needed to apologize. She moved down the steps and across the walkway, conscious in every step of her skirt sliding around her legs, the warm, humid air stroking her bare shoulders, the smell of St. Alban’s roses, and the heat from the street’s asphalt beneath her flat-soled shoes.
He walked away from the streetlamp to meet her. A couple sat on the bench facing the church, the woman rifling through her purse. The Campbells, crossing from the parking lot, passed her. “Great auction!” Sabrina said. Clare waved an acknowledgment.
“Reverend Fergusson,” Russ said.
“Chief Van Alstyne.” She wrapped her arms around herself and inhaled.
Before she could launch into her apology, he settled into parade-rest posture and cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that, when you told me about the men at Mike and Janet’s. I realize . . . she put you in an impossible situation. It wasn’t your fault.”
She paused, knocked off-kilter by his preemptive apology. Although, she noticed, he never used the words I’m sorry. She decided to supply them. “I’m sorry, too. I should never have agreed to go along with a lie in the first place. And I’m sorry I lost my temper. It was very . . .”—undignified? unprofessional?—“. . . childish of me.”
They stood there, face-to-face, not quite looking at each other. At the center of the park, the band swung into “String of Pearls.”
“Reverend Fergusson!” The voice was lilting and Swedish. Clare turned to see Lena Erlander and her husband, Jim Cameron, approaching. Clare pasted on a bright smile. Lena’s husband was the mayor and had signed off on the use of the park, the street closing, and the police protection. Over, she had heard, the objections of some of the aldermen. “How good to see you again,” Lena said, shaking Clare’s hand. “And how wonderfully clever of you to put on this dance.”
Jim Cameron grinned at Russ and Clare and beamed at his wife. His expression said, Isn’t she the perfect politician’s partner? They’d been married two or three years, and the honeymoon was evidently still on. Maybe it was true, what they said about Swedes.
“Thank Elizabeth de Groot and Karen Burns, not me,” Clare said. “They put the whole thing together.”
“Perfect timing, either way,” the mayor said. “Proof positive there’s nothing to fear in Millers Kill, no matter what trash the reporters like to throw up.”
“I saw your handsome friend from New York over by the refreshments table,” Lena said. “He was looking for you.” She smiled at Clare as if the two of them shared a secret. “I think you were smart to have the old-fashioned band. Dancing close, it gives a man romantic ideas, right, alsking?” She wrapped her arm around her husband’s.
Mayor Cameron’s smile glazed over. He looked from Russ, to Clare, then back at Russ. “I think it’s smart to attract the right sort of people. Older couples who want to spend money and then go home at a reasonable hour. Not like the god-awful crowds we get at the Riverside Park on the Fourth of July, eh, Russ?”
Russ looked over the mayor’s head at the well-heeled dancers swinging to Glenn Miller. “I don’t think we’ll have any broken beer bottles or fistfights with this group, no.”
Lena tugged on her husband’s arm. “Come on, I want to dance. Oh, and tell Chief Van Alstyne he can’t just stand like a stuffed bear. There are never enough men to go around. He must dance once or twice.” She smiled up at Russ. “You must dance with some of the single ladies.” She winked at Clare. “Since I don’t think you’ll be loaning out your date for the cause.”
Mayor Cameron dragged her away in what was either a passion to dance or a fervor of embarrassment.
“String of Pearls” ended. The crowd clapped. “So,” Russ said. “Hugh’s here.”
“Thank you very much!” Curtis Maurand said. “This next one’s for all you guys and gals who were in the armed services. It’s called ‘American Patrol.’” The band blew out a full-fledged jitterbug.
“He’s staying at the Stuyvesant Inn,” she said, then mentally kicked herself. She didn’t have to explain anything to Russ.
He made a rumbling noise in his chest. It sounded to her like disapproval.
Pricked, she said, “Of course, if it gets too late, I could always put him up at the rectory. I’m sure I have a spare toothbrush somewhere.”
Russ slanted a look at her. “Why not? He could room with Amado.”
She couldn’t help it. The thought of Hugh’s face, confronted with the temporary sexton and the guest room, made her laugh. “Poor Hugh,” she said. “That certainly would not be what he was expecting.”
“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Russ quoted, which made her snort, which was how Hugh found them.
“Vicar,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “You look like the proverbial long cool woman in a red dress.” He glanced at Russ. “Chief Van Alstyne. Imagine my surprise at seeing you here.”
“Mr. Parteger.”
“Isn’t all that unrelieved polyester hot on a night like this?”
“You sure notice a lot about clothes. I bet you’re real good at home decorating, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Russ’s face was bland. The jitterbug ended, and the band segued into “Steppin’ Out with My Baby.”
“Gosh,” Clare said pointedly. “I love this song.”
Hugh redrew his expression into something more pleasant. “Of course, Vicar. By all means, let’s dance.” He paused, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “Unless,” he said to Russ, “you’d like to escort Clare onto the dance floor.” He swept one arm toward the low wooden platforms that had been bolted together over the largest wedge of the park that afternoon. “After all, you’re free to ask her now, aren’t you?”
Clare would have killed Hugh, except that she was caught, stomach clenched, wondering what Russ would say. Loathing herself for hoping like a girl at a middle-school dance.
He stood very still. Finally he said, “I’m on duty.” He nodded to her. “Enjoy yourself.” Then he walked away, leaving Hugh looking triumphant and Clare wishing she were a lesbian. Maybe then she’d never have to deal with male idiocy again.
That damn skimpy red dress drew his eye all night long. He patrolled the edges of the park, exchanging hellos and commenting on the weather and answering the few folks brave enough to ask questions about the so-called Cossayuharie Killer. And all the time, he kept spotting her, like a flame in the dark. He saw Parteger begging and begging hard after that stunt he pulled, following her around like a dog while she flitted from parishioner to parishioner. The Brit eventually hit on the right apology or wore her down, because she let him dance with her.
