One Was a Soldier

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  She signaled and turned onto Route 117. “Did he do it?”

  “He signed up for the veterans group at the community center.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I sat right there while he called.” He leaned forward and cranked the blower up. Cold air roared through the car. He collapsed backward again. “God. I don’t know. He’s a good cop.”

  “He was.”

  “He wasn’t like this before he went to Iraq.”

  “I know, Flynn—but he went for his gun. In the emergency room. What if he loses it again with a suspect? Or at home, with Jennifer and Jake?”

  Flynn crossed his arms over his chest. “You and I will keep an eye on him.” He looked out the window. They were out of the town, entering the rolling hills and pastures of Cossayuharie. “He went off to war for us. That’s what people say, isn’t it? They’re doing it for us? Don’t we at least owe him a chance to make it right?”

  HELP US, WE PRAY, IN THE MIDST OF THINGS WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND, TO BELIEVE AND TRUST IN THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS …

  —The Burial of the Dead: Rite One, The Book of Common Prayer

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 3

  This week, it was Will who was running late. Sarah looked at the round white clock hanging above the preschoolers’ construction-paper pumpkins and ghosts. It was already five past seven, and the rest of the group had been in their places for ten minutes, listening to the thuds of the basketball and the squeak of sneakers next door. Stillman scratched on his ancient PalmPilot with a stylus. Fergusson’s head was tilted back, and her eyes were half closed; evidently even her coffee wasn’t keeping her awake tonight. McCrea kept glancing at McNabb, frowning, then looking away, only to repeat the whole cycle again a minute later.

  Sarah glanced around the circle. “Does anyone know if Will had any VA appointments? Maybe some difficulty with his ride?”

  Fergusson roused herself. “His father brings him after dinner. It could be Chris was running late.”

  “Okay. Well, I don’t want to waste any more time. Let’s get started, and he can catch up when he gets here.” Sarah looked at McNabb and Stillman. “Last week, Clare and Eric opened up about some of the ways they’re expressing their emotions or not expressing their emotions, as the case may be, and we all talked about some strategies for dealing with those difficult moments when the pain or the anger or the fear breaks through. I want to explore those healthy responses further, but first we need to go back to hear from Trip and Tally about their reasons for attending therapy. Trip, we didn’t have time to get to you last week. Will you start us off?”

  “Well.” The doctor fidgeted in his metal chair. “I’ve been under a lot of stress since I came home. Some of it’s the usual—my practice, a surly teen in the house, my older daughter’s financial troubles. Some of it’s been new. A death in the family, problems with—” He clamped his mouth shut. After a moment, he said, “I’ve been having these migraines.”

  A pager went off. Fergusson started. She put her paper coffee cup on the floor and dug into the pocket of her ankle-length black skirt. She pulled out her cell phone and read the display. “Excuse me.” She rose. “I have to take this.” She vanished into the hallway.

  Stillman sat there. “Migraines,” Sarah prompted. The doctor touched his forehead. There was a small white scar threading across his skin into his bristle-brush gray hair. “I sustained a head injury when a clinic I was working at was blown up by insurgents.” He lapsed into silence.

  When nothing else seemed forthcoming, Sarah asked, “Was this the forward response station you were posted to?”

  “No. No, this was a civilian clinic. Part of the mission was to treat as many Iraqis as we could. We were supposed to have an actual, honest-to-God reinforced building with a generator and a sterile room, but that never materialized, so we had to make do in whatever facility we could set up shop in. We were in a local medical clinic school when this happened.” He rubbed his scar with his forefinger.

  “Mortar fire?” Eric asked.

  “Yeah. We had an escort, and marines patrolling the town, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once.”

  “Where was this?” Tally asked.

  “Haditha, in the Anbar. It was the closest population base to our FRS.”

  The hall door opened. Clare strode in, fastening the top two buttons of her black shirt. Beneath the room’s fluorescent light, she looked sickly and washed-out. “That was Chris Ellis. They’re in the hospital. Will tried to kill himself.”

