Julia Spencer-Fleming - One Was a Soldier

The woman who answered looked as if she belonged in one of those other houses-shabby, weathered, but with strong bones. She blinked at them. “May I help you?”

“Ms. Walters? I’m Officer Knox of the Millers Kill Police, and this is Officer Flynn. May we come in?”

“I already talked with one of your officers last night.” Even as she spoke, the woman opened the door wider and made space for them. “There wasn’t anything missing. I was more scared’n anything else.” Flynn tucked his hat beneath his arm as she ushered them into the kitchen. “I guess you always think nothing bad can happen out here in the country. Tally told me I ought to get a security alarm, living out here on my own.” Her voice cracked.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Hadley said. “I can’t imagine anything worse than the death of a child.”

The woman nodded. Glanced at Hadley’s ringless finger. “You have children?”

“Two. A boy and a girl.”

There was a clatter on the stairs, and a young man in his late teens or early twenties loped into the kitchen. “Ma? What’s going on?”

“My youngest, Danny. These officers came about the break-in.”

“Did you find out who did it already?”

Hadley shook her head. “It’s under investigation. Are you the only other person living here, Danny?”

“I don’t live here. I’m a sophomore at Kenyon. In Ohio.”

His mother put her arm around him. “First in the family to go to college.”

He hugged his mom back without embarrassment. Hadley liked that. “I was planning on heading back this weekend, but I hate to leave Ma alone with this hanging over her head.”

“Danny’s worried it might’a been one of those crazy people who thinks God kills soldiers ’cause we got gay people in the USA.”

Hadley decided to fudge a bit. “We think it’s more likely someone who read that your daughter died and was hoping to steal some valuables in the confusion. It happens sometimes.” The first time she had dealt with one-the burglary of a house left empty for a funeral-she had thought a human being couldn’t go much lower.

Evidently Ms. Walters agreed with her. The woman’s face screwed up in disgust. “Well, if that don’t beat all.”

“Did your daughter ever use your house for storage? Leave anything here for safekeeping?”

“When she was deployed, yes. I was the one kept her checkbook and paid what bills came due while she was in Iraq.”

“Not her husband?” Kevin asked.

Mrs. Walters hesitated. “He’s not so good with that sort of thing.” She smiled a little. “Those two were together since tenth grade. Ten years later, Mary was still head-over-heels for Wyler. Never mind in some ways he’s still in high school.”

Danny made a face that suggested he minded his brother-in-law’s immaturity.

“Anything else?” Hadley asked. “Other than the checkbook?”

“The cars,” Danny said.

“Well, if the burglar was after the cars, he wun’t too smart, now, was he? Looking in the house instead of the garage.”

Flynn glanced at Hadley before looking at the Walterses. “What vehicles are you talking about?”

“Wyler and Tally’s cars. They keep them-” Danny caught himself. “They kept them here when they were both overseas. Wyler and I brought them up here yesterday.”

“I want you to have her SUV. It’ll be a load off my mind to not have you driving halfway ’cross the country in that old beater of yours.”

“Ma-”

“You brought both their cars here?” Hadley frowned. “Why?”

Danny looked at them. “Wyler’s gone back over. To join the construction team in Iraq. He left yesterday.”

Clare hadn’t intended to swing by the Stuyvesant Inn on the way back from the Infirmary. Her plan to fit in a short visit with two of her elderly parishioners expanded as she saw one senior that she knew, and then another, so that twenty minutes became an hour and a half of looking at photos and holding hands and listening to stories. Then the nursing director, Paul Foubert, had dragged her into his office to complain that she and Russ weren’t registered anywhere and to unsubtly interrogate her about the perfect wedding gift.

“Nothing, Paul. We don’t need anything. Make a donation to a good cause in our names if you have to do something.”

“Hmph,” he rumbled. “You only get married once, knock on wood. You ought to milk it for what it’s worth.”

When she finally emerged into sunshine and a brisk easterly wind, she realized she was never going to make the diocesan development committee lunch scheduled for noon in Schenectady. She had to admit giving up boxed sandwiches and a tedious meeting wasn’t a hardship. Plus, she now had a legitimate couple of hours free before her afternoon counseling sessions.

She considered going back to the rectory for a nap. Trip’s prescribed ten milligrams of Dexedrine was clearly a much lower dosage than she’d been taking out of her go-bag. She felt like she was wearing an overcoat of fatigue. Trip surely wouldn’t call her in for a blood test this soon. He wouldn’t know if she upped her dose for a day or two. She climbed behind the wheel of her Jeep and headed toward Millers Kill.

She thought about the therapy group. If she could get hold of Colonel Seelye, she could ask the others what they thought about the situation. Get their take on Quentan Nichols’s surprise visit, too. He was obviously in it up to his neck, as Russ would say. In town and looking for his money. Which was… where? Who knew? Had Tally had someone helping her stateside? There must have been other people involved in Iraq, if only to move the cash from point A to point B. What if Nichols knew the other accomplice? Knew, and had struck a deal with him. Or them. After all, taking even one person out of the pool left considerably more money for everyone else to divide.

Clare drove over a hill and blinked at the sight of the Stuyvesant Inn. She had driven the entire way on autopilot. So much for her vaunted observational skills-and so much for her nap. She turned into the drive and pulled into one of two empty parking places. The leaf peepers must have decamped to the city.

The inn’s enormous maple was half-stripped of leaves, the remainder looking like the tattered red pennants of a defeated army. The wind across the valley, which cooled the sprawling Victorian all summer long, was a cold slice against her back as she got out of her car.

The door opened while she was climbing the porch steps. “You must be psychic,” Ron Handler said. “We just got another fax from your mother.” He stepped to one side and let her into the wide front hall.

“Lord help us.” Clare shucked her jacket off. “What is it now?”

“Oh, a bunch of stuff. She wants to make sure we’re coordinating with the baker and the patisserie. A rundown on the linens. She has a sketch of how she wants the presents displayed-what’s a ‘sip and see’?”

“A party for silver fetishists.” She glanced at the hallway’s étagère, where an authentic nineteenth-century feather bouquet bloomed eternally beneath a glass bell. “Don’t worry about it, though. There aren’t going to be any presents.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Your Reverence, but they’re already arriving. Your mother’s been forwarding the ones sent to your parents’ house.”

“Oh, for…” She scrubbed her hands over her face. Wished she had some cold water to splash there. “Look. I didn’t actually come over here to discuss the reception. I was hoping to talk to Colonel Seelye. She never returned my phone messages.”

“Rude, but not unexpected. I’m sorry, but she’s gone.”

“Any idea when she’ll be back?”