One Was a Soldier (8 page)

Clare skidded to a stop, grabbing the man’s shoulders to steady him. “You okay?” Alcohol fumes rose off him like heat shimmers off the street.

He nodded and smiled, cheerily and toothlessly. “Enjoy your lunch,” Clare said and pounded after the younger woman, who now had almost a block’s lead on her. Clare concentrated on closing it, lengthening her stride, shortening her arm swing, matching her breathing to the thwap-thwap-thwap of her sneakers hitting the pavement. She’d been running six, eight, ten miles a day these past months, endless, punishing loops around the base perimeter, kicking it up, kicking it and kicking it until she outran her mind and was nothing but a body, all sensation, no thought.

She drew closer and closer to Tally, her breath sawing in her ears, her feet thudding along with her heart. She was getting into that zone where all the noise in her head went away and she just felt: anger and excitement and the heat on her skin and the stretch and flex of her muscles. When Tally pivoted into an alley between the Goodwill and a dilapidated hobby shop, Clare didn’t hesitate. She followed—right into the garbage can the girl had toppled in her path.

Clare hit the can, flipping over it, smashing shoulder-first onto the gritty asphalt. Her lungs emptied. Her eyes filled. She heard the pounding of footsteps behind her, then the thud and swish of someone leaping over her, then the footsteps receding as Tally ran back onto Mill Street.

Clare swore. Pushed herself off the pavement, her shoulder burning and cramping. Wiped her forearm across her eyes to clear her tear-and-dust-clouded vision. Took a step and collapsed at the stab of pain in her right ankle. She swore again. Limped out of the alley as fast as one and a half legs could take her. Spotted Tally one block up, bent over, hands braced on her knees, her body bowed before the limits of her heart and lungs. When she saw Clare, she started upright and staggered toward the Riverside Park.

“Wait, goddammit!”

Tally ignored her. Clare cursed again then clamped her mouth shut as she realized she had brought more than a running habit back from Iraq. Limping up the sidewalk, she tried again. “I just want to talk with you!”

Even Tally’s lurching half-jog was going to outstrip Clare’s speed with a twisted ankle. “It’s about Quentan Nichols!”

Tally paused, still not turning.

C’mon,
Clare thought.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.

A cruiser flew from the end of Burgoyne Street, crossed Mill, and kept right on going, over the curb, onto the sidewalk, and the door swung open and Eric McCrea was there, gun out, pointing it at Tally, bellowing, “Police! Get down on the ground!”

What the hell?
Russ’s officers didn’t respond to assault by a plastic cup with deadly force. Tally seemed locked in place, swaying; whether from fear or exhaustion, Clare couldn’t tell. She limped faster, trying to reach them, to tell McCrea that whatever he was told, there must be some mistake—when he closed on Tally and kicked across her shins, toppling her over.

“Stop!” Clare yelled, but he didn’t seem to hear her. She watched, horrified, as he stomped his boot into the downed woman’s back and yanked her arm up.

Tally screamed. Clare gritted her teeth and ran, feeling the tear and stab, almost light-headed with pain. “Sergeant McCrea,” she shouted, putting everything she had learned about command into her voice. “Release that woman now!”

He dropped Tally’s wrist. Stepped off her. Stared at Clare. “Reverend Clare.” He sounded surprised. Defiant. She knelt on the sidewalk next to the moaning woman and helped her sit up.

“What the hell were you doing? If Russ—if Chief Van Alstyne had seen this…” She was suddenly in her kitchen on a warm night in May, watching Russ open and close his fist after he had broken his own rules and, enraged, punched a man in his custody.
If one of my officers had done that, I’da had him on suspension by now.

McCrea jerked his chin up. The look in his eyes reminded her of an unsocialized dog, afraid and dangerous. “We had a report you’d been assaulted at the soup kitchen. I get to the scene, this”—he waved his hand toward Tally, bent beneath Clare’s arm, still gasping—“perp is fleeing, and you look like someone’s knifed and rolled you? What was I supposed to think?”

“She threw a glass of iced tea on me. There was no need to—”

“I used appropriate force for someone I believed to be dangerous. If you want to report me to the chief, go ahead.”

She shook her head, all her anger and adrenaline beaten down to a heartsick weariness. “I’m not looking to tattle on you, Sergeant McCrea.”

Tally looked up at her, her face mottled with exertion and pain. “You’re not an MP?”

