49.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, PRESENT DAY

“Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

“Russ!” Clare glared at him from the passenger seat of her car. He preferred his truck, but he wasn’t going to try to squeeze a couple of octogenarians in the crew seat. “First, this evening is about helping your people stay off the unemployment line. Second, the time to back out was at home, not pulling into your mother’s driveway.”

Since he was, in fact, slipping the car in next to his mom’s station wagon and his niece’s little Honda, he didn’t have a good argument for that. “I could stay here with the baby and Emma.”

“I’m sure Emma loves you, but she didn’t sign up to spend her last Friday night before heading off to college hanging out with her uncle. She’s here to earn money babysitting.” Clare unbuckled and opened her door. “I’ll grab the stuff. You get Ethan.”

Ethan smiled toothlessly at him while Russ unhitched the baby seat. “Here’s a tip, kid. Never take a job where you have to go to parties in a suit.”

He wasn’t actually in a suit, but it felt like one. Khakis, a white button-down, and a navy blazer. Not his style. The crowning glory were the pair of deck shoes Clare “happened” to buy for him because they were “on sale,” which he didn’t believe for a minute. She had coerced him into just trying them on, and now he was wearing the damn things.

Clare paused on the doorstep. “You look great. Very sophisticated and handsome.”

“I don’t look like me,” he said. “I look like some guy named Brett who sails on Lake George and who has apps on his phone.” Russ didn’t trust apps on his phone.

“Oh, good Lord.” Clare opened the door. “Margy! Emma! We’re here!”

Russ set Ethan’s carrier on the kitchen table and unbuckled the baby. From the living room, he could hear the women carrying on about how good they all looked. Clare did look good, and he had already said so. She was wearing this sleeveless black dress with a high neck and about a hundred tiny buttons all down the front. He was hoping to have a chance to unbutton them at the end of the evening. He hoisted his son and brought him into the living room. “Heeeere’s John—Holy crap, Mom, what did you do to yourself?”

Clare glared at him. Emma glared at him. His mom glared at him. “I mean … jeez.” Her hair, instead of its usual poodle perm, was fluffy and swirling around her face. She had earrings on. And a long necklace, over a drapey top and pants he knew he’d never seen before. “Are you wearing makeup?”

“Let me be the first to apologize on behalf of my husband, the grunting caveman,” Clare said.

Mom shook her head, making her hair move in ways no eighty-year-old lady’s hair ought to move. “No, I raised him. I have to take the blame.”

Emma smacked his arm. “Uncle Russ. Don’t be weird.”

“I’m weird? Suddenly my mom looks like—” It was the look in his mother’s eye that made him finally hear himself. “A beautiful glamorous actress,” he finished. He kissed her cheek. “Mom, I’m sorry.”

She squeezed his hand. “It’s okay, son. I know you don’t take well to change.”

“Uncle Russ is afraid you’re going to catch the eye of some rich New Yorker tonight and he’ll whisk you away to the city and we’ll never see you again.” Emma plucked Ethan from Russ’s arms.

“The only thing I’m going to be doing with a rich New Yorker is squeezing him for a donation to the Save Our Police campaign.”

“SOP? That’s what we’re going with?” Russ rolled his eyes.

“How much do you know about organizing, son?”

“Not much.”

“That’s right. So stand back and let the professionals do their job. You’re here to look good and sound like a caring civil servant.”

“I am a caring civil servant.”

His mother patted him on the cheek. “Then you shouldn’t have too hard a time of it tonight, should you?”

The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” he said, grateful to escape from the snickering women.

Chief Liddle—Jack—had on the Southern version of Russ’s getup; green pants and a pale plaid jacket. He had a potted plant under one arm. “You look like you’re ready to start your own golf club,” Russ said, shaking his free hand.

“Too bright?” Liddle plucked at his lapel. “Too many years in Florida, I guess.”

“No, no. Come on in. I can’t wait for you to meet my wife.” Saying that, about Clare, still gave him a deeply satisfied feeling. “Should I…?” He held out his hands for the plant.

“It’s for your mother.”

