Julia Spencer-Fleming - Out Of The Deep I Cry

Renee Rouse looked at the officers, at Clare, at the sky, and she lowered her gun and let it drop to the ground.

Noble Entwhistle was the first to her, drawing her away, pulling her hands behind her back, reciting her Miranda rights.

Debba touched the back of her head, feeling the absence of the gun, and turned toward Clare. She opened and closed her mouth. “How?” she finally said.

Clare fished her phone out of her pocket. “What a friend we have in cell phones,” she sang softly.

Debba started to laugh wetly, then jerked away as her mother and kids emerged from behind the bus. She ran blindly across the road, weeping and laughing, and crashed into her family.

Clare felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around.

“Are you all right?” Russ was looking at her. That was all, just his hand on her shoulder and his eyes. For a moment, she wanted to lean into him and let him hold her. Instead, she propped a smile on her face.

“It wasn’t me with a gun to her head.”

“Oh.”

“What did you think of my preaching?”

He smiled. “Pretty good for an Episcopalian. Kevin Flynn was listening, too. I think he had a conversion experience on the way over here.” He jiggled her shoulder, a small remonstrance. “What the hell were you thinking of?”

“Lilly Clow was trying to get the children out of sight. Mrs. Rouse got distracted when I was in the car, but when I got out, I was afraid she’d look back and stop Lilly. I figured if I acted strange but unthreatening, she’d keep her eyes on me for a few more seconds.”

He glanced over to where Officer Entwhistle was guiding Mrs. Rouse into the back of the squad car. “I should have done something to stop this. Had someone with her. She really fell apart when Lyle and I spoke to her Wednesday.”

“Do you honestly think anyone in Millers Kill could have foreseen she’d go around the bend?” She shook her head. “I guess this gives new meaning to the phrase ‘crazy in love.’ ”

“It’s not love. It’s dependence. He was the oak, she was the vine, all that sort of garbage.” He glanced down at the crutches he was balanced on. “You take away someone’s crutch and what happens? They fall down.”

“Poor lady.” Clare watched as Officer Entwhistle closed the car door behind Mrs. Rouse. “She must have been building up to this every day since her husband disappeared.”

“I don’t think so,” Russ said. His voice, dark and heavy, made her look at him. “I think I’m the one who tipped her over. Up until this morning, she was still hoping we were going to find her husband alive. All this”-the sweep of his arm took in the barnyard, the Clows huddled together talking with one of the officers, Renee sitting in the squad car-“all this is just a massive case of denial.”

“What happened this morning?”

“I shouldn’t have just told her-I should have prepped her more. But I was afraid she’d hear about it on the news first.”

“What?”

“The divers started searching Stewart’s Pond yesterday. This morning, I got the call. They found human remains.”

We were on our way over there when I got your stealth call,” Russ said. “Emil Dvorak should already be there.” The county medical examiner. So Allan Rouse really was dead. Russ glanced across the street, to where Kevin Flynn and Lyle MacAuley were questioning the Clows. “As soon as Kevin’s finished up, I’m headed for Stewart’s Pond.”

“I’ll take you,” Clare said.

Russ’s mouth twitched. “Oh, you will, will you?”

She looked at the outline of Mrs. Rouse in the car. Clare sighed. “I suppose I ought to go sit with Mrs. Rouse and see if I can help her in any way.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t suppose you ought to do that.” When she looked sharply at him, he said, “Let her simmer down, Clare. I want her in the right state of mind when Lyle interrogates her.”

“What’s going to happen to her?”

He leaned forward into his crutches. “Pointing a gun at people and threatening them is a felony. We in the law enforcement field frown upon it.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes. You know what I mean. She’s no criminal. She just went over the edge because of what happened to her husband.”

He lifted his chin toward where the Clows stood, Debba rocking Skylar, Whitley hugging her grandmother tight. “What would you have said about her if she had hurt one of those kids, Clare?”

She looked down. The tips of his crutches were sinking into the wet soil, crushing the withered grass. Her own boots were splattered with mud drying into pale dirty streaks.

“Right,” he said.

“I should see if there’s anything I can do for them.”

“Stop trying to help people for five minutes. What were you doing here, anyway?”

“Remember Dr. Stillman, who set your leg? The one who was the third-generation doctor?” He nodded. “He loaned me some of his grandfather’s personal journals. There’s all this stuff about the diphtheria outbreak in 1924, including an entry about the Ketchem children dying. I wanted Debba to read it. To get another perspective on vaccinations.” She stuffed her hands into her skirt pockets. “Same thing that Allan Rouse was trying to do, I guess. I thought maybe words would have a bigger effect than the old tombstones.” She looked at him looking at her. “What?”

“Nothin’,” he said, his mouth crooked. A movement across the road caught his eye. “Let’s get Kevin over here to take your statement. Kevin!”

She followed Russ back to his pickup, and she leaned against the bed giving her statement to Officer Flynn while his chief half sat, half stood against the passenger seat, resting his leg.

When she retrieved Dr. Stillman’s journal from Debba, she gave her a quick, fierce hug and said, “We’ll talk about this later, right?” Debba nodded, her lashes still wet with tears, Skylar still rocking and rocking in her arms. Clare dropped her voice, mock-confidential. “And I promise I won’t tell anyone about your torrid affair with Dr. Rouse.”

Debba gasped, blinked, and then started to laugh. She laughed and laughed until Lyle MacAuley and her mother both stared. She laughed until Skylar, serious faced, reached up and touched her cheek. “Funny Mama,” he said. “Funny.”

“What was that all about?” Russ asked her as she placed Dr. Stillman’s diary in the front seat of her car.

“Laughing in the face of adversity,” she said. She chucked the car door shut. “So, am I going to take you up to Stewart’s Pond, or not?” Ignoring the voice of her grandmother, who was saying, Nice girls don’t extend invitations, they accept them. Ignoring the voice of MSgt. Ashley “Hardball” Wright, who was reminding her, A smart soldier does not deliberately put himself in harm’s way . A giddy fearlessness was fizzing through her veins, and at that moment she was perfectly willing to do something that would probably turn out to be a big mistake.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Yes, which is why we need to get moving right now.”

He glanced over at Kevin, who was dragging a ladder out of the barn. She couldn’t figure out what he and Deputy Chief MacAuley were doing until she saw the jackknife and evidence bag in Lyle’s hand. Apparently Mrs. Rouse’s shot had gone into the barn’s clapboard front. “Kevin,” Russ shouted. The young officer stopped. “Reverend Fergusson is going to take me up to Stewart’s Pond so I can catch up with the M.E. You drive her car up there and meet me as soon as you guys are done.”

Kevin nodded. Lyle MacAuley gave them a long look before turning back to the ladder.