Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

She turned and saw her senior warden, Robert Corlew, standing and waving. She wended her way past the intervening tables and took his outstretched hand. “You look terrific!” he said. “By God, say what you like about Father Hames”-Clare smiled patiently at the mention of her saintly predecessor-“he couldn’t do justice to a dress like that!”

The other man sitting at the table had also risen, and Clare saw with interest it was Jim Cameron, the mayor of Millers Kill. “Reverend Fergusson,” he said. “Nice to see you again.”

She introduced Hugh to the mayor and to Robert, and they in turn presented the ladies at the table, Eunice Corlew, a small, wrenlike woman so self-effacing she seemed to disappear into the furniture at times, and Cameron’s wife, a keen-jawed, graying blond Valkyrie named Lena Erlander.

“Sit with us!” Corlew urged. “We have two empty places. Two little old ladies came by, looked over the rest of the names at the table, and then collected their cards and went away!” He swept his hand, indicating the empty seats between him and Lena Erlander. “Guess they must have been Republicans, Jim!” He laughed at his own joke.

Clare glanced at Hugh. Corlew could be a bit of a blowhard, but she wouldn’t mind having some face time with the mayor. That was the sort of relationship that could pay off when the church went looking for, say, donated space for their young mothers’ child care program.

“You’re a Republican, Robert,” Cameron pointed out. He turned to Hugh. “Please, do join us.”

“Well, I suppose if Clare doesn’t-”

“Oh, yes, sit here! Sit with us!” The new voice was richly feminine, bright and breathy. “I haven’t had a chance to talk with Reverend Fergusson since she saved my poor husband’s leg.”

Clare jerked around. A tiny blonde wrapped in pale pink satin that made her resemble a well-endowed Greek goddess stood framed between Eunice Corlew and Jim Cameron. She smiled at Hugh, and despite the fact that she was easily a decade or more his senior, Clare could feel him straighten his spine and expand his chest in response. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Linda Van Alstyne.”

Russ watched across the table and counted the expressions flickering, subtle as brushstrokes, across Clare’s face. Horror. Chagrin. Embarrassment. And now the dawning realization that she wasn’t going to be able to get out of sitting down with them. Cataloging Clare’s emotions helped him ignore his own.

Linda was chattering away. “… so Russ was tromping around in the woods, doing some investigation or something, and he slipped into a woodchuck hole and broke his leg! If Reverend Fergusson hadn’t been there to help get him to the hospital, he would have frozen to death.” She beamed up at Clare. “Sit! Sit!”

Hugh Parteger, whom Russ hadn’t even registered until that moment, pulled out the seat next to Robert Corlew. Clare collapsed into it with none of her usual grace. Parteger, who looked considerably more at home in his tuxedo than Russ felt in his, sent a cool glance across the table before seating himself next to the mayor’s wife.

“How brave and clever of you, Reverend Fergusson,” Lena Erlander said in her Scandinavian accent. “Your name-is it Swedish?”

“Scots,” Clare said. “And please, call me Clare.”

Jim Cameron launched into the story of how he and Lena met on a trip to Scotland three years back, which opened the door for Parteger to make the table laugh with a description of learning the Scottish fling for a party, which got Rob Corlew onto dancing lessons he and his wife took on their last cruise, which pretty much got them through the salad. All that time, Russ watched Clare, avoided watching Clare, watched her without seeming to watch her, and felt like a complete shit.

He was the guy in the cartoon with the comic angel on one shoulder and the leering devil on the other. One of them was smacking him upside the head and saying, Look at this gorgeous woman sitting next to you! Do you want to screw that up? The other had eyes popping out on cartoon springs and was drooling. Those eyes, that hair, all that skin… He’d never seen Clare so undressed before. He wanted to run his hands over her pale white shoulders and down her-He forked a large and bitter piece of endive into his mouth and crunched it.

“You still working on that?” the waiter said. Russ dropped the silverware onto the plate and waved it away.

Linda started describing the frantic hours of work she put in today to get the draperies up all over the hotel. He let his gaze wander to the table next to them, and to the table next to that, automatically checking for signs of intoxication or aggression or distress. Way up at the front of the room, he saw his mom and her cousin Nane, talking and laughing with a rowdy group of women he assumed were the volunteer gardeners of the ACC. A little distance away, he spotted a table with an imbalance of seven men: four elegantly dressed Asians, three white guys in badly fitting rental tuxes, and one slim, older woman in a smoke-gray dress.

“What was the oldest van der Hoeven’s name?” he asked Clare, without thinking.

“Luella? No, Louisa.”

“I think that’s her over there.” He pointed with his chin. His wife gave him an incurious glance before returning to the mayor. She was pitching him on redecorating his office.

Clare turned around in her seat. “It could be,” she said. “I can see a family resemblance.” She turned back. “Do you think she knows?”

“Knows what?” Robert Corlew looked at Clare, then Russ, then back to Clare.

“Eugene van der Hoeven was killed today,” Russ answered.

“No sh-oot!” Corlew said. “Is that going to put a stop to the land sale?”

“Evidently not,” Clare said. “Those Malaysians are the bigwigs from GWP.” She bit her lower lip. “Oh, crud. I have two cases of wine in my car I was supposed to deliver for them.” At Corlew’s baffled look, she went on, “Eugene asked me to do it as a favor. The guy who was supposed to pick them up never showed.”

“Eugene?” Corlew said. “How did you get to be on a first-name basis with the van der Hoevens?”

Clare launched into an account of her time as a search and rescue volunteer. Russ checked out the table next to the GWP brass. And whaddya know, there was his old friend Shaun Reid, with his young and lovely second wife. The tables at the head of the room had already been served their entrees, and he could see Shaun eating methodically. Even from a distance, Russ could see his movements were those of someone stiff and sore.

One of the waiters came up to Shaun. Russ, expecting to see a wine bottle produced, was surprised when the uniformed man handed Shaun what looked like a piece of paper. Shaun unfolded it, read it, and looked around wildly. He sat, head bowed for a moment, then rose and followed the path the waiter had taken out of the ballroom.

That’s interesting.

Russ skidded his chair back. “I think I’ll excuse myself before dinner arrives,” he said. He left through the main entrance, but instead of turning right toward the restrooms, he turned left. He walked past the length of the ballroom until he came to a door bearing a discreet brass plaque: EMPLOYEES ONLY. He pushed against the door and was disappointed to see it led into a shallow room lined with shelf upon shelf of table linens. He stepped back into the lobby. The wall continued unbroken to the corner. Somewhere behind there was the kitchen, but it obviously had an entirely separate entrance, so that unsuspecting guests couldn’t stumble their way into the noisy chaos that made their dinners possible.

He reached into his jacket pocket and removed his cell phone. “Hey, Harlene,” he said when his number connected. “Any news?”