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

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  The third could-be informant had evidently been seeing one of his buddies into the next world, because he was stoned into incoherence. They found him in a heatless, lightless SRO that was in the process of being evacuated. “I’s tell ya sure,” he mumbled, when Flynn pulled him out of the bus line. They frog-marched him to the Aztek and sat him in the back. Flynn insisted on keeping both rear doors open to dissipate the smell.

  “We’re looking for the location of LaMar’s meth factory,” Patten said.

  “Ya sure L’mar.” The snitch listed sideways.

  “If he looks like he’s going to throw up, haul him out of there,” Flynn said.

  Patten shook the man. “That’s right, LaMar. C’mon, buddy, stay with me here. Tell me about LaMar.”

  “Ya L’mar.” The guy’s eyelids fluttered. “Wha?”

  “LaMar’s meth cooker. We heard you know something.”

  “Oh ya sure.” He tipped his head back. A noise came out of the back of his throat.

  “Is he snoring?” Hadley said.

  Patten shook him again, harder. “Hey!” The guy looked at them, wounded. “Doan be mean.”

  “Tell us where LaMar’s meth house is.” Kevin leaned in past Patten and held the man’s face between his hands. “Or give us the name of someone who knows.”

  “Know wha?”

  “This is useless!” Hadley kicked the Aztek’s tire.

  Patten nodded. “I gotta agree with you on that. Let’s find out what shelter the buses are taking these folks to. If the fourth name turns up nothing, we can come back to Sleeping Beauty here.”

  Davies hadn’t given them an address for the fourth man, but they had his place of business, such as it was. It was LaMar’s favorite haunt when he was in the capital.

  “D’Oiron’s.” Patten looked up at the dead neon sign sporting the bar’s name and a huge cluster of grapes. “This place was around when my dad was a kid. The whole neighborhood used to be crawling with Francos, come down from Quebec to work in construction and the mills. St. Denis Parish was just around the corner there. The diocese shut it down two years ago.” He sighed. “Nice to see a mobster who appreciates his heritage.”

  Hadley stamped her feet on the ice-slick sidewalk. “We better get moving before we freeze where we stand.”

  “Is it open?” Flynn peered in the single dark window fronting the street.

  “Oh, sure. They’ll have a generator. Probably doing record business with all the guys who haven’t had to show up to work today.”

  Hadley was going to protest that nobody would go for a beer in a citywide weather emergency, but Patten opened the door and sure enough, the bar was crowded. She and Flynn stepped down into the dim interior, following the detective as he threaded his way past round tables, men in twos and threes looking up at her with undisguised disapproval. She wasn’t sure if she was made as a cop or if it was simply because she was a woman.

  She leaned against the bar next to Patten, while Flynn stood a couple of feet away, trying and failing not to look like he was casing the room. The slab of wood was scarred with generations of condensation rings and cigarette burns. The bartender was professionally bland, coming over as soon as Patten crooked his fingers. “What can I get for you folks?” He was reaching for glasses as he spoke.

  “I’m looking for a guy named Boileau. A mutual friend told me I might find him at your fine establishment.”

  The bartender’s expression didn’t change. Without taking his eyes away from Patten, he said, “Hey! Boileau! These cops want to talk with you!”

  Oh, shit. Hadley shifted. Before she could turn around, a thickset, chin-bearded man leaped up and smashed a chair into Flynn’s chest. Her partner went down with a grunt of pain, skidding across the floor, ramming into the corner of the bar.

  “Flynn!” Hadley lunged toward him, her hand reaching for the shoulder radio that wasn’t there. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Boileau shoving men and chairs out of the way. Vince Patten was drawing his gun, shouting, “Police! Stop! Get down!” Boileau pounded out the door, leaving the detective swearing.

  “Flynn?” She dropped to her knees, one hand going to his neck, the other to his chest. White-faced, he tried to rise off the floor. “Don’t move,” she ordered. “You might have broken a rib.”

  He waved her off. “’M okay,” he rasped. “Go.” At her doubtful look, he pushed her. “Go!”