She wasn’t a great dancer, not like some of the older women on the floor who had learned to swing and foxtrot back in the white-glove days, but damn, she looked like she was having fun with it. Between dances with Parteger, she partnered Norm Madsen and Robert Corlew and even Geoff Burns, who managed to look semihuman, twirling Clare past the gazebo.
She started smiling—really smiling, not just being polite—and then she started to laugh, and he swore he could hear her laugh over the music and the talk and the dull rumble of the traffic, rerouted through streets a block away.
Linda would have liked this. She would have laughed like that and danced like that and pushed her hair off the nape of her neck like that—such a tender, intimate gesture in a public place, and then he realized he was thinking about Linda and about Clare, holding them both in his mind at the same time, and he waited for the bitter black weight to come over him and it didn’t. He felt a lingering sadness, like the clarinet line, but he also felt the excitement of the brass, and he caught a glimpse of a realization, that something of Linda, in some way, survived in Clare, but he couldn’t get a handle on the wisp of a thought and his concentration was busted by the growl and crunch of one of his patrol cars, slipping up the street and pulling in next to the park’s fire hydrant.
His deputy chief stepped out of the cruiser. “Hey,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What’re you still doing here? You were scheduled to go off duty an hour ago. I figured you forgot to call in.”
“Huh. Guess I lost track of the time.”
Lyle shoved his hands in his pockets as he joined Russ. “Bucking for overtime won’t do you any good, y’know. You’re on salary. That’s why you wouldn’t catch me taking your job.”
“You wouldn’t take my job because you might actually have to show up for work during hunting season.”
“Yeah, well, there is that.” Lyle looked between the trees to where the dancers were going around to “Begin the Beguine.” “How’re things goin’?”
“Nobody dragged off to a shallow grave yet. Although the night’s still young. What’s happening out there?” He gestured with his chin toward the rest of the town and beyond.
“Quietest damn Sunday night I’ve ever seen. I think the Cossayuharie Killer’s keeping everybody home. Or headed down to Saratoga. Paul called in, said he’s given out a few tickets on the Schuylerville Road.”
“Jim Cameron’s not going to like that.”
“What, tickets? Sure he will. Paul’s scoping out the cars from away. No skin off his voters’ noses.”
“I meant, people taking their money out of Millers Kill.”
“On a Sunday night?” Lyle blew a raspberry. “The only things to spend money on in this town are those idiot arcade games at Alltechtronik and a couple ounces of grass. You have to go to Glens Falls to bet on bingo.”
“I dunno about that. I think Geraldine Bain’s running a floating canasta game around here. Penny a point.”
Lyle laughed. Russ grinned. They stood side by side, watching the dancers, and for a moment it was like it used to be. The music slid smoothly into a new song, the bandleader’s voice sweet and melancholy. I can see, no matter how near you’ll be, you’ll never belong to me—
“Who’s the fellow with Reverend Fergusson?”
Russ blinked. “Hugh Parteger. Forty. Unmarried. He’s an investment banker from the city. Resident alien. One DUI, got it bargained down to DTE. No other record.”
Lyle looked at him sideways. “It was more in the line of a social question.”
He felt his cheeks heat up and hoped the light from the streetlamps wasn’t enough to give him away. “Guy comes dropping into my town for no good reason every couple of months, why shouldn’t I run him? Forewarned is forearmed, or however the saying goes.”
“Mmm.” Lyle turned back to the dancing. Anne Vining-Ellis and her husband blocked Clare from view, but as the Ellises twirled out of the way, Russ could see her, locked up tight in Hugh’s arms, the overdressed bastard sliding one hand all up and down her half-bare back.
“Looks to me like he’s got a perfectly good reason for coming to town.”
But I can dream, can’t I?
“Whyn’t you go over there and ask her to dance?”
He rounded on Lyle. “Why don’t you mind your own business?” He turned back toward Clare and her date, determined to poke the knife in himself a little deeper. “You’re the last person who oughta be handing out advice.”
Lyle was still a moment. “You’re right,” he finally said. “I’ve managed to ball up every relationship I ever had. Includin’ our friendship. But you know what? That means I can recognize when someone’s making a dumb-ass mistake.” He waited, as if inviting Russ to chime in. Russ kept his mouth shut. “Whatever.” Lyle sighed. “I’m gonna take a turn around the park and check in with Kevin. See ya around.” He strolled off beneath the trees.
The song ended to a clamor of applause. Russ turned on his heel and strode across Church Street without looking, headed for his truck, parked in the lot across from St. Alban’s. He unlocked it and stripped off his gear belt, dropping the whole thing into his lockbox along with his pump-action shotgun and .40-.40. There. Officially off-duty.
He climbed behind the wheel and fired up the truck. Wondered if his mother was still out at Cousin Nane’s. Probably not. He wished he had someplace to go where he could be alone.
How about your own house?
He shook his head. He had been back to the house on Peekskill Road several times since Linda’s death, but he was never, he realized, going to spend the night there again.
What was he going to do? Sell it? Then what? Buying another house seemed pointless. Keep living with his mother? He had a sudden vision of himself, a decade on, sixty years old, coming back to his eighty-five-year-old mother’s house—the women on her side of the family lived a long time, he had no doubt she’d still be alive and kicking—eating the same low-carb dinner, watching the Yankees kick the hell out of the Red Sox, nothing changing, everything exactly the same as it was now. As it had been since Linda died. That’s what he had wanted, wasn’t it? To stop time? To never let go of her?
God Almighty. What was he doing to himself?
He swiped his hand over his face. Rolled down the window. In the park across the street, the band was playing “In the Mood,” and somewhere in the crowd Hugh Parteger had his hands all over Clare Fergusson.
Jesus Christ. What the hell was he doing sitting in this damn truck?
He twisted the key out of the ignition, popped open the door, and thumped to the asphalt. He recrossed the street. The dancing had been going on long enough that people had wandered out to the edges of the park, women fanning themselves, men tugging at their ties and unbuttoning their cuffs. He passed a “Chief Van Alstyne!” and a “Hey, Russ,” but kept his course single-mindedly toward the bandstand.
