The last time the MKPD had held a press conference, back when Hadley was still working her way through the police academy, she had done all in her power to duck and weave her way out of sight of the cameras. So it was—ironic? Annoying?—that MacAuley wanted her to take part in this afternoon’s assembly. Like the movie where Death comes back for each of the students who had escaped him the first time.
The dep had said it “gave better optics” for her to be standing with him and the chief. Part of her was amused that the otherwise technophobic MacAuley slung around media-speak like a thirty-something PR rep, and part of her was horrified at the thought that anyone watching a news clip might recognize her. She’d been avoiding attention since before she’d left California—not that it had done her much good in the end.
“Look, Hadley, I know you feel embarrassed about the … thing.” MacAuley kept one eye on her while talking and the other on his reflection in the hall mirror as he adjusted his dress hat. Lid. She was never going to get used to the uniform jargon. “We all feel embarrassed about the…”
“Thing.”
“Right. The only way through is through. Nobody not in this department knows what happened that afternoon—”
Hadley was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but she knew MacAuley and the chief liked to push the party line.
“—so I want you to square your shoulders, stick your chin out, and if anyone asks you about it, just look ’em straight in the eye and lie your head off.”
“Lying? That’s my fallback position?”
The chief strode out of his office. Like the dep, he had changed into his summer dress uniform; the knife-creased khaki and brown looked sharp but was sticky-hot. The chief looked like his temperature was already rising. “You ready?” He glanced at Hadley. “What’s she doing here?”
“She’s coming with us.”
The chief stared. “Isn’t that a little risky? I mean, no offense, Knox—”
“None taken, Chief.”
“—but the last thing we need is for anyone to raise questions about the, uh…”
“Thing,” Hadley said.
“Right. Not that anyone outside the department knows anything.” Hadley wondered what would happen if she started to scream and didn’t stop. The chief went on. “But what about the lawsuit? It’s bad enough we’re going public with two—or three—unsolved cases. If word gets out the town’s getting sued for police misconduct, we might as well give up on the vote right now and hand the keys to the building over to the staties.”
“Chief, the suit is going to get out sooner or later,” Hadley said. “All legal filings are a matter of public record.”
MacAuley shook his head. “Oh, my sweet summer children. You don’t think Harold Collins hasn’t already leaked that info to the press? Am I the only person on the force who understands how politics works?”
“Yes,” the chief said.
“That’s the other reason Hadley has to be standing there with us by the microphone. If any specific questions come up, she can step up and let the public know there’s no basis to her ex’s claims.” He turned to Hadley. “You can say the suit originates with your ex, but don’t say anything else about him. We don’t want to give his lawyer any ammunition.”
Hadley tried to think of something—anything—that might persuade MacAuley to leave her behind. “I’m not wearing my dress uniform!”
“The regular kit makes you look more approachable.”
“Why couldn’t I look approachable?” The chief tugged at his jacket, scowling.
“What are you, a girl? Stop complaining.”
A girl? Really? You use “girl” as an insult? Hadley seethed while they walked the four blocks to the town hall. Anger was great at pushing back fear—she figured that was why men spent so much time being angry—but even the dep’s casual sexism wasn’t enough to keep her stomach from flopping over when she saw the news vans parked outside.
“Just two?” The chief looked over his shoulder as they entered the building.
“Unless it’s a big story, Channel Eight and Capital News are the only ones who send their own crews up here.” MacAuley held the door open for Hadley. “There’ll be a camera guy who shoots footage for the Albany stations, the AP stringer, and a reporter from the Post-Star. Maybe someone from the Times-Union; they’ve had a guy up here doing stories from the fair.”
It didn’t sound like a lot, but when they entered the aldermen’s session room, it felt as if the entire East Coast press corps had arrived. Several heads turned as they came in and Hadley told herself they probably weren’t staring at her alone.
“Ah, hell. Ben Beagle.” The chief pasted on an insincere smile and nodded at a sandy-haired man in a Snoopy tie. “I hate that guy.”