  She rose and sprinted through the doorway. Patten was a few yards ahead of her, slipping and sliding as he tried to run in his old-fashioned galoshes. Boileau was a shrinking form already halfway up the block, moving fast for a guy carrying a couple of spare tires. She might never make up the difference running on the iced-over sidewalk. If you had caught Annie Johnson then and there, none of this would be happening right now. Do whatever it takes.

  She clambered over the filthy wall of cement-hard snow past the sidewalk and leaped into the street. There was ice and slush enough to send a car into a spin, but there were also spots of clear asphalt and salt and sand, gritty and firm beneath her boots.

  A minivan, undeterred by the fact that half the city was closed down, swept past her, showering her with slush, blaring its horn. Hadley clawed her badge out of her pocket and dropped it over her head, wishing it was a reflective POLICE vest instead. She was gaining on Boileau. “Police!” Her yell was lost in the spatter and whoosh of another vehicle passing her. “Police!” She was only a few yards away, but she and Boileau were still separated by that three-foot-high snowbank. Climb over? No. Intersection. If she could reach it before he did—

  She gulped air and sprinted. She could see his face now, blotchy red from exertion, mouth open, stringy hair plastered to his forehead. She angled toward the crossroad, dodging cobblestone-sized chunks of snow, bounding over deadly patches of black ice. Boileau saw her, reached behind his back, going for his weapon. She had hers out and was shouting something, hearing nothing but the drumbeat of blood in her ears, and Boileau turned—to reverse course? to shoot?—and suddenly he shrieked and disappeared.

  Hadley rounded the snowbank, her Glock ready, and almost discharged it accidentally as Boileau slid, bare-handed, straight into her. She went down on top of him, knocking out what was left of her breath, but he was even more winded than she was and disoriented from smacking the back of his skull on the ice. Hadley wrestled him onto his front and zip-strapped him. She sat on his back, heaving for air, until Vince Patten jogged up, galoshes still flapping, to do the honors on behalf of the city of Albany.

  While Patten Mirandized Boileau, Hadley frisked him. No other weapon. She was unsurprised to find a pipe and a section of the Albany Times-Union that, unfolded, revealed a dozen glassine envelopes, each containing several grams of what looked to be crystal meth. The envelopes were all stamped with the same design. “Branding,” Patten said, when she showed him. “Even with drug dealers, it’s all about the branding.”

  The sidewalk in front of d’Oiron’s was crowded with rubberneckers by the time she and Patten perp-marched Boileau back up to Flynn’s Aztek. Flynn was standing there, still pale, and Hadley knew she looked like she had gotten into a fight with a Zamboni. They exchanged a kind of wordless check with one another—You okay? Yeah, you?—before he clamped one large hand over Boileau’s head and guided him into the backseat. The door made a satisfying thunk as it closed. Patten climbed into the seat next to Boileau, and Hadley took shotgun, tossing the evidence in the glove compartment until they had a chance to label it properly. She turned around when Flynn fired up the SUV. “Mr. Boileau,” she began, “it looks like you were carrying over ten grams of methamphetamine. That’s a felony-level offense.”

  “You can cut the act,” Boileau said. “Nobody on the street can see inside with the tinting on those windows.” He looked around. “Jesus. They gave you an Aztek? That’s like the Chevy Nova of SUVs. Who’d you manage to piss off?”

  “What?”

  He nodded toward Patten and leaned forward. “You can take
these off now, old man.”

  Patten smiled at the perp. “Kevin, you got any problem if I open the door back here and let this guy’s head bounce along the road for a couple yards?”

  Boileau stared at him. Then he looked at Hadley. His eyes narrowed. “You guys aren’t from Narcotics, are you?” He laughed. “Jesus, you have no idea, do you?”

  Hadley gritted her teeth and tried to sound patient. “No idea about what, Mr. Boileau?”

  “It’s Agent Boileau. Special Agent Mike Boileau of the DEA.” He glanced around the vehicle. “You three stooges want to tell me why you’re blundering around in the middle of our investigation?”

  7.

  Clare was trying to talk her way into the bathroom. “Look,” she said to Travis, “I really have to go. Just cut me free for a minute. You can retape me when I’m through.”

  She had gotten him to let her out of the locked shed by pleading the cold. The rest of the house wasn’t exactly warm—around fifty-five and cooling fast—but sitting on a chair in the kitchen was a damn sight better than stretching out on that frigid floor.