The music stopped, and applause burst like champagne bubbles in the air around him. He looked around, but for the first time that evening he couldn’t spot the red dress. His stomach tightened. I could always put him up at the rectory. What if she decided . . . What if they had—
“Why, hello, Chief Van Alstyne.” He looked down to see Mrs. Henry Marshall, one of Clare’s vestry, smiling up at him. She was in bright pink tonight, with matching lipstick that was almost fluorescent compared to her white hair. Her hand was looped through the arm of her—‘gentleman friend’ was the right term, he guessed.
“Evening,” Norm Madsen said.
“Hi,” Russ said. “Have either of you seen Clare?”
The elderly lawyer frowned. “Not more trouble, I hope?”
Mrs. Marshall gave her escort a look of loving contempt. “I don’t think that’s why he’s asking, dear.” She cocked her head at Russ like a sharp-eyed sparrow. “Is it?”
He shook his head.
“She said she was going to get something to drink. But I’m sure she’d be happy to dance. . . .”
He didn’t stay to hear the rest of her comment. He tossed a “Thanks!” over his shoulder as he elbowed his way through the crowd.
He found her as promised, near the refreshment table, sitting on one of the folding chairs strewn haphazardly beneath the chestnut trees, drinking from a paper cup. Parteger, standing behind her, was trapped in conversation with Robert Corlew. Clare looked up. “Russ.” She sounded surprised. “Is something wrong?”
Her eyes were large and dark in the half-light filtering through the leaves. She was faintly flushed, a little damp, as if she had just toweled off after a shower. She looked . . . edible.
“I’m off duty,” he said.
She dropped her gaze to his hip. “Oh,” she said.
“Dance with me,” he said.
She jerked her head back up to meet his eyes.
“Please,” he added.
She glanced around. Unfolded herself from the chair. “There are a lot of people we know here,” she said, keeping her voice low.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Are you sure you want to dance?”
“Yeah.”
“With me?”
He grinned. “Oh, yeah.”
She drained whatever she had been drinking. “Why, then, thank you, Chief Van Alstyne. I’d like that.” She turned and handed the empty paper cup to Parteger. “Hugh, will you excuse me?”
He took her hand—and didn’t that feel weird, holding her hand in public—and led her to the dance floor. He didn’t recognize the opening bars until the bandleader began to sing There may be trouble ahead, and Clare laughed and he swung her into his arms.
“Did you request this?” she asked.
“Just coincidence.”
“You don’t believe in coincidences.”
“No, but I’m working on believing in fate.” He put a little cha-cha into it and she followed perfectly. The tiny white lights overhead made her skin glow.
And while we still have the chance . . .
“There are people looking at us,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“This is going to be all over town by lunchtime tomorrow,” she said.
He didn’t answer, concentrating on moving them toward the less crowded edge of the floor. Her red skirt twirled around the front of his legs. He decided if she let Parteger do it—and slid his hand up her back. No bra. Lots of bare skin.
Let’s face the music and dance.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me or something.”
He smiled slowly. “I do.”
She stumbled. He caught her and steadied her until she regained the rhythm.
“You make me think of those great glazed doughnuts they have over at the Kreemie Kakes diner,” he went on.
“I make you think of a doughnut?”
He shrugged. “I am a cop.” The music segued into “Old Devil Moon” without missing a beat. “Anyway, you know when they have them straight out of the fryer? They’re all hot and the icing is just running off them?”
Her cheeks and chest were flushing.
“I love ’em like that. I like to lick the icing off, bit by bit, until it’s all over me”—She made a barely audible sound—“and then I wolf it down in great big bites.” He pulled her closer and she went, unresisting, until she was pressed against his chest, their thighs moving together in the steps of the dance. She turned her face up to him, her eyes dilated almost to black.
Finally she said, “Mrs. Robinson, I think you’re trying to seduce me.”
He laughed quietly. They swayed together. He ran his thumb along her jaw, where a piece of her hair clung. “Actually,” he said, “I’m doing all this talking because I’m scared that if I don’t, I’m going to start kissing you. First here”—he brushed his fingers over her lips—“then here”—he trailed down her neck, making her shiver—“then here”—he rubbed his hand over her collarbone and shoulder before sliding it down her back—“and from there, God only knows.”
She swallowed. Inhaled. “Would you like to walk me back to the rectory?”
Now it was his turn to breathe in. “I don’t think that’d be such a good idea. In fact, it’s probably not a good idea for me to be manhandling you on the dance floor like this.” It was like bench pressing his own body weight, but he managed to push her a few inches away and resume a stance that suggested dancing more than making love.
“That’s very thoughtful and responsible of you,” she said. “Dammit all.”
“I’m trying.”
She looked at him, heavy-lidded, and brushed close to him. He could feel the heat rising off her body. “Is it hard for you?”
He groaned and closed his eyes. “Okay, I deserved that.”
“I could walk home by myself.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“All right. Mr. Madsen and Mrs. Marshall could escort me. He’s parked in the small lot behind the church.” Which was separated from the rectory’s driveway by a tall hedge of boxwood.
“I’ll accept that.”
“Where’s your truck?”
“The lot on the corner of Elm.”
“Why, that’s just two houses down from where I live. But conveniently out of sight of the neighbors.”
“Uh-huh. Although somebody might notice if it’s still there at six o’clock in the morning.”
She raised one eyebrow. “My, aren’t you the confident one. Are you forgetting my live-in duenna?”
“I thought we could play three-hand pinochle.”
She laughed. “Nobody really knows how to play pinochle.”
“Okay, Scrabble.”
The music ended and they broke apart to clap. She leaned toward him to be heard over the noise. “Double score for dirty words.”
He smiled at her, helplessly. “God, I love you.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. “I better go tell poor Hugh good night.”
