Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “Russ had some last-minute work to do. I figured I could help out.” The infant in her arms began to squirm and fuss.

  “With your black-belt child care skills?” Karen took the baby from her.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of their mothers.”

  “Mae Bristol is in the other room helping with homework, if you want to lend her a hand.”

  “How much of a hand does she need? She taught for thirty years before she retired.” Besides—and Clare would never admit this—Mae Bristol intimidated her a little. It was the way she looked at you, like she had caught you without a hall pass.

  “Okay, then, Gail’s in the other room with the job search and life skills kids. Pop in and see if she needs an assistant.” Karen grinned at her. “Just don’t try to tell them that all-black is an appropriate interview outfit.”

  “It worked for me,” Clare said. As she exited the nursery, her smile fell away. Chances were good she’d be job hunting with an infant in tow.

  Across the hall, in the room they used for the Rite 13 youth group on Sundays, Clare found Gail Jones bent over a table, helping a young woman of eighteen or nineteen decipher a document. Another girl was working on a laptop, while a third frustratedly jabbed buttons on her phone. She wasn’t going to get any less frustrated—it was almost impossible to get a signal down here.

  “Hey, Clare.” Gail straightened, smiling. “Here to check out the work in progress?” She turned to the girl on the laptop. “Reverend Fergusson is my supervisor.” The girl stared at Clare. Clearly, there was a work-related backstory Clare was missing.

  “Nope. Just dropping by to see if there’s anything I can do before I leave.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you’re going out to Lake Inverary! How romantic!” Gail wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “A rustic cabin, a bear rug in front of the fire…”

  The girl with the laptop looked skeptical, though whether that was because of Clare’s advanced age or her condition, Clare couldn’t tell.

  “You’re going to Lake Inverary?” The third girl shoved her phone in her pocket. She stuck her hand out. Clare took it automatically. “I’m Amber Willis. I’m desperate to get to my family’s cabin on Lake Inverary. Could I catch a ride with you?” Amber Willis looked like a cheerleader; her hair pulled to the top of her head as if any other style would take too long; her skinny frame jittery with energy.

  “Oh,” Clare said. “Um…”

  “It’s just, my boyfriend came down from Lake Placid, and I was supposed to go up and meet him at the lake, because it was sort of a halfway point, but my mom’s taken my car and disappeared with it, and Elijah—that’s my boyfriend—he left a message for me that his truck died in Canterville and he got a ride from the tow guy out to the lake, but now I can’t reach him because, you know how it is out there, you can never get a signal, which is why this was supposed to be the perfect getaway weekend for us—he’s been saving up lots of money from his winter job and I think he might have popped for a ring.”

  Amber ran out of air at that point. Or perhaps the ring was the culmination of her saga.

  “Ah … your father? Can’t he give you a ride?”

  “No, he’s downstate this weekend. That’s why I invited Elijah to the cabin.” She looked at Clare like a puppy in its last hours at a kill shelter. “I’ve been calling around to see if one of my friends could take me, but I’m not having any luck. Oh, please? I’ll pay for gas. I’ll be quiet. Or I’ll talk, if you want the company.”

  “No, it’s—my husband is coming with me.” Clare seized on that fact. “We’re going in his pickup truck. I’m afraid there won’t be room for you.”

  “I’ll ride outside in the back.”

  In January. For an hour. “What? No, that’s not what I meant. We have a little backseat space.”

  “Perfect! I don’t take up much room at all.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I love Jesus!”

  Clare blinked. Good Lord. The kid thought she needed to make a profession of belief before she’d get help. Had someone taught her she couldn’t rely on Christians unless she parroted bumper-sticker theology and prayed the Sinner’s Prayer? That made up Clare’s mind for her. “I love Jesus, too, but you don’t need to pass a religious test in order to get help at St. Alban’s.” She shoved her hands in her skirt pockets and crossed her fingers, knowing she was telling at least half a lie. “My husband and I will be happy to take you with us to Lake Inverary.”

