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

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  She clambered to her feet one last time and pulled on her parka. Should she follow after Mikayla? Or go back to their cabin one more time in the hopes of finding Russ? Was he even—

  I took care of the cop and the other guy.

  No. He was still alive. The first thing she had to do was reach him. She considered the truck for a moment—there was the police band radio. She climbed in through the passenger door, turned the auxiliary power on, and switched on the radio. She was greeted with a blast of static. She picked up the mic. “Emergency personnel on this channel, I have an officer down.” She released the mic to more static. “Emergency personnel on this channel, I have an officer down.” She glared at the unresponsive box. Could the garage be interfering with the signal? No, she had seen Russ use it in an underground parking lot once. “If anyone can hear me, Chief Russ Van Alstyne and Lieutenant Bob Mongue are injured and in need of assistance on North Shore Drive, Inverary Lake.” She repeated herself two more times, knowing it was useless but having to make the effort.

  With no help from outside, she was on her own.

  Clare opened the garage door with a heave and a fling and, in a furor, stepped out into the icy rain to find her husband.

  10.

  Clare was halfway to the tiny island when she realized the cabin was on fire. The air, gray from the clouds and veiled by the rain, had revealed nothing when she first clambered off the shore and onto the ice. As she made her way across the strange desert, she had noticed a darker patch in the sky, but she had been concentrating on keeping up her pace, crossing the ice as quickly as she could without risking a fall.

  It wasn’t until she had paused to knock the skim of ice off Russ’s parka—she had draped it over her head like a portable tent—that she lifted her head and saw the fat column of oily gray smoke rising past the island’s green-black hemlocks. Her heart clogged in her throat.

  She took off at a clumsy sprint, no care for footing now, slipping and pitching as she ran toward the western tip of the island. There were other houses along the northern shore, oh, yes, but she knew with a cold certainty it was their cabin aflame. The image of the MacAllens’ house—burned black bones and roaring, sky-licking inferno—was so real she could have been running toward it.

  I took care of the cop and the other guy.

  She rounded the rocky spur marking the farthest point of the island and there it was, the cabin, and the fire, and the smoke, and the figure of a man, crossing the ice.

  The rain blurred his details, but she could grasp his outline even from half a mile away: tall, broad-shouldered in a poncho or cloak, carrying some sort of longarm. Clare seized in place. Russ didn’t have any sort of poncho, and his rifle was in Hector’s hands. Had there been a third? Was the “factory” right here along the shore somewhere?

  Then the figure paused, swept his arm up and over as if he were signaling a ship, and broke into a run.

  Russ. She ran toward him, clumsy and swaybacked. She yanked his parka off her shoulders and held it in one fist, flapping behind her. Alive. Alive. I knew he was all right.

  Then he disappeared.

  “What the hell?” Clare skidded to a stop. He had been there. Right there. She hadn’t imagined him. Beneath her coat she was sweaty and out of breath. She sucked in a lungful of air. “Russ!” Maybe Hector or Travis could hear her. She didn’t care. “Russ!”

  That wide-armed wave again, this time from the ice itself. There was a dark shape, flat against the silver-gray, and she realized he had fallen. She exhaled a prayer of thanks and jogged toward him. Why wasn’t he getting up? Oh, God, what if he had broken a leg, like Lieutenant Mongue? What if he had hit his head again? What if he’d broken his spine?

  She got closer and closer, could see him stretched out and scrabbling for a hold on the ice, could see his leg twisted awkwardly behind him—wait. One leg. He looked up at her, his face strained. “Clare.” He said her name like an answered prayer. “Thank God you’re okay.”

  All the declarations of love and concern flew out of her head, and all she could say was “How on earth did you fall into your own ice-fishing hole?”

  11.

  They were back in the Federal Building. Even a once-every-hundred-years ice storm couldn’t stop the Feds: The place was humming with life and electricity when Agent Boileau escorted them up to the same office they had sat in yesterday. Kevin had managed to get through using the radio in his SUV, so Agents O’Day and O’Day were waiting for them. One look at their grim expressions and he found himself wishing they’d been caught off guard. Screwing up a DEA-FBI investigation. He had a sick feeling the chief would have him and Hadley on traffic duty for the next five years for this.

