All Mortal Flesh (40 page)

Linda looked at her sister. Debbie paused from blotting her face. “Do you want me to drive you? I have a rental.”

“If it’s all right with you, I think Russ and I need some time alone right now.” Linda shot him a look, half warning, half disappointment.

“Okay. I’ll follow right behind you.”

Linda stepped toward Opperman and held out her hands. He took both of them and smiled at her.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “For everything. And I apologize for—” She cut her eyes toward Russ.

“No apologies needed, dear lady. Shall I see you on Monday?”

“Fabric swatches in hand.” Linda smiled brilliantly at him, then hooked her arm through her sister’s and walked to the door. Russ followed, like an ungainly bellboy.

“Thanks for your help, Ms. LeBlanc,” he said over his shoulder.

“My pleasure,” she said. “I’m glad it all ended, um, happily.”

Russ paused. The gust of wind from the door closing behind Linda and Debbie ruffled his hair and sent snowflakes shivering down his neck. “Would you do me a favor and call the Millers Kill Police Department? Let them know my wife’s been…” Restored? Returned? “Found.”

“I’m right on it,” LeBlanc assured him, heading for her office.

Russ cast one more malevolent glance at Opperman, who smiled and waved good-bye.

Outside, the wind and snow buffeted him. He tucked his chin into the collar of his coat and trudged toward his truck. Linda, he saw, already sat inside, waiting for him. Debbie, parked next to the pickup, was trying to clear her windshield with her wipers. He rapped on her window.

“They’re frozen in place,” he yelled over the wind. “Hold on and I’ll knock the snow off for you.”

He jumped into the cab, fired up the truck, and got his brush out. He scraped and brushed his sister-in-law’s rental car first, then got the snow off his own windows and head-and taillights.

He rapped on Debbie’s window again. She cracked it open. “Stay a good three, four lengths behind me,” he said. “Go light on your brakes. These kinds of conditions, you’ll skid if you brake too hard.” He looked up and down her car. “Are you sure you don’t want to ride with us?”

“On that little Band-Aid of a backseat? No, thanks. Where are we headed?”

Good question. His house was still an unheated crime scene. “My mother’s,” he decided. Debbie made a face. “She’s got two guest rooms, and she’s a lot closer than the motel you’re staying at. We’re going to go down the mountain onto Sacandaga Road, then left onto Old Route 100. Follow it along the river, over the bridge, up a few miles into the mountains again, and there you are.”

“Over the river and through the woods?”

“Something like that. If you get stuck or anything, flash your lights. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

She nodded. He climbed into the truck’s cabin, now toasty warm, and stripped off his coat.

“What was that all about?” Linda said.

He put the truck in gear and backed it up. “I told Debbie to follow us to Mom’s.” He watched out his side window, making sure his sister-in-law didn’t get stuck. Getting out of where you were parked was often the most difficult part of driving in the snow.

“Why your mother’s? Why not go home?”

“I could ask you the same question. How come Mr. Sandman there was checking you into the hotel instead of taking you to our house?”

“Because he wasn’t sure if his sports car would make it all the way to our place and back here. At the hotel”—she glared at him—“we could each have separate rooms without crowding together like we would’ve if he had to stay at our house.”

Russ grunted. The Algonquin’s unplowed driveway was indistinguishable from the gardens on either side, and he edged forward, waiting for the thump that would tell him he’d misjudged and driven over one of their low stone walls.

“And what do you mean, Mr. Sandman? Were you reading my e-mails?”

“We were investigating a homicide. The whole department’s seen your e-mails by now. Not to mention all of our bills, financial records, and phone calls.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. Debbie was right behind him.

“You really thought I had been murdered?” Linda’s voice was so low, he could barely hear her over the hot air blasting from the defroster.

“I really did. We all did.”

She rested her hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry.”

The pines lining the private road swallowed them. There was less snow on the pavement, and he could see farther despite the gloom of the forest.

“Did you have any suspects? In my, um, murder?”

“Me, for one.” He risked a glance at her. “There’s a state investigator come in to run the case. I’ve been relieved of duty. The staties and the aldermen thought either I had done it or I was fouling the investigation to protect whoever did do it.”

