Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

She looked at him skeptically. "We're not the chief and MacAuley."

"Hey, everybody's got to start somewhere." He pointed his elbow toward their folder. "Who's next on the list?"

The three farms after that were repeats of the morning interviews. It was slow work, trailing after workers scattered between the barn and the field and the machine shed, assuring them and their employers that no, they weren't from ICE and no, they didn't have any interest in seeing visas or work permits or Social Security cards. After their first stop that morning, when Hadley told him to stop scaring the workers by towering over them like the damn Statue of Liberty, Kevin found everybody relaxed more when he got as low profile as possible. He'd taken to squatting on his haunches as if he were powwowing at scout camp. Hadley, who'd acted like she was giving an oral examination the first few times, had smoothed out her patter, even-based on the occasional laugh she got-tossing in a joke now and again.

Kevin thought they were creating about as good a rapport with the migrants as they could, but they still didn't shake anything loose until Jock Montgomery's place. It was after four when they pulled into the dooryard, scattering a horde of small boys who turned out to be Montgomery sons and their friends. There was a bit of confusion as to why Hadley was there, since her oldest kid was in the same class as the middle Montgomery boy. Then the babysitter, Christy McAlister, recognized Kevin from when he wrote up her boyfriend's accident last winter, and she had to catch him up on everything going on with both the boyfriend-deployed overseas-and the car-totaled and replaced.

The good news was that it was coming up milking time. Montgomery's three full-time year-round farmhands were all in what the dairyman called the milking parlor, which, despite its old-fashioned name, had the same stainless steel and sterilized hoses as the other farms. Back at the Hoffmans', Hadley had commented, "It's all rubber and restraints. I bet there's some serious fetish activity going on after hours in a few of these places." He'd turned the same color as the red Ayshires in the field, but now he couldn't stop thinking about it.

They had gathered the men in the tack room, and, since the concrete floor was stained with unidentifiable brown blotches, Kevin forsook the squatting for sitting atop a plastic five-gallon bucket of antibiotic feed additive. Hadley perched on another bucket and showed them the photo, asking-he assumed-if any of them had seen John Doe one.

The three men-short broad-faced Mayans with arms large enough to wrestle calves out of their mother's bodies and skinny, bowed legs-shook their heads. Lined up in Astroturf-green lawn chairs, they looked like teak garden ornaments that had been stored in the barn for a season.

Hadley asked them another question, smiling, her voice inviting confidence.

The men glanced at one other. Kevin, examining the straw and manure glued to the edge of his sneakers, sat up straight. This was the first time they hadn't gotten an almost-instant denial. "Hadley," he said, his voice quiet, un-threatening. "Remind 'em we're just here for information."

She rattled off something in Spanish, still trying to sound upbeat. One guy said something to another. The third nodded, adding what might have been an encouragement or an order. The one in the middle was still, like he was weighing what the other two had told him. Finally, he said something to Hadley. A short sentence.

"¿Qué?" She was obviously surprised.

"What is it?" Kevin asked.

She didn't turn to answer him. "He says he was shot at."

He kept his mouth shut while she asked the guy another question. Got an answer. Asked something else. Got a longer, more detailed reply, with the other two nodding along. Kevin made himself wait, not wanting to bust up the flow of the interview. After ten minutes of back-and-forth, Hadley said "Gracias," and everybody except Kevin stood up.

The three men left. Kevin exploded off his bucket once the last one vanished into the milking parlor. "What?" he said. "What?"

Hadley rubbed her lips, her eyes still on the lawn chairs. "We need to take a look at Mr. Montgomery's van. The guy in the middle, Feliz, says he was driving it to the Agway to pick up a load of feed and somebody shot at him. Put a hole through the back panel."

"When?"

"April."

Yes! In like Flynn . He was out the door in two strides. "Mr. Montgomery!" he called. "Mr. Montgomery?"

Jock Montgomery emerged from the cold room, wiping his hands on a cloth. He was a Caucasian version of his workers, bandy-legged, powerful shoulders, with an up-country Cossayuharie accent you could use to stir paint. "They tell you what you needed to know?"

"Did your van get shot this past April?"

"Ayeah."

"Why didn't you report it?"

"Aw." Montgomery shoved the cloth into his overalls pocket. "There's no need to kick up a fuss. Just somebody jacking deer. I figgured if he needed the meat so bad, I wun't gonna put trouble his way."

"Do you know who did it?"

Montgomery rubbed the back of his neck.

"We're not asking 'cause we're looking for game violations. We're investigating multiple murders."

Hadley piped up for the first time. "Someone may be targeting Latino migrant workers."

Kevin winced. He didn't think the chief wanted that theory floating around Millers Kill.

"Huh. So you think… maybe he wun't huntin' after all?"

"Maybe not for deer," Hadley said.

"I don't know who did it." Montgomery sighed. "But it happened when Feliz was on the Cossayuharie Road, passing though the Christies' woods. I figgured-well, they're hard up enough to do it. Huntin' out of season, I mean."

Hadley caught his sleeve and tugged him away from the farmer. "The twenty-two?" she said quietly.

"That'd be hard to punch through a moving vehicle. But maybe." Kevin turned back to Montgomery. "May we see the van, please?"

"Right out here next to the feed room." They followed Montgomery, keeping a few paces behind so they could talk.

"The Christies," Hadley whispered.

"That'd put a different spin on them going after that Mexican guy working at St. Alban's."

They stepped over a chewed-up wooden lintel and out into the late-afternoon sun. "There 'tis," Montgomery said. "You can see why I took it for a hunter."

Kevin could. The ragged-edged hole was the work of a large-caliber weapon. But it wasn't the size of the shot that interested him. It was the van itself. The big, white, paneled Chevy Astro was identical to the one Sister Lucia Pirone had been driving.

He hadn't called before hauling over to his sister's farm, so it was his own damn fault his mother was there to see the blowup. He heeled his squad car into her driveway-the old one, not the new one-and was pounding up the steps before the engine stilled. He hammered on the front door. "Janet! Goddammit, open up!"

The door opened. He saw empty air where he expected Janet's face and looked down. His mother frowned up at him. "What on earth are you fussing about now, Russell? Swearing at the top of your lungs right out in front of God and everybody. What if the girls had been home?"

One-handed, he swung the door all the way open and pushed past her rotund form. "This is official business, Mom." He strode into the McGeochs' living room, nearly knocking over his niece Kathleen's music stand. Empty plastic laundry baskets and piles of folded clothing covered the sofa. Sneakers in assorted sizes and shades of pink were piled like a canvas landslide against the TV console. "Janet!"

Janet appeared from the kitchen, a full laundry basket in her arms. Her lips thinned. "Clare told you."

"Clare told me," he said. "And I don't know who I'm madder at, her for keeping it a secret or you for laying it on her. This is a goddam murder investigation, Janet. Don't you get it? We got three dead men to account for. That's a little more important than you saving a few bucks on your taxes."