  * * *

  Surprisingly, Sarah and the others arrived before Clare. Tally had stood up, said, “Let’s go,” and gotten her jacket off the hooks on the wall. The men followed her without comment, as if it were simply expected they would all reconvene at the hospital. “Maybe we should wait,” Sarah said, but it was already too late. Nothing to do but get in her car and force herself to drive toward the ultimate verdict on her fitness as a therapist: a client’s suicide.

  Attempted suicide, she reminded herself in the ICU waiting room. The pills Will Ellis had swallowed by the handful had been pumped out of his stomach. Now they had to see if that would be enough. Through the archway leading to the hallway and nursing station, she heard a soft ding. The elevator opened. Sarah caught a glimpse of Clare Fergusson, a white collar around her neck, a long satin scarf-thing draped over her shoulders, a black leather box in her hand. The satin flapped around her knees as she strode up the hall and out of sight.

  Tally, who had taken the chair kitty-corner to Sarah’s, leaned forward. “Was that Clare?”

  “Yes.”

  “Geez. I guess she really is a minister.” Tally leaned back. “You’d think if you put that much faith in God, you wouldn’t need to be in counseling.”

  “No. Well. God’s not big into talk therapy.”

  Stillman rounded the archway, his eyes on his PalmPilot, scratching something with his stylus at what looked like a hundred words a minute. He sank into the chair opposite McNabb.

  “Did you find out anything?” Sarah asked. He didn’t look like the bearer of good tidings.

  “His respiratory and circulatory systems are collapsing, and he’s experiencing serious bradycardia.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Sarah was feeling desperate enough to be glad Tally asked the question, allowing her to look at least marginally competent.

  “He’s got what we call combined drug intoxication. He apparently took all his painkillers, his antidepressants, a bottle of cough syrup, a whole lot of acetaminophen, and then washed it all down with booze. Simplified, his system is shutting down. His heart’s pumping too slow, his blood isn’t circulating, and his lungs aren’t working.” Stillman glanced at his PalmPilot. “He’s damaged his liver, too. How much, they won’t know until and unless he survives.” His face was bleak.

  “God.” Tally sat for a minute. “Do you think he meant it to work? Or was he just, you know, crying for help?”

  “He made a pretty credible attempt.” Stillman rubbed his knuckles hard against the scar on his forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t see any warning signs.”

  That same phrase was chasing itself around and around in Sarah’s head. “Why would you?” Why didn’t I?

  “I’m seeing him for his amputation follow-up. He’s doing PT at my practice.”

  “And I was his therapist.” Sarah stood. Walked toward the archway. If she could, she would have stepped right out of her skin and kept on going. “If anybody should have recognized that he was potentially suicidal, it should have been me.”

  “You guys are forgetting something.”

  Sarah turned toward Tally, who spread her hands. “He’s a marine. You don’t think of it, because his legs are gone, but he’s still a marine. You know, the jarheads, they do what they gotta do. Maybe he just woke up this morning and realized his body was the enemy.” Tally rubbed her jeans over her thighs and knees, as if trying to feel what Will must have felt. “And you know, he knows what to do wit
h an enemy.”

  * * *

  Eric left first; he had a wife and kid at home, after all, and had to be at work the next morning. Stillman was next, after several short conversations with Will’s red-eyed, lank-haired mother. Tally hung around, whether through curiosity or empathy Sarah didn’t know. Sarah couldn’t leave, couldn’t push herself forward to talk to the parents, couldn’t ask anyone, once Trip Stillman took off, what Will’s prognosis was. She was ready, if approached, to describe her impressions, show her notes, pass on anything that might be useful. She was ready, but she couldn’t bring herself to volunteer. Her thoughts and self-recriminations chased themselves around and around in her head like disease-raddled rats on a rusty wheel.

  She didn’t realize she had sunk into a reverie until she heard Tally say, “Major. I mean, Reverend.” Sarah opened her eyes.

  Clare Fergusson collapsed onto the chair opposite McNabb. “What are you still doing here?”

  Sarah’s heart turned over in one slow despairing beat before she realized Fergusson was speaking to Tally.

