One Was a Soldier (44 page)

He was a grown-up. He was a grown-up who had screwed up unbelievably bad in almost every way there was, and he wasn’t going to get out of it with some grand fuck-you-world gesture. He locked the 9 mm back in the cabinet and trudged upstairs. Put on the rest of his uniform. One thing at a time. He had questions about Ellen Bain to figure out. Then, if he played his cards right, he’d have his job. Then he’d fix things with Jake. Then he’d get his wife back.

Get one thing right. Doesn’t matter if you have no idea how the rest of it will fall into place, or even if it
will
fall into place. It was just like his tour of duty. You take it one day at a time, one hour, sometimes one minute at a time, and that’s how you get through it.

He set his beret on his head and went off to do one thing right.

*   *   *

Eric parked as close to the hotel entrance as he could. He sat there for a while, hearing Jennifer saying,
If you get caught you could face charges. You could lose your job
. Hearing Will Ellis saying,
Nobody gets left behind.

He got out of the car. Took the curving steps up to the wide cobblestone entryway, jammed with rich-looking retirees getting into Beemers or handing off the keys to the Mercedes to the valets. The parking guys were too busy to pay him any heed, but several guests stared at him. Curious, at first, because the resort was out of the pay grade of anybody lower than a full bird colonel. Then they got the look he had seen before. It was all sorts of warm and approving, like they had slapped a
WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS
magnet on their faces. God, he hated that look.

It was less annoying on the face of the perky blond desk clerk. Hotel receptionists always looked like they were grateful for your service. “May I help you?” the girl said.

“Yes, you can.” He tried to smile, but it felt off. “I’d like to speak to your human resources manager.”

Her expression grew guarded. “I’m afraid we’re not hiring at this time, but I can get you an application to fill out if you’d like.”

Eric flipped his reserve ID badge at her, fast enough to register, not so fast she could make out the details. “I’m with the military police. I need to ask a few questions about Tally McNabb.”

“Oh. Okay. Wait here, please.” She disappeared through the door behind reception. Popped out again not two minutes later. “Ms. Kirkwood will be right with you.”

Elaine Kirkwood, the Algonquin Wates HR director, had the softened skin of somebody’s mother and the assessing eyes of a card shark. She led Eric around the edge of the resort’s sprawling lobby, past the dark, leafy bar, into a side corridor punctuated by unmarked doors. She opened one and ushered him into a typical corporate space—copier, cubicles, and computers. Hermetically sealed windows displayed untouchable views of trees, mountains, sky. Several women’s heads popped up like woodchucks out of holes. Eric thought, not for the first time, that he’d rather take a bullet than have to work in an office.

Kirkwood continued on to an inner door. “This way.” She shut the door behind them, then sat at a desk that was almost as cluttered as the chief’s. He took one of the two chairs facing her. There was a large box of tissues within reach. For employees getting the ax, he supposed. “I don’t know if you’ve checked with them, Sergeant, but we’ve already given a statement to the local police.”

“I’m not here about her suicide.” He slid his pen and notebook out of his breast pocket.

“You’re not? What, then?”

“How long had she been working for BWI Opperman?”

Kirkwood raised her eyebrows as if to acknowledge his sidestepping her question. “Almost three months. She started on August first.”

“Can you tell me what, exactly, her job entailed?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Was she responsible for the accounting for the entire company?”

“Oh, no. We have an outside firm for that. Tally’s job was to keep the books for the special construction projects.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.” He gave her a look that said,
I’m slow.

“Oh, well, let’s see. Let me give you some history.” She held up three fingers. “There are three divisions of BWI Opperman.”

Not that slow,
he wanted to say.

“The original division is the resort construction company. For its first twenty years, the company specialized in fulfillment. Building for others,” she said in response to his questioning expression. “About fifteen years ago, the company went vertical. Designing, building, and operating its own resorts. In the past few years, BWI Opperman has spun its expertise off into special projects that require single-team, clearing-to-cap construction.”

“Can you give me an example of that?”

“Well, the only contracts we’ve taken so far have been with the coalition forces in Iraq.”

Eric blinked. “There aren’t any resorts in Iraq. At least, not any that weren’t blown up.”