  Marie O’Day studied the three of them while drumming her fingers on her faux-wood desktop. “Detective Patten,” she said. “I’d have thought you knew better than to interject yourself into a federal-level inquiry.”

  Patten dropped into one of the plastic chairs and crossed his hands over his stomach. “You gotta let me know about ’em first, Marie.” He nodded toward her husband, who stood flanking the desk. “Tom.”

  She turned on Kevin and Hadley. “Officers Flynn and Knox. I thought you understood we were taking care of this. Perhaps I should have made myself more clear.”

  Boileau, who had been slouching against the closed door, straightened. “What a minute. Officers? You two clowns aren’t even detectives?” He threw up his hands and muttered something under his breath in French.

  “Listen, fat boy.” Hadley’s voice shook. “We may be lowly uniforms, but we were good enough to take you down. As for you, lady”—she turned on Marie O’Day—“the only thing you’re taking care of is covering your ass. I know your kind. You want the big, showy bust with your name at the top of the headlines and you don’t care who you have to step on to get it. Well, not. This. Time. I’ll be damned if you think I’m going to let my—that little girl get hurt just so you can tie up LaMar’s organization in a pretty bow and hand it to the federal prosecutor!”

  Kevin wished he could take her hand or put his arm around her—something to let her know he understood her embarrassment and anger. But all he could do to support her was stand shoulder to shoulder.

  “Sit down, Officer Knox.” Tom O’Day’s voice was like a whip. Uniformed cops did not tear a strip off the Feds. They just didn’t. Hadley took one of the molded plastic chairs, not looking at the agents. Kevin sat next to her. “I don’t know what they teach you about jurisdiction at the state police academy—”

  “Mikayla Johnson was kidnapped in Millers Kill. The MacAllens were murdered in Millers Kill.” Detective Patten’s tone was easy. “I’d say that gives them plenty of jurisdiction.”

  “Both of those crimes were intimately related to a federal drug investigation.”

  “Then why aren’t you investigating them? Why?” Hadley kept her seat, but she glared up at Tom O’Day. “Because you don’t want anyone in LaMar’s organization knowing you have an interest in the Johnsons. Because making your case is more important than Mikayla Johnson. What the hell, she’s just some junkie’s kid, right? Who cares about trash like that?”

  “One more word, Officer Knox, and you’re going on report.” Tom O’Day jabbed his finger at Hadley. “Believe me when I say you do not want us on your tail.”

  Hadley’s mouth pinched in a tight line.

  Boileau lurched upright from his slouch. “How’d you know to come looking for me?”

  “Jonathan Davies fingered you”—Kevin nodded toward the DEA agent—“and three other guys as possible informants. Said we might be able to flip you for information on Travis Roy’s whereabouts.”

  “Travis Roy? Annie Johnson’s boyfriend?”

  Tom O’Day gave Boileau a quiet-down wave. He looked at Kevin. “You spoke with Davies?”

  Patten wiggled his fingers. “We sat down with him and his suit just a few hours ago.”

  O’Day frowned. “We were holding off on approaching Jonathan Dav
ies until the time was right—”

  His wife cut him off. “You’re telling us he’s in negotiations with the Albany Police Department?” Her tone implied sitting down with the Albany PD was one step lower than selling stolen kidneys on the black market.

  “Davies brokered a meet between Roy and Wendall Sullivan, one of Davies’s charity-case ex-cons,” Patten said. “He found out the little girl was at the MacAllens’.”

  “Did he say how?” Marie O’Day glanced up at her husband.

  “You don’t have a leak, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Patten said. “It looks like pure dumb luck. The guy worked for the same cleaning service your foster couple had been using for the past few years. He was on the crew over at their house and got the little girl to tell him her name.”

  “Mmm.” Tom O’Day rubbed his knuckles over his chin, frowning. “Okay. Any chance he also found out about Lewis Johnson?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Hadley twisted in her chair. “Not everything is about making your case!”

