Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

Her heart made a ridiculous, giddy ger-thump. She breathed in deeply. Okay, there was a missing person. Eugene van der Hoeven must have called the police. Although, come to think of it, Russ had told her he wasn’t going to be on duty Saturday. Maybe the department was overwhelmed and had to call him in? Logical thoughts, none of which wiped the foolish smile off her face.

Walking into a home where there’s been a tragedy grinning your head off is just plain tacky, her grandmother Fergusson chided. Everyone would think she knew something, had seen something. She swallowed her smile and pressed forward behind Duane with as much sobriety as she could muster.

A petite, dark-haired woman, clad in jeans and a sweatshirt, held the door wide. She looked at the trail of leaf rot and dirt accumulating on the floor with dismay.

Eugene van der Hoeven stood apart from the search team clustered around the table, conversing with two men in leaf-print camouflage and hunter-orange vests. The taller of the hunters was half-turned toward her. Russ’s eyes widened a fraction, then eased. The corners of his mouth crooked up in what might have been a smile. Happy Birthday, Clare mouthed. She ambled toward the men.

“Chief Van Alstyne.”

He nodded his head. “Reverend Fergusson. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I volunteered for the search and rescue team last year. John Huggins finally got down to the bottom of the list and called me in.” She glanced at the older man next to him: gray-haired, what was left of it, and close to her height, but broad, with powerful shoulders and a chest like a tree stump.

“This is Ed Castle. Ed, Reverend Clare Fergusson.”

Clare’s hand was enveloped in a calloused grip. “Pleased to meet you,” Castle said. “Sorry it had to be under such circumstances.”

“Are you”-she looked back and forth between them-“here to help the search?”

“We’ve just found out about the missing girl.” Russ glanced at Eugene. “Ed and I were hunting on van der Hoeven land. We stopped in to pay our respects.”

“Mr. van der Hoeven,” Huggins called from the dining room table. “If I can have a minute of your time?”

Van der Hoeven ducked his head toward Clare, paused, as if he were about to make a remark, then slipped away.

“Poor guy,” Ed Castle said. “This must be real hard on him.”

“His sister missing?”

“Yep. But I was thinking more along the lines of him having to put up with all these people. He’s a real private guy. Likes to keep to himself.”

“How do you know him?” Clare said.

“I’ve had the license to harvest timber offa Haudenosaunee for twenty, thirty years now. Had it from old Jan van der Hoeven, and now from his kids. ’Course, it’ll all be smoked once the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation gets their hands on the property.”

“How’s that?”

Ed Castle told Clare the details of the impending land sale. She glanced back at Eugene van der Hoeven, bent over a topo map. “He’s going to stay in this house, right? I mean, he didn’t talk like a man whose home is being sold out from underneath him.”

“Dunno,” Castle said. “Alls I know is, no timbering licenses from the new owners. Buncha tree huggers. Don’t realize how important harvesting is to the health of the forest. Think it all happens naturally.”

“Fergusson!” Huggins’s head popped up from the huddle. “Bring that map of yours over here.”

Clare complied, squeezing in between Duane and a slim redheaded man, spreading her map next to the others. She pointed out the ground she had covered.

“We need to rethink our strategy,” Huggins began, only to be interrupted by a low rumbling from Duane’s midsection.

“Sorry.” He grinned. “No breakfast.”

“You all need some food,” Eugene said. He sounded embarrassed, as if he had invited them there for a cocktail party and had forgotten the drinks and nibbles. He stood up, looking around the room. “Lisa? Lisa!”

The dark-haired young woman appeared in a far doorway. “Let’s get these people breakfast. Can you rustle up eggs and bacon and toast, whatever we have?”

“Me?”

The entire male contingent stared at the housekeeper expectantly. Clare rolled her eyes. They looked like a pack of hounds with their ears pricked, waiting for the sound of the can opener. “I’ll help you,” she said loudly. No one else leaped in to volunteer.

Snorting, she strode toward the door. Lisa jumped out of her way and fell in behind her. “Thanks,” she whispered. “It’s not that I’m not willing. I’m just not much of a cook. Especially not for a gang like this.”

The doorway led though what had probably been called a butler’s pantry into the kitchen. It was roomy, meant for serious cooking for large numbers, but its vintage fifties decor had outlived the institutional look and was now funky. Clare prised open the refrigerator. “Let’s see what we’ve got.” She pulled out eggs, milk, and bread. “Let’s make French toast. It’ll go farther and fill people up more.” She emptied the vegetable bin of a few oranges, an apple, and a single bunch of grapes. “See if there’s any canned fruit in the pantry. We can mix up a big macédoine.”

Lisa scurried to the pantry. Clare laid the ingredients out on the pristine white counter and started opening up cupboards, looking for bowls and frying pans.

“I really appreciate this,” Lisa said, setting canned pineapple and pears and a jar of maraschino cherries on the other side of the sink.

“You do windows but you don’t do meals?” Clare straightened, a nest of mixing bowls in her hands.

Lisa smiled. “You got it.”

“Have you worked for the van der Hoevens long?”

“About four years now. What are we going to do with these?” She held up the cans.

“Let’s drain ’em, then empty them into a bowl. Then we can chop up the fresh fruit and add that.” Clare made a sound of satisfaction and emerged from a lower cupboard clutching two heavy-duty cast-iron skillets. “So you weren’t here last night when Millie and Eugene had dinner.”

Lisa shook her head. “I come in Wednesdays and Saturdays. Usually I don’t see much of Millie.”

Clare turned on the water to scrub her hands. “You don’t?”

“She doesn’t actually live here,” Lisa explained. “Her home is in Montana. But she’s been staying with Mr. van der Hoeven for the past few months. Working on this deal to sell the land and… stuff.”

There was a noticeable pause. “Stuff?” Clare said, drying her hands on a faded cotton towel.

Lisa kept her eyes on the apple she was peeling. “You know. Environmental stuff.”

Clare touched the younger woman’s arm. “Lisa. If there’s anything we should know that might help us find her…”

Lisa turned, apple in one hand, knife in the other. “I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t want to get one of the van der Hoevens in trouble, either.”

“What is it?”

Lisa dropped her head, frowning furiously, as if weighing a series of pros and cons. Finally she looked up. “I’ll let you look. You can tell me what you think.” She crossed the kitchen, past the back door, to a built-in desk beneath a wall-mounted phone. She opened the desk drawer, scooped out several envelopes and papers, and laid them atop a stack of wooden crates waiting to be unpacked by the kitchen door. The boxes were stenciled VAN DER HOEVEN VINEYARDS. Having your own vineyard. Now that was one perk of wealth Clare actually envied. She picked up the papers. They were pamphlets, giving information on “extreme eco-activism” and “defending your mother earth against all enemies, domestic and foreign.” She looked for the organization name. She whistled.