She smiled. “BWI Opperman was hired because of that vertical integration. We have earth movers and carpenters and electricians and roofers and anyone else you might require to turn a completely undeveloped piece of land into a school. Or a clinic. Or a mess hall. Anything that might be necessary. We’re one-stop shopping for the Provisional Authority’s building needs. All the American contractors are, as I understand it.”

“So she did all the accounting for that. From here?”

“Yes. Well.” Kirkwood paused and looked uncomfortable for a moment. “She had been reassigned. It was felt that having the specials’ accountant in Iraq would be more useful. Lead to less cost overruns. Of course, she never actually went over.” Her voice thinned.

“You had another bookkeeper here before Tally was hired. Ellen Bain.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What was her job?”

Kirkwood lifted her brows. “Special construction projects. Tally was hired to replace her.”

“Three days after she died in an accident?”

The HR director’s face fell into smooth, untroubled lines. “It was too important a position to leave unfilled.”

“How did Tally come to your attention?”

“I’m afraid our hiring process is confidential.” Kirkwood placed her hands on her desk and rose. “If that’s all, Sergeant, I have a busy day ahead of me.”

Eric stood as well. “Who replaced her?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who replaced Tally? In the special construction position?”

Kirkwood blinked, hiding her shark’s eyes for a moment. “We haven’t found anyone suitable yet.”

*   *   *

“It doesn’t make any goddamn sense.” Russ paced from the squad room table to one of the windows to the whiteboard to the huge three-county map hanging near the door.

“Will you quit that? You’re gonna give me motion sickness.” Lyle handed Tony Usher a mug of coffee. “Don’t worry. Harlene made it. It’s safe to drink.”

“You made a wrong call, Chief. It happens.” Tony sounded pretty damn philosophical for a man who’d had to admit to a CID investigator and another JAG that he’d been running his own not entirely authorized investigation.

“Christ, Tony, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

“No harm, no foul. They think I was following the same case, just half a step behind them. I can stand looking a little slow. It’s not going to hurt my career.”

Tony was generous. Two light birds—the JAG had been a lieutenant colonel, too—now thought Usher was some sort of cowboy. Not the performance any major wanted on his record.

“I just don’t get it.” Russ picked his own mug off the table, wincing at the spasm of pain in his shoulder where the overeager MP had rifle-butted him. “She let her prime informant fly off to Iraq. She didn’t search McNabb’s house or her bank accounts. Hell, as far as we can tell, she never even questioned Tally’s friends. That’s not an investigation. That’s dereliction of duty.”

“Maybe she got your number when she was here,” Lyle said. “She figured you’d never be able to stand not knowing what happened and you’d find the money for her.”

“Do you think Opperman’s in on it? He could have paid her off. Made McNabb disappear.”

Lyle stared at him. “You think the CEO of a fifty-million-dollar-a-year company is going to hook up with one of his construction bosses and his wife in order to split a million in cash? Jesum, Russ, the man’s vacation house in the Caribbean is worth more’n that.”

“Maybe she stuck with Nichols,” Tony said. “Let him lead her to the money.”

“Poor Nichols. Christ.” Russ wiped his hand across his face. His jaw stung where he had scraped it raw against the concrete floor. “The guy put it on the line to help us, and he winds up under arrest.” His last sight of Nichols had been the man’s despairing face as he disappeared into one of three personnel carriers Seelye’s SWAT team had brought.

“Chief.” Tony dropped his hand on Russ’s shoulder for a second. “He knew the risk. It’s not like he was Ivory Soap clean.”

“I know, I know.” Russ’s frustration goaded him forward, window to whiteboard to map.

“The money’s back where it belongs.” Lyle raised his mug. “I count that as a win.”

Russ turned on his second in command. “Does this feel right to you?”

Lyle pursed his lips together. “No,” he finally said. “It doesn’t. But I’ve seen enough incompetent kiss-asses rise to the top of the heap off of other men’s hard work not to recognize it when it happens. She blew the investigation, then lucked out when Nichols called her. She gets the gold mine and he gets the shaft.”