  10.

  Russ’s glasses steamed opaque as soon as he entered the overheated foyer of the town hall. He snatched them off and shucked his parka as he headed down the hall to the session room, Lyle close behind him.

  Russ shoved the door open with way more force that he’d intended. It creaked and slammed against the wall, silencing all conversation, jerking everyone’s attention to his dramatic entrance. Russ couldn’t make out individual faces from this far away, but he could tell everyone was looking at him. Crap. Probably waiting for him to go postal on them.

  “Hi, all.” Lyle’s voice, warm and genial, promised shelter from Russ’s storm. “The chief and I heard you were discussing the department, and we wanted to be on hand to help out with any questions you might have.”

  “Everyone? You know Deputy Chief Lyle MacAuley.” Jim Cameron’s voice was dry. “And, of course, our chief of police.” Russ put his glasses back on. The room snapped into focus. Five of the six aldermen sat at the long, Formica-covered session table, with the mayor in the moderator’s seat at the center. The town secretary’s shorthand machine had just fallen still, echoing the awkward silence in the room. Merva had been right—there weren’t any members of the public taking up space in the folding chairs. However, the town’s attorney was on hand. And there, at the speaker’s podium, stood a tall drink of water in a state trooper’s uniform. His ol’ pal Bob Mongue. Oh, wonderful.

  “This is a budget meeting,” the mayor went on. “We have your annual report. We didn’t feel we needed any extra information at this time.”

  “Then what’s Sergeant Mongue doing here?” Like the door, Russ’s voice was louder and harsher than he intended.

  Cameron hesitated for a second. “Since we fall within his troop’s area, we’ve asked Lieutenant Mongue to give us his thoughts on how the state police might be more … of a presence in Millers Kill.”

  “And Cossayuharie and Fort Henry,” Harold Collins said. “Let’s face it, they already help out with some of the patrolling and investigating you people do. Duplicatin’ resources!” He banged his fist on the table, setting his water glass aquiver. “That’s what we joined up the towns to get away from.”

  “Back in the fifties,” Garry Greuling said. “Times change. Our needs change. Our economy is based on tourism now. I don’t think handing local law enforcement over to the state police is the best way to serve our visitors.”

  “So we hire seasonal officers to patrol the town in the summer.” Bob Miles leaned forward. “Straight salary, no benefits. We’ll have the coverage we need and still save upwards of a hundred thousand a year.”

  Bob Mongue showed no sign of giving up the speaker’s podium, so Russ strode forward and took a stand directly in front of the aldermen. “Let me get this straight. You’re considering closing down the Millers Kill Police Department? Thinking that the staties—the state police—will be able to replace us?”

  “Town’s broke,” Collins said.

  “It’s not broke,” Cameron said. “And you’re out of order, Russ.”

  “I’m out of order? My people are out there twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, keeping your kids and your homes and your businesses safe. Do you have any idea how many domestics we stopped last year? How many teens we picked up and returned to their parents before they could get into trouble? How many assaults we shut down because we’re right there, in the community, every night and day?”

  “And you do a great job. But this e
conomy is squeezing us at both ends. Revenue is down and expenses are way up. Do you have any idea how much we spend just on gas for your cruisers? For their insurance and maintenance and upkeep? How much it costs to keep the heat and lights and water on at the station? Forget the personnel costs—the infrastructure alone is killing us.”

  “We’ve applied for a Department of Homeland Security grant,” Lyle said. “If we get that—”

  “You haven’t gotten any money from them the past two years you’ve applied.” Cameron sounded tired. “I don’t like the idea any more than you do. But our buy-in for state police coverage will be half what we’re spending to keep our own police force running.”

  “This is not a done deal.” Garry Greuling was looking at Russ, but his voice was pitched toward the mayor. “This is one option that we’re weighing.”

