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

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “Keep going, Mrs. Van Alstyne.” The voice came from close beside her. The man was standing in the snow a few yards away, his automatic trained on Clare. She almost turned to flee into the forest, but what was the use? She waded through the last few feet of deep snow and stumbled onto the road next to the SUV.

  Russ kept his eyes locked on hers. “Clare. Oh, love. What are you doing back here?” He started to turn toward her, only to be brought up short by the gun pointed toward his head. Marie O’Day stood out of reach, but close enough so that a shot to Russ’s skull couldn’t miss. Clare wondered, absurdly, how many more times she was going to see her husband held at gunpoint on their honeymoon. She was still shaking, and a more sober part of her brain diagnosed shock.

  “Stay right there,” Tom O’Day said. Clare, who had been walking toward Russ, stopped. “We just want the girl.”

  “And then what?” Russ said. “You kill us, too? And then kill my officers and the sheriff’s deputy who’re coming up behind me? How many deaths do you think you can pin on a guy who’s probably already getting rigor mortis out there in the woods?”

  “Shut up,” Marie said. “Tom, get the girl.”

  Tom O’Day reached for them with his free hand. Clare clutched at Mikayla, half turning away, and Oscar, who had been leaning against her leg, let out a wolflike snarl and launched himself at the agent. The dog sank his fangs deep into O’Day’s forearm. The man screamed and thrashed, beating at Oscar’s body, as the dog scrabbled and clawed and hung on as if his jaws were locked.

  Marie O’Day shrieked and swung her automatic toward the dog. Russ threw himself at the woman like a linebacker on a goal-line stand. The agent went down beneath him, her gun spinning across the road.

  Clare shouldered Mikayla and dashed for the weapon. Tom O’Day, howling and sobbing, fell to his knees. His blood spread over the ice, steaming in the cold air. Clare scooped the automatic from the road and slapped it into Russ’s outstretched hand. “Sit on her,” he said, and Clare complied, dropping onto the agent’s shoulders with a thud. She would have worried she was cutting off the woman’s oxygen, but Marie O’Day had enough air to curse at her, Russ, and the dog in a steady stream of invective.

  “Get him off me! Get him off me!”

  Russ strode to Tom O’Day’s side and retrieved his weapon. Dropping the gun in his pocket, he slapped his thigh. “Come, Oscar. Come.” The dog released the agent’s arm and backed away, whining. The man collapsed onto the ice. Russ reached down and scratched Oscar’s head fiercely as the dog butted against his leg. “Good dog, Oscar. That’s a good dog.”

  18.

  One of the state police snipers put a bullet right through the engine of the middle sled. Hadley saw the shower of sparks, and the snowmobile, which had been building up speed, suddenly slowed. Its driver, anonymous in a cold suit and helmet, leaped off, waving to the other drivers to rescue him. They blasted past, intent on escaping.

  Hadley took off for the barn, only to be nearly yanked off her feet by Flynn. “They have to head for the bridge,” he shouted. “We can stop them here!”

  “How? We can’t even identify ourselves!” Unless the fleeing men fired on her and Flynn, they had no justification for using deadly force. Out here in the dark on a freezing bridge, they had no riot gun capable of stopping the sleds, and no beanbag gun that could knock a driver off without causing him harm.

  Flynn looked at the remaining two snowmobiles. They were curving around the front, preparing to hit the road near its end and get up to full speed before they rushed the hill. “Give me your flashlight.”

  She handed over her Maglite, hefty enough to be a club. “You’re going to shine a big light at them?”

  Flynn unwound the scarf from his neck. He pulled out his own flashlight and wrapped both of them in the end of the scarf.

  “No,” he said. “I’m going to try and knock one of them off his seat. You take aim. If they fire on us, shoot.”

  She tugged her Glock from her holster while Flynn secured the flashlights to the scarf with a zip-strap. Grabbing the other end of the scarf with both hands, he hoisted it over one shoulder and began swinging it in a circle above his head.

