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

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “He got counseling for domestic abusers in prison,” Mrs. Johnson said. “Anger management, dealing with conflict, that sort of thing.”

  “Bunch of crap,” Johnson said. “Women-beaters never change. They’re like pedophiles. Best thing to do would be to put them down like rabid dogs.”

  “Lewis!” Mrs. Johnson sat back down. “He doesn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Hector sees Mikayla every month or two,” she said. “Not since she’s been in foster care, of course, because he doesn’t have any legal claim to her.”

  “Has he ever been violent with Mikayla?” Hadley asked. “Has she ever expressed any fear of him?”

  Mrs. Johnson shook her head. “No. He’s living with a woman named Dede … something or the other.”

  “Probably beating that woman, too. She just doesn’t have the brains to leave him.”

  “Oh, Lewis, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I’ll tell you something.” Johnson raised his finger and looked directly into Kevin’s eyes. “When your sergeant was here last night, telling us what had happened, the first person I thought of was Hector DeJean. I don’t care if he’s living with the Blessed Virgin and the infant Christ, that man is completely capable of killing two innocent people and burning their house down.”

  3.

  Clare lasted an hour ice fishing. In the five years since she’d moved to the southern Adirondacks, she had learned to enjoy certain winter sports. Cross-country skiing. Snowshoeing. Sports that involved activity, and movement, and working up a sweat.

  “I’ve got it all set up for us,” Russ said, as he shouldered a large duffel bag and helped her off the embankment and onto the ice. She was still enough of a native Virginian to get a thrill when she stepped onto a frozen lake. They walked between the cabin’s dock and the boathouse, which, she discovered, was basically a garage. If a garage had a floor of solid ice.

  “The easement allows us to bump the boathouse ceiling up a few feet, which means I can build a good-sized guest room above the docking part,” Russ said. He went on about the solar panels and heating the place and water reclamation while Clare marveled at the landscape—the waterscape?—unfolding as they walked farther and farther from the embankment. Hemlocks and fir trees and eastern white pine crowded the shore as far as the eye could see, anchoring the glaring white expanse with their dark green solidity. The ice beneath their boots was a pale layering of translucent brightness and cloudy depth, bordered by irregular drifts of snow. It reminded her, she realized, of the rocky desert plains of Iraq, and she had a sudden prickling sensation between her shoulder blades. They were completely exposed. Completely vulnerable. She must have made some noise, because Russ cut himself off and said, “Are you okay?”

  “Just … the space. For a moment, it felt like we were about to get lit up with mortar fire.”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  She took a firmer grip on his arm. “No. Just keep talking. How long is Inverary?”

  “About nine miles.” He pointed to the east. “That’s where that little cluster of year-round houses and the store are. You can’t see them from here because the lake curves slightly.”

  “Are you kidding? I can barely see the houses over there.” She nodded toward the opposite shore.

  “Well, this is the widest part of the lake. It’s a good mile across at this end.”

  “Are there any homes on the little island?” Truth to be told, it didn’t look that little as they got closer to it. It humped up from the ice like a mythic world-turtle, dark and shaggy green.

  “No. That’s part of the conservation area. I understand it’s a nice place to row out and have a picnic in the summer.”

  “It’s hard to imagine this place crowded with people and boats and campers. It feels like we’re the last two human beings on earth out here.”

  “There’s always our good friend Amber and her baby daddy. I doubt we’ll see them out on the ice, though. And here we are.” He gestured with a flourish at a ragged-edged hole in the ice.

  Clare peered down into it. It was about the size of a large dinner plate, its gray-blue edges dropping almost a foot until it met black water. “I thought it would be larger.”

  “You don’t need a manhole opening. It just needs to be big enough to get the lines in and the fish out.” He unzipped the duffel and drew out two bath mats and two folding canvas camp chairs. He ceremoniously laid the mats across the hole from each other and set up a chair on each mat. Then he reached back into the duffel and handed Clare a thermos and a wool blanket. “Hot cocoa.” He put his own thermos on the ice and tossed a second blanket onto his seat. “Best part of ice fishing. Excepting catching the fish, of course.” He carefully pulled two fishing poles and a Tupperware box of bait out of the duffel.