He lassoed Mr. Madsen. “Clare’s leaving,” he explained, “and I don’t want her walking up to the rectory by herself. Could you and Mrs. Marshall go with her?”
Mr. Madsen squinted toward where Clare and Parteger were talking. The Englishman didn’t look too happy. “I thought that young man was her escort.”
Mrs. Marshall had to crane her neck to see. Parteger was gesturing toward Clare, toward the dance floor, toward heaven. Clare folded her arms and shook her head. Mrs. Marshall tsked. “Not anymore, I think. Come on, Norm, let’s rescue her.”
Russ made a point of staying as far away from Clare as possible while still keeping himself in the public eye. He chatted with this person and that, listening to news about grandkids and vacations as if he were running for town office. In the background, he could hear a chorus of “Good night, Clare!” and “Thanks, Reverend!” Minutes later, he watched Parteger stride off toward the parking lot, head down, hands jammed in pockets. His BMW peeled out of the lot much faster than necessary. Russ hoped he would cool down before he hit Paul Urquhart’s speed trap on the Old Schuylerville Road.
When the band leader announced the last song of the night, Russ slipped away. He walked straight to his truck and kept on going, to the back of the lot, where a tornado fence and straggly sumacs marked off the first house on the south end of Elm Street. The only streetlight was on the corner, at the front of the lot, so he disappeared into velvet dark, untraceable except for his footsteps, slapping on the pavement.
He focused on that noise, and the thudding of his heart, and the warm dry air on his skin, and the smell of grass clippings and night jasmine. He didn’t want to think, because he was afraid he’d shoot himself in the foot if he did. He hadn’t done so well with thinking, these past months.
Then he saw Clare’s house, just as it had been a month ago, one dim light in the living room and a glow coming from the kitchen door, and thinking became academic as all the blood rushed from his head into other places.
He crossed the street, mounted the kitchen steps, smiled as she pulled the door open for him. Then he saw her face, pale and strained. “What is it?” he said. He looked past her. The place was a mess. The cabinet doors hung open and all the drawers were yanked out.
“Amado’s gone,” she said, “and somebody’s torn apart my house.”
Nobody ever told you how messy fingerprint powder was. After the state police technician had photographed Clare’s closets gaping open and her clothing strewn across the floor, after she had unlocked the church for Lyle MacAuley and Kevin Flynn to search, after she had listened to Russ’s phone calls rousting Eric McCrea and Hadley Knox out of their beds and over to the McGeochs’ workers’ bunkhouse, after she had said good-bye to Russ—a stiff, grim farewell at the foot of her driveway, surrounded by officers strapping on their tac vests and checking weapons, already planning for the reception they would find when they knocked on the Christie brothers’ door—after all that, she shut her door against the world and tackled the fingerprint powder.
A sudsy bucket and a couple of old T-shirt rags. The dust was everywhere because the mess was everywhere: kitchen, living room, bedroom, bath. First she had to stop to sweep up the various bits of broken glass, and then she had to keep trekking back to the sink to rinse the rags—no use streaking wet powder and grime over the picture frames, the banister, her jewelry box. Once she had the powder up, she could tackle the clothes and the books and the papers. Replace the recyclables in the bin. Restock the pantry shelves.
She was wiping down her dresser top when she realized she had to strip her bed and wash her sheets; she had to do it right away, right now. She tugged and pulled and wrestled the linens off, and the blankets, too, and the quilt and the mattress pad as well, then lugged them downstairs to the alcove off the kitchen, stuffing them into the machine, stuffing and stuffing, unable to find the water temperature control because she couldn’t see the dials, stabbing at the button until she broke one of her already-short fingernails off at the quick, and then she couldn’t see anything because her eyes were full of tears.
She crumpled to the floor, leaning against the cool white metal of the washing machine, crying and crying for Amado, who had trusted her to keep him safe. Crying for Russ, wearing his hard face and body armor. Crying for herself, foolish and pitiful because a few things were missing or broken. Like her heart. Like her life. And she didn’t know how to begin to clean up the mess.
Someone was knocking at the door, a steady rat-tat-tat that sounded as if it must have been going on for a while. She lurched to her feet, grabbed a washcloth from the clean laundry teetering atop the dryer, and scrubbed her face with it.
She went to the kitchen door and looked out. Elizabeth de Groot. Oh, God. Just what she needed. She unlocked the door.
“I came over as soon as I heard,” Elizabeth said, barging through the door. She looked around the kitchen, wide-eyed. “Good heavens. This is awful. You poor thing.” She turned toward Clare. “You’re all right, aren’t you?” She swept Clare with an appraising glance, taking in her crumpled dress, which now seemed indecently bare, given the hour and the events. “I mean, he wasn’t still here when you got in, was he? He didn’t. . . .” Elizabeth let her voice trail off, suggesting A Fate Worse Than Death.
“I’m fine,” Clare said. “Whoever did this was gone before I arrived.”
Elizabeth stripped off her windbreaker and hung it over a chair back. “What do you mean, ‘Whoever did this’? There were two police cars over at the old Peterson place looking for Amado Esfuentes. That’s how I found out what happened.” She shook her head, then began picking cans up off the floor. “Where do these go?”
“Elizabeth.” She had to take control of the situation right now or God knows what rumors would be whipping around town. “The police are looking for Amado because he could be a victim. They think he may have been taken by the—by whoever killed those other men.”
Elizabeth stacked the cans on the counter and bent to retrieve two more. “That’s what that nice officer I spoke with said. But he also said Amado might be the murderer.” She straightened and glanced around the kitchen. “Seeing this mess, I can believe it. Was anything stolen?”
“Fifty bucks. The MP-Three player I use when I run. A few pieces of jewelry. Nothing of much value.”
“Ah.” Elizabeth put the cans on the counter. “Easy to drop in his pocket and walk away with. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrecked this place because he was angry you didn’t have any more. Thank God he didn’t go for the communion silver.” She looked at Clare. “He didn’t, did he?”
