II
Clare was three miles out of Millers Kill, at the end of a five-hour drive from Fort Dix, when she realized she was out of booze. She groaned, thinking of returning to her cold house—when she was away for Guard training, she turned the thermostat down to fifty to save on oil—and facing the evening with nothing but some undoubtedly sour milk and a two-day-old Thermos of coffee. No wine. No sherry. No scotch.
No way. She cruised up Route 57, watching the river that gave the town its name running brown and gold beneath the long rays of the setting sun. Driving past St. Alban’s, she continued on toward Main, then crossed over the river, headed for the town line. She’d been doing her shopping in Glens Falls, the better to avoid running into Russ Van Alstyne. But Napoli’s Discount Liquor ought to be safe, seeing as the chief of police was a nondrinking alcoholic.
In the parking lot, she unfolded out of her seat and stretched gratefully—up, down, and side to side. The breeze from the west was still cool with the snow lingering in the mountains, but the warmth thrown off by the asphalt testified to the power of the spring sun. Winter was gone, and good freaking riddance to it. If she never saw another snowflake in her life, it wouldn’t be too soon.
She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and checked her messages. One from her parents touching base, one from Deacon Elizabeth de Groot, assuring her that they were all doing splendidly without her, and one from Hugh Parteger. “Vicar! Thanks for stopping by for lunch on your way to that pestilent place south of the Palisades.” She assumed he meant New Jersey. Hugh may have been born in England, but he was a true New Yorker at heart. “Next time”—his voice dropped—”why don’t you just tell your congregation you’re reporting for duty and stay the weekend with me? I promise I can show you maneuvers the U.S. Army has yet to think of.”
“Not happening, Hugh,” she told the phone. She erased the message, laughing.
Checking out her order, Mr. Napoli kept peering at her, frowning a bit as he placed the Macallan’s and the Harveys and the bottles of Shiraz in their narrow paper bags. It wasn’t until she produced her driver’s license and checkbook that he smiled at her. “Reverend Fergusson!” He clutched her license with both hands, his eyes shifting from her picture, to her, and back again. “I didn’t recognize you, with all these soldier clothes on.” He gestured up and down, taking in her desert camo battle dress uniform. “We haven’t seen you in here lately! Now I can tell Mrs. Napoli why.” He took her check, tching. “The army. Is that any place for a sweet girl like you?”
Clare remembered, too late, that she had also been avoiding appearing in public in uniform. Too many explanations. She smiled flirtatiously. “Now, Mr. Napoli. You’ve seen my birth date.” She slid her license off the counter. “I’m hardly a girl anymore.” While he was gallantly defending her right to be juvenalized two months shy of her thirty-seventh birthday, she extricated herself with a promise not to be “a stranger.” Bumping out the door with a bagful of booze, she reminded herself to take her civvies with her next time she reported for Guard service, and change before she got in her car to go home.
Russ Van Alstyne was standing beside his big red pickup in the parking lot.
Staring at her.
She swallowed. Hugged her paper sack closer to her chest. Her first thought was, Was he always that tall? Her second thought was, He’s lost weight. He was in his semi off-duty uniform, tan MKPD blouse tucked into a pair of jeans that had seen better days, an official windbreaker balancing his salt-stained hunting boots.
Then she realized where he was. Her eyes widened. His did, too.
“What are you doing at a liquor store?” she asked.
“What are you doing in uniform?” he said simultaneously.
They both paused. His dismay—at getting caught?—was plain on his face. “Are you drinking again?” she said. Her clashing emotions—concern, not wanting to be concerned—made her voice harsher than she intended.
He blinked. Frowned. “What?”
She waved a hand at Napoli’s plate glass windows, advertising specials on Dewar’s, Bombay gin, and all Australian wines. “What are you doing at the liquor store?” She took a step closer, not wanting to shame him by shouting his problem to any shoppers within earshot. “Please don’t tell me you’ve started drinking again.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. Opened them. When he spoke, his voice was tight with control. “I am not drinking again. I’m here to get Napoli’s latest bad check report.”