  The snowmobiles turned onto the road. In the headlights, she could see the silhouette of the Essex County deputy, struggling with the same dilemma they had. She couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the engines, but his body language read Stop! Police! The sleds blew past him, headed straight for them.

  Hadley yanked off her gloves and went down on one knee next to Flynn. She steadied her hand and sighted toward where she thought the driver would be. Above her, Flynn continued whipping the makeshift weapon around, whup-whup-whup until the air hummed. She prayed he wouldn’t wrap the thing around his neck or knock himself out. The snowmobiles drew nearer, nearer, and she could see the bubble-headed helmets gleaming in the backwash of the headlights and the noise of the engines was all around them.

  In one motion, Flynn heaved, whipping the Maglites into the head of the driver nearest him as the snowmobiles blew past. He made contact, and the driver flipped backward off his seat like a circus tumbler landing full-body on the icy road. His snowmobile, riderless, slowed and veered to the right until it wedged its front runners under the bridge guardrail.

  The last snowmobile was escaping over the ridge. Someone else’s work. She stood, reaching for her cuffs, only to stop at the sight of Flynn with his head thrown back and his arms spread wide above him, in victory. “Freedom!” he howled, in his best Braveheart impression.

  Then the barn blew up.

  19.

  Russ guided Marie O’Day into the backseat of the Essex County cruiser so she wouldn’t bump her head. He slammed the door on her torrent of abuse and walked back to the black SUV. He glanced inside where Tom O’Day sat, one hand cuffed to the safety bar, the other wrapped in Clare’s turtleneck, a makeshift bandage. His wife was waiting for him outside Flynn’s Aztek. “I got it running so she can warm up,” she said.

  He didn’t answer, just held his arms open. She stepped into his embrace and they rocked together. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “We’re okay.”

  Something in that phrase—repentance? love? acceptance?—felled him. He slid to his knees before her and pressed his face into her rounded belly. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her hands on his hair were a benediction.

  “Hector DeJean died for that little girl.”

  “I know.”

  “He was scum. I wanted to shoot him. If I had gotten to him while we were at the lake, I would have.”

  Her hands stroked his forehead, cupped the back of his skull.

  “How can a guy like that turn around and sacrifice his life for his kid?”

  “Oh, love. You know how.”

  “Yeah.” He let the side of his head drop against her bulk, as if he could hear the future inside her. “I was wrong. I was angry at you, and at me, and I acted like a spoiled kid because I couldn’t have everything just the way I wanted it.”

  “It’s not your fault. I didn’t give you any space for compromise.”

  “The thing is, sometimes marriage isn’t about compromise. Sometimes it’s about giving everything and seeing where it takes you. I’m not … very good with that.” He looked up at her. “But I’m trying.”

  She bent over him. “I love you.”

  “I know.” He stood up, his knees creaking. He took her hands. “I figure if Hector DeJean can die for his child, I can live for mine.” Her eyes were wet, but she smiled at him. He kissed her. “I have to get back down there.”

  “I know. I’ll be okay.”

  “The rest of the team’s got the meth cookers bottled up in the barn—” He paused. There was an engine noise, rising, loud and getting louder, headed up the hill toward them. He had just enough time to push Clare against the Aztek, covering her with his body, before the snowmobile lofted into the air at the hill’s crest and slammed onto the ro
ad, blasting past them in a shower of ice crystals.

  “What was that?”

  Russ yanked the walkie-talkie from his pocket and switched it on. “Kevin? Knox? We just nearly got run over by a sled doing sixty. Something you want to tell me?”

  “We got the other two, Chief! We got the other two!” Knox’s voice was garbled by some unidentifiable noise.

  “Russ, look there. Over the trees.” Clare’s tone made him lift his gaze to where she was pointing. The sky above where the meth factory should be was glowing.

  He triggered the walkie-talkie. “Knox, what’s going on down there?”

  “The barn’s on fire, Chief! It just went up in a huge whoosh!” He could hear another voice, saying something. Then Kevin replaced Knox. “You didn’t manage to stop the third guy, did you, Chief?”