Clare shook her head. “I was over there earlier with Deputy Chief MacAuley. Nothing’s missing. And I reprogrammed the alarm system,” she said, cutting off the question forming in the deacon’s eyes. “I left a sticky note on the front and back doors, so, hopefully, no one will try to get in tomorrow before me.” She resisted the urge to sit at the kitchen table and bury her face in her hands. “I’ll have to think of some way to let everyone know.”
“Don’t you worry about that. I made a few phone calls while I was driving over. To the vestry and the wardens. I asked them to let others know. Sort of an informal phone tree.”
“You did what?” This time, she didn’t resist. She needed a chair to support her. “Good God, Elizabeth. Next thing you’ll tell me you’ve already informed the bishop.” There was no answer from the deacon. Clare raised her head and glared at the other woman. “Elizabeth? Tell me you haven’t spoken to the bishop.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s ten thirty at night. I wouldn’t pester the bishop at this hour.”
“Good, because—”
“I left a message with his chancellor. And with Deacon Aberforth, of course. You ought to call him, by the way. He was very concerned about your well-being.”
Clare wanted to knock her head against the wall. No, she wanted to knock Elizabeth’s head against the wall. “There was absolutely no need—” she began, but Elizabeth cut her off.
“The bishop isn’t just our superior, Clare, he’s our pastor as well. Wouldn’t you want to know if one of your flock had been assaulted and vandalized?”
“I wasn’t assaulted!”
“You were a month ago. That Amado Esfuentes was neck deep in it then, and instead of letting the police handle it, you brought him into the rectory. Lord knows, I’d never say ‘I told you so’—”
Oh, yeah?
“—but these things do happen to you, Clare, and it’s because you simply don’t think before you act.”
Clare opened her mouth to argue, then thought of the dance. Russ, and the music, and the warm night air, and the words. Walk me back to the rectory. She hadn’t exactly been thinking then, had she?
“Clare.” Elizabeth sat down opposite her. “I’m not here to be right. I’m here to help you get it right.” She patted Clare’s hand. “Don’t look so glum. I know you’re trying to keep your promise to the bishop. He’s not going to blame you for this bit of nastiness.” She stood up and faced the kitchen, hands on hips. “Now, let’s tackle this—”
The door swung open. “Clare?” Anne Vining-Ellis tumbled in. “Oh, thank God, you’re okay. Mrs. Marshall just called me and told me what happened.” Clare stood to greet her and was almost knocked down by a bear hug. “Elizabeth, are you taking her home?”
The deacon looked surprised. “Well . . . no. I’m here to help put the rectory to rights.”
“What, tonight? To hell with cleaning up. Clare, go get your pj’s and a change of clothing. You’re coming to my place.” Dr. Anne sounded every inch the emergency room physician, snapping out orders and making split-second decisions.
Clare hadn’t thought of leaving, hadn’t been thinking of anything except putting the pieces of her life back together, but the idea, the freedom of simply walking away for a while, stunned her. “Really?” Then she remembered. “I can’t. After morning Eucharist tomorrow, I’ve got to go down to Fort Dix for National Guard training. I won’t be back until Tuesday evening, and I can’t stand the idea of coming back to this disaster.”
“You won’t. Karen Burns is already organizing a crew to take care of everything tomorrow. Tonight, you’re going to come home to where my large and thuggish sons can protect you, put your feet up, and have a good stiff drink. I’m sure Elizabeth will take tomorrow morning’s service for you.”
“Well.” Elizabeth looked doubtful. “It’d have to be Morning Prayer instead of Morning Eucharist—”
“Perfect. It’s settled, then. Elizabeth”—Dr. Anne slung her arm over the deacon’s shoulders—“however in the world did we get along before you came to St. Alban’s?”
It took Clare five minutes to throw her things into a duffel and get back downstairs. In that time, Dr. Anne had gotten Elizabeth de Groot back into her windbreaker and was easing her out the door, slathering the deacon with comfort and praise and appreciation like it was so much melted butter. “Night-night, Elizabeth,” Dr. Anne called out the kitchen door. “See you tomorrow!” She shut the door. Turned toward Clare.
“Thank you,” Clare said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Lacey Marshall told me she was headed for your house. I figured I’d better get over as fast as I could to prevent the murder-suicide.”
Clare laughed shakily.
“C’mon. I meant it about the drink.” She opened the door again. “I heard Russ Van Alstyne was practically necking with you at the dance tonight, and I want all the juicy details.”
Kevin started to worry when he heard the dogs.
It had been exciting, getting the call from the deputy chief, everybody pulled back on duty, digging the tac vests out of the trunk of his squad car. He was sorry Reverend Fergusson had been upset and that her place was trashed, of course he was, but—tac vests! The chief had commandeered both his cruiser and the second vest, and, with Kevin riding shotgun and MacAuley and Noble right behind, headed out to the Christie farm in Cossayuharie.
In daylight, they could see the place from Seven Mile Road, but to reach it they had to go across a narrow side road and then up a rutted dirt lane. A gate barred the way, a metal pole-crosspole fastened to a sturdy-looking fence that ran off into the darkness in either direction.
“What’s that for?” the chief asked.
“They raise sheep,” Kevin reminded him.
“And they roam all the way down here? Huh. Open that thing for me, Kevin.”
He sprang out of the car. And that’s when things started to go to hell. He had taken one step toward the gate when two pole-mounted motion-sensor lights blazed on, flooding the lane and its surroundings, spotlighting him like a Friday-night quarterback.
Then he heard the dogs; a full-throated baying, as if a pack of hellhounds had been set loose up by the house.
And they were headed for him.
“Kevin,” the chief shouted, but he didn’t wait to be ordered back into the car. He pounded toward the latch, popped it free, and pushed the top rail as hard as he could. It fetched up against something, jarring his arms, making him stumble back.
The chief was yelling something over the din of the approaching dogs. “. . . rolls to the right!” Kevin made out. “It rolls!”
