SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, PRESENT DAY
Clare’s car was in the narrow rectory driveway, but neither she nor Ethan were downstairs. Russ walked carefully up to the second floor, but his wife and son weren’t taking a much-needed nap. The jogging stroller was still gathering dust in the dining room, so they hadn’t gone out for a run, which was a damn shame, because lately, when she wasn’t falling over from lack of sleep, she was wound tighter than a stock car’s coil spring. Running had always been her way to decompress. Well, that and having a couple drinks. He sighed.
In the kitchen, he opened the fridge for a bottle of water and spotted a dinner salad waiting in a large ceramic bowl; something with lots of veggies and what looked like ground-up nuts. Clare was very into whole grains this summer. He suspected she’d been talking to his mother, who had expanded her quest to save the world at large into an effort to save everyone around her by dint of serving nothing but healthy, organic shredded cardboard.
Six thirty on a Saturday evening … he thought for a minute. Obsessive rewriting of the sermon she’d composed on Wednesday. He replaced the water in the fridge and went back out toward the church next door.
He let himself into the St. Alban’s kitchen like a neighbor borrowing sugar. It was closer than walking the length of the whole parish hall. A dingy little hallway, two flights of stairs, and he was by the offices. He heard a soft woof from a few steps down the hall and then Oscar, their Lab mix, poked his nose out the door. “Hey, good dog. It’s me.” He gave Oscar’s head a scratch and followed him into Clare’s office. “Hi there.”
Oscar, seeing no more scratches were coming, collapsed back onto his bed. Clare looked up from where she was writing at her desk. She smiled. “Hey. I didn’t expect to see you until later.”
“I am trying to keep it down to sixty hours a week.”
“Or less.”
“Ha.”
Clare’s office was a hodgepodge of her two careers, military aviation and the church. Aeronautical charts mixed with carved wooden saints and crosses on the walls, and her visitors could pick either military surplus armchairs or a lumpy love seat left over from a long-ago St. Alban’s white elephant sale. Mirrors reflected the end-of-the-day sunlight streaming rose gold from the room’s original diamond-paned windows.
Ethan’s carrier was resting on the threadbare oriental carpet, within Clare’s reach. Russ bent over his son. “How’s he been today?”
“So-so. Quiet this morning, screaming around lunchtime, and he had one of his fussy fits this afternoon, but I strapped him on when I took Oscar for a walk, and that settled him back down. I just nursed him a little while ago. Please God, he’ll sleep until eight.”
Russ touched Ethan’s tiny hand before straightening. “And how are you? How did the doctor’s appointment go?” The baby was still nursing every night at nine, eleven, and four. Clare hadn’t gotten more than five straight hours of sleep since he had been born, and it showed in the deep violet smudges beneath her eyes.
“I’m doing okay. The doctor said it was still too early to tell if he has FAE symptoms, or if he’s just a sensitive, highly reactive kid. Or who knows? Maybe he’s got ADHD. Or sensory integration dysfunction. Or—”
Russ squeezed her shoulders and dropped a kiss on her hair. He dug his fingers into the muscles bunched in her upper back and began to knead. “Anything else? Any suggestions?”
Her head dropped back against his stomach. “Oh, God, that feels good. Mmm. Yeah, he told me I ought to try to calm down and stop winding him up.”
“Really?”
“Well, not in so many words. He suggested putting Ethan in regular day care. He said fewer transitions and a more regular schedule might be good for both of us.”
“You know I have no problem with that.”
She sighed. “I know. It’s me. And maybe it would be the best thing for him. But the expense—”
“We can afford it.”
“And how could I keep nursing?”
“You pump when he’s over at Mom’s.”
“That’s for one feeding!”
“So we don’t put him in all day. We could try mornings. Or the after-school slot, two till six. That would help a lot with your counseling sessions and meetings.”
Her eyes had closed as he continued to massage her neck and shoulders. “Mmm. Maybe. I still think coming in for the afternoons will be doable, at least for a while. I feel like if I could just get one full night’s sleep, I could handle anything. Your mother swears you were sleeping through the night by your second month, but she was feeding you some god-awful concoction of Karo syrup and condensed milk. That’s got to be enough calories to stun an ox, let alone an eight-week-old.”
“I’ve seen pictures. I looked like a prize porker headed for the Washington County Fair.” She laughed. He released her shoulders. “Feel better?” She nodded. “You done with your sermon?”
“I guess so. Yes.” Clare leaned forward and hit the PRINT button. In the main office down the hall, he could hear a faint whirring noise as the printer came to life.
He tugged her away from her desk and the two of them dropped into the love seat. Ignoring a spring poking his lower back, Russ bent over and hefted Ethan’s carrier onto his lap.
Clare scooted in close. “Now how about you? You look stressed.”
“I always look stressed.”
She flipped a hand open. Go on.
He sighed. “We found a body on McEachron Hill Road this morning. A girl—a young woman. No idea who she is or where she came from.”
“Oh, Russ. How awful. Was it a hit-and-run?”
“No. I don’t think so. I think it’s foul play, but there’s not a mark on her to indicate how she died.”
“Is Dan Scheeler doing an autopsy?”