Clare sighed. “No, Tally, I’m not an MP. I’m a priest.” Her brain caught up with what the woman’s statement implied. “You saw me last week, didn’t you? At the Dew Drop.” Tally nodded. “I’m serving in the Guard. That’s why I was in uniform. And the reason I approached you in the soup kitchen is that the police want to make sure that you’re not in danger from your husband or from Chief Nichols.”

For the first time, McCrea looked at Tally as if she might be human. “That’s her? McNabb’s wife?”

“Yes.” Clare tried to keep her voice even. “This is her.”

“We’ve been trying to track her down since last Friday.” He stepped back, well away from the two women. “Mrs. McNabb, I’d like you to come with me to the station to make a statement.”

Tally got to her feet. She rubbed her shins. Tried her shoulder. “You’re joking, right?”

Clare struggled to stand up. “They need your side of the story about the fight at the Dew Drop, and if you need a restraining order, they’ll support your petition.”

“Restraining order? Against who?”

“Against whoever’s scared you enough so that you drop out of sight for a week.”

“I wasn’t scared. Exactly.” Tally wiped a bare arm across her nose. “I just needed some time away so I could think. I couldn’t deal with my husband just yet.”

Clare reached out and touched the other woman, sending electric shocks of pain through her own shoulder. “Tally. Go with Sergeant McCrea. I promise you, you’ll be unharmed and treated fairly. You can tell Chief Van Alstyne Clare Fergusson has given you her word.”

“And he’s going to care … why?”

McCrea snorted.

Clare frowned at him. “Because the chief believes in doing the right thing.”

In the end, the young woman went, sitting guarded and stiff on the other side of the cruiser from Clare, who was dropped off back at the soup kitchen. As Clare exited the police car, she saw she had left a smear of blood where her shoulder pressed against the seat.
Oh, God.

She paused before shutting the door. “Sergeant McCrea…” She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound like a threat to run to Russ if he didn’t behave.

“Reverend.”

Finally, she sighed. “I’ll see you around.” She shut the door. Limping into the soup kitchen, she was surrounded by concerned parishioners, all of whom backed away when they saw her bloody clothing and her dirt-and-tea-spattered hair. Velma Drassler looked her up and down, shaking her head. “We’ve got our rector back,” she said, in a different tone than before.

The meal service was almost over. The other volunteers were washing and reshelving and sweeping and mopping, and Clare insisted, despite being urged to go home, on closing. She retrieved a bottle of blackberry brandy from the depths of a pantry shelf and self-medicated until she could ignore the pain in her shoulder and ankle. Then she limped to clean the bathroom.

Squirting and wiping the tile with as much energy as she could muster, trying not to look at herself in the mirror, she realized Eric McCrea had never once looked at her before she had screamed his name. She had been back far enough to have a clear view: as he drove onto the scene, as he exited the car, as he kicked and stomped Tally McNabb.
You look like someone’s knifed and rolled you,
he had said.
What was I supposed to think?

He hadn’t seen her, though, hadn’t seen her blood or bruises or limp, not until after he had—

She closed her eyes and bent over the sink. Ammonia and pine stung her nose.
What am I supposed to do now?
she thought.
What am I supposed to do now?

*   *   *

Russ caught up with her on her way home. Literally. She had locked up the soup kitchen and, with no one to witness her weakness, painfully climbed behind the wheel of her ten-year-old Jeep Cherokee. It was a high-mileage, oil-leaking beater, but she hadn’t gotten any insurance money after she’d wrecked her last car, and this was what she could afford. Garaging it for a year and a half hadn’t improved its performance any.

She was coasting down Depot Street, gritting her teeth every time she had to accelerate, when the cruiser swung in behind her. Its lights came on. She sighed, signaled, and rolled to the curb. Russ got out. She cranked the window down as he strode toward her. She looked up into his face, set in grim lines. “What seems to be the problem, Officer?”

“What the hell were you thinking?” His eyes were hot and hard. “You didn’t know who that woman was. For all you knew, she could’ve had a gun. She could’ve been mentally ill. She could’ve—” He banged his fist against the edge of her door, making her jump in her seat. “God, Clare.” He shook his head. “Lean forward.”

“Why?”

“Eric said you scraped up your back.”

“It’s not that bad.” She dropped her head against the edge of the steering wheel, too tired and achy to argue.