He pulled the heavy gate open just far enough to wedge himself between the fence and the crossbar, and pushed. The gate rolled. He ran with it, pushing, the dogs getting closer and closer, visible now at the edge of the light, black and tan and white pointed teeth, and the chief gunned the cruiser and jerked it forward and the passenger door bounced closed and then it was open again, the chief stretched across the seats, screaming, “Get in! Get in!”
Kevin made a flying leap past the seething whipcord bodies and snarling jaws and landed inside the car. He and the chief scrambled for the handle, yanking it shut as one, two, three German shepherds thudded against the metal and glass, howling and barking and snapping their teeth. He let out the breath he’d been holding. In like Flynn.
“Jesus, Kevin.” The chief sounded like he had been the one running out there. “Don’t do that to me again. I thought you were puppy chow.” He unhooked the mic and tuned the radio for car-to-car. “Lyle?”
“Here.”
“No chance of sneaking up on ’em. May as well go in with lights.” Behind them, MacAuley’s cruiser blinked into whirling red and white.
“Awful lot of security for humble sheep farmers.” MacAuley’s voice over the radio was laconic.
The chief triggered the mic. “The Christies are sheep farmers the way trucking agents in New Jersey are legitimate businessmen. When we reach the dooryard, go as far around the side of the barn as you can. I don’t want anybody slipping away through the back forty.”
“Will do. Over.”
The chief threw the car into gear and rolled forward. The German shepherds paced them, too smart to charge a moving vehicle, too focused to let them pull away.
As they reached the dooryard, another two motion sensor lights came on, one over the front porch, the other up on the barn. The two buildings were set kitty-corner to each other, with the dirt lane looping past each and rejoining itself. The house, from what Kevin could see, looked as if every generation of Christies had made one addition or another, until the most recent: a trailer on blocks at the far side of the yard, electrical wires running between it and the main house. The trailer was dark, but a handful of windows in the house were lit.
The chief cracked his door open. Instantly, the dogs surged forward, growling and baring their teeth. He slammed it shut again, swearing. He grabbed the mic and switched the speakers to outside broadcast. “This is the Millers Kill Police.” The chief’s words, amplified, echoed back from the house and barn. “We need to ask you a few questions. Call back your dogs and restrain them.” The echo caused a feedback, and the chief’s speech ended with an electronic squeal. He dropped the mic.
“Hate that thing,” he said.
They waited. Nothing happened. No lights came on or off, which Kevin supposed was good, but no one stepped onto the porch to whistle in the German shepherds. “What do you think’s happening in there?” he asked.
The chief held up one finger. “They’re just now figuring out what they heard wasn’t part of the ten o’clock news.” He held up a second finger. “Or they’re running around the house like rats, collecting bags of pot and meth and Oxys and flushing them down the toilet as fast as they can pull the chain.” He held up a third finger. “Or they’re arming themselves, because you can’t get rid of a body in five minutes. That’s the one that worries me.” He unsnapped his holster and drew his Glock .40. “Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” he said. He opened the magazine and checked it.
Kevin unholstered his Colt .44 and did the same.
The chief flicked the speaker system on again. “Donald and Neil Christie. If you’re not out here in three minutes restraining these dogs, my men and I will have to shoot them.” This time, he turned the mic off before it could catch the bounceback.
“We’re not really going to shoot the dogs, are we?” Kevin knew he sounded unprofessional, but shit. Dogs? He didn’t know if he could do it.
“I sure as hell don’t want to,” the chief said. “On the other hand, if Amado Esfuentes is in there, I’m not going to sit on my ass out here while they do what they want with him.”
“But . . . the dogs? It’s not their fault they’re behaving like this. Somebody trained them to do it.”
The chief shifted in his seat a little to where he could see Kevin straight on. “Sometimes you’re going to be in a situation where there aren’t any good choices, Kevin. You just have to pick the better of two bad ones, and learn to live with the outcome.” The chief got a funny look on his face. Kevin thought he might say more, but then a light flashed from the house and they straightened to see the two beefy brothers step out onto the porch. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber, Eric had called them. They looked pissed off, but they appeared to be unarmed. Then a shorter, more slender man joined them.
“Interesting.” The chief rubbed his thumb over his lip. “I wonder why Bruce Christie’s making a late visit to the old homestead.” After the Christies called up the German shepherds and shut them in the house, the chief and Kevin got out. The chief secured his weapon again, but left the holster unsnapped. Ready to go. Kevin did the same. He heard the heavy thunks of the other cruiser’s doors closing from somewhere beside the barn. MacAuley and Noble, making sure no one was stealing away out back.
“You got a lotta nerve—” Donald Christie began.
Bruce thumped him in his chest. “How can we help you, Chief?”
“You can start by telling me where you all were tonight.”
“Right here. At home.”
“You living here now, Bruce?”
Bruce Christie grinned. “Just until your boys catch the sumbitch who trashed my trailer.” He gestured toward them. “You guys look like one a them SWAT teams, all armored up like that. What’s goin’ on?”
“Someone broke into Reverend Fergusson’s house in town.” Donald Christie’s hand flew to his nose. Kevin pressed his lips together to keep from showing his amusement. “They tore it up pretty bad. The church’s janitor, who was living there, is missing.” The chief looked at Neil Christie. “You remember him, right, Neil? I mean, before Reverend Fergusson knocked you unconscious.”
The big man grunted.
“Sounds like it might be the same crew as broke into my place,” Bruce said. “You sure the Mexican isn’t workin’ with ’em?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m sure of. I’m sure your brothers went to St. Alban’s in May looking for Amado Esfuentes. I’m sure they would’ve beat the crap out of him if they could have. And I’m sure interested in taking a look around here to see if maybe you all brought him home tonight for a little talking-to.”
Bruce Christie kept on smiling. “You got a warrant, Chief?”
