Julia Spencer-Fleming - All Mortal Flesh

Lois’s tone caught Clare’s attention. The secretary’s face was drawn taut, her lips pressed bloodlessly together.

“Okay,” Clare said. “Elizabeth, please excuse me.” She stepped into the hallway. “What is it?”

Lois gestured down the hall, to the door leading into the sanctuary. “Just… go.” She retreated into Clare’s office. Clare could hear her asking de Groot how the tea was.

Clare walked toward the church with a rapidly coalescing mass of dread filling her stomach. It had to be bad news. But not a parishioner. She had had parishioners sicken, be injured, die. Lois would have told her the details. She wouldn’t have been so shaken. It had to be something personal.

Oh, God, what if it was her father? He owned a small aviation business, he flew nearly every day-what if something had gone wrong?

No, that didn’t make any sense. Her mother or one of her brothers would have called her directly. Who else did she know who might be-

Then she realized. There was someone else whose job exposed him to danger. She pushed open the door to the sanctuary and spotted a figure standing in the dimness of the north aisle. “Is it Russ?” she said. “Has anything happened to Russ?”

Anne Vining-Ellis, Clare’s closest friend among her congregation, turned. Her face, usually gleaming with a sly sense of humor, was grave. “No,” she said. “It’s his wife. Linda Van Alstyne was murdered yesterday.”

It was more like a wake than a meeting. Six o’clock Tuesday morning. Mark’s shift was officially over, and he had been awake since Monday morning, but he looked like an ad for Sealy Posturepedic next to the chief.

They sat in the bullpen, everyone who was working the investigation. Eric McCrea kept glancing between the chief and Lyle MacAuley, like he was watching to see which one would be the first to crack. MacAuley was at the whiteboard, writing down what little information they had. Noble Entwhistle sat in his usual spot, his notebook open on the desk in front of him. He looked the same as always, and different. Like someone had taken a drawing of him and rubbed out some of the edges with a gum eraser.

Kevin Flynn, who usually rattled all over the place talking and asking questions, sat silently. He was still in his civvies, although at some point he had put on his Day-Glo orange POLICE vest. Once in a while he looked as if he might say something, but he’d just drop his head and crack his knuckles instead.

And the chief… Mark wasn’t a religious man, but when he saw the chief come though the doors in the predawn darkness, he thought, God, don’t ever let me come to that.

“… just bring us all up to date,” MacAuley was saying. “Eric?”

McCrea stood. “The state CS techs didn’t find anything that leaped out at them. There were some hairs and a variety of prints. We’ll see when we get the report. The neighbor destroyed any tracks there might have been in the snow when she drove up to the door and then ran in and out.”

“Friend,” the chief growled. He was sitting in his usual place for a meeting, atop the sturdy oak table near the whiteboard, his feet resting on a chair.

“Uh… I’m sorry, Chief?”

“Meg Tracey isn’t a neighbor. She lives on Dunedin Road. She’s-she was Linda’s best friend.”

Lyle wrote her name and BEST FRIEND on the whiteboard. “What do we know about her?”

The chief blinked. “Know about her?”

“Chief, she found the body. We should at least eliminate her as a possible.” Lyle’s voice was gentle. “Eric, you took her statement. Anything?”

McCrea flipped open his notebook. “Her husband teaches at Skidmore. They’ve got one kid at Syracuse and two more at home. She doesn’t work. She claimed she was at her house, alone, all afternoon until her daughter got home from the middle school. She dropped the kid off for a piano lesson and then went to the Van Alstynes’.” He stumbled for a moment, breaking the smooth recital of facts. “She said she didn’t see anyone except the cat.”

“The cat? We don’t have a cat.”

“The Tracey woman said Mrs. Van Alstyne adopted it a week ago.” He looked at MacAuley. “Uh, found the cat behind the barn. We took it to the county SPCA.”

Mark looked toward the wall. He didn’t want to watch the chief deal with the fact that he hadn’t even known his wife got a cat.

Eric bent his head to his notes and went on. “She says she’s very close to the victim and was worried because she hadn’t heard anything from her since Saturday afternoon.”

The silence in the squad room was absolute. Eric realized what he said. “Shit! I meant Mrs. Van Alstyne. I’m sorry, chief.”

The chief shifted on his table. “Okay, guys.” He sounded very, very tired. “This is a homicide investigation. We’re not going to get anywhere if you have to apologize every time you say ‘victim’ or ‘murder.’ Let’s stop worrying about my feelings and focus on breaking the case.” He waved toward McCrea. “Go on, Eric.”

“Um… that’s about it. Mrs. Tracey didn’t know of anyone who might have posed a threat to… the victim. She said the only person Mrs. Van Alstyne had been having trouble with lately-” McCrea broke off, swallowing.

“Was her husband,” the chief finished.

McCrea nodded.

“Let’s get that out in the open, then.” The chief took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think everybody here is aware I’ve been staying at my mom’s house since the Friday before last. Lyle?” He pointed to the whiteboard, and Lyle wrote down JAN 8. “Except for one counseling session, I haven’t seen Linda since then.”

Mark wondered if he was aware he was speaking of his wife in the present.

“I don’t know what rumors or stories have been making the rounds. The fact is, every marriage has its ups and downs. Linda and I started talking seriously about some issues in the middle of November. We decided we needed some perspective, so we started seeing a marriage counselor in December. Then Linda needed a break from having me around, so we agreed I’d move into my mom’s temporarily. Any questions?”

Mark held his breath, waiting to see if anyone was foolhardy enough to ask the chief about the rumors of his affair.

“Okay,” the chief said. “Lyle?”

MacAuley crossed his arms over his chest and stared into the middle distance. He wasn’t going to hide behind his notes like McCrea, but he wasn’t going to look at the chief, either. “Preliminary examination at the scene indicates the decedent was killed with a large knife. The ME won’t be able to tell exactly what we’re looking for until the autopsy, but it appeared to him that the fatal thrust was through the throat, which suggests the killer has at least some knowledge of professional knife-fighting techniques. There were no defensive wounds-suggesting the perp was someone either known to the decedent or someone unthreatening. There were-” Here he faltered and resorted to reading from his notebook. “Dr. Dvorak speculated that the significant postmortem wounds displayed the killer’s rage.”

Mark thought the chief might lose it. “What…” he said harshly, “what postmortem wounds?”

Eric McCrea had covered his face with one hand. He had been inside the house, Mark remembered. He had seen her. Of course, sooner or later they were all going to see her, in neatly labeled evidence photos. First the rest of the officers, then the men and women at the district attorney’s office, and then, if they did their job right, a judge and a jury and a whole courtroom of spectators.

“Her face was slashed. Repeatedly.” MacAuley’s face puckered, as if he had something nasty in his mouth.