  “Anything else in there? Umbrella? Potted plant?”

  “Couple of sandwiches and some of those chemical hand warmers, in case you get cold.”

  “You certainly come prepared, Chief Van Alstyne.”

  He grinned at her. They baited their hooks with chunks of leftover sausage and dropped them into the hole. “Now what?” Clare asked, arranging the blanket around her legs.

  “Now we fish.”

  It turned out when he said “fish,” Russ meant “wait.” They sat and chatted, and sat and were silent, and sat and drank cocoa, and sat and flexed their fingers, and sat and watched the clouds slowly overcast the sun, so that the sky became the same color as the lake’s icy surface.

  Clare tried dropping her line low, spooling it high, jiggling it up and down. Finally, she said, “Russ. I love you.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Thanks. I love you, too.”

  “But this is the most boring thing I’ve ever done.”

  He laughed.

  “My brain is going as numb as my feet.”

  He reached for her pole. “Tell you what. Why don’t I walk you back and get myself some more hot cocoa, and you can prop your feet up in front of the woodstove and read.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Hell, no. You lasted half an hour longer than I thought you would.”

  She stood up and stomped her boots to restore circulation. “This is payback for that helicopter ride I took you on, isn’t it?”

  He held out his arm. “There will never be enough payback for that trip.”

  As they walked away from the fishing hole, Clare felt that sense of exposure and vulnerability rising again. The dock and the boathouse seemed very far away. The trees, rising steeply up from the water, could hide anything—a sniper, a mortar unit, a band of Iraqi rebels. That’s utterly ridiculous. The thought couldn’t stop her heart rate from rising, though.

  Then she saw it. A glint though the trees, high up where the road would be. Like sunlight off a rifle barrel. “Gun!” she yelled, then hit the ice, curling around her belly as if she could protect her baby from a .38.

  Of course, nothing happened. No shot, no thud of bullets into flesh, no sudden cries.

  “Clare?” Russ knelt down next to her.

  “Oh, God.” She pushed herself up to her knees and clambered to her feet. “I’m so sorry. I saw a light or something through the trees and I thought it was a gun.”

  Russ put his arms around her and held her tight. “Don’t apologize. It’s okay. You’re okay, darlin’.”

  “Goddammit. I just want to get the war out of my head once and for all.” Her voice was muffled by his parka.

  “It takes a long time for those instincts to settle down. And they never really go entirely away. Look at me.”

  His own combat service had left scars on Russ’s body and mind. “Yeah. You can’t walk through a green forest without watching for snipers, and I can’t be out in the open without thinking I’m going to be lit up.” She laughed shakily. “Are you sure this is going to be the best choice of a vacation home for us?”

  “Sure. You stay inside during the winter, and I’ll stay inside during the summer. I
t’ll be like a time-share.” She laughed a little more strongly this time. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”

  Back in the cabin, Oscar was thrilled to see them. He quivered and bumped against their legs as Russ stoked up the fires and Clare made more hot cocoa. “I’ll go get the fishing stuff and bring it back up here,” he said when she handed him his thermos.

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m fine. Go catch us dinner.”

  He frowned. “Hmm. Let me at least trot up to the road and see if I can spot what it is you saw.”

  “Oh, Russ. I was probably imagining it.” She hadn’t had a flashback in several months—not since she started a new REM therapy with her counselor—but she had had some doozies in the summer and early fall.

  “It’ll just take me a sec. Hang on.”

  She smiled at him, one-sided. “Hanging on.”

  He paused at the kitchen door. “That’s my girl. C’mon, Oscar.”