Without taking his eyes off Bruce, the chief pulled his phone from his pocket. He tossed it to Kevin, who tried to look matter-of-fact about catching it. “Officer Flynn,” the chief said, “Assistant District Attorney Amy Nguyen is number eight on my speed dial. I want you to ask her to take the Christies’ case file to Judge Ryswick with a search warrant request.” His voice took on a confidential tone, clearly directed at Bruce. “Your brothers’ case was filed, not dismissed. Which means it can be reopened at any time.” He glanced at his watch. “I expect we’ll be here about two hours, waiting for the warrant to arrive.” He looked back up to the porch, where Bruce Christie’s pleasant veneer was cracking. “I figure by then, in order to justify our overtime, we’ll have to go over your place with a fine-tooth comb.” He glanced at Kevin. “Officer Flynn, where’s the nearest K-Nine unit?”
Kevin stepped up to the plate. “The Capital Area Drug Enforcement Association has a trained narcotics-sniffing dog available in Kingston, Chief. His handler could be here in under an hour.” He held up the phone. “You want me to call him?”
“I don’t know, Officer Flynn.” The chief looked at the Christies. “What do you think, Bruce?”
“The Mexican’s not here. He got the message to stay away from our sister. We don’t have no other business with him.”
“Izzy ain’t seeing him no more,” Neil said. “He didn’t understand when she told him to clear off, ’cause he don’t speak no English.”
Kevin thought Neil wasn’t doing so hot in that department himself.
The chief spread his hands. “All we’re looking for is Amado. I’m not interested in anything else. Yet.”
The Christies looked at one another. Donald spoke up. “I don’t want you scaring nobody. We got kids here, some a my fiancée’s and some a mine while their mom is outta town.”
“I suspect the best way not to scare them is if we all cooperate.”
The Christies looked at one another again. Bruce nodded to his brothers. Turned toward the chief. “All right,” he said.
The chief motioned toward the barn. “Two of my men will search the barn. It’d go faster and easier if one of you went with them.”
Bruce Christie cut a sharp glance at his brothers. “I’ll go.” He clattered down the stairs and headed for the three-story structure. Kevin tagged the barn as the most likely spot for whatever illegal substances the Christies were hiding.
The chief reached inside the cruiser and snatched the mic. “Lyle?” he said.
The speaker cracked on. “Here.”
“Bruce Christie is headed your way to show you around his barn. Make sure you get a look at any outbuildings as well.”
“Roger that.”
The chief rehitched the mic and held out a hand toward Kevin. It took him a beat, but he figured out what the chief wanted. He dropped the phone in his hand and bent close enough not to be overheard by the two remaining Christies. “Won’t Bruce just get in their way? Try to keep them from seeing what he doesn’t want them to see?”
“I want to split them up,” the chief said, in the same low tone. “If we stumble onto something, we’ll only have one to deal with.” He stepped toward the porch stairs and raised his voice. “Do you have a kennel or a run for the dogs?”
“Ayeah,” Donald said.
“Good. I’d like one of you to put them away. None of us wants an unfortunate accident because a dog got overexcited.”
“I’ll do it,” Neil said to his brother. “You better stay with Kathy so’s she don’t freak out.”
The chief waited next to Donald while Neil went inside. He returned in a moment, leading four German shepherds straining at their leashes. The shepherds looked like they’d been crossbred with ponies. Mean-tempered ponies. Kevin’s exhilaration at escaping the dogs at the gate turned to a queasy awareness of what they could have done if they had caught him.
“Officer Flynn?” The chief’s voice snapped him out of it. He thudded up the stairs and followed Donald Christie and the chief into the house.
They were in what must have once been a fine front hall: plaster moldings and mahogany woodwork and an elegant twelve-over-twelve window. Now it was dusty and bare, except for a coatrack and a pile of boots. Broad carpeted stairs curved to the second floor. A door ahead of them listed open to what looked like a dining room. Through the closed double door to the left he could hear the sounds of an overloud television and the babble of high-pitched conversation. Donald Christie thumbed in that direction. “Kathy and mosta the kids are watching a movie. I better go tell her what’s goin’ on. She gets some touchy at times.”
“Why don’t I come with you,” the chief said, smooth and easy, like he was Donald Christie’s best bud. “I know how women can get.” He tapped Kevin and, without looking, pointed at the open door.
Kevin got moving. The next room was indeed a dining room—dark, depressing, anchored with a table large enough to perform surgery. He heard a woman’s voice say, “What?” and turned back toward the front hall. There was another closed door behind him. He could hear Christie, sounding apologetic, and the low rumble of the chief’s voice.
He reversed himself slowly, looking for anything that might be a lead. On the other wall, a coffin-sized sideboard surmounted by a depressing painting of dead animals separated two more doorways. One appeared to contain a closet-sized hall. The other opened onto linoleum. He picked the lino.
The kitchen was a mix of old wooden cabinets, knocked-together shelving, and 1970s appliances. There were two more doors, one ahead of him and one to the left. He shook his head. Old houses. Three doors to every room but no closets. He crossed the kitchen to the far door, wedged between shelving and a skinny laminate cupboard. It led to a narrow roofed porch; washer and dryer on one end, clothesline looping off a wheel into the darkness in front of him. He frowned at the steps leading down to the backyard. He backed into the kitchen and headed for the other door, between the sink and a harvest-gold chest freezer. From the other side of the house, he could hear a woman complaining at top volume. Must be Kathy, getting touchy. Kevin was grinning to himself as he opened the next door.
A woman looked up from where she was reading on a fluffed-up marshmallow of a bed.
“Oh! Geez.” Kevin could feel the blush starting. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know anyone was in here. I would’ve knocked.”
The woman shut a skinny paperback and slid off the bed. “It’s okay,” she said. “I heard the first part of tonight’s show. You guys didn’t kill the dogs, did you?”
“No!”
“Too bad.” She didn’t sound sarcastic, just sad.