He sucked in a breath. “Oh, darlin’.” He glanced at his unit. “Can you drive?”

“Of course I can drive. I was driving home when you stopped me. Probably would have been there by now.” Lord, she sounded like a five-year-old who’d missed her nap.

He gave her a look. “You were straddling the centerline, going ten miles below the speed limit.”

“Oh.”

“How’s your ankle?”

“Eric gave you the whole report, did he?”

“Just tell me,” he said patiently.

“It hurts,” she admitted.

“Okay. I’m going off duty. I’m going to follow you back to the rectory. If it gets too hard to use the accelerator, pull over and I’ll drive you the rest of the way home.”

“Russ…”

“Clare…”

She threw in the towel. Agreed to his terms. Driving home, every square inch of her body either stinging, aching, or throbbing, she had a sudden image of Linda Van Alstyne. Pretty, petite, and picture-perfect. She was quite sure Russ’s late wife had never in her life rolled through garbage. The thought made her feel even worse. Or it might have been the sprain. Pulling into the rectory drive, she stumbled out of the Jeep to discover that her ankle, swollen and purpling, now resembled an overripe eggplant.

“Stay there.” Russ thunked his car door closed, crossed her drive in three steps, and scooped her up in his arms.

“I do not need to be carried into my own house.”

He huffed. “Anybody ever tell you you’re too damn independent for your own good?” He trudged up the steps to her kitchen door. “Unlocked?”

She still had her keys in her hand. She angled toward the door and unlatched it.

“I’m impressed.” He lugged her into the kitchen, kicking the door closed behind him. “Didn’t think you knew how to lock doors.” He glanced at her ancient refrigerator, wheezing in the corner. “That ankle needs ice.”

“I have a wrap in the freezer, but what I really want is a shower.” Her hair was stiff with sweet tea, and her skin was layered in sweat and alley dirt.

Russ sniffed at her. “Good idea.”

“Oh, my hero. You can just let me on down now.”

Instead, he tightened his grip and backed through the kitchen’s swinging doors into the living room.

“Russ, I mean it. You’ll give yourself a hernia.”

“You kidding? You’re skin and bones. Didn’t they feed you in Iraq?” He paused, panting, at the foot of her stairs, then carted her up to the second floor. He staggered into her bedroom and dropped her on the bed, collapsing beside her. He groaned.

“Was that your version of sweeping me off my feet?”

“Trying…” He sucked in air. “… romantic.”

“Heart attacks aren’t romantic.” She curled into a sitting position, then got up on one foot, bracing herself against her bedside table.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Going to the shower.”

He rolled over. Climbed to his feet.

“You’re not trying the Rhett Butler thing again.”

“Just put your arm around my neck, will you? Ungrateful woman.”

She followed orders and leaned against him as they crossed the hall landing. “This reminds me of when you broke your leg,” she said. “Remember how you hung on to me to make it to your truck?”

“I promise you, that little episode remains fresh in my memory. I still have two pins in my ankle.”

“Or the time I nearly froze my feet off up on Mount Tenant? You carried me into the rectory then, too.”

He flipped down the lid and set her on the toilet. “My life’s been filled with exciting incidents since I met you. I’m hoping our future together will be dull.” He leaned down and looked into her eyes. “Very dull.”

“I’ll try to be more boring.”

“Good.” He turned on the shower to get the water running hot. “Don’t slip on the tile and knock yourself unconscious while I’m downstairs.”

“Were you always this bossy, or did I forget while I was deployed?”

“You haven’t seen anything yet, darlin’.”

She made a rude noise, but the truth was, she didn’t feel up to any activity more strenuous than sitting upright. Her momentum had drained away, leaving her shaky and in pain. She watched his back disappearing down the stairs, felt her ankle throbbing, breathed in the first tendrils of steam from the shower. Her glance fell on her toiletries kit, balanced on the back of the sink.
Of course.
She grabbed it, unzipped it, pulled out the plastic bag of sleeping pills, the bag of antibiotics, the bag of amphetamines. Found the one she was looking for. Percocet. Prescription painkillers. She pinched one out of the plastic bag and, leaning over the sink, ran some water into the cup she kept next to her toothbrush. She tossed the pill into her throat, chased it down with the water, and, as she heard Russ’s step on the stair, stuffed all the bags back into her kit. She was zipping it up when he pushed through the half-open door.