  “I dunno,” Tally said. “No place better to go, I guess. My husband’s away gambling for a few days.” Her voice made it clear she thought games of chance were a monumental waste of time. Unless, Sarah thought, it was that the husband wasn’t alone at whatever casino he had fled to. “How’s Will doing?” Tally asked.

  “He’ll live.” Fergusson slid down until the back of her head could rest against the top of the upholstered chair. “God. I’m so tired. I’d sell my grandmother’s wedding ring for a drink right now.”

  “Let’s find a bar,” Sarah said. “I’ll buy the first round.”

  Tally’s mouth opened. “What happened to encouraging her to deal with her stress in a healthy way?”

  Fergusson started laughing.

  “At this point, I’m going to consider alcoholism a viable alternative. All things considering.” Sarah bent over and rubbed her hands over her face.

  Fergusson’s smile faded away. “Are you implying I’m an alcoholic?”

  Sarah looked at her. “Based on what little I’ve been able to pry out of you, I think you have a problem with alcohol.” She folded her hands and rested her chin on her knuckles. It made a hard, uncomfortable perch, which was just what she needed right now. “Then again, what the hell do I know? I completely missed Will’s suicidal intent.”

  “Oh, for chrissakes,” Tally said. “Quit beating yourself up over it. Anybody who’s seen a public service announcement on TV knows what the three or five or seven warning signs are. Will’s not stupid. He didn’t want to tip anybody off. Because then somebody woulda stopped him. It’s the same reason Clare doesn’t want to talk about drinking. Because she’s afraid if she does, somebody will stop her from doing it.”

  Fergusson opened her mouth. Closed it again.

  “It’s like we’re all sick, you know? Like we all got something wrong with us, but we won’t tell the doctor and get it treated. Because we’re afraid the cure is going to be worse than the disease.”

  Sarah was surprised at Tally’s outburst, and by her insight. The young woman hadn’t struck her as being that tuned in to others.

  “You don’t cure PTSD,” Fergusson said. “You learn to live with it. I don’t think taking a drink now and then or using a sleeping pill when you can’t get back to sleep after a nightmare is necessarily a bad thing.”

  Tally scooted to the edge of her chair and stared at the priest. “Aren’t you tired of being afraid all the time? I am.”

  “Then why in God’s name are you thinking about going back to Iraq? What’s that about? Facing your fears? Unit cohesion with the rest of the construction team?”

  Tally crossed her arms over her chest. She rubbed the tattoo on her arm. “I’m not going back. I’ve decided.”

  “Oh.” Fergusson deflated. “Okay.”

  “What’s that going to mean for your job?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know.” She rubbed her arm again. “Maybe lose it, I guess. It’s not the worst thing that could happen to me.” Her gaze shifted toward the corridor. Somewhere down that hall, Will Ellis lay, broken. “It’s not near the worst thing that could happen to me.”

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5

  It was Bev Collins and her home health aide who heard the noise. A boom, then a crack, loud enough to make the aide start and say, “What was that?”

  “Gunshot.” Mrs. Collins laid down a set of threes. She and Tracy played canasta every Wednesday, and Tracy allowed her one beer for the game. Her doctor said the sugar in it would kill her, but by God, if she had to do without beer, too, she’d just as soon go anyways.

  “It’s too close to be a gunshot. It sounded like it came from next door.”

  “Young lady, I have hunted and shot for nigh on seventy years. I’d still be doing it if I could see worth a damn.” Mrs. Collins’s upcountry accent changed “worth” to “wuth.” “That was a small-caliber sidearm. Either somebody’s gotten sick and tired of those damn raccoons taking down the garbage cans, or he don’t know jack about cleaning his weapon and accidentally discharged it.”

  “Raccoons aren’t out at three in the afternoon.” Tracy got up from the kitchen table and went to the window. “I can’t see anything through the safety fence. I better go out and take a look.”

