One Was a Soldier

  Russ bent over the boxes. “Are these in any order?”

  Trip indicated the cardboard wall. “This is it. It’s all labeled. What is it, exactly, that you’re looking for?”

  “A lead. Some sign of financial hanky-panky. Evidence of conspiracy.”

  Stillman looked offended. “My sister was the epitome of financial rectitude. Her living depended on her honesty and reliability. There’s no way she would have been involved in any sort of hanky-panky.”

  Eric patted Trip’s back. “Sorry, Doc, but the prospect of free money has a way of bending people’s, uh, rectitude. Just look at what it did to Tally McNabb.”

  Clare figured now would be a good time to step in. “Trip, is there anyplace upstairs where we can look at the contents? That way, Will can help, too.”

  Russ made a noise that sounded like a suppressed groan and picked up a box.

  “The dining room table, upstairs.” Stillman bent to pick up another box. “Plenty of room, and we won’t have to stoop over.”

  The dining room had the elegant, unused air of a historic house exhibit kept pristine behind a velvet rope. Clare moved a porcelain bowl from the table to a sideboard for safekeeping. Russ was clearly reluctant to set his box on the snowy tablecloth until Trip thumped his down without ceremony. He hit a rheostat and the chandelier sprang to life. “You get started,” he said. “We’ll get the rest of it. But I can tell you already, you’re not going to find anything.”

  “He may be right.” Russ hauled one of the chairs out of the way to accommodate Will’s wheelchair. “We’re only guessing at the motive behind sabotaging her brakes. It could have been a jealous lover, or her ex-husband come back, or somebody she pissed off at work. Hell, it could be a family member, looking to inherit. Maybe the daughter.”

  “It was not!” Will’s voice was vehement.

  Russ looked at him. “No. You’re right. I think we can take that one off the board.”

  They opened up the cartons on the table and got to work. They sorted the contents into two piles: the obviously irrelevant and documents that needed a closer look. Trip and Olivia and Eric brought up everything that might possibly be of interest, then stayed to open and sort. The piles grew higher and higher, then divided, then divided again. Eventually, they had the contents of eight boxes spread across the room, covering the table, piled in chairs, heaped on the sideboard.

  “It looks like your office,” Clare said.

  “God. I hate paper trails.” Russ polished his glasses on his shirtfront. “Give me ballistics and blood splatters any day.”

  There was a soft ringtone from the other end of the house. A door opening. “Hello?” They could hear a wary British voice from the kitchen. “Trip? Why is there a police car in the drive?”

  “We’re in here, darling.” Stillman straightened from where he’d been hunched over a stack of old checkbooks.

  Mrs. Stillman’s eyes widened when she appeared in the dining room door. “Good Lord. What’s going on? It looks like an office exploded in here.” She spotted her niece. “Olivia, darling, why aren’t you at University?” She looked at Russ. “Has there been some sort of trouble?”

  “No trouble.” Russ held his hand out to her. “I’m Russ Van Alstyne. Chief of police.”

  “Flora Stillman.” She shook automatically, her face turning toward Clare. “You’re the Episcopal priest, aren’t you? At St. Alban’s.”

  “Clare Fergusson.” Clare waved from the other side of the table.

  “We go sometimes. Well. Christmas and Easter, really. I’ve been meaning to try to attend more often, but you know how busy Sundays can get.” Flora Stillman bit her lower lip. “Oh dear. I suppose you do.”

  Clare smiled. “You’re welcome anytime. Come for Choral Evensong. It’s less hectic.”

  Flora looked around her, as if trying to put a priest together with a soldier and a young man in a wheelchair. “What are you all doing here?”

  “We have reason to believe your sister-in-law’s death wasn’t accidental,” Russ said. “We think she may have been connected in some way with several people who stole a lot of money from the government.” He indicated the papers stacked everywhere. “We’re looking for a lead. Something to tell us why someone tampered with her brakes.”

  “Her brakes?”

  Will spoke up for the first time. “They’d been engineered to snap the first time the calipers were engaged. It’s not that hard, if you know what you’re doing.”