“Oh, yeah. And Lyle’s running down missing persons and Hadley’s following up on the ViCAP reports of similar cases. Not that there’re many of those.”
“Do you have to go back in tonight?”
“Sixty hours a week, remember?”
“Ha.”
He grinned a little. “I don’t think so. Maybe. I hope not. Eric will take over from Lyle and we called in Duane to cover Eric’s patrol.” He pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “God, I wish we could replace Kevin. We’re hurting for manpower.”
She turned toward him, her knees bumping Ethan’s carrier. She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, stroking the nape of his neck and rubbing his scalp. “I know being shorthanded is frustrating.”
He sighed into her touch. “Tourist season’s the busiest damn time of the year. We’ve had three traffic accidents, two lost kids, and an idiot who fell into the river and needed the boat rescue over the weekend. The Sacandaga Road project still isn’t finished, despite what Jock MacEarnon’s been promising me, and that sucks up one officer’s shift every day. I have to waste my time doing high school debate team with people who’d rather save twenty cents a day than have a police force keeping the peace and I’ve got a dead girl in the road and the only damn thing I know about her is that it’s not my fault.”
Russ’s voice, rising with his temper, broke through Ethan’s milk dream. His eyes and mouth popped open, and he began to squall. “Oh, hell.” Russ scooped him up, letting the plastic carrier drop to the floor. He cradled his son against his chest, rubbing the baby’s cotton-clad back. “I’m sorry, darlin’. I’m sorry. Daddy isn’t mad at you.”
Clare snagged a blanket and draped it over Russ’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault?”
“I didn’t mean to wake him up.” He leaned back, tugging the blanket over as much of his uniform blouse as he could. Good thing the shirts were nigh-on indestructible, because his boy showed a real talent for upchucking when Russ was wearing one.
“That’s not what I meant.” She braced her arm against the love seat’s back and propped her face in her hand. “You said you’ve got a dead girl in the road and it’s not your fault. Can you tell me what you meant by that?”
“Are you counseling me?”
She flicked his shoulder. “Everything else you were complaining about is old news. You’ve been dealing with tourists and roadwork and not having enough officers for months now. What’s really going on?”
Ethan’s angry sobs were quieting to irregular whimpers. He began gumming his fingers. Russ kissed his wispy blond hair. “This case. If it is a case. There was a murder a lot like it back in…” He thought for a moment, counting the events of his life. “In ’72. I was just back from Vietnam.”
“Where?”
“Here.” He shifted in the love seat. “‘A lot like it’ isn’t quite the right description. It’s more like exactly the same. So far. Unknown victim. Pretty, young, all dressed up, with no shoes or pantyhose. No visible cause of death.”
“That’s not the easiest set of circumstances you’ve ever had to work with, but it doesn’t seem unsolvable … It’s awfully hard to hide an identity forever these days. And if the pathology is too much for Dr. Scheeler, you can always kick it upstairs to the state crime lab.”
He opened his mouth.
“Yeah, I know you don’t want to ask the state police for any more help than you have to.”
He couldn’t help it; he smiled. “Think you know me pretty well, do you?”
“I do.” She laid her free hand over his, where he was clasping Ethan’s back. Their hands rose and fell together with the light movement of the baby’s breathing. “What did you mean by ‘it isn’t my fault’?”
He shook his head. “It’s stupid. It’s just … when the other girl was found, back in ’72? I was a suspect in her death.”
Clare’s hand spasmed over his. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“I found the body. I had— There were some things that didn’t look good.”
“Why am I just finding out about this now?”
He gave her the best smile he could muster. She kept frowning. He dropped the attempt. “I was just back from the war and my head was pretty messed up. It’s not a time of my life I like to revisit.”
She scooted forward, freeing her arm to wrap it across his shoulders. “Okay. I can understand that, for sure.”
He laughed a little. “I’m okay now. But, Christ, Clare, when I got out to the scene on McEachron Hill Road and it was exactly like what I had seen thirty-four years ago…”
“You were suddenly back in your younger, messed-up head?”
He sighed. “It felt like getting stuck in time. I like who I am now. I don’t care about my creaky knees and my spine going snap-crackle-pop when I get out of bed. You couldn’t pay me to be twenty again.”
“Are you worried your memories of the old case are going to color the way you approach this new one?”
“Hell, yes. I didn’t tell Lyle or Hadley anything other than the town had seen a similar death before. If the initial investigators buy into a theory too early, they can wind up slanting the rest of the investigation to fit. Evidence gets overlooked or misinterpreted. Facts get shoved around to fit the theory. I’ve seen it happen.”
He heard the urp and felt the wet, warm liquid spreading over his chest before he had a chance to get the blanket on it. “Damn.” He wiped the spit-up off, but the damage had been done. “I’m going to change the undress uniforms to camo.”
“I don’t think they make baby-barf camo.”
Russ cleaned off his son’s face. The baby yawned and closed his eyes. “It’s a good thing Ethan can’t vote. Clearly, he doesn’t have much respect for the uniform.”
Clare smiled. “You don’t think he’s destined to be a soldier or a cop?”
“God, I hope not.” He cradled his boy close. “I’d like him to avoid making all the same mistakes I did.”