  Travis turned to her from where he’d been looking out the window. It had been at least half an hour since his partner had left, and he was jangly and jittery. He kept banging a pipe that Clare was sure wasn’t meant for tobacco against his thigh. “How stupid do you think I am?”

  Pretty damn stupid. “Come on. You can’t possibly think I’m a threat to you.” She wiggled her stockinged feet, emphasizing her lack of boots.

  “I didn’t say—”

  “I’m one pregnant woman. You’re a strong man with a gun. Your boss is holding my husband hostage. Do you think I’d do anything to jeopardize him?” Travis narrowed his eyes like a bull who didn’t understand why someone was annoying him by waving a cape around. “Put him in danger,” she clarified. “Please. Just long enough to go to the bathroom. You can stand guard outside.” She was trying very hard to believe that Russ and Lieutenant Mongue would be able to take care of Hector. Please, God, please let them be safe. But it wouldn’t do any good if she and Mikayla were still here, to be used as human shields.

  “Hows about I pull down your pants for you. You won’t need your hands then.”

  “You want to wipe up after me?” She looked doubtful. “That’s … well, I guess you could. You probably already know about a pregnant woman’s”—she dropped her voice—“discharge.”

  Travis recoiled. “Discharge?”

  “You know. The mucus and the um, meconium and perinium.” She was whispering now, as if the fictional leakage were simply too disgusting to be spoken about aloud.

  Travis looked horrified. “No way. God.” He dropped his pipe on the table and opened a drawer for a pair of scissors. “Turn around.” She did so. He cut the duct tape around each wrist and pulled it away. “Okay. There you go. Into the bathroom.” He gestured toward the door with his gun.

  The agony of her newly freed shoulders immobilized her. She breathed slowly and silently, her mouth open, blinking back tears.

  “Go on.” Travis sounded impatient.

  Clare crossed the kitchen floor. The bathroom was centered between the kitchen and the living room, at the head of a short hallway interrupted by three closed doors. Bedrooms. “How is Mikayla doing?” She managed to keep her voice close to normal.

  “You don’t need to worry about her.” Travis gestured with the gun. “Get in there and do, you know, whatever.” Clare did what he said. “Don’t lock it,” he said as she shut the door. Not that the cheap push-tab lock would have stopped him.

  Clare examined the space while she did her business. Tub and shower on one side, counter and sink on the other. There was a window high on the wall behind the toilet, but even if she hadn’t been five and a half months pregnant, she couldn’t have fit through it. Finished, she stood up and stretched, rolling and flexing her arms. The pain was abating to fiery prickles in her shoulders and a dull ache in her elbows and wrists.

  “Hurry it up,” Travis shouted through the door.

  “Sorry.” She turned on the water, but without electricity to fuel the well pump, only a trickle came through the faucet. She pulled out the console drawers as silently as she could, scanning each one for something, anything, she could use as a weapon. Nothing but toothpaste and over-the-counter medicines and three-quarters-gone bottles of sunscreen.

  She flushed the toilet, letting the sound mask the click-click as she opened the doors beneath the sink. Scouring powder and tub-and-tile cleaner and extra-strength mildew spray. A package of toilet paper. Maybe she could bean Travis with a roll of TP, then polish and shine him. Behind the cleaning supplies was a scrub brush and, lying on its side—she felt a surge of hope. An old-fashioned, wood-handled plumber’s helper. She eased it around the sink pipe and pulled it free. Two feet of solid hardwood and a thick rubber plunger that must have weighed five pounds. Produced in the forties or fifties, she guessed, designed to last a lifetime. She hefted it in her hand. Yes. She could use this.

  She picked up the mildew spray. Warning: Contains bleach. Keep away from nose and eyes. Okay. She took a breath. “Travis? Do you have any talcum powder?”

  “Talcum powder?”

  “The duct tape irritates my skin. I wanted to sprinkle some on before you tape me up again. But I can’t find any.”