Her mouth formed a silent O.
“Now, would you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing in BDUs?”
She shifted one shoulder so he could read her New York State Guard patch. His hand came up and touched his collar, where, like her, insignia told the world his rank. “Where’s your chaplain’s cross?”
She mirrored his movement, touching her captain’s bars. “I’m not in the chaplaincy. I’m in the 142nd Aviation Battalion. Combat support.”
“You’re what?” He crossed to her in three sharp strides. “You’re in combat support? Are you insane? There’s a goddamn war on! Who the hell volunteers for front-line duty with a war on?”
She looked up at him. “I don’t know. You, maybe?”
He hissed through his teeth. The secret he might have taken to his grave, if he hadn’t shared it with her. Suddenly, she felt ashamed, as if she had used a cannon to counter a fly-swatter. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I haven’t told. I wouldn’t ever tell.” That, contrary to what everyone else believed, Russ Van Alstyne had not been drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. He had enlisted—volunteered.
“Christ, I know that. You think I worry about that?” He shook his head. “At least I had an excuse. I was eighteen and dumb and desperate to get out of town. What possible reason could you have?”
She shifted the paper sack on her hip. “The bishop and I had several lengthy conversations after . . . after . . .” She was searching for a word to pretty up what she had done. She shouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do that. “After I killed Aaron MacEntyre.”
“That was self-defense, not killing. You saved our lives in that barn. His punk-ass friend’s, too.”
“I resigned my cure, but, strangely enough, he didn’t accept it.”
“You what?”
She ignored his interruption. “Ultimately, the bishop didn’t think what I had . . . done . . . was the problem. He thought it was a symptom. Of me not knowing if I was a priest who used to be an army officer, or an army officer who happened to be a priest. He suggested”—she looked up at him, her mouth twisting—” he strongly suggested the National Guard as a solution.” She shrugged. “So I joined up. At the end of January.” She paused. “You hadn’t heard?”
“No, I hadn’t heard. Your name hasn’t come up. . . .” His blue eyes unfocused. She could see the lightbulb come on. “No one talks about you anymore.” She wasn’t sure if he knew he was speaking aloud. “No one ever talks about you to me.”
Another brilliant piece of deduction by the head of the Millers Kill Police Department. Idiot. She dug her fingers into the paper sack to keep from smacking the surprise off his face. A Pontiac pulled in the lot, parking beside her Subaru. Automatically, they each stepped back. Away from each other.
His gaze sharpened again. “Your bishop pushed you into recommissioning. Knowing you might well be deployed.”
“I wasn’t pushed. I had my own—”
His snort blew away her rationalization. “Because you took out Aaron MacEntyre.”
“Because I have a record of—”
“He was going to gut-shoot me. He was ready to do it.”
Clare compressed her lips into a thin line. She didn’t want to stroll down that particular memory lane. Then she realized where he was going. “No,” she said.
“Because of me.”
“No.” She was louder this time. The older gentleman getting out of the Pontiac paused and looked at them nervously. Was the chief of police about to haul som
e belligerent soldier away?
“We are not having this conversation.” She turned toward her car. Russ caught at her sleeve, and at that moment, her phone began playing “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” in her pants pocket. Proof, if ever she needed it, that there was a merciful God.
“Yes, we are,” he said.
She fished out the phone and opened it. “Hello?” She twisted, more firmly this time, breaking his hold on her.
“Clare? This is Sister Lucia. Lucia Pirone.” The sister’s voice was thready. Clare backed toward her Subaru, keeping her eyes on Russ. He took a step toward her. Then his phone started ringing.
“Lucia? What is it? I’m sorry, I can hardly hear you.” She bumped up against the car and set her sack on the hood. Russ took another step toward her. She pointed at his jacket pocket. Your phone, she mouthed.
“The hell with my phone,” he said.
“There’s been an accident,” Sister Lucia said. “My van—”
“An accident?” Clare jabbed her finger at Russ again, then made a face. “Are you okay?”