*   *   *

Russ took Tony down to Albany to catch his morning flight. It was the least he could do. “You sure you don’t want to stay for the wedding?” he asked, pulling into the departures lane.

Tony grinned. “The opportunity to see you doing the Chicken Dance is tempting, I must admit, but I better get home and start covering my ass.”

Russ threw the truck into park. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“Stop apologizing.” Tony dug his travel voucher out of his coat pocket. “You’re the one who taught me it’s better to have backup and not need it than the other way around.”

They both got out of the cab. Tony hoisted his bag from the truck bed. “If anything else like this comes up, anything involving the army, I want you to give me a call, okay? Even if it’s just to bounce ideas off my thick skull.”

Russ balanced on the edge of the curb, stretching his legs. “Forget it. My normal caseload consists of drunken fights and shoplifting from the Stewart’s, not military justice violations. The nearest base to us is Fort Drum, and that’s three and a half hours away.”

Tony shook his head. “Your little burg’s not a military town, that’s true, but it’s the kind of town where the military comes from. Small, rural, not much opportunity. Right? How many of your young people join up to get away?”

Russ thought of Wayne and Mindy’s boy, Ethan. Of himself, all those years ago. “A few.”

“Uh-huh. And how many of your officers and EMTs and firefighters got their training in the Guard?” He lifted his bag from the walk. “There are a lot of Millers Kills all over this country. It’s where people like you and me come from, and sometimes it’s where we go back to. As long as that’s true, you’re going to keep crossing paths with the Big Green.” He held out his hand, and Russ shook it, hard. “You take care, Chief. Have fun being the preacher’s husband. Send me and Latice the baby announcement when it’s time.”

Russ laughed. “Sorry, no kids. How ’bout you send me and Clare an invitation to Kanisha’s graduation?”

“Invitation, hell. We’re selling tickets at fifty bucks a pop. You’ve got to think creatively when it comes to funding college.”

*   *   *

Evonne Walters’s greeting that morning was so enthusiastic Clare felt guilty for not visiting sooner. She brought out a loaf of pumpkin bread warm from the oven, and they settled on a sofa in a room Grandmother Fergusson would have called “the good parlor.” Photo albums and boxes of tissues suggested that this had become the place to meet and mourn and reminisce.

Clare placed her mug on the coffee table and picked up an album.

“That’s Mary in high school,” Evonne said.

Clare flipped the cover open. A long-haired, makeup-wearing Tally McNabb smiled up at her. There were pages of friends and teammates, slumber parties and snow forts and the beach at Lake George. Tally in her prom dress, escorted by a boy in an ill-fitting tuxedo. “Is that Wyler?”

“Oh, yes. They dated all through high school and got married right after.” Evonne flipped to a picture of Tally and Wyler leaning against the hood of a muscle car. “I don’t mind admitting I was against it at the time. Wyler didn’t even have a diploma, and I didn’t want Mary to have as hard a life as I had. But she was crazy in love with him.” She turned another page. Tally, in a white dress and veil. “They had their ups and downs. When she enlisted he was right ticked. Wouldn’t leave Millers Kill, though it wun’t like he had a regular job to keep him.” Evonne sighed. “He took his own sweet time growing up. Then he got hired by BWI Opperman, and they got the house and all, and I figured he just needed some extra baking time.”

“Were you worried when she signed up?”

“I always figured, what harm could come to a girl pushing a pencil?” Evonne made a quavery attempt at a smile. “Who knew the trouble would come after she got home?”

“Sometimes…” Clare searched for the right words. “Sometimes the hard part is coming home. When you’re in, you know exactly what’s expected of you. After … you’re on your own.”

“But she had me, and Wyler, and her friends. She had that group of yours. She had the job with BWI Opperman, and money to burn. She could’ve done anything.” Evonne blinked hard. “Somehow she just got smaller and smaller inside herself. Like she was hiding.”

“From what?”

“If I knew that, I mighta been able to help her.” The older woman sliced the pumpkin bread and held it out toward Clare.
Take, eat,
she thought.
This is my body, given for you.
They ate the bread together. It was warm and sweet on Clare’s tongue.

“You were a chaplain,” Evonne said.

“No. I flew helicopters. I was regular army for ten years before I became a priest.”