  “That’s … good Lord. I thought that only happened in old television shows.”

  Russ shifted his weight. “Did Ellen ever mention the name Wyler McNabb to you?”

  “No.” Flora looked at her husband.

  “Never heard of him,” Trip said. “Who is he?”

  Clare and Eric and Will stared at him. Finally, Eric said, “He’s Tally McNabb’s husband. She talked about him in group. Several times.”

  “Ah.” Trip got that waxy, stuffed look again, the same one he had had in his waiting room.

  “How about finances? Did she ever say anything about coming into some money?”

  “No, but she would have talked to Trip about that, not me.” She turned toward her husband. “What about when we had her and Olivia for dinner? Just a few days before she died?”

  “I remember,” Olivia said. “Iola and I went swimming, and Uncle George made shish kebab.”

  “That’s right.” Flora looked at Russ. “Ellen must have spent an hour that evening closeted with Trip in his office.”

  “Huh.” Russ frowned. “How about it, Dr. Stillman? Is there anything your sister said that in retrospect throws up a red flag?”

  Trip looked blank. “I don’t know.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  Trip stood there, still, pale, his mouth slightly open. Only his eyes moved, darting from side to side as if trying to find an escape from his head.

  “Dr. Stillman?”

  Clare could hear the man’s breath rasping in and out.

  Flora Stillman’s face pinched in worry. “Darling, you must remember. It was the last time we saw her alive.” She glanced up at Russ. “I assumed they were talking about their mother. She’s been getting a bit difficult, and he tries hard not to drag me into it.”

  “Was that what you were talking about, Dr. Stillman?” Russ’s voice had sharpened, like a knife that was about to cut through to the truth. It could be a family member, looking to inherit. “Your mother?”

  Silence. Clare heard a rattle in Trip’s throat, like the harbinger of death. “I can’t remember.”

  Flora faced Russ. “He’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

  “I don’t need word-for-word. The general gist is fine.”

  “I can’t remember,” Trip said.

  Russ stepped toward him. “You can’t remember what went on between you and your sister the last time you saw her alive? Even though you were alone together for an hour?” He dropped his voice. “Maybe that wasn’t the last time you saw her. Maybe you were up at the resort the night of July twenty-ninth. Maybe you were watching as she drove away.”

  “For God’s sake!” Flora threw her arms around her husband, as if to prevent Russ from dragging him away.

  “I can’t remember.” Trip’s face fell in on itself. “I can’t remember anything.” He disengaged from his wife. “I’m sorry, Flo. I’m so sorry. I’ve been lying to you. To you, to the partners, to everybody.”

  Clare had the stomach-dropping sensation of seeing her own life reenacted as a morality play.

  “I’m not—I don’t have PTSD. I’m not stressed, or getting older, or preoccupied. I have a traumatic brain injury to my frontal lobe. The effects include migraines, impaired judgment, and a pervasive loss of short-term memory.”

  Flora pressed her hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear Lord.”

  “I diagnosed myself back in…” He wiped his hand over his eyes. “I don’t know. Back in the summer, I think. Not long after I got home.??
?

  Flora squeezed her eyes shut. “I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I thought maybe you were drinking or taking drugs or—” She hiccupped and started to cry. “I don’t know what I thought.”

  Stillman folded his arms around his wife. “Oh, Flora. I’m so sorry.”

  “I should have said something,” she sobbed. “I should have made you go to a neurologist instead of trying to ignore it and hoping you’d get better.”

  Trip shook his head. “No, sweetheart, no. I wouldn’t have listened to you. I’ve been in carry-on mode since I figured it out.” He bent down so he could peer up into her face. “You know. Stiff upper lip. Onward, the six hundred.”

  Flora gasped, a cross between a laugh and a sob.

  “Your PalmPilot,” Clare said, coming around the table toward him.