  “Do we have a voice in this? Or are you just going to hand down your decision from on high?” Russ knew he sounded angry and bitter, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Your annual report is your voice.” Jim Cameron squared the stack of document folders in front of him. “We have a written proposal from Lieutenant Mongue and accounts from five other municipalities in the state who’ve taken the step we’re considering. The aldermen and I are going to carefully read and digest this information, and at our meeting next Friday, we’ll vote on whether to put it on the ballot or not.”

  Russ opened his mouth.

  “Thank you,” Lyle said. “We’ll see you then.” His tone closed off any further discussion. “Chief?” He gestured toward the door.

  Russ let himself be frog-marched out of the sessions room. In the hall, he turned to Lyle.

  “Not here.” Lyle pointed toward the exterior door. Outside, standing on the concrete steps with cold biting at them, he said, “Okay.”

  “Why the hell did you go belly-up in there? Thank you? God.” Russ struggled into his parka. “‘Read and digest this information.’ I’ll give him something to digest.”

  “I shut you down because you were two minutes away from alienating every single friend we might have on the board.” Lyle tugged his watch cap low over his ears. “We’re not gonna make our case in there, in front of the whole pack of ’em. We’re going to make it one on one. With tact. And finesse.”

  Russ grunted. “You sound like a goddamn politician.”

  Lyle started down the stairs. “That’s why you keep me around. That, and my natural charm and good looks.”

  “I keep you around so I’m not the only old guy on the force.” They fell into step. The sun had already set behind the mountains, and above the bare-branched trees lining Main, the sky was streaked with ice pink and rose and orange. The street and the shops were shaded in blue, their windows warm golden squares of light. Russ felt a squeeze in his chest, the same desperate possessiveness he sometimes felt watching Clare sleeping or cooking or lost in a book. My wife. My town. The inevitable echo: My child. Jesus. How was he going to take care of a kid when he couldn’t even take care of his own officers? “I’ve got to cancel the honeymoon.”

  “What? Why?”

  “We’ve got seven days to convince a majority of the board that shutting down the department is monumentally stupid. I can’t do that if I’m sitting on my ass, ice fishing.”

  “No offense, but you’re not my first choice as a lobbyist. Or my second or third.”

  “Who, then?”

  “I’m pulling out the biggest gun I can think of. Kevin Flynn’s mother.” Lyle smiled and held the door open for an attractive middle-aged woman entering the bakery. She blushed and smiled back.

  “Flynn’s mother? What’s she going to do? Play a sad Irish song about her soon-to-be unemployed son?” Except it wouldn’t be Kevin left high and dry. It would be Knox, who had to stay close to town in order to take care of her grandfather. And Noble, who would never find employment in another department. And Tim and Duane, the part-time guys. And Eric, struggling to keep himself and his marriage together.

  “Elle Flynn heads up the state Small Business Finance Organization. Before that, she was a policy assistant to the last governor, and before that, she was the director of the Municipal Development Foundation. Word is she’s going to run for Congress this year. She put together an exploratory committee last month.”

  “Kevin Flynn’s mother?”

  “Yep.”

  “How come I didn’t know any of this?”

  “Because for most of the last year the only news you’ve been interested in came from Iraq. And then when the reverend finally got home, you were a little distracted.”

  “You can say that again.” Russ pulled his own cap on. “Huh. Good job.”

  “I keep telling you, I’m more’n just a pretty face.”

  “I guess so.” A car rolled past them, and both men automatically stepped to the side to avoid getting slushed. “Okay. Keep me up to date. I mean vote by vote.” He shook his head. “Maybe if you sew this up fast enough, I can avoid telling Clare the bad news.”

  11.

  Bumping over the poorly plowed road that led to Amber Willis’s family’s cabin, Clare kept sneaking peeks at Russ. It had been almost dark when he’d gotten home, fully an hour after he had planned on leaving, to be confronted by Clare and Amber and her baby.