“That’s ridiculous. Who would want to murder me that you’d protect? Your mother?” She laughed, then fell silent. “No. Not your mother.” Linda turned to him. “Clare Fergusson. They thought your lover did it.”

Where are you going?”

Clare jumped. “Good Lord.” She turned to see Elizabeth de Groot next to Lois’s desk, arms akimbo, her ash blond hair and dark clericals limned by the lamplight falling from her own door. At two o’clock, the feeble, storm-grayed daylight barely penetrated into the interior of the office. “You startled me,” Clare said. “I thought you left when Lois did.”

“I considered it. Frankly, given everything that’s been going on here, I felt you needed me to stay. Are you headed home?” It was a reasonable question, given that Clare was booted and suited up in parka, hat, and gloves.

“Uh.” Clare had a pretty good idea that lying to her deacon wasn’t conducive to a good working relationship.

“So where are you going? Is there a pastoral emergency?”

Clare sighed. “Not exactly.” She pulled her hat off. “Are you going to try to make it all the way back down to Johnston?”

Elizabeth wasn’t thrown off the scent. Arms crossed, face expectant, she looked uncannily like Clare’s mother, waiting for a confession. The only thing missing was her mother’s syrup-sweet voice saying, “You might as well tell me now, because I
will
find out.”

“I spoke with Quinn Tracey’s best friend a little while ago. He sounded very strange. So I’m going there to check things out.”

“Why? Is he one of ours?”

A question designed to make Clare snatch out her hair. She fell back on St. Luke. “The lawyer, seeking to justify himself, asked Jesus, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ ”

The deacon had the grace to look abashed. “All right,” she said, “that wasn’t well put. But even the Good Samaritan might have let the trained professionals handle things nowadays.”

“I’ve called the police and let them know. They’re sending someone over as soon as they can.”

“Then why do you have to go?”

“Because I’m afraid that Quinn Tracey is a very disturbed young man. And his best friend—his only friend—is home alone. How is he going to handle it if Quinn shows up and says, ‘Hide me’ or ‘Give me money’ or ‘Let’s run away together?’ ”

“But the weather…”

Clare dug her keys out of her pocket. “I have all-wheel drive. I can get over there and back without too much difficulty.”

Elizabeth made a noise that would have been a snort in someone less ladylike. “All right. But I’m coming, too.”

“No, you’re not!”

The deacon ignored Clare’s protest. She crossed to her tiny office and emerged with her wool coat slung over her arm.

“There’s absolutely no reason for you to go,” Clare said.

“I don’t think there’s much of a reason for you to go, either, but you’ve convinced me it’s a pastoral call. All right. I will accompany you on the pastoral call.”

Clare opened her mouth to argue. Elizabeth speared her with a look. “If you’re going to argue that it’s not safe for me to come along, you’ll have to include yourself in that assessment.”

Clare shut her mouth.

The ride out to Old Route 100 was harrowing. The wind picked up the already fallen snow and whirled it in the air to mix with the stuff pelting down from the leaden clouds. Three times, Clare had to take her foot off the gas and let the Subaru roll to a near stop because she couldn’t see two feet past the hood of the car. Other vehicles appeared out of the spidery whiteness, headlights blossoming, then winked away into the storm.

Then there was Elizabeth de Groot.

“Have you considered applying to a more urban parish?” she asked. “Perhaps in a more stimulating environment, you wouldn’t need to keep throwing yourself into risk-taking experiences like you do here.”

Clare didn’t answer.

“You know, the bishop thinks very highly of you. But let’s face it, on the overall balance sheet, have you been an asset or a debit to the diocese as a whole? What do you think?”

Clare gritted her teeth and leaned closer to the windshield.

“In the short time I’ve been here, I can see how much you care for your congregation. But don’t you think the members of St. Alban’s have a right to expect their rector to keep her focus on them?”

Clare snapped the radio on. “Traffic reports,” she said.

Later, de Groot mused, “Maybe you’re meant to be back in the military. A military chaplain. Travel. Adventure. Lots of eligible young men.”

“A church of one,” Clare muttered.

“Hmm? Do you think that might suit you better?”