He opened his jacket and retrieved his phone. Checked the caller ID. Frowned. He retreated to his own vehicle to answer it.
“No, actually, I don’t think I am.” Clare realized the weakness in the nun’s voice had less to do with signal strength than with injury.
“Lucia. Have you called nine-one-one?”
“Yes.” There was a noise, as if the older woman were gasping for breath. “There are two officers here. An ambulance is coming.”
“How can I help?”
“I was—” Her voice faded away.
“Lucia? Lucia? Where are you?”
“Sorry. I’m off Route 137 in Cossayuharie. The van—a tire blew. We went off the road.”
“We?”
“Some of the men are hurt,” the nun said. “They’re afraid. They’re running off into the woods—please, Clare, please—”
“I’ll be right there. I’m getting into my car right now. You sit still and do whatever the EMTs tell you to. I’ll take care of everything else.”
“Thank you—” The call went dead. Clare dropped the phone back into her cargo pocket. Swung open the back door and dropped the bag of booze on the floor. She paused, hand in pocket, fingers curled over her keys. She could just get in and drive away. She didn’t have to say anything to Russ.
Cowardly, Master Sergeant Ashley “Hardball” Wright, her survival training instructor, sneered.
Rude, Grandmother Fergusson chided.
She turned back to him and was startled to find he had recrossed the parking lot and was a scant few feet away from her again. “I’ve got to run,” she said. “This missioner nun I’ve agreed to help, Sister Lucia, she’s—”
“Been in a single-vehicle accident. It’s a bad one. I’m headed there.”
“Oh.” His phone call. Of course. “I guess I’ll see you there.”
“I guess I’ll take you there.” He turned toward his truck, beckoning her to follow him.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He turned back toward her. “Do you even know where it is?”
“Off the Cossayuharie Road . . .” Her voice sank as she realized Sister Lucia’s description covered a lot of ground.
“I guarantee I can get you there ten–fifteen minutes faster than you would on your own.” He shrugged. “But it’s up to you.” He strode toward the pickup.
She stood, paralyzed, for a second. Don’t be stupid, Hardball Wright said. Just walk away, her grandmother urged.
“Wait!” She dashed across the lot. “I’m coming with you.”
III
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, but kept the same steady pace toward the Ford F-250. By the time he crossed to the driver’s side, she had climbed into the cab and was buckled in, staring straight through the windshield as if the Napoli’s Liquor sign were the most interesting thing she had seen all day.
He fired up the truck. Unclipped the light from its mount and, rolling down his window, slapped it on the roof of the cab. “Hold on,” he said.
He pulled onto Route 137, accelerating until he was roaring down the county highway at a good twenty miles above the speed limit. He took his attention off the road for a split second, just long enough to glance at her. It was funny. When he’d thought of her these past months—when he’d let himself think about her—it was always as she was the day Linda died: white-faced, bruised, bloody-mouthed. Her eyes going green with horror as she stared at her hands. Oh, my God, she had cried. What have I done?
This Clare’s pointed nose and high cheekbones were flush with health. She radiated energy, from her crossed arms to her boots, planted square and firm against the floorboard. Whatever was making her eyes glint brown, it wasn’t horror.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me it’s your fault I’m going into harm’s way? That if it hadn’t been for you, I’d be in prayer and meditation right now instead of waiting to hear if I’m called up? Aren’t you going to take responsibility for me screwing up my pastoral duties, and Linda and her sister dying, and every person you work with and every crime ever committed under your watch and”—she waved a hand at the coffee-colored fields unfolding all around them—“and global warming? Didn’t you say we had to have this conversation?”
He did. Except he was going to look like an idiot if he just repeated everything she’d said. Christ, what did he think he was going to achieve by getting her in the truck with him? He should have left her there in the parking lot, her and her spiffy little Subaru and her grocery sack of liquor.
“Don’t you worry you might be drinking too much?” he said, seizing on another topic as a man who’s run out of ammunition might lay hold of a stick.
