Julia Spencer-Fleming - One Was a Soldier

“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.”