Julia Spencer-Fleming - All Mortal Flesh

“Harlene? It’s Russ.”

“Chief! Where have you been? I’ve been calling all over for you!” Harlene dropped her voice. “That rhymes-with-witch from the state PD has been carrying on like you escaped from custody.”

“I’m on Bainbridge Road, in Cossayuharie.” He glanced toward the McAlistairs’ farm. Two people were hurrying down the long drive.

“We’ve just got an accident report from there. Hit-and-run. One Scotty McAlistair called it in. Kevin’s responding.”

“We’ll need more people than Officer Flynn. I want a crime scene workup at 840 Bainbridge Road. That’s just up the hill from the McAlistairs. And that hit-and-run? Assaulted an officer and stole his personal vehicle.”

“You and yours?”

“That’s right. I want an APB on him, male, Cauc, balding, black or dark brown Fu Manchu mustache. Middle-aged, medium height. He’s in a 1993 dark green Volvo wagon, New York plate number RYF 3050. He’s got damage to the grill and headlights.”

“Are you all right? Shall I send an ambulance?”

“I’m okay.” He held the phone away from his ear. “Ethan. How are you feeling? Do you need to have anybody take a look at you?”

“Nah,” Ethan said. “I got smacked up worse in Parris Island.”

Parris Island. So that explained the bald eagle hairdo. “We’re all good here, Harlene. When you bulletin this perp, make sure you add he’s wanted for questioning related to a homicide.”

“He is?”

The hurrying figures reached the road. A farmer in his forties, knit hat framing a red, weather-beaten face, and a curvy little girl Ethan’s age who launched herself into the boy’s arms.

“I gotta go, Harlene. I’ll fill you in later.” Russ clicked off the phone.

“Are you all right?” the girl said, high-pitched and breathless. “Daddy called the police. I saw the whole thing. He just drove right into you! I swear, for a moment, I thought-I was terrified…” She buried her face in Ethan’s parka and sort of quivered, which, Russ judged, must feel pretty good, even through two layers of down and Gore-Tex. Ethan’s cheeks pinked up. He tried to school his gratified expression into something more concerned.

“You okay, Ethan?” The farmer ignored his daughter’s theatrics in favor of an assessing look at the boy.

“Yessir. He did a number on my car, though.”

“Cars can be replaced.” The farmer frowned at Russ. “You the guy responsible?”

“No, sir, he didn’t have nothing-anything to do with it. This is Chief Van Alstyne. Chief of police.”

The farmer held out his gloved hand. “Scotty McAlistair. You’re fast. I only just called nine-one-one.”

“I was already here. The man who ran into Ethan was fleeing custody.” He thumbed up the hill, toward McAlistair’s neighbor’s house. “What do you know about Audrey Keane?”

“Audrey Keane?” McAlistair looked surprised. “Not much. She moved in a couple, three years ago. The house was empty for a year after old Mrs. Williamson died.”

“Does she live alone?”

“I think so-”

His daughter cut in. “Not anymore.”

“This is my oldest, Christy,” McAlistair said. “Christy, don’t interrupt when grown-ups are talking.”

“Daddy!”

Russ held up his hand. “I’d like to hear. You say Ms. Keane doesn’t live alone anymore?”

She nodded, her cheek making a whispery noise against Ethan’s jacket. “Since about October. There’s been a man living there, too. First he was driving, like, a white Buick, then I started seeing him in her car.”

“Balding guy? Mustache?”

She nodded again.

“Do you know anything else about him, Christy? Or about her?”

“Not really. We said hi a few times at the IGA. She was always nice. Not, like, pushy or anything. But nice.”

Russ glanced at the father. “Do you know what she did for a living?”

McAlistair shook his head. “She was quiet. She didn’t go out much, and she didn’t have many folks over, as I could tell.”

“Not even since October? When this man came to live with her?”

“Nope.”

That cut down on the possibility that she was dealing.

“Sometimes she’d go away for days,” Christy said. “Like, over a long weekend, or for a week.”

He tried to fit that together with the computers. Porn? Procurement? Maybe she was just a fanatic eBayer.

“When was the last time either of you saw her?”

“Ummm,” McAlistair said.

“Friday,” Christy said. “I saw her drive past in her car. Her and the guy with the mustache.”

“You see a lot.”

She flushed. “I babysit the Montgomery boys afternoons. They always want to play outside. So I spend, like, a lot of time in their front yard.”

A siren’s shriek cut through the heavy, cold air. Christy McAlistair shivered.

“That’ll be Officer Flynn, to take your report,” Russ said to Ethan. “Thank you for the information,” he said to the farmer.

“Welcome. Sorry I didn’t have any more.” He touched his daughter’s shoulder. “C’mon, Christy. Let’s wait inside and let Ethan finish his business with the police.”

“I’ll come in as soon as I’m done,” Ethan promised the girl. She reluctantly released him and followed her father up the long, rutted drive.

“So,” Russ said. “You signed on with the marines.”

Ethan straightened. “Yessir.”

“I’m surprised. Pleased, but surprised. I figured the closest you’d get to fighting was Death Match 3000 at All TechTronik.”

The young man flushed. “I had sort of a wake-up call. Between Katie’s death”-his high school girlfriend, killed over two years ago now-“and September 11, I realized nobody knows how long they got. And I thought, do I want to piss my life away working part-time at Stewart’s and helping my dad steam-clean the milking equipment?” He ducked his head. “I can’t blame you for being surprised and all. I was pretty wild for a while there.”

Russ thought of himself at eighteen, two years younger than Ethan was now. Drinking and getting stoned and pulling stupid pranks. Desperate to get away. “Are they sending you over?”

Ethan glowed. “Oh, man, I hope so. I’m going for further training soon as I get back. Sniper school. That must mean I’ll be seeing action, don’tcha think?”

“I’d think so, yeah.” Had he really ever been that young? Yes, he had. He had been chomping at the bit to get to Vietnam. God, boys were stupid. In his day, the town’s chief of police had said good-bye and wished him well. Probably wondering, like Russ was now, if he’d ever see that wild young man again. Certainly never imagining that one day Russ would be standing in his shoes, wearing his badge.

Crimson lights splashed over the top of the far hill. Kevin Flynn’s squad car. Russ smiled a little. Maybe thirty-some years from now, Chief Ethan Stoner would be watching over Millers Kill. He laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself. Come back safe to us.”

Ethan gave him a look of disbelief. Russ wasn’t sure if it was for the idea that anything might happen to him, or the idea that he might make his way back to Millers Kill once he had escaped it. “Hey, I thought of another thing about Audrey Keane,” he said. “I’ve seen her around a time or two since she moved out here. I didn’t want to mention it in front of Christy and all, but have you seen a picture of her?”

“I don’t know. I saw a bunch of pictures up in her house. Maybe.”

“You’d know it if you had. She’s a total babe. I mean, I know she’s old and all, but she’s hot. I was thinking, when Christy said about her going away and all? She might have been going with guys. If you know what I mean.”