  While they were gone, Clare traded her ski overalls and wool socks for flannel maternity pants and slippers. She picked a mystery from the stack of books she had brought up with them and took it to one of the squishy chairs. The wood stove was radiating heat, and the icebound lake that had seemed so scary while she was walking across its surface looked like a beautiful picture through the porch windows.

  God, I want a drink. She could almost taste the bourbon, feel it burning its way down. Three or four glasses and all these stupid feelings would float away. Or maybe a couple of uppers, to set her heart tripping and her mind buzzing, racing ahead so fast the bad things in her head couldn’t catch up with her.

  Behind her, the kitchen door opened. She started, as if Russ would be able to tell what she had been thinking about. “You did see something,” he said, wiping his feet on the mat. “There were fresh tracks. Looks like a vehicle drove past and somebody got out to take a look.” He took the thermos off the counter. “You probably saw the sun catch his sideview mirror or something.”

  Oscar came up and nudged his head beneath her hand. She scratched between his ears. “Why would someone stop and check out our cabin?”

  “Could be somebody nosy, like that guy in the SUV last night. But that’s a hard haul through unplowed road to drive all the way down this lane and then back up to the North Shore Drive. My guess is it’s a winter caretaker. Some of the places along this stretch are very pricey. It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a local guy who swings around on weekends to keep an eye on things. Saw that someone had parked in the garage up there, stopped to make sure we weren’t a couple of kids making trouble.” He clomped over to her and dropped a kiss on her hair. “Will you be okay if I go back fishing?”

  “Yes, I will.” She smiled. “If somebody comes, I’ll sic Oscar on ’em.” Oscar perked up at the sound of his name, his tail thumping on the floor.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s a real killer.” The dog licked Russ’s hand. “Okay. See you soon.”

  She did indeed prop her feet up on the hearth. The fire popped and snapped. Oscar circled thrice and thumped to the floor next to her chair. She picked up her book.

  Maybe the last renters had left a bottle of something behind in one of the cabinets?

  Stop it. She pressed her hands against the hard curve of her belly. Haven’t you done enough damage already?

  4.

  Sitting in the obstetrician’s office on that first visit in November had been one of the most humiliating experiences of Clare’s life. She knew—she knew—that every other pregnant woman in the waiting room had been taking folic acid six months before conceiving and had stopped drinking as soon as the stick turned blue. The doctor, who looked like someone’s kindly grandmother, laid the sonographer’s report on her desk as she indicated the chairs opposite. Clare and Russ sat.

  The doctor tapped the sonograms. “Based on the fetal measurements, I’d estimate you’re fifteen weeks along, Ms. Fergusson. When was your last period?”

  “Well … that’s part of the problem. I was taking birth control pills. I had several … they seemed light but I thought—”

  “We weren’t trying to get pregnant,” Russ said.

  The doctor frowned and folded her hands. “We don’t do terminations at our practice, but I can refer you to—”

  “No,” Clare said firmly.

  Russ cleared his throat. “There’s also an issue of…” He glanced at Clare.

  “Substance abuse.” She was amazed she could get the words out, her throat was so dry. “I didn’t realize I was pregnant, as I said…” Her voice trailed off. She took a deep breath. “I was taking sleeping pills. And amphetamines.” Her eyes felt hot and prickly. “And I was drinking pretty heavily.”

  Russ took her hand and squeezed tightly. He gave her a look of complete and utter understanding. He himself had been dry for over a decade, but his experience as an alcoholic made him uniquely sympathetic to the temptations to drink. “She just got back from a tour of duty in Iraq five months ago. She was having a hard time readjusting. As soon as she found out she was pregnant, she stopped.”

  He didn’t want to be here, he disagreed with her decision, and he still leaped to her defense. Even under these excruciating circumstances, it made her heart lift.

  “I see. Are you getting any support for your sobriety?”

  “I’m seeing a therapist twice a week,” Clare said.

  “Is there any way to tell if there’s been any damage?” Russ leaned forward. “At this point, I mean?”