  Tom O’Day hitched up onto the desk and crossed his arms. It reminded Kevin of the chief, and it underlined just how junior he and Hadley were, in this room full of agents and detectives. But there wasn’t anybody else to represent the MKPD. If they wanted to deal with the FBI and the DEA, it was Flynn and Knox, or it was nobody.

  “We have LaMar,” Tom went on, “and if we can get him to trial without the primary witness folding, we’ll have seriously compromised his organization.”

  “Compromised,” his wife said. “Not destroyed. That’s where we paired up with the DEA.” She thumbed toward Boileau. “Agent Boileau has been working undercover for the better part of a year, getting everything he can about LaMar’s production and distribution. When the time is right, we’re going to move on the middle management—the enforcers and the regional distributors and the heads of the smurfing teams.”

  Patten rubbed his hand over his bald scalp. “I can’t help but notice you haven’t let any of the local cop shops in on this grand plan, Marie. Despite the fact that the smurfers and the enforcers and all them are, you know, active in those jurisdictions.”

  Boileau cracked his fingers. “We tell the locals when we’re ready to move. No need to risk blowing operational security till then.”

  Kevin narrowed his eyes. Boileau had a pretty grandiose opinion of himself for someone who looked like he spent his days playing World of Warcraft and munching on Cheetos.

  “Locals?” Hadley crossed her arms over her chest. “You mean those of us who are doing day-to-day, street-level law enforcement? You know, it’s not like we’re sitting on the porch plucking our banjos until the moment when the mighty alphabet agencies deign to clue us in to what’s going on.”

  Tom O’Day frowned. “You need to curb your temper, Officer Knox.”

  “Or what? You won’t let us in on your investigation? Oh, no!”

  Kevin squeezed her arm, trying to picture the issue the way the deputy chief would have. MacAuley was a master negotiator, and part of his strength was that he always found a win-win situation to present. “The MKPD is going to find Mikayla Johnson. It’s our chief’s top priority, and that’s not going to change.” He looked at the O’Days, then at Boileau. “We’d like to be able to do it without creating problems for your investigation. For that, we’re going to need your help.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, Boileau said, “What do you need?”

  “Travis Roy.” Kevin resisted the urge to sigh with relief. “We don’t know if he’s trying to curry favor with LaMar by taking out an alleged witness, or if he’s preparing to make a move after LaMar is put away. But we’re pretty sure he has Mikayla Johnson.”

  “I have no idea where he is.” Boileau looked up at the FBI agents. “You two?”

  Marie O’Day shook her head. “He was background noise before this.”

  Boileau pressed his hands together as if praying and pressed them against his lips. After a moment he said, “I can get the word out that LaMar wants to talk with him.” He tilted his head toward Vince Patten. “If you can get Davies to act as your mouthpiece, it’ll spread farther and faster. Doesn’t matter what game Roy is playing, he’ll show up for LaMar.”

  “There’s not enough time,” Hadley said. “If Mikayla doesn’t get her immunosuppressant drugs in the next few days, she’ll be dead.”

  “And the lines are going down because of the storm,” Kevin added. “Maybe not here in Albany, not yet, but it’s already almost impossible to get a cell phone call through in Washington and Saratoga counties.”

  “We need a location.” Hadley glanced at Kevin. “We need the North Country cooking house. He lives in Millers Kill. It can’t be more than an hour or two away.”

  Boileau shook his head. “I don’t know where it is.” Hadley opened her mouth, but he went on. “I do know a couple guys I can lean on. I can get the location to you by this evening.”

  Kevin nodded. “The most efficient thing for us to do would be to drop a net on the meth house. We can either find Roy or squeeze whatever lowlife we do catch.” He looked at the FBI agents. “How would that affect your investigation?”

  “We can live with that,” Tom O’Day said. “In fact…” He examined the ceiling as if he might find a message in the soundproofed tiles. “Maybe this is the time to make the move.”

  “During the ice storm of the century?” Boileau laughed. “Trust me when I say we don’t want any agents running around out there. They’ll only end up flat on their asses.”