Clare knew responding would only encourage her, but she couldn’t let that one stand. “The army spent a lot of time and money training me to fly helicopters. If I ever went back, I’m pretty sure that’s what they’d want me to do.”

“Really? How do you think you’ve handled the move from such a dangerous profession to such a peaceable one?”

And so the psychoanalyzing went on, until Clare was ready to drive the two of them into a ditch. The sight of the MacEntyres’ massive barn was more welcome than she could have dreamed. There was something different about it this afternoon. She slowed almost to a stop and squinted through the gray-and-white blur. A gust of wind tore open the storm’s veil, and for a moment she could see clearly the double doors at the top of the ramp, open, and the rear of a pickup truck inside. Then the wind reversed and everything vanished again.

She drove up the driveway a car length or two and parked. She didn’t want to get stuck reversing out. “Bundle up,” she said, turning off the engine. With the blower and wipers off, she could hear the storm beating against the car, the wind whistling and thumping, the snow hissing and tapping.

Hearing it still didn’t prepare her for steeping out into it. A cold gust clouted the side of her head, and she tugged her hat down deep over her ears and eyes. Elizabeth emerged from the other side of the car with her scarf wound around her head and across her face.

At least it’ll keep her from going over my career prospects
, Clare thought. She headed down the drive.

“Where are you going?” Elizabeth pointed behind them. “The house is that way!”

“I saw a pickup parked in the barn,” Clare yelled. “I’m not sure, but I think it might be Quinn Tracey’s.”

Elizabeth, either bowing to Clare’s wisdom or eager to get out of the storm, nodded. She followed in Clare’s tracks. They waded across the road and up the ramp, entering the barn along with the wind and the snow that was coating the truck’s bed. Clare walked far enough forward to get out of the worst of it.

“Is this his truck?” Elizabeth asked, tugging her scarf beneath her chin.

Clare pointed to the attached plow. “I don’t know, but I’m willing to guess so.”

“Where do you think they are?”

Clare walked farther in, until there was nothing but wide wooden flooring beneath her feet. Straight across from them, another double door was firmly closed against the weather. Just as in the cattle pens below, a transverse aisle ran the length of the barn. The remainder of the barn, two levels strutted with dark, hand-cut beams, was filled with hay. Hay in tightly rolled, spiraling bales. Hay in silvery-green mounds.

Elizabeth sneezed.

Clare looked toward the east end of the barn. Nothing there but a two-story-high wall pierced with five windows at irregular intervals. The window glass, rippled and melting with age, was crusting over with frost. The barn was, Clare realized, shaped very much like a church.

Elizabeth sneezed again. “Where do you think they are?”

“There’s a poultry barn and an equipment shed out back, but I doubt they’re there,” Clare said. “I suspect the downstairs is the hangout of choice. It’s the cattle pen, and it has to be a good twenty degrees warmer than it is up here.”

“Sounds good to me. How do we get there?”

Clare swiveled around. “There’s a door outside, but when I was here last time, I saw a ladder coming down from the west end, there. Look.” Sure enough, they could see two grainy supports and three rungs sticking up out of the floor.

Elizabeth sneezed. “It better be nailed in place.”

“Do you have allergies?”

Elizabeth looked at her with watery and red-rimmed eyes. “Yes. The sooner I can get out of here, the happier I’ll be.”

“Do you want to go back to the car?”

“Doh.” The deacon was as grim as Clare had ever seen her.

“Okay. Give me a sec to check the inside of the pickup, and then we’ll go down. I want to go first.”

“Of course.”

Clare couldn’t tell whether de Groot was being sarcastic or just prissy. Either way, she’d better hurry. She strode back to the pickup. The wind ripped into her as she stood on the running board and looked inside. She opened the driver’s door and slid in on her knees. Maps in the door pockets, three scrapers stuffed behind the seat. She popped open the glove compartment. Insurance and registration, in Quinn Tracey’s name. Paper napkins left over from a fast-food joint. Beneath them, two condom packages and a tin box of breath mints. What her brothers used to call their Hope Springs Eternal Kit.

In other words, nothing. No blood smears, no hidden K-Bar. She flipped down the sun visors and was startled by a piece of paper fluttering to the floor-mat. She pawed at it, clumsy in her gloves, until it came up into her hand.