Julia Spencer-Fleming - One Was a Soldier

“Oh, I know that. I knew it when I… when I did it. The problem was, they loved me too much. Too much to stand seeing me hurt and mad all the time. Too much to let me touch bottom.” Will glanced across the room to where the Crayola witches flew between construction-paper cats. “And I had to touch bottom.” He twisted in his chair, as if settling himself into the present. “Anyway, we’re talking about it in family therapy. They’re trying to see me the way I really am now. As much as they can.”

“See? That’s the hard part,” McCrea said. “Getting the people in your life to admit that you’ve changed. Been changed.”

Fergusson smiled crookedly. “Some days I fantasize about starting fresh in a new town. Nobody to have to put up a front for.” She looked at Sarah. “Of course, in my business, you always have to put up a front. No one wants to see their priest spit and swear and fall apart.”

“I dunno,” Will said. “I’m getting kind of used to it.” Fergusson laughed.

“So even you can find people to accept you as you are,” Sarah said.

“Yeah,” Will said. “Remember how you said I should get in touch with some of my old friends from school?” He smiled a little. “I did.”

“Oh.” Fergusson hid her pleased expression behind the rim of her coffee cup. “I don’t suppose any of these friends happen to be girls?”

“Yeah.” His cheeks pinked up, and the combat veteran disappeared, replaced by a teenaged boy. “I’ve been talking with Olivia Bain.”

“Is she still here in town?”

“Naw. She left for SUNY Geneseo this fall. Got a full scholarship.”

“That’s a tough school to get into.” McCrea nodded. “She must be a smart girl.”

“A lot brainier than me. I can talk to her about anything, though. She knows what it’s like to have something really bad happen to you. Her mom died in a car crash this summer.”

“That’s hard,” Sarah said. Still, it made her a good choice for Will’s confidant.

“This summer?” McCrea said. “Here? In Millers Kill?”

“Yeah.”

“What was her name?”

“Um…” Will frowned in thought. “Eleanor? Ellen? Something like that.”

“Ellen Bain.” McCrea’s mouth twisted.

“You know her?” Fergusson asked.

“I cleaned up after her. She went barreling down the resort road with no seat belt on after taking part in Happy Hour. I didn’t have to follow up with the survivors, thank God. I didn’t know she’d left a kid behind.”

“Yeah, and it was just Olivia and her mom. Her dad took off when she was little.” Will made a face, clearly unable to imagine a father like that. “Her mom did okay with her bookkeeping job, she said, but she would’ve had a hard time with college if she hadn’t gotten-”

McCrea cut the boy off. “What did you say she did?”

“Who?”

“Ellen Bain. You said she was…?”

Will looked at him, confused. “A bookkeeper. At the new resort.”

Fergusson sat up straight.

McCrea extended his hand and tapped his palm. “Ellen Bain, who died in an auto accident at the end of July, was a bookkeeper at the Algonquin Waters. Tally McNabb, who committed suicide in October, was a bookkeeper at the Algonquin Waters.”

“Yeah, but…” Will’s forehead crinkled. “It’s got to be a coincidence. Tons of people work for the resort.”

“Chief Van Alstyne always says he doesn’t believe in coincidence.” Fergusson put her cup down. “Did Tally and Ms. Bain know each other? Did they have the same job responsibilities?”

Will shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“We’ve got to find out,” Fergusson said.

“No, we’ve got to tell the chief,” McCrea countered.

“Eventually.” At his look, she spread her hands. “I’m just saying we should come up with something more solid if we want him to reopen Tally’s case. I’m overdue for a visit with her mother. I can ask her how Tally got her job, and what she might know about Ellen Bain.”

“Stop.” Avoiding issues in group was one thing. Acting out that avoidance in real life was a whole other ball game. Sarah pointed to Fergusson. “You are not Daphne from Scooby-Doo . We are not going to get into a purple van and ride around town looking for a spooky old house.”

“All I’m proposing we do is ask a few questions.”

McCrea studied the priest. “Are you sure you’re not all hopped up on this idea because you’d like to show up the chief?”

“No!” Fergusson paused. “Well. Maybe a little.”

“Okay. I’m in.”

“Me, too,” Will said. “What should I do?”

Fergusson gave McCrea a go-ahead gesture. “Get back in touch with Olivia,” McCrea said. “Ask her if her mother was behaving oddly at any time before her death. Ask her if she ever mentioned Tally or Wyler McNabb.”

Will nodded. “I’ll IM her when I get home tonight.”

“See if she can get us a look at her mom’s bank balances and investment reports.”

“Investment reports?” Sarah was losing control of the session. Again.

“It’s clear Tally stole a million dollars, and it’s a pretty sure bet her husband was in on it with her.” McCrea had an expression Sarah had never seen before. It was, she realized, his cop face. “If the money’s been found at the resort”-Fergusson nodded-“it’s a good bet that they had an accomplice to help hide it. Accomplices usually get paid off.”

“Unless,” Fergusson said, “somebody decided to cut her out of the picture.”

“Yeah.” His mouth compressed. “I’ll go talk to the HR people at the Algonquin Waters.”

“But you’re still suspended,” Sarah said. “Isn’t that-I don’t know, illegal?”

“I’m not going to arrest anybody.” He grinned suddenly. “Like Reverend Clare said, I’m just going to ask some questions.”

Will looked at her slyly. “What are you going to do, Sarah?”

She shook her head. “I guess I’m going to put on an orange turtleneck and drive the van.”

It was one of the easiest stings Russ had ever set up, even given the tight time frame. Nichols contacted Seelye on Saturday morning and told her he’d found the money after a search of Tally’s house tipped him off. Lyle had soothed Ms. LeBlanc’s fears and assured her that no one would even know an arrest was occurring in her resort’s basement-they would use the employee exit to get in and out. Even persuading Tony Usher to fly up to Albany and run the operation with him had been a cinch. Bringing down a lieutenant colonel could be tricky, politically, but the prospect of bringing home six hundred grand-they had counted the remaining bricks and scanned their FDIC routing labels before replacing them on the pallet-was enough to paper over his concerns. Within twenty-four hours, Tony had found an ambitious CID investigator to be another witness, and right now, at ten o’clock on Monday evening, the man was hidden behind a screen of empty boxes not five feet from the money. It was his small camera stashed in the piping above, recording everything that happened.

Russ and Tony were in another blind, this one with a partial view of the employees’ exit. They could see Quentan Nichols shifting from foot to foot in front of the door. He was dressed in a cleaning-service uniform. They had gotten three of them; Kevin, mopping close to the hotel-side employees’ entrance, had one, as did Lyle, who was playacting sleep in the darkened break room. At least Russ hoped he was acting.

“He’s going to walk a trough in that cement if he doesn’t stop pacing.” Tony kept his voice down. They’d set up a blower farther down Broadway’s corridor to mask any ambient sounds, but no one wanted to take any chances.