  The doctor pursed her lips. “There’s no evidence at this time that amphetamines or sleeping pills are teratogenic—that they cause any birth defects. Although obviously, I don’t recommend you take either during pregnancy.” She looked down at the sonograms. “It looks like the fetus has good spinal closure; there’s no evidence of hydrocephaly or any of the other developmental defects we might be able to see at fifteen weeks gestation. We can do amniocentesis in another two weeks—that will enable us to rule out Down syndrome and a few other genetic problems. The issue is going to be the alcohol. Can you give me an idea of how many drinks per day you were consuming before you knew you were pregnant? And when you stopped?”

  Clare swallowed. “Probably two or three on average. Some days only one. Some days … a lot more. I had my last drink around the twentieth of October.”

  “So about two weeks.” The doctor nodded. “That’s actually encouraging. While the effects of drinking vary from woman to woman, as you’d expect, I wouldn’t expect to see fetal alcohol syndrome resulting from that level of consumption.”

  “Really?” Russ asked. He shook his head. “I thought, you know, they say no drinking at all for pregnant women.”

  “That’s right. But FAS requires a lot more than your wife was putting away, for a lot longer time.”

  Clare felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted off her chest. She looked at Russ.

  “However.” The doctor’s voice sent her thudding back to earth. “It is possible the baby will show signs of fetal alcohol effect.”

  Russ frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “The symptoms aren’t that much different than what we see in certain types of processing spectrum disorders. Learning disabilities, poor impulse control, attention issues—that sort of thing.”

  “Can we…” Clare reached for a life preserver. “Can we test for that? So we know in advance?”

  The doctor shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. FAE can only be diagnosed after birth.”

  “Is there anything I can do? To ameliorate the effects?” Clare raised her hands, as if she could pluck something hopeful out of the air. “Eat … organic? Take vitamins?”

  “No. At this point, if there’s been any damage—and I reiterate, that’s still very much an if—it’s irreversible.”

  “So you’re saying it’s a crap shoot?” Russ’s voice was rough. “She goes through the pregnancy, and if she makes it to the end, we may or may not have a kid with brain damage?”

  “‘Brain d
amage’ is an unnecessarily severe way of thinking about it, Mr. Van Alstyne. You may or may not have a child with special needs and challenges, and even those can occur in such varying degrees. An enormous amount can be done with early intervention. I’ll put you in touch with our counselor. She can give you all the information you’ll need to prepare yourselves. If it proves necessary.”

  They left the obstetrician’s office under a cloud of silence, Clare clutching a prescription for prenatal vitamins and a date card for her next appointment. She couldn’t look at Russ. He had conquered his alcoholism before he could harm anyone but himself. She wasn’t sure if he would be able to forgive her for what her drinking might have done to their future child. He opened the truck door for her and shut it behind her after she climbed into the cab. He got in behind the wheel. He sat there, keys in hand, his eyes in the middle distance, doing nothing.

  Finally she broke. “Say something.”

  He shut his eyes. “I’ve already told you what I think.” The lines of his face stood out.

  “I know I’ve made mistakes, Russ. If I could go back and change what I did—” She swallowed to get her voice under control. “But I can’t. And I can’t correct those mistakes by making another one.”

  “Oh, Christ, Clare.” He bent his neck until his head rested against the steering wheel. “Do you have any idea what having a disabled kid can do to a marriage?”

  She reached out and touched her fingertips to his back. “Yes. But I also know what having strong and loving parents can do for a disabled child.”

  “And what’s this going to do to you, Clare?” He turned toward her. “You’re barely off the drugs. You’re seeing two counselors twice a week, and you’re still having nightmares and flashbacks. Hell, you can’t drive to the IGA without drifting into the middle of the road to avoid IEDs. Now you’re looking at more stress with a special-needs kid?”

  “Two weeks ago, you told me that if we just kept holding on, if we didn’t let go, you and I could get through anything.”