Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

"If I catch you drinking again, you will be in trouble. But I think this time I'll let your parents deal with it." Kearney looked relieved, Colin horrified.

A flash of arriving headlights and another gust of wind caught Russ's attention. He squinted in the glare. Clare glanced over, then at him. Questioning him without words. "The medical examiner," he said.

"Any objection to me taking Lauren and Meghan home now?" Sturdevant's tone implied any objection would be overruled. The boys looked at each other. Russ figured they would eat their own tongues before admitting they wanted an adult to stay with them.

"I'll keep the boys company until the Ellises get here," Clare said.

He shot her a grateful look. "You're free to go," he told the girls. "Thanks for your cooperation. And thanks for keeping your heads and calling us right away."

Sturdevant was already dragging them off. Russ excused himself and bolted for the new headlights. It was indeed Dr. Scheeler, stepping out of his Scout in a suit that must have cost as much as a month's rent in Cossayuharie.

"I was having a romantic dinner at the Sagamore with a woman I had to beg for a date," Scheeler said under his breath. "I hope to hell this is worth it."

A lean, tan brunette in a pink suit got out of the passenger side of the car. She wasn't wearing anything under the jacket. No wonder Scheeler was pissed off. She crossed to the driver's side. The pathologist handed her the keys. "I'm so sorry about this, Barb." He glared at Russ.

The woman smiled. Not happy, but good-natured. "Oh, Chief Van Alstyne and I are practically old friends. I'll cut him some slack." She was, Russ realized, the manager of the Algonquin Waters Resort. One of the last people to ever see Linda alive. "How are you?" she said, in a different tone. "I was so sorry to hear about your wife. It must have been terrible for you."

"Thank you. Yeah. It was," he said for the seven hundredth time.

Scheeler pulled his bag out of the back. Hot date or no, he was prepared. He helped the woman up into the driver's seat and took his time retrieving his hand. "So. I'll see you later, Barb?"

She flashed him a killer grin. "If you want your SUV back." Then she gunned the engine and was gone.

"Day-um," Scheeler said. He rubbed the back of his neck, then glowered at Russ again. "You better have found Amelia Earhart."

Russ started walking toward the back of the field. "Since when do doctors have trouble getting women?"

"Pathology is not always the big turn-on some people assume it is," Scheeler said, falling in beside him. "Plus, the pay sucks. Dermatology, that's where the bucks are. A certificate in plastic surgery is like a license to print money. Hang on."

He climbed into the back of the MKPD ambulance and emerged a minute later, zipping himself into a pale blue jumpsuit. He glanced around the edge of the ambulance as they passed, then did a double-take. He turned to Russ. "It's that minister again!" He looked again to where Clare was talking with the boys. "Have you checked her out? It's not unheard of for perpetrators to come back to the scene of the crime, you know."

Russ pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. "She's here because the victim worked for her church."

"Have you investigated her thoroughly?" Scheeler asked.

"Uh…" Not as thoroughly as I want to .

"Because a clerical collar can hide a lot."

Clare's neck bared, her eyes closed, the hot pulse in her throat- Christ . He adjusted his pants under the guise of redistributing the weight of his rig. He was as bad as one of those seventeen-year-old boys, creeping around the old stones, hoping to score. Worse. He knew better.

The area was lit up like a used-car lot with the additional lamps Lyle and Kevin had set up. "Doc Scheeler," Lyle said. Kevin was stringing police-line tape around trees and stones. Lyle stepped over the tape and held it down for the medical examiner. "Hadley's on her way. And the state tech team, although they say it may be another hour."

"Let's see what we can ascertain before they get here." Scheeler snapped his gloves on. They walked one after the other, in Lyle's footsteps. Russ kept his eyes moving as he pulled on his purple gloves, hoping against hope to see a hair, a fiber, a track, anything that might-

They stopped. Russ stepped around the pathologist for a better view. Scheeler sucked in his cheeks. "Holy Mother of God," he said. Russ lifted his eyes and met Lyle's. The older man looked as grim as Russ had ever seen him.

"All right," Scheeler said. "All right. Let's see what he can tell us." He opened his case and knelt, laying it next to the body. He began removing instruments and evidence bags.

"The VFW was up here on the third," Lyle said, "putting in flags. We may be able to place someone on the scene later than that, but that's a positive."

"Dumped," Russ said. "Already dead."

"Probably," Scheeler said from where he knelt. "The ground's so dry, it would have soaked up a lot, but active bleeding would have stained all these dead pine needles." He slid one long, rust-colored needle from beneath the body and held it up. "Dry," he said. "And unstained. When did he go missing?"

"June twenty-third," Lyle said.

"So. Two weeks."

"How long has he been dead?" Russ asked.

"Very preliminary estimate, twenty-four to thirty-six hours." The ME's assured voice thinned out. "Whoever did this kept him alive for a long time."

A silence followed that observation. After a while, Lyle said, "Different gun than the other three."

"I can tell," Russ said. Whatever had finally put Esfuentes out of his misery was a lot bigger than a.22.

"They're not just getting rid of witnesses. They wanted information," Lyle said.

"Jesus. You think?"

Lyle turned, his expression stung. Russ waved a hand in apology. "Sorry. I'm just… yeah. Information. If he had been meant as a warning, he would've turned up someplace a lot more public than this."

"Whatever they wanted to know, this poor bastard couldn't tell them," Scheeler said. He gently lifted one hand with a slender steel rod. "This was done while he was alive. After the third finger, he would have told them anything." The medical examiner slipped an evidence bag over the hand, concealing it from sight. "Who in God's name was this kid?"

Russ's throat tightened. "Nobody. Just a hardworking farm boy who came north for a decent job. He thought we were keeping him safe."

"We did everything we could at the time." MacAuley's voice was rough. "Don't start second-guessing yourself."

It was good advice. Russ had passed it on to more than one young officer in his day. It didn't make him feel any better.

"Russ?"

He snapped around at the sound of Clare's voice. He could just see her outline in the unlit dimness behind the police tape, silhouetted against the whirl of white, red, and blue lights in the distance. He strode toward her.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I don't want to interrupt. It's just that the boys have left, and I didn't know"-he was close enough to make out her face, now-"nobody told me. I wanted to find out." He stopped in front of her. The shivering police tape drew a line between them. "Is it definitely Amado?"

He balled up his hands to keep from putting his arms around her. "Yeah. It is."

"Oh, God." She looked up at him. "Are you sure?" Before he could say anything, she answered herself. "Of course you're sure." She looked away. Wiped her eyes with both hands. "Can I see him? I won't touch anything or get in the way. I just want to-"

"No," he said.

"I've seen dead bodies before, Russ." She straightened her spine. "I won't break down."

"No. Listen," this time he didn't stop himself. He gathered her against him, holding her tightly, hating to be the one to tell her. "Clare, he was tortured. Before he was killed. It wasn't-" He shook his head. "I don't want you to see-Christ, nobody should have to see something like this."