  Trip pulled the PDA from his pocket and set it on the table. “I take notes.” He smiled weakly. “I’ve always taken good notes. It’s important for a clinician. I can keep things in my head for a day. Or two.” Something blank and frightening drifted through his eyes. Clare involuntarily stepped back. “It’s … disorienting, sometimes. Like going forward on a moving walkway. People and pictures flash by and then they’re gone.”

  Flora yanked a chair from the table and collapsed into it. “Dear Lord. Dear, dear Lord.” Olivia sat next to her aunt and held out her hand. Flora took it, squeezing hard enough so that Clare could see her knuckles whitening. When she finally spoke, her voice was calmer. “Trip. You cannot practice medicine while you’re suffering from this.”

  “I thought so, too, at first! But really, Flo, I can. I haven’t forgotten any of my training.” He pointed toward Russ. “Russell Van Alstyne. Fifty. Married. O positive, no drug allergies. Compound dissociative fracture of the right tibia. Two pins in a Stinowski conformation. No postoperative complications.”

  “That’s good,” Russ said, “except I’m fifty-two and widowed.”

  Trip’s face went blank again.

  “Trip,” Clare said, “your sister could have told you everything that night. For all you know, she might have named her killer. Didn’t you take any notes?”

  The doctor looked at the PDA. “No,” he finally said. “I reread her file after I spoke with you at the office. I don’t have anything.” He ran his hand over the top of his close-cropped gray hair. “You have to understand, I was still hoping then … I wasn’t taking notes consistently.”

  Flora rocked forward in her chair. “Dear Lord.”

  Russ crossed his arms. “Mrs. Stillman, do you recall anything from that night?”

  She took a deep breath. “Olivia spent the day here with Iola, swimming and biking. Ellen came over from work. She must have arrived around five thirty. No.” Her brows knit together. “She was later than we expected. Six thirty.”

  “Go on,” Russ said.

  “We had drinks while Trip grilled. We ate. The girls were tired out and wanted to watch a movie. I joined them.” She paused again. “We made sundaes right before that. I remember warning the girls not to drip on the sofa. It was then that Ellen asked Trip if they could talk. She went out to her car to get something, and right after she came back in they disappeared into his study. The girls and I were already in the family room.”

  “Did you see what she went to get from the car?”

  Flora shook her head.

  “Olivia?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Did either of you see her carry anything back to the car when she left?”

  “Just her purse,” Olivia said, “but that was small.”

  Clare looked at Russ. “What do you think it was?”

  His face was grim. “The question is, where is it?”

  “If she left anything, it’s in Trip’s study.” Flora stood up. “Our cleaning service only dusts and vacuums in there, and the girls and I hardly ever go in.”

  Russ opened his hand in a you-first gesture. They trooped—or in Will’s case rolled—down the hallway and through the foyer and squeezed into a small room at the front of the house. It was a true office; desk and file cabinets and bookcases and a whole shelf of tiny papier-mâché skeletons playing instruments, golfing, and otherwise enjoying the afterlife. Russ touched a skeletal police officer with a fingertip. “Calacas. From El Día de los Muertos.”

  “The Feast of All Souls,” Clare said. “Coming right up.”

  “We’ve been collecting them for years,” Flora said. “Ever since we honeymooned in Mexico.” She bit her lip again as she looked at her husband. “Do you remember?”

  He took her hand. “Every minute. It’s just the present I’m having trouble with.”

  Russ pushed to the center of the small room, scanning the contents. “Can you tell if anything here is out of the ordinary?”

  Both the Stillmans shook their heads.

  “It might have been papers,” Russ went on. “If she was getting a payoff to look the other way—” He held up one hand at Trip’s sound of protest. “If that’s what happened, she might have documentation of a separate account. Something unconnected to her usual bank.”

  “You’d put any paperwork in the file cabinets, wouldn’t you, darling?”

  “Let’s take a look,” Russ said.

  Trip retrieved a ring of small keys from his desk, squinted at their labels, and began unlocking the first file cabinet. Each drawer had its own key.

  “That’s a good system you’ve got.” Eric rolled the top drawer open. “Most folks’ file cabinets you can get into with a bent paper clip.”

