Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

The bearded man let her go. Raised his hands. Stepped back. Clare sagged against the wall, clinging to the cross.

"On the floor," Russ said.

The bearded man looked at him sullenly. "She attacked me! I was just-"

Russ holstered his Glock, drew back his arm, and smashed his fist into the side of the man's head. Clare shrieked. The bearded man reeled, and Russ punched him, once, twice, his back and shoulders working, until the attacker fell to his knees. Russ reached for him, twisting his fists in the front of his sweatshirt, ready to haul him up and pound him again. Clare dropped the processional cross and grabbed Russ's arm, trying, without much success, to drag him away from the injured man.

"Stop!" she said, her voice a strangled whisper in her throat. "Stop!"

He looked at her with eyes she didn't recognize. "You're bleeding."

"It's not my blood. He was after Amado, not me. It's not my blood. I'm okay."

He shook himself. Looked at Clare's assailant, who was bleeding copiously into his beard. Released his sweatshirt. "Down on the floor," Russ said. The man slumped forward without protest this time, spread-eagled on the polished wood.

From outside, she heard the rising and falling of a siren. Russ yanked at the handcuffs on his belt. He got down on one knee and clicked them around the bearded man's beefy wrists. "You have the right to remain silent," he said.

She raised the cross off the floor with shaking hands.

"You have the right to an attorney."

The intricate bronze work was spotless.

"If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you."

She drew her sleeve across her mouth, wiping away the blood and spittle, and kissed it.

"Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

In thanksgiving. In apology.

The siren broke off, and a moment later the inner doors swung open. Kevin Flynn charged into the nave, his gun out, followed by Amado, who stayed well behind, clutching his cast.

"Call an ambulance, Kevin," Russ said, levering himself off his knee. The younger officer skidded to a stop, his eyes widening at the prone bodies and blood-spattered floor.

"What the-?" He looked at Russ. "What happened?"

Russ glanced at the two on the floor. Then at her. "They were stupid enough to mess with Reverend Fergusson."

Her kitchen light was on. He hadn't known if it would be. It had been at least two hours since he had stalked out of St. Alban's, his arms still spasming with unspent rage, his head pounding blackly behind his eyes. He had walked-across the street, into the park, around the circle-while Paul Urquhart arrived and Kevin took Clare's statement and the EMTs loaded the two Christies into the ambulance. He finally cooled off enough to be sure he wasn't going to break his hand hitting a wall, and went back to question the young sexton, who was both terrified and bewildered by the Christies' interest in him.

They hadn't gotten anything out of the Christies, of course-well, out of Donald, who was the only one able to talk. Neil was still unconscious. Russ hadn't been as neat and efficient as Clare. When she put a man down, he stayed down.

Christ, wasn't that the truth.

The Christies were in the Washington County Hospital, waiting for their lawyer and their medical releases before Urquhart transported them to the county jail. Their would-be victim, despite Russ's glowering and Kevin's offer to take him back to the old farmhouse on Lick Spring Road, was bunking at the rectory tonight, at the insistence of his employer and savior. When Russ had seen the hero worship in the kid's eyes, his warnings about Clare putting Amado up fell flat. After this evening, her latest charity case would cheerfully take a bullet for her.

Another poor sonofabitch down for the count.

Now he was sitting in the cab of his truck, pulled over across the street, looking at the rectory. It was dark, except for a single lamp deep inside the living room and the kitchen light shining out the side door.

He pulled into her drive, butting up snug against the rear of her Subaru. He got out, closing his door with a solid thunk , letting her know he was coming. He saw a shadow at the kitchen door, and as he trudged up the steps, he heard the sound of a bolt turning and a chain rattling as it was drawn away. She opened the door to him.

"You locked your door," he said, like an idiot.

"Yeah."

He stepped inside. The kitchen smelled of chocolate and peppermint. "You never lock your door."

"You've been after me about it for three years now. Eventually, even I can learn something new." She looked up at him. "I'm not going to just let someone waltz in here and hurt me."

He stared at his boots until she walked back to the white enamel stove. Her feet were bare. She was wearing a blue and white seersucker robe loose over mint-green pajamas. "I didn't know if you'd still be up," he said.

"I couldn't fall asleep." She glanced at the ceiling, to where, presumably, her guest was dreaming of happier days south of the border. Although she kept her voice low, so maybe he wasn't asleep yet, either. "I got Amado settled in, but my mind was going a mile a minute, so I decided to come downstairs and make hot cocoa." She gestured to a mug on the white counter. HELICOPTER PILOTS DO IT WITH BOTH HANDS, it read. There was a bottle of peppermint schnapps and an open carton of eggs next to it. "I still have some in the pan, if you'd like a mug."

"No, thanks," he said.

"It's nonalcoholic. I put the schnapps in afterward." She took a long drink from her own mug.

"I'm not staying long," he said, even as he shucked his jacket and dropped it on the back of one of the chairs drawn haphazardly against the heavy pine table.

She shrugged. "More for me." She took another pull from her drink and turned toward the stove. He heard the click-click-click of the gas jet, and then the pilot caught and a blue flame shot up from the black iron burner. She turned it down and slid a cobalt-blue omelet pan over the heat.

"How're you doing?" he asked.

"Fine," she said. She reached for the egg carton. Cracked an egg into a grass-green ceramic bowl. "Grab the milk out of the fridge for me, will you?"

Her twenty-year-old refrigerator was almost buried beneath photos, clippings, comics, and brochures. He figured the whole appliance was held together by magnetic force at this point.

He set the carton on the counter next to where she was now whisking eggs furiously in the bowl. She took another drink of hot cocoa before slopping a measure of milk into the frothing eggs. He eyeballed the schnapps bottle. It was more empty than full.

She cracked pepper from a scarlet peppermill into the mixture and then beat it as if it might get up and walk away if not subdued. She crossed to the refrigerator, popped it open, and retrieved a lump of greasy white paper, which, unwrapped, proved to be a lump of greasy white something else. She hacked off a piece of it and dropped it into the omelet pan. It snapped and sizzled.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Pig fat," she said, taking another swig of hot cocoa. She bottomed out the mug and looked into it, frowning. "You can't make comfort food without pig fat." He noticed her Virginia accent was more pronounced. She took a spoon from the drainboard, stirred the pan at the back of the stove, and poured more hot cocoa into her mug. She unscrewed the schnapps and added a liberal splash.

"Don't you think you ought to ease up on that?"

She turned on him. Cocked her fist against one hip. "Maybe I should relax by beating somebody to a pulp instead?"

"Christ, Clare, you were the one who broke his nose!"

"I was defending myself. What's your excuse?"

He inhaled, took his glasses off, and rubbed them on his shirtfront. "I don't have any excuse." He tossed his glasses onto the pine tabletop and ran both hands through his hair, tugging at it, hard. "God knows, I already feel bad enough without you laying into me. If one of my officers had done that, I'da had him on suspension by now." He dragged a chair out and dropped into it. "I don't know what got into me. I just don't know." He stared at his hands. In the glow of the hanging lamp, he could see the nicks and scars from every accident he'd ever had. The knuckles of his right hand were reddened and puffy and aching.