  “Safety fence.” Mrs. Collins shuffled to the icebox and took out another beer. What Tracy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “Swimming pool. The river’s too good for folks nowadays.” She hadn’t taken more than a few swigs when Tracy tore back into the kitchen.

  “It’s—she’s—call the police! She’s killed herself!”

  * * *

  “I would say a single shot, through the mouth, to the back of the head.” Emil Dvorak, the Millers Kill medical examiner, pushed against his silver-headed cane to straighten from his crouched position at the edge of the pool. “I can confirm that, at least, as soon as you remove her from the water.”

  There was a faint clicking noise as Sergeant Morin of the New York State Police Criminal Investigation Unit snapped off picture after picture on his digital camera. Tally McNabb was floating on her back, ribbons and streamers of blood trailing over and around and beneath her. Tiny pieces of bone and brain floated on the surface of the pool. “I’d like you to take prints from all the exterior doors,” Russ said.

  “Sure.” Morin dropped his camera into his kit. “What about the inside?”

  “Depends on what we find in there.” Russ looked up to the open second-floor window. Sheer white curtains fluttered out of the frame to catch in the wind rising from the mountains. From McNabb’s backyard, he could see the edge of the hills, russet and brown and yellow, and a dark wall of clouds moving toward them.

  “You think there’s somebody in there?”

  Russ shook his head. “Not alive.” He turned to Lyle MacAuley. “Have you raised the husband yet?”

  Lyle shoved his phone into his jacket pocket and shook his head. “Nothin’. The foreman at BWI Opperman says he’s on leave for the next two weeks. I got the names of a couple friends, and we can probably get a few more if we canvass the Dew Drop. He was a regular, right?”

  “That’s what the owner said.” His eyes were drawn, again, to the open window.

  “You thinking murder-suicide?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If McNabb killed her out here and then offed himself, what in the hell is that .38 doing down there? Or are you going to suggest he switched weapons midstream?”

  Both men looked into the pool. The gun, black and malignant, lay in twelve feet of water, according to the warning embossed on the plastic lip of the pool gutter.

  Russ pinched the bridge of his nose. “She locks all the doors to her house, comes out to the pool in jeans and a sweater, and shoots herself at the very edge of the water.”

  “It does keep things nice and neat. If that matters to you.”

  “Maybe McNabb did her and tossed the gun in. Chlorine washes away a lot of e
vidence. He could already be at the Albany airport.”

  “We got a BOLO out on him. If he tries to run, somebody’ll spot him.” Lyle zipped his jacket against the chilly air. “Maybe the disappointed boyfriend did her. Or both of ’em.”

  “Quentan Nichols? He hasn’t been back here since August.”

  “That you know of. Maybe he just figured out how to keep a lower profile.” Lyle looked up as the locksmith on call crossed the yard, his tools out. “C’mon. Let’s see what’s in there.”

  The house was clean and orderly, with no evidence of a struggle and no indication that anyone had been there. The locksmith confirmed that the back door he opened would have latched automatically behind anyone who exited the garage. Lyle pointed out the spare key, hanging from a nail next to the door. “Looks like she didn’t intend to come back inside.”

  Russ grunted. “Or someone didn’t intend her to.”

  They found a gun locker in the unfinished basement. Russ asked Morin to print the battered metal chest, without much expectation of finding anything.

  The message light was blinking on the kitchen phone. Russ tugged on his purple evidence gloves and hit the PLAY button. The first message was a shade above a whisper, as if the woman speaking didn’t want to be overheard. “Tally, where are you? Kirkwood’s having a hissy fit because you haven’t called in sick.” The second message was professionally warm. “Tally? This is Elaine Kirkwood in human resources. Are you ill? Please remember we need you to either phone in or request a personal day in advance.” The final message was a voice that made his skin crawl. “Hi, Tally. This is John Opperman. Please call me at your earliest convenience.”

  “Whatever happened, she didn’t plan it in advance,” Lyle said.

  “Get back to the HR woman. Let her know we’re investigating Tally’s death. I want to know her work history. Did she report directly to Opperman? Does she have any incidents on her record? Maybe lodged a complaint against him?”