“Oh. Right.” He led Liddle into the living room. “Mom, I’m sure you remember Chief Liddle.” He turned to Clare. “And this is my wife, Clare Fergusson.” Clare looked at him and tilted her head. He turned back. The two older folks were still standing there, his mom looking flushed.

Damn. He had worried that seeing Chief Liddle might bring back painful memories. All those nights he had knocked on their front door, Walter Van Alstyne drunkenly in tow. Russ had come to grips with his father, both his sunlit highs and his dark lows. He wasn’t sure his mother ever had.

“Jack.” Mom touched her chin. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Margy. You haven’t aged a day.” Liddle held out the plant. “I would have brought cut flowers, but I remember you used to like gardening.”

She took the plant. “A dieffenbachia! I know just the place for this.” She smiled over the leaves.

“And this is my wife, Clare,” Russ repeated. Liddle turned, a peculiar expression on his face.

“Chief Liddle, what a pleasure to meet you.” Clare did that thing where she kind of glowed at someone. “Russ has spoken of you so many times with such affection.”

Liddle laughed. “Really? Did he tell you about the time I caught him lighting tires on fire at the dump?”

Clare’s eyebrows rose. “No. But I’m dying to hear about it.”

“And over here—Emma, bring Ethan over—this is our son.” Russ scooped the baby into his arms, and Ethan responded with a heart-melting smile.

“What a little cutie.” Liddle looked past the baby toward Mom. “I see you in him, Margy.”

With his blond hair, blue eyes, and blocky head, Russ thought he looked a lot more like his father than anyone else, but he guessed that might not be the politic thing for Liddle to say at the moment.

“And this is my oldest grandchild, Emma McGeoch.” Her grandmother gave the teen a nudge and Emma dutifully shook hands with the elderly man.

“My goodness, that’s some age range. Are you in college, young lady?”

“I’m headed up to SUNY Plattsburgh next week.” Emma had the same smile Russ got when he thought of Clare. No doubt, she was more than ready to fly the nest. He glanced back down at Ethan, watching all the interactions from the crook of his arm. He would be seventy-one when his boy started college. If he made it that far.

Clare nudged him. “Why don’t you hand his royal highness over to Emma, and we can get on the road.”

He refrained from asking again about staying behind. It might not be so bad, with Jack Liddle to talk to. He was actually going to have the men up front and the ladies in the back on the way over, but somehow his mom and Liddle wound up sitting in the back with Clare riding shotgun as usual. Mom spent most of the ride catching Liddle up on the Save Our Police campaign—what there was of it to this point. What a name. “Too bad we’re not a sheriff’s department,” he said quietly to Clare. “Then it could have been SOS.”

“How about Save Our Badges?” she suggested. He laughed.

The road to the Langevoorts was typical of summer homes in the mountains. First a winding paved road, then a gravel-covered turnoff leading to several private drives, then another long stretch of rutted, beaten dirt. There were a few places that had modernized with asphalt and culverts over the years, but most people who came to the Adirondacks liked to keep it rustic and traditional.

The parking area was half full of cars, which meant Clare had been right to jog him about leaving. They weren’t the first, or the last.

Liddle got out of the vehicle, crossed behind the rear, and held the door open for Russ’s mother. Clare, who had exited under her own power, gave Russ a pointed look. “I’ll do it for you, darlin’, but you have to have the patience to stay put until I collect you.” He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm.

“Yeah, that’s not really my style,” she said. “What a lovely camp.”

It was a picture-perfect example of High Peak style, all creamy varnished logs and deep eaves. His mother nodded approvingly at the full-to-bursting garden beds between the house’s facade and the rock walls encircling it. “Nice. Mostly native plants. I wonder if Mrs. Langevoort does her own gardening?”

“I think so,” Clare answered. “When I met her, she was on her way to a nursery.” There was a broad slate walk to the doorway, with only an overhang to keep off the rain. “That’s odd. Don’t these sort of places usually have a porch?”

“It’s on the other side of the house,” Liddle said. “Wraps around on two sides.” Russ looked at him. “I’ve been here before. A long time ago, but it hasn’t changed much. It belonged to Lloyd Harrington, then.”