  “They’re fireproof as well. I’ve got patient information in here, and it’s important to keep it safe.”

  “I noticed a keypad by your front door,” Russ said. “Do you have a security system?”

  “Yes.” Flora stepped forward and took the handle of the bottommost drawer. “You can remove these entirely and put them on his desk if you don’t want to work bent over.”

  Clare hadn’t noticed any keypad, but she could tell what Russ was thinking. Tamper-resistant file cabinets in a wired and alarmed house must have been as close to a safety deposit box as Ellen Bain could come without actually going to a bank and leaving a paper trail.

  As Trip unlocked his way through the cabinets, Eric and Clare pulled out the lowest drawers and set them side by side on the desk. They ran out of room well before Trip ran out of files. “I’ll get the card table,” Flora said.

  Clare tugged on the next-to-last drawer. Something shifted inside, thudding against the metal front.

  “Look at all this.” Eric kept his voice low. “Do you think he’d have put it under her name? Or stuck it in anywhere?”

  Clare drew the cabinet drawer out slowly. It didn’t look any different than the others. Lots of manila folders, color tabbed, hanging on rails.

  “Mom kept everything.” Olivia looked up from where she was going through the top left drawer. “That’s the reason there were so many boxes. Everything and copies of everything.”

  Clare unlatched the metal tab holding it in place and lifted it from the cabinet. She tilted the drawer one way, then another. Thunk. Thunk. “There’s something in here.”

  Russ took the drawer from her. “See if you can get it out.”

  Clare shoved the folders back. A hefty envelope file had been wedged into the bottom of the drawer. She grabbed it and wiggled it free. It was more than an inch thick, its flap held in place by two thick rubber bands. She showed it to Trip.

  “I’ve never seen it before.” His mouth twisted. “That I can remember.”

  “What is it?” Will asked.

  Russ let the drawer thunk onto the carpet. “Let’s see.” He removed the rubber bands and opened the flap. The folder was stuffed with papers.

  “Here.” Flora toted a card table through the door and kicked its legs into place. “You can put it here.”

  Russ dumped the documents onto the surface. Clare picked one up: three sheets stapled together. The first two pages were an acco
unting, directed to the financial administration of the coalition, for thirty metric tons of steel rebar. It was detailed enough to make her eyes swim—cost of transport inter- and intracountry, cost of labor, percentage cost of insurance, interim and final disposition. The sheet stapled to it was much simpler: an invoice from Birmingham Steel to BWI Opperman for five metric tons of rebar. She flipped back to the second page. There was a string of signatures: one from the Secretary of Finance (Coalition), one from the Quartermaster General’s Office, one from the Field Director of Operations (BWI Opperman), and one from the CID Compliance Officer attached to 10th Financial Support. That signature was neat, firm, and recognizable. Lt. Col. Arlene Seelye.

  “Russ.” Clare held the document out for him to see.

  “I know.” He read the signature. He showed her the papers in his own hand. “This one’s for insulation. Five thousand square feet billed to the coalition, with an invoice for seven hundred and fifty square feet from a distributor in Kentucky.”

  “Are they all bills?” Eric asked.

  “This isn’t. This is a copy of a legal document.” Will had parked his chair at the edge of the card table and was flipping through a hole-punched collation of thirty or more pages. “I think it’s a contract for services between BWI Opperman and the coalition government.”

  Olivia looked over his shoulder, her forehead creased. “My mom didn’t have anything to do with the legal department.”

  Clare picked up another paper. Rubberized tiles. She read another. Ductwork. And another. Sewage piping. All of them billing for five or six or seven times the attached invoices to BWI. All of them signed Lt. Col. Arlene Seelye.

  “I just noticed this.” Eric pointed to the bottom corner of one of the elaborate coalition accounting forms. There was a small slash, followed by MM.

  “Mary McNabb.” Clare handed the form to Russ. “That was Tally’s real first name.”

  “She prepared these,” Russ said, “and Arlene Seelye signed off on them. Every one.”

  Clare leaned against the paper-strewn card table. “There must be fifty of these paired-off invoices.”