“Oh, for—”
They sailed over a rise to face a line of brake lights stretching down to the bottom of the valley. “Shit!” he said. “Hang on!” He stood on the brakes. The pickup skidded, slewed sideways in a shower of gravel and old salt, and came to rest three inches from the back end of a Toyota Corolla, whose driver was watching him with terrified eyes through her rearview mirror.
He turned to Clare. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She patted herself on her chest. Took a breath. “Yeah.”
He switched on the siren and inched into the oncoming lane. He could see the obstruction now—some farmer’s disk harrow had decided to break down, half on, half off its trailer, and the two pieces of machinery were blocking most of the road. The farmer, who had been shoving fruitlessly at the rear wheel of the harrow, turned to glare at them when Russ rolled to a stop. He turned off the siren but left the lights. Powered down the window on Clare’s side.
“Don’t you have a hand to help you with that thing?” he said.
“No, I don’t have no goddamn hand to help with the goddamn mess! Can’t get no goddamn help for love or goddamn money. Goddamn sumbitch a-hole—”
“I’ll send somebody from Fire and Rescue.” Russ closed the window over a steady stream of profanity and inched past the unsteady tangle, forcing the nearest car to roll most of the way into the drainage ditch to avoid getting clipped. Clare pointed to its driver, who was using body language to let Russ know what he thought of him.
“Another satisfied customer,” she said.
“Idiot shouldn’t have gotten so close to the accident.” He gave the accelerator a little kick. “You got John Huggins’s number in your phone?” John Huggins headed up the volunteer Fire and Rescue department.
“Just at home.”
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “He may already be at the scene of the single vehicle. Tell him he needs to get a couple of his guys over here to direct traffic and help Farmer Greenjeans haul his machinery off the road.”
Clare examined his contacts list. “Got it.” She dialed, and held the phone to her ear. Once past the rema
ining stalled cars, Russ sped up. “Uh—no,” Clare said, beside him. “It’s Clare Fergusson.” She glanced at Russ. “He gave it to me. He asked me to—” She sighed. “He’s fine. He’s sitting right next to me. He handed the phone to me so he could concentrate on his driving.”
There was a pause.
“Yes. Is that a problem?” Her voice was sharp. “No, don’t answer that. Listen, there’s a farmer with a broken down—” She looked over at Russ.
“Disk harrow,” he said.
“Disk harrow, about two, two and a half miles east of Napoli’s on the Cossayuharie Road. Russ—the chief wants you to send over a couple of men to help with the situation.” With her free hand, she poked at one of the bobby pins that was trying, and failing, to keep her whiskey-and-honey hair in a twist at the back of her head. “I know about that. We’re on our way there now.” She rolled her eyes at Russ. “Thanks, uh—Mr. Huggins.” She thumbed off the phone. “I never know what to call him. He always refers to me as Fergusson.”
“I’m sure he’d answer to Chief.”
She crossed her arms over her chest again and made a rude noise. “There’s only one chief in this town, and he’s not it.”
He blinked.
“I mean, you can’t hang a name on yourself and think it makes you a leader,” she said quickly. “You have to make yourself a leader, and then the title just comes naturally. I mean, I can call myself the Grand Duchess Anastasia, but it doesn’t—”
“I know what you mean.”
Her mouth clicked shut. She made a little hissing sound.
“You know, you can’t lead men and women without making yourself responsible for them.”
She turned her head away. Looked out her window. The road rose up to meet them, carrying them up into one of the mountainous fingers that pierced the rolling farmlands of Cossayuharie. The air around them darkened as the trees closed in. When she spoke, her voice was almost inaudible. “I never wanted you to lead me,” she said to the glass. “I just wanted—”
He didn’t get to hear what she wanted. They curved in a long arc down and around a steep cut in the hillside and there was the accident scene, at the point where the forest once more shaded into farmlands, laid out in front of them like a set of toy vehicles that some giant kid had played hard with and then abandoned.