  “Oh, for chrissake—”

  Clare didn’t find out if he stormed into the bathroom to help her or to haul her out. He was still swinging the door open when she squirted the mildew cleaner in his eyes, once, twice, three times, until the liquid was dripping off his chin and he was screaming and flailing, trying to find her blind. She swung the plunger in a full backward arc and smashed the wooden shaft against his forearm. He screamed again. The gun flew out of his nerveless hand. She dropped the spray bottle and grabbed the plumber’s helper with both hands, ramming it into his stomach, putting her whole weight behind it.

  Travis folded over, retching. She bashed the door into him and he staggered. She did it again, and again, until he slipped and fell to the floor, and she fell heavily onto his back and bared her teeth and grabbed his long hair and smashed his head into the floor, smashed it and smashed it until her body registered his limp stillness and her mind caught up and she let go, trembling, her blood roaring in her ears.

  She tipped back and staggered to her feet. She was shaking so violently it took her two tries to step past his prone body into the kitchen. Her breath was coming in short, hard pants, and it took a minute for her to realize she was crying. She wiped at her face and bent over, letting her head hang down. She stayed that way for a long moment, trying to gain her bearings, trying to find a thought, a plan, to anchor herself to.

  The attached shed. It had a real lock on the door. She returned to the bathroom, bent, and grabbed Travis by the ankles. She dragged him across the floor and into the shed. She crouched over him, taking in his bloody nose and mouth. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Pray God she hadn’t given him a concussion.

  There was enough water in the kitchen faucet to wet some paper towels. She cleaned the blood from Travis’s face, then retrieved a pair of sofa pillows and several woolly throws from the living room. She laid him against the pillows, elevating his head and hopefully maintaining a clear airway. She tucked the throws over and around the unconscious man. That should keep him warm enough. She retreated to the doorway. There wasn’t anything more she could do.

  You could stay around and make sure you haven’t given him a life-threatening injury.

  She pushed the thought away and locked the door. Her first duty was to Russ. Her baby. Mikayla Johnson.

  Testing Jesus, the lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?”

  She pressed her hands against her face. “Dear Lord,” she whispered, “please forgive me for hurting this man. There was no mercy or justice in what I did. But if I don’t help Mikayla, she’s going to die. Please keep me strong. Amen.”

  The voice in her head fell silent. Her adrenaline
rush had ebbed, leaving her tired and discouraged. She found her boots by the door and slipped them on. Shrugged on her parka. Then she went to find Mikayla.

  The first bedroom was empty. The second had two sets of bunk beds, a wall of shelves filled with battered old books and thrice-hand-me-down toys, and two large windows overlooking the lake. Clare could see the exact spot where she and Oscar had stopped the night before.

  Mikayla was huddled in one of the bottom bunks, hidden in a puffy down comforter, her eyes closed, her face flushed. “Mikayla?” Clare laid a hand on the girl’s forehead. She was throwing off heat like a woodstove. “Mikayla? It’s me, Clare. From last night. Do you remember?”

  The girl nodded. Her lips were puffy, almost cracked. Clare picked up the bottle of water on the floor next to the bunk and slid her arm around Mikayla’s shoulders, lifting her into a seated position. “Drink some water, honey. That’s a good girl. That’s better.”

  Mikayla finished off the bottle and sank back onto her pillow. “I’m going to get you some medicine to bring down your fever, okay, sweetheart? Then after you’ve taken that, we’re going to get you to a doctor. I’ll be right back.” Mikayla never opened her eyes.

  8.

  It was getting very warm in the cabin.

  “How long do you think it’ll take before the fire breaks through that timber?” Bob Mongue was facing away from the burning wall, keeping guard on the lakeside front.

  “Damned if I know.” Russ pawed through the pile of stuff on the floor. He tossed the chemical heaters, his fishing knife, and the insulated blankets into his empty duffel. A couple of heavy sweaters and some socks went in next. “The cabin’s made of whole logs, and they’re treated with something to make ’em bug resistant.”

  “Does that make them fire resistant as well?”

  “I have no idea.” Russ grabbed the bottle of acetaminophen—now seriously depleted—and threw it into the duffel. “I’m more worried about the roof.” He looked up at the ceiling. Smoke was hanging in a thickening pall, shrouding the loft where Clare had wanted the baby’s room. His gut churned.