  “Sorry, Kevin. We’ll have to wait until he reaches the highway.” Clare’s eyes grew huge. He dropped the walkie-talkie into his pocket. “What? Is it the baby?”

  She shook her head. “Lieutenant Mongue. I left him in your truck. Blocking the access to South Shore Drive.”

  He had a sudden image of that sled slamming into his pickup at sixty miles an hour. “Kevin’s car,” he said. They piled in, and he swung the Aztek in a circle, ignoring the skid as he turned, accelerating down the series of hills.

  “Careful.” Clare looked into the backseat, where Mikayla lay drowsing, Oscar beneath her on the floor. “You don’t want to make matters worse by running into him yourself.”

  He slowed, then slowed some more as he came around the bend to the final descent. The first thing he saw was his truck, intact and gleaming. The snowmobile was halfway up the trunk of an eastern pine that was now partly uprooted and listing away from the road. He could see the skid marks in his headlights. He slowed to a stop and climbed out of Kevin’s SUV.

  Bob Mongue was leaning out of the passenger-side window, the Taurus Clare had taken away from Travis Roy trained on the sled’s driver, who was sprawled on the ground near the afflicted pine.

  “Bob,” Russ said.

  “Russ.”

  Russ crossed to the driver. “Keep those hands up,” Bob warned. Russ tugged off his helmet. Travis Roy blinked up at him, his nose bloody, his eyes purpling.

  Russ walked back to his truck. “I’ve got a pair of cuffs in the glove compartment, if you can reach it.” Bob handed them out. “Nice collar for a man with a broken leg.”

  “I told you I could outpolice you with one hand tied behind my back.” He gestured toward Kevin’s SUV. “Everything okay with your wife?”

  Russ found himself smiling. “Everything’s okay. Everything’s fine.”

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 15

  1.

  “We’re not sure if the fire was caused by a stray bullet from one of the state police shooters, or if the place was rigged to blow in case of a raid.” Lyle perched on the edge of his seat. There was no way to be comfortable doing this, even if the Johnsons had given him hot chocolate and their best living room chair. “Because of the chemicals involved in cooking methamphetamine, the fire burned very hot. Everything was destroyed. The men who had been producing the meth said your daughter wasn’t there, but I’m afraid there’s no way to know for sure.”

  Lewis Johnson nodded. “We have Mikayla legally now. That’s all that matters. We’re registering her with the tribe so her right to stay with us will be protected. When enough time passes, we’ll have Annie declared dead and get permanent guardianship.”

  “How’s the little girl doing?”

  “She’ll be in the hospital for a while. But the doctors are hopeful none of her liver function will be compromised.”

  “Good. Good.” Lyle didn’t know what else to say. Johnson was looking very … Mohawk, if Lyle let himself use the stereotype in the privacy of his own head. Stoic. Not giving away an ounce of emotion, despite the fact that his daughter was almost certainly gone.

  “You know, there is the possibility that she’s still hiding somewhere.”

  Johnson shook his head. “Where would she go?” He looked toward the credenza at the side of the room. It was covered in family photographs. All the other adult Johnson children, happy, living their lives … and Annie. “It’s better this way. In New York, grandparents can’t sue for custody of grandchildren unless their child is dead. Annie could be so…” He paused, weighing his words. “Pleasing. Always headed for rehab, always just about to get clean, but never quite managing. The social workers would have given Mikayla back to her, you know. After she had finished her sentence.”

  Lyle nodded. The man was probably right. He had seen too many kids kept in “intact” homes until it was too late. “Still, I wish she had come to you for help after our officers frightened her off.”

  Johnson rose, and Lyle rose with him. He shrugged his parka back on and picked up his lid. He and Johnson shook hands. “If at any time you want to access the files, or know how the investigation is going, Mr. Johnson, please give us a call. Your daughter will remain a missing person until we find otherwise.”

  “That fire…” Johnson had a faraway look in his eyes, as if he could see the meth lab burning. “You won’t find her body.” He focused on Lyle again. “And there comes a time when a parent has to let go of the child he cannot save, and take up the child he can.”

