Julia Spencer-Fleming - Out Of The Deep I Cry

“I sure did,” she said, picking up a brownie.

“You’re in it. In a news story. About a crazy woman holding people at gun-point.” He leaned in more closely. “I thought we agreed after last year that you weren’t going to appear in print unless it was something nice and uplifting.”

“An Easter message of hope, I believe you said.”

Sterling Sumner had drifted over. “You know, the story went out over the wires. A friend in Albany called to ask me if my priest was the one mentioned in the ‘State and Local’ item.”

She knew. There had been a message on her answering machine from the diocesan office. Someone on the bishop’s staff wanted to Talk With Her. “It must have been a slow news day,” she said.

“Clare! This isn’t the kind of thing designed to attract new members-”

“New pledge-paying members,” Sterling added.

“To St. Alban’s! ‘Local priest, artist held in armed standoff.’ ” He looked to Sterling for support. “Am I right? Would this make you want to try out St. Alban’s?”

“I’m sorry!” Several heads turned in their direction, and she toned her voice down. “It’s not like I set out that morning with the goal of having a gun stuck in my face.”

“We’ve suggested before that you take a look at the people you’re getting involved with,” Sterling said. “You know what they say. If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”

“I get involved with people who need me.” She almost threw up her hands until she remembered the brownie.

“Notoriety isn’t a desirable quality in a priest,” Corlew said. “If we had wanted Daniel Berrigan, we’d have hired him.”

“I’m not courting notoriety,” she said. Corlew raised one eyebrow so high it nearly disappeared into the thicket of his hair. Or toupee.

“You must admit you’ve gotten involved in some pretty flamboyant incidents.” Sterling tossed his boys-school scarf for emphasis.

She bit the inside of her cheek. Counted to ten. Quickly, but she made it. She could argue with these guys from now until Good Friday and she still wouldn’t make them see things her way. It was time for a little dose of southern. She put one hand on Sterling’s arm, and her other on Corlew’s shoulder. “Gentlemen, you are absolutely right.” They both looked at her suspiciously. “My grandmother always said a lady’s name should appear in the paper only three times, and I can’t say I disagree with her. I never spoke to any reporter about the unfortunate incident with Mrs. Rouse, and I promise you here and now I never will. In fact, I could live happy never speaking to another reporter again, except on church business.”

“Like, about the white elephant sale,” Corlew said.

“Or Easter messages of hope,” she said.

The sight of the square brick facade of the county morgue yanked her back to the present. Mr. Madsen parked and they all got out. Mrs. Marshall looked up at the granite flight of stairs. “I won’t have to… look at the body, will I?”

“I doubt it,” Clare said, not adding, There isn’t much you would recognize.

Inside, Mr. Madsen gave Mrs. Marshall’s name to the attendant, who rang the medical examiner and then buzzed them through the door that separated the waiting room from the coroner’s office and the mortuary. Dr. Dvorak met them in the hall. Clare introduced Mr. Madsen, who described himself as “a family friend,” and Mrs. Marshall, who looked at the medical examiner’s hand a beat too long before shaking it, perhaps envisioning where it had been.

“Chief Van Alstyne is already waiting for us,” Dr. Dvorak said, limping down the short hallway to his office.

“Why?” Mrs. Marshall asked as the pathologist opened the door and ushered her through. Russ, seated at the far side of Dr. Dvorak’s desk, rose when she entered. Mrs. Marshall, Clare had noticed, had that effect on men.

“The chief is always involved in a homicide,” Dr. Dvorak said.

Mrs. Marshall turned on him. “Homicide?”

“Let’s have you a seat, Lacey, and then we can hear what the doctor’s got to say.” Norm Madsen patted one of the straight-backed wooden chairs, government-issue circa 1957 and never changed since then.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Dvorak said. “I didn’t know there would be so many.” There were three chairs ranged between the bookcases and the plants in the small office. “Maybe we can nip down to the waiting room and get another.”

“I’ll stand,” Clare said.

Russ, still standing, gestured to his chair. “Take this.”

Clare looked pointedly at his cast. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“I insist.” His back was very straight. She wondered if it was Margy Van Alstyne or the army that had instilled his good posture.

“Sit down, Russ. Doctor’s orders.” Emil Dvorak glanced at him just long enough to see Russ lower himself back into the chair, then turned his attention to the folders neatly squared on his desk blotter. One of them was obviously modern, the kind of plastic-tabbed manila thing everyone bought by the boxful at Staples. The other had a different look to it. Older. It was muzzy green and shedding, like felt left too long outdoors. Clare realized it must be the seventy-year-old police file. The Millers Kill Police Department’s oldest cold case had come alive again.

“Now, let me make sure I’ve got the relationship straight.” Dr. Dvorak un-capped a fountain pen and flipped open the modern file. “You are Solace Ketchem Marshall, the daughter of Jonathon and Jane Ketchem.”

“Yes.”

“How old were you when your father disappeared?”

“Six.”

“Mrs. Marshall, do you recall if your father ever broke two fingers? On his right hand? This would have been several years before he disappeared.”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Marshall said.

“Yes,” Clare said.

Everyone turned to stare at her. “Dr. Stillman loaned me his grandfather’s journals.” She spoke to Mrs. Marshall and Mr. Madsen. “Old Dr. Stillman, the one you remember. He treated your siblings during the diphtheria epidemic. The ones that were alive when he was called.” She was getting off point. “Anyway, in his journal, Dr. Stillman wrote that your father had two broken fingers he had set himself the night he came to fetch the doctor. The doctor offered to reset them, but your father refused.”

Emil Dvorak nodded. “Good.”

“Good?” Mrs. Marshall said.

Dr. Dvorak steepled his fingers. “The remains that were brought up out of Stewart’s Pond were skeletonized. That means many of the normal markers a pathologist will use to establish identity are simply gone. In addition, this skeleton is old, certainly more than fifty years old, and there aren’t any reliable dental records available.” Dvorak opened the old green file and flipped through several pages. “We’re fortunate in that the officer who investigated your father’s disappearance was thorough. He sent off for Jonathon Ketchem’s service records, from when he was in the army during World War I.” Dvorak held up a page of brittle, browning paper between two fingers. “They don’t have what we’d consider dental records per se, but there is a written account of the dental work your father had had done and the state of his health as of 1915.”

“And?”

“Jonathon Ketchem was thirty-seven years old and in good health when he disappeared. He has no records of any broken bones, other than two fingers, which Reverend Fergusson has confirmed for us. According to his enlistment records, he had eight molar fillings.” He tapped the modern folder. “The remains brought up from the reservoir are those of an adult male, between his mid-twenties and mid-forties. There is no sign of any premortum trauma other than two broken fingers on the right hand. The decedent had eight molar fillings made of a lead amalgam that fell out of use in the late 1920s.”