“I, um. . . .” He glanced around the room. It was decked out like a French boudoir for a six-year-old, although the woman standing in front of him had to be his age or a few years older. Blond, brown-eyed, built like a former Dairy Princess. “Are you the sister?”
“That’s me,” she said. If Bruce Christie got the brains in the family, this one got the looks.
“I have to, um . . . do you mind if I look around?”
She swept her arm wide. “Help yourself. What are you after?”
“Um.” What if the brother was wrong, and she wasn’t over her Latino boyfriend? He didn’t want to deal with another Kathy, who was now so high-pitched, he could hear her from where he stood. “The janitor from the Episcopal church is missing.”
She looked at him as if he were cracked. “And you’re looking for him here?” Then her mouth opened. “Oh. Is this the guy my brothers went after?” Her mouth quirked in an odd sort of smile. “The Mexican guy at the church?”
“Yeah. Have you seen him recently?”
She shook her head. “I never saw him.” She put air quotes around the word ‘saw.’ “They just . . . Neil gets . . .” She smiled that smile again. “They got nothing to worry about.”
“Did you tell them that? That he wasn’t your boyfriend?”
She snorted. “No. Why? They’d just go after—” She jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “It’s done with. I don’t wanna bring it up again.” The angle of her arm slid her short sleeve back, and Kevin could see the edge of a purple and green bruise that must have gone to her shoulder.
“Um,” he said. “But your brothers. If they’re still under the impression you had a relationship, maybe they wanted to bring it up again.”
She frowned. “No, they wouldn’t. . . .” She trailed off. “I don’t think they would.” She was talking to herself now. “Would they?”
“You mind if I go ahead?”
She waved him on. He made short work of the place—no closet, one bed, no trap door leading to the cellar. It’d be hard to hide a guy in here, since, he noted, there were nothing but screw holes in the doorjamb where locks or a hook-and-eye would have gone. There was another door at the far end of the room, but when he tried it, he was on the washer and dryer end of the porch. Convenient. He had a feeling the male Christies didn’t do much housework.
He fished in his breast pocket and took out a card. “Here,” he said. She took it. Read it. Her face closed. She handed it back.
“I don’t need this,” she said.
“Then pass it on to another woman who might,” he said. “It’s a toll-free line, twenty-four hours a day, no questions asked. They can keep you safe.”
She snorted. “You don’t know much, do you?”
Nothing he could say to that. He apologized again and left her, still standing, still frowning. At least she kept the card. He met up with the chief at the entrance to the narrow hall in the dining room.
The chief looked like a man who’d been verbally blowtorched. “Next time,” he said, “we bring a trank gun.”
“For the dogs?”
“For the fiancée.” He raked a hand through his hair, skewing it in odd directions. “There’s a baby and two little ones asleep upstairs. Two more kids and Donald’s teenager live here, as well as the teen’s baby daddy, sometimes, and the Christies. Bruce is out in the fifth-wheel trailer. We’re looking for anything anomalous.”
“Geez, Chief,” Kevin said. “I didn’t know you knew the phrase baby daddy.”
The chief gave him a look. “I used to say bounder and cad, but I updated.”
The upstairs was a bust, as was the trailer. No sign of Amado, no sign that any of the Christies had been vandalizing the rectory.
“Now what?” he asked the chief. They had closed the rickety trailer door and were walking across the grass.
“Now we send out an APB and hope somebody spots the guy.” The chief blinked as another motion-detector light came on from the side of the house. “Unless Eric and Knox turn up something at the workers’ bunkhouse, we’ve just blown through our only lead.”
“I spoke to the sister,” Kevin said.
“Yeah?” The chief paused. “What’d she have to say?”
“That she never went out with the guy. Said her brothers misunderstood the situation.”
“Huh. Lot of misunderstandings around that relationship.” The chief crossed to their cruiser. “You believe her?”
“Dunno. She seemed more concerned that her brothers might have gotten themselves into trouble again than she did about the church janitor.” He paused. “I think somebody’s been beating up on her.”
The chief frowned. “Did she say anything?”
He shook his head. The chief sighed. “Doesn’t mean she’s not protecting her brothers, if one of them’s doing it.”
“I know.” The crunch of wheels caught Kevin’s attention. MacAuley’s squad car reversed onto the looping drive from its parking spot beyond the barn. He backed up until he was parallel to them in the classic driver-to-driver position. His window powered down.
The chief leaned forward, his hands on the door. “Anything?” He jerked back. “Whee-ooh! What the hell’ve you been in?”
“Sheep,” MacAuley said. He didn’t sound happy. Kevin could understand why. He was several feet away from the open window, and even he could smell it. “We found diddly-squat,” the deputy chief went on. “Although I’d by damn like to go back there with a good dog. I’m betting whatever they sell is there, in the byre. That stink could cover up a multitude of sins.”
“Later,” the chief said. “We need more.” A dog’s yelp made Kevin jerk around. Bruce and Neil Christie sauntered across the drive, Neil holding back two of the devil dogs. Kevin felt a clammy dampness along his spine.
“Everything okay, Chief?” Bruce grinned at them.
The chief jerked his chin down in a nod. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he said.
“I hope you’re putting the same effort into finding the guys who shanked my place,” Bruce said.
“We treat all reported crimes seriously.” The chief’s good-citizen voice was starting to slip. He jerked his head toward Kevin. “Time to go, Officer Flynn. We’ve disturbed these folks enough for one night.”
“You bet your ass you have,” Neil Christie said.
Bruce shot his brother a look. “We’ll keep the dogs back until you’re past the gate.” He grinned at them again. “Please don’t forget to fasten it. We don’t want the livestock getting out.”
Kevin slid into the passenger seat. The chief got in, and fired up the engine. They followed MacAuley and Noble slowly along the rutted drive. Kevin glanced at the chief. He seemed lost in thought.
“Chief?” Kevin kept his voice low. “Whatcha thinking?”
The chief pinched the bridge of his nose. Made a noise deep in his chest. “I’m thinking this isn’t the way I wanted to spend tonight.”