Julia Spencer-Fleming - Out Of The Deep I Cry

“Noon. It’s trickier for her to haul her kids around, so we’re meeting over at her house. I’m going to bring Cody. Sort of a legal strategy session slash play date.”

Crud. There went her lunch with Russ. “Sure, I’ll be there. Did she give you any details about what happened at the clinic?”

“Not as many as you did when you asked me to represent her. I got the impression she’s still pretty pissed off at the old guy, but doesn’t want to admit it.”

“I’m going over to Dr. Rouse’s house this morning, as soon as my car’s resurrected.”

“Boy, you do get around, don’t you?”

“Mrs. Marshall is going to tell him about using her trust for St. Alban’s building fund. Geoff told you about that, right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, I thought that as the official representative of the church, I ought to be there when he got the bad news. Anyway, I’ll try to sound him out as to whether he’s going to go ahead with a restraining order against Debba.”

“Great. We’ll see you later, then.”

“Karen?”

“Yes?”

“Will the squeaky toy be there?”

Karen laughed. “Of course. Wherever Cody is, there also is Squeaky the Squirrel.”

Clare replaced the phone on the hook. She was going to spend her lunch hour trapped in a house with three kids, a lawyer, and the most obnoxious baby toy ever created. Instead of sharing chili and conversation with Russ. And when did lunch with Russ Van Alstyne become the highlight of your week, missy? Her grandmother Fergusson would most definitely disapprove.

The phone rang. Clare eyed it. She didn’t get this many calls in her office.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Father.”

“Mr. Hadley.” Glenn Hadley, St. Alban’s sexton, was the only person on the planet who called her Father. Not Father Fergusson, just Father. He never referred to her predecessor by his last name, either. He was simply “the late Father” or “the last Father.” She figured Mr. Hadley had totally embraced the concept of “It’s the office, not the officeholder.”

“I’m afraid I’ve got some more bad news.”

“Now what?” The boiler leaped to mind, followed by the furnace, the pipes, a chimney fire, and mice infesting the undercroft.

“You know the spot where the water’s been leaking out of the aisle ceiling?”

“Yeah…”

“It looks as if it’s froze up solid. There’s an ice dam up there must be three inches thick. It’s forcing the ceiling boards out of joint.”

Clare closed her eyes.

“Father? You there?”

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t know, what’s the best thing to do about it?”

“Ain’t nothing we can do about the hole right now. I’ll make sure there’s a big bucket underneath it. Soon as it gets warm enough to melt up on top of the roof, it’s gonna come gushing through. If we don’t get it fixed up before it starts heating up and the rains come, it’ll be like a shower over there.”

“Anything else you can suggest?”

“Well, I could try to unbolt the other two pews from the floor and drag ’em out of the way.”

“That’s a great idea,” she said, trying to force some enthusiasm into her voice. “I’ll let the vestry and the roofing company know about this latest development. Thanks for getting on it so quickly.”

“You want me to get on the roof, see if I can fix a tarp up there?”

“No! That is, let’s see what the roofing guy says before we start messing around with anything.”

There was a long pause. “Okay.” Another pause. To give her time to change her mind. “Talk to you later.”

He hung up. She sighed. Now she had to think of a way to ease his hurt feelings over not being allowed to clamber all over the ice-covered roof.

She replaced the receiver and considered the tall green thermos of coffee sitting on the pine kitchen table. She always brewed more than she could drink in the morning and carried the rest with her to the office, since Lois evidently put used industrial waste in the church’s Mr. Coffee. She could really, really use another cup right now.

The phone rang. She pulled a teaspoon and a FORT RUCKER-HOME OF ARMY AVIATION mug from the dish drainer and unscrewed the thermos top. The phone rang. She poured the coffee in, breathing in the steam and smell of it. She reached for her oversized sugar bowl and began spooning in sugar. The phone rang. She stirred her sugar into the hot coffee, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. The phone rang. She picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, I’m glad I caught you. Your secretary said you were still at home, but I thought I must have missed you.”

“Russ.” She smiled into her coffee. “What’s up?”

“I have to cancel out on lunch.”

She felt a ridiculous dip in her stomach. “What’s happened? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Lyle MacAuley and Noble Entwhistle have both called in sick. Lyle’s illness might be the dreaded ‘last-chance-to-snowmobile fever,’ but Noble never bags work unless he’s on death’s door. I’m going to have to spend all day in the car. I’m calling from there right now. I’m afraid my lunch’ll have to be a heart attack in a sack.”

“Ah. It’s just as well. I just made a date to sit in with Karen Burns and Debba Clow while they go over Debba’s custody case.”

“You know that woman is a fruitcake, don’t you?”

She grinned. “Now, Russ, I know you don’t like lawyers…”

“I use words other than fruitcake to describe the Burnses. Seriously, try not to get too sucked into Deborah Clow’s problems. I’ve dealt with her before.”

“You mean because of her protesting at the clinic?”

“That’s been an issue. But not what I was thinking of. I used to come out to her place when she and her husband were first married. They got rowdy with each other all the time.”

“My God. She was an abused wife?”

She could hear him sigh over the phone. “It’s not always as clear-cut as that. They both used to go at each other. I’d come out there, she’d have a purpling eye and he’d have a busted lip and his forehead cut open. And then neither one of them would press charges. Nowadays, I’d run ’em both in, but this was before we had a mandatory-charge law. So I’d warn them both and hand them the counseling brochure and leave ’em until next time. Things quieted down when they had their first kid. Or maybe they just fought quieter.” He sighed again. “She says she’s an artist. I don’t know if she’s any good, but she sure has the artist’s temperament. Wacky.”

“Thanks for tipping me off.”

He groaned. “I shouldn’t have told you that, should I? It’s like showing a dog raw meat. You’ll take her under your wing, give her anger-management counseling, get up a committee to send her to art school, and do her picketing for her while she’s in class.” She laughed. He went on, his voice more serious. “Just try to cool it a bit and get a sense of what’s going on before you leap into someone else’s life, okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay, then.” There was a pause. “I suppose I ought to go.”

She sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and propped her chin in her hand. “I suppose so.”

“You gonna be okay with that idiot car of yours? Your secretary said it wouldn’t start.”

“I’ve got AAA. They’ll be here. Eventually.”

He snorted. “If you had a decent late-model four-wheel drive instead of a thirty-something-year-old sports car that weighs about as much as one of my snow tires-”

“Yeah, but if I got one, you’d just have to find something else to complain about.”

He laughed. She stirred her coffee slowly. The silence stretched out.