“He was the last president of Barkley and Eaton,” Clare said. “Evidently, Kent Langevoort took over from him. And now, of course, he’s handing the reins over to someone else.”

“And so the wheel of time turns,” Liddle said. “Makes me miss the old days, once in a while.”

“Trust me,” Margy said. “If you were a woman, you wouldn’t be nostalgic at all.”

“Humph. Maybe not.”

The door opened to a slim woman who could have been Russ’s age or a decade older—she had definitely done something to iron her face out. Audrey Langevoort, he assumed. “Clare! Wonderful. I’m so glad you could make it.” Clare did the introductions all around, and they followed Mrs. Langevoort into a wide expanse of a room, anchored by a jazz trio beside a set of French doors open onto the velvet night. Beyond a log archway, Russ could see a second set of French doors swung wide. The wraparound deck.

“What a lovely home,” Clare said.

The interior had the same varnished logs, with a river stone fireplace dominating the wall that, Russ guessed, usually marked out the dining area. It had been cleared of any furniture, leaving space for guests to mingle and dance. In the open kitchen to their left, caterers in white and black worked with quick, precise movements.

“Thank you! I did some updating when it came into our hands, but mostly I’ve left well enough alone. The bathrooms—well, you can imagine, Mr. Harrington never married so it was all men all the time up here. And I tore down the kitchen wall so I didn’t feel like the maidservant when I was making dinner. Let me introduce you to my husband, and he can take your drink orders.”

Mr. Langevoort was in the second room, which was filled with a comfortable mix of leather and chintz furniture, arranged for conversation or watching the TV over the second fireplace. The bar was in the corner, complete with a small refrigerator and a wet sink.

Langevoort had the kind of firm handshake that was just shy of aggressive, and was the sort of hail-fellow-well-met rich guy that set Russ’s teeth on edge. It was probably reverse snobbery, he admitted, but he almost preferred the summer residents who clearly viewed him and the rest of the force as lackeys—an armed version of the waiters circulating throughout the house.

“What’s your poison, Russ?” Langevoort asked.

“Just seltzer, thanks.” Russ snagged a little crab cake from a passing server.

“Designated driver, eh? I bet you never get pulled over!”

Russ propped a smile on his face. His mom took a glass of wine, and Clare, after a longing look at the bottles, accepted a ginger ale. Liddle asked for a whiskey on the rocks, and whistled when Langevoort showed him the label. “You don’t skimp on your guests, do you, Mr. Langevoort?”

“Please, call me Kent. And no, we certainly don’t. Might as well use money for what it’s good for, right?” He handed over Liddle’s glass. “It can’t help you with the important things in life.” Langevoort glanced past Russ, who turned to see a tall, striking redhead enter through the French doors.

“Oh, that’s Joni,” Clare said brightly. “Let me introduce you.” She got a grip on his jacket sleeve and started pulling him toward the woman. “I think there’s an unstated quid pro quo for tonight.” Her voice was pitched to reach his ears only. “We get to rally support to save the department, and in exchange, we run interference between Joni and her dad.” Her voice rose as they intercepted the Langevoorts’ daughter. “Hey! You look great. This is my husband, Russ Van Alstyne.”

“I am so glad you’re here.” Joni hugged Clare. “It gives us something to talk about other than the market. Or me.” She looked at Russ. “I found Wall Street boring even when I was working there. I was trapped on the deck between a couple of guys droning on about derivatives, and I thought, if I don’t get away I’m flinging myself into the lake.”

“I hear you,” he said.

“Why don’t you let me introduce you around and you can start chatting people up about the vote. I don’t know if Mom is actually going to ask people to pull out their checkbooks later on, but you might as well soften them up beforehand, just in case.”

Russ looked around. The men—and he had to give Clare credit—were all dressed like he was. The women had a gloss that came from expensive haircuts and face creams. There were definitely Millers Kill citizens who would have blended into the group seamlessly, but Russ knew all of them, at least by sight. “I don’t think there are any actual voters here tonight.”

“They’re better than voters,” Joni said. “They have money.”