  In his cruiser, Lyle cranked up the heat and let it blow a minute or two before pulling out and headed back to Millers Kill. They would keep Annie Johnson as an open case, but he didn’t have much hope. If she had just run to her father like she always had when she was in trouble—

  When enough time passes, we’ll have Annie declared dead and get permanent guardianship.

  The social workers would have given Mikayla back to her, you know.

  There comes a time when a parent has to let go of the child he cannot save, and take up the child he can.

  “No,” Lyle said emphatically. “No.” He stopped at a red light. Jesus, he had a chill like someone walked over his grave.

  You won’t find her body.

  “No,” he repeated. He shook himself, hard, then drove on.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 16

  1.

  “Well, Ms. Fergusson?”

  Across the black oak table, Archdeacon Willard Aberforth looked at her piercingly. She glanced around at the faces of her vestry. Mrs. Marshall smiled encouragingly.

  “I decline,” Clare said.

  “Could you clarify?”

  “I decline to quietly resign my cure. I have the confidence and the backing of this vestry, and I believe I have the confidence and support of my parishioners. Furthermore, I’m not going to burden my husband with the knowledge that I resigned a position I love and feel called to because we started our family before the wedding could take place. So.” She paused for a moment to make sure her voice was steady. “If the bishop wishes to convene a disciplinary board and bring up charges, he may.”

  Father Aberforth’s eyes shone like dark stones. “Very well.”

  “Very well, what?” Geoff Burns asked. “What’s the bishop going to do?”

  The archdeacon looked down at the papers before him. “The bishop gave me my instructions in advance of this meeting. In the event that Ms. Fergusson failed to resign…” He paused, and she could see it coming before he got it out. You old drama queen, you. “The bishop is willing to let the matter drop.”

  Afterward, over a cup of tea in her office, she had her chance to grill him. “Why did he back down?”

  Aberforth tilted his head. “As you say, you did have the support of the vestry.”

  She snorted.

  “There was also the matter of the phone calls from members of your congregation.” Oscar roused himself from his makeshift bed beside the bookcase and walked to Aberforth’s side. He nudged the archdeacon’s hand, and Aberforth began scratching the top of the dog’s head. “While you were away on your adventuresome honeymoon, someone suggested a sort of phone-a-thon on your behalf. Which in and of itsel
f might not sway the bishop, but many of the phone calls also mentioned the matter of money, as in, ceasing to give it if you were brought before a disciplinary board.”

  “Wow.” She sipped her tea, trying to pretend it was coffee.

  “In addition, I had a conversation with the bishop.” He picked up his cup again. Oscar, deprived of attention, whuffed at him.

  “Oscar. Go lie down.” Clare turned back to Aberforth. “I can just imagine what that went like.”

  “No,” he said, quellingly, “you cannot. I am not entirely in favor of the … direction this diocese has taken in the past years. I believe that having just one type of priest, thinking the same thoughts and behaving in the same fashion as everyone else, is detrimental to the church of God. We must have a variety of priests, that we may minster to a variety of people. You, Ms. Fergusson, are the spice of life in this diocese.”

  She set her cup down and crossed to his chair. She bent over and kissed his head. “You great big old softy.” She knelt beside him. “How can I thank you for all you’ve done for me?”

  “Perhaps you might consider naming the child after me.” His tone was desert dry.

  She laughed. “Russ’s father’s name was Walter. Shall I see if he’ll go for Walter Willard?”

  2.

  Hadley should have been at the station already. Her shift had ended a half hour ago, but the three drivers involved in the accident near the Super Kmart kept changing their stories, and she had had to keep two tow trucks waiting while she tried to sort out who did what to whom. Now she was on her way back to Millers Kill. She hoped she’d be in time to catch Flynn. They weren’t going out tonight, but she was going to join him for his family’s Sunday dinner again. They were still trying to keep it on the down low at work, but she could feel herself lighting up every time he walked into the squad room. It was the damnedest thing. She was getting to be as starry-eyed as he was, as if all the crap in her life had never happened.