MacAuley managed to both smile at the Post-Star investigative reporter and frown at the chief as they passed Beagle and moved toward the front of the session room.
The space where the aldermen met wasn’t large; in the usual run of things, it only had to hold a handful of people with business before the board, a few lawyers and witnesses, and the usual scattering of town-politics junkies who never missed an open session. The reporters and three cameramen wouldn’t have filled the left front row if they had all been sitting side by side. The chief and MacAuley had a brief, low-voiced discussion about holding a mic that ended when MacAuley dragged the podium from the end of the aldermen’s bench and centered it in front of the town shield.
Hadley thought there would be more ceremony—maybe an introduction?—but the chief simply stepped up to the podium and said, “Thank you all for coming.”
Hadley took a parade rest position, which required a certain amount of concentration, since she hadn’t done it since she’d graduated from the academy. She focused on looking ticked off, which might not have been what the dep had in mind by “good optics,” but was an expression no one would associate with the word “porn.”
When the chief got to the part about the previous deaths, there was a shift in the room, a sharpening of attention and interest that was almost audible. The TV reporters and Beagle went heads-down over their phones, typing like mad. When one of the men glanced up and caught Hadley’s eye, she rearranged her features from ticked off to foul tempered.
She had done what she could to separate herself from the woman in those films: no makeup, hair as short as her twelve-year-old son’s, mom clothes when she wasn’t in her unflattering uniform. But short of going around like the Phantom of the Opera, she couldn’t disguise her face.
“Any questions?” the chief asked, and she snapped back to attention. Hands shot up. A woman with a microphone asked, “Chief Van Alstyne, if this suspicious death was preceded by two other identical killings, why was it first released as a possible hit-and-run?”
“We wanted to make sure the circumstances were the same as the previous two, uh, incidents. We couldn’t rule out hit-and-run until the autopsy.” He pointed to another TV reporter. “Ms. Bevins.”
“Chief, you have no idea of the identity of the dead woman?”
“None. We’ve released her photo to you; we’re hoping the public will be able to help us with that. Yes, you.”
“Greg Donovan, Albany Times-Union. The Millers Kill Police Department is facing a vote this fall to shut it down and replace its services with the state police. What would you say to residents who might point to three unsolved deaths as a reason why the state police ought to be doing the investigating rather than a small-town police force?”
“Not to denigrate the work of the state police, but they were in charge of investigating the first killing and dismissed it as death by misadventure. My department knows the three-town area better than any state investigator, and, not to knock their professionalism, I would say we care a lot more than they do about what happens here.”
Donovan leaped into the chief’s pause before he could point to another reporter. “Caring is great, but do you have the resources the state police could bring to bear on this case? Have you considered calling them in for help?”
The chief opened his mouth, but MacAuley bumped him aside, smiling. “We’re calling you all in for help. Here’s your chance to show up the troopers.”
The reporters laughed. MacAuley continued. “As Chief Van Alstyne said, we don’t know how or why these deaths are connected. While we’d love to finally close the case from 1972, we need to focus first on what happened this August nineteenth. Whoever is responsible for that death may well be incapacitated or in jail or dead. We know whoever is behind this recent tragedy is alive and out there somewhere.”
Bevins spoke up. “Deputy Chief MacAuley, are you cautioning area residents?”
“We’re urging them to use common sense. If you’re a young woman, don’t go off with strangers. Make sure people know where you are and when you’re expected back. Keep control over your drinks in bars.”
Ben Beagle’s hand shot up. “Deputy Chief MacAuley. You say the person who killed the young woman in 1972—”
“We’re not using the word ‘killed,’” the chief interrupted. “We have no evidence, then or now, of foul play.”
“Okay, the person who left her dead in the road may be in jail or dead.” He held up his phone. “According to the Post-Star archives, one of the suspects in the mysterious death in 1972 was twenty-year-old Russell Van Alstyne.”