  Hadley smirked.

  Marie O’Day glanced at her husband. “We’ll talk about it later.” She walked over to the door and opened it. “Officers, I’m sure you’re eager to get started home. With the weather and all.”

  “We are. Thank you so very much for all your consideration.” Hadley used the same fake-polite voice the federal agent had. The two women stood opposite one another, smiling in what Kevin assumed was the female version of “show me yours.”

  Tom O’Day caught his eye. The man gave him a half-rueful, half-proud look that said, Women. What are you going to do? Kevin realized O’Day assumed he and Hadley were also a couple. Kevin opened his mouth to set the man straight, then changed his mind. “Thank you both,” he said. “Detective Patten?”

  He drove back to South Station going twenty miles an hour the whole way. “What do you think of the O’Days? Will they come through for us?”

  Hadley made a rude noise. “I wouldn’t count on it. I’m sure they have a nice plum promotion waiting for them if they can bring down LaMar. Mikayla will just be an unfortunate loss. Too bad. Better luck next time.”

  “I disagree.” Patten leaned forward from the backseat. “Tom and Marie have been in the same office, at the same level, for a lot of years now. The only thing waiting for them is a federal pension check.” He snorted. “And maybe a job as a greeter in Walmart, if the Feds are as stingy as the state is.”

  Kevin pulled into the station’s parking lot, wobbling across the ice. “Are you sure you two won’t stay the night?” Patten asked. “When Lyle called me, he said to keep you here if the weather got too bad. It’s gonna be a skating rink once you get off the Northway.”

  “Thanks,” Hadley said, “but I’ve got children at home.”

  “You sure? We got lots of room at my house now the kids are gone. Plus Vince’s famous sausage patties for breakfast.”

  “We’ll be fine. I trust Flynn’s driving.”

  “All right, then.” The Albany detective sounded doubtful. “At least let me set you up with a couple travel mugs of coffee and a visit to the restroom. ’Course, you two are young. Maybe you can make it all the way back to Washington County, even in this weather. Me, I gotta stop twice between here and Saratoga to drain the snake. It’s hell gettin’ old, lemme tell you.”

  Kevin and Hadley managed to make it inside without too many more of Patten’s pithy tales. They accepted the coffee, turned down the stale Danishes, and were hea
ded out the door again when one of the civilian employees jogged down the hallway to stop them. The headset still tucked over her ears identified her job.

  “Officer Knox?” She held out a folded piece of paper to Hadley. “We got a squawk from your dispatcher while you and Detective Patten were out. She said they tried to call you, but your cell phone’s not working.” The woman looked harried. “First the landlines, then the cell network breaks down from too many calls and too few towers. Keep your fingers crossed we don’t overload the emergency system, too.” She waved and jogged back to the communications room.

  Hadley unfolded the paper. “What is it?” Kevin asked. “Has the chief finally shown up?”

  She looked up at him, her face white. She held the message out for him to read. Call from Glenn Hadley via MKPD. Officer Knox’s ex-husband has her children. Please advise.

  12.

  As camps went, a half-burned cabin with a working woodstove wasn’t the worst Russ had ever slept in. He was a hell of a lot warmer and drier than he had ever been, say, sleeping in mud in ’Nam. On the other hand, as a honeymoon, the whole experience was sucking hard.

  When Clare had reached him on the lake, pink-cheeked and out of breath and gloriously alive, he had felt as if joy alone could levitate him out of the trap he had gotten stuck in. Then she had propped her hands on her hips. “How on earth did you fall into your own ice-fishing hole?” She didn’t sound overpleased to see him.

  “It was an accident! I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “Five square miles of ice and you manage to step into one eighteen-inch-diameter hole.” She squatted, stripping off her gloves. “I’ll lift you.”

  He almost told her not to bother, but he hadn’t been able to leverage himself yet, and his right leg had gone completely numb. He took her hands and she stood, grunting. He slid from the fishing hole. Clare dragged him free, then dropped him on the ice like an oversized arctic char. Water dribbled out of his boot. He groaned.