  Of course there was a baby. Clare had wanted to smack herself in the head at her blank surprise at the sight of Amber emerging from the nursery with a one-year-old. It was, after all, the Young. Mothers. Program. At the rectory, instead of dragging Clare into the kitchen for a heated, whispered argument about strangers and boundaries, Russ had greeted the addition of mother, child, diaper bag, car seat, backpack, and suitcase with a resigned “Right. Sure. It is on our way.” Clare found it disorienting. During the hour-long ride up to the lake, while Amber chatted and the baby babbled and the dog snored beneath Clare’s feet in the passenger well, Russ had been … distracted? Depressed? She couldn’t tell. It worried her.

  Russ swung the truck off the county highway and onto the road that ran along the south shore of Inverary Lake. There were a cluster of winterized houses and a mom-and-pop store near the highway, identifiable by their lit windows and parked cars. They petered out within a half mile, and the road closed in, rutted snow below, dense pines above. In the headlights’ halo, Clare could catch glimpses of the summer houses: log cabins, vinyl-clad cottages, angular redwood garrisons. Most of them jostled for space between the trees and the shore.

  “Is it this crowded all the way around?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “The north shore, where our place is, is part of a land trust. Nothing’s been built on it since the conservation easement. So there’s more space, a lot more trees, and you won’t see any tear-downs like that.” He pointed toward an incongruously large, many-gabled house that threatened to squash its rackety one-story neighbors. He raised his voice. “Uh—”

  “Amber,” Clare whispered.

  “Amber, where’s your family’s place?”

  The girl leaned forward to get a better view out the windshield. “About a mile more on, maybe? It’s a lot closer to the turnoff to North Shore Drive.”

  “I didn’t think any of the houses out here were winterized.”

  “It’s not insulated, but my grandpa installed these electric baseboard heaters back when I was a little girl. If anyone wants to stay off-season, all they have to do is turn them on. My dad and my uncle taped the pipes so they won’t freeze.”

  “Taped the pipes?” Clare had spent—what was it now, three? four?—winters in the North Country, but there was still a lot she didn’t know.

  “Heat tape, with electrical wires in it,” Russ explained. “Amber, you’re sure your boyfriend is going to be there?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Russ flicked a glance at Clare. She had a sudden vision of arriving at the girl’s destination and finding it dark and snowbound like all the other homes they were rolling past. Then what would they do? Host the teen and her baby overnight in the
ir cabin? That would be the cherry on the cake.

  “Look. There it is.” Amber pointed past Clare’s head to where a light gleamed through the trees.

  Thank you, Lord. Russ rolled to a stop. Only the top of the place was visible from the road, but someone had shoveled the steps leading down the embankment to the house. There was no driveway. Why waste the waterfront view on parking? Instead, like several of the homes they had passed, Amber’s family had a two-door garage on the opposite side of the road. Russ didn’t bother trying to pull alongside it. He yanked the parking brake and switched on his four-ways.

  “Okay.” He opened his door to a swirl of icy air. “Let’s get you two down there first.” He tipped his seat forward and helped Amber and the baby out.

  “I can help with her bags,” Clare offered.

  “You”—he pointed at her—“stay put. The last thing we need is you slipping and falling down a flight of stairs.” He slammed the door, definitively ending the conversation.

  Oscar sat up and pawed at the door.

  “Do you have to go out, boy?” Clare reached around him to wrestle a lead—left over from a dog-sitting stint several years back—out of the glove compartment. She shrugged into her parka, clipped on the leash, and opened her door. Oscar bounded down, Clare scrambling to keep up with him. He barked once, then got down to the business of sniffing the tires, the snowbank, the mailbox, and the top of the stairs. Clare could see the lit windows down below, their warmth somehow more lonely for being the only sign of life around. Behind her, the road glimmered white in the reflected glow of the truck’s headlights, then disappeared into inky blackness. She tugged on the leash and led Oscar toward the front of the pickup, where the headlights’ illumination ensured she wouldn’t take a wrong step along the side of the road and end up sliding down the steep embankment. Oscar peed and sniffed, sniffed and peed.

  Russ hove back into view and opened the door again to collect the rest of Amber’s things. “Everything okay?” Clare asked.