Julia Spencer-Fleming - All Mortal Flesh

Clare’s scowl vanished. She looked, horrified, at Russ. Oh, darlin’, he thought. I didn’t want you to know that ugliness.

“The woman comes out. Tells her lover his wife is dead, because, after all, that’s what she thinks. The couple then alibi each other, saying they spent the night together.”

“That’s bullshit,” Russ said. “With nothing to back it up. I can spin just as detailed a story using Lyle’s theory of a vengeful ex-con with just as little evidence to support it.”

Jensen shrugged. “Evidence is what I’m looking for. Reverend Fergusson, would you consent to be fingerprinted?”

“I don’t think-” Karen Burns began.

“Yes,” Clare said.

“Would you consent to a search of your house?”

“No,” Burns said.

“Yes.” Clare looked at her lawyer. “I’m not guilty. I have nothing to hide.” She paused for a second. She looked up at Russ, and he could see in her eyes the one thing she had gained with her reckless confession. “I have nothing to hide anymore.”

Jensen smiled.

“I expect you to restore my client to full duty as soon as the evidence clears him of any complicity,” Geoff Burns said.

“Not if the prime suspect is his girlfriend, I won’t.” The BCI investigator thumbed open the case file she was holding. She glanced at a sheet of handwritten notes. “According to her own statement, Reverend Fergusson left her little vacation cabin early in the morning and didn’t return until two in the afternoon or thereabouts. That’s a lot of time unaccounted for.”

“I didn’t leave until ten,” Russ said. Talking about this made him feel as if he had a mouth full of dry gravel. “Clare’s car was in the driveway. Dusted over with snow. It hadn’t been moved.”

Jensen spread her arms. “But what about after? I don’t claim to be any expert in the geography around here, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe she’d have enough time between 10:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M. to drive south to Millers Kill, do your wife-I mean, Audrey Keane, but she wouldn’t have known that-and be back north in time to appear out of the woods to this other priest guy who came to call. Or am I wrong?”

He glanced at Clare. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to, but the calculations thrust themselves into his head: an hour and a half to Millers Kill plus an hour and a half back left one hour, more than enough time for someone swift, decisive, used to thinking on her feet. Maybe she had started with the intent to come after him. It was a long, quiet drive. Plenty of time to brood. And she had been tired, worn like a rag from too much emotion and too little sleep. Not herself.

He realized he had been silent too long. Clare was looking at him with a dawning dismay. “Russ?” she said.

“Am I wrong?” Jensen repeated.

“No,” he said.

Clare opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Not about the driving times, I mean,” he said, but he could hear the weakness in his own voice, the faltering of his belief.

“Russ,” Clare protested.

“Officer Entwhistle, can you escort Reverend Fergusson to the processing room and print her?” Her show-and-tell over, Jensen crossed to where Lyle was standing. “MacAuley, who can we spare to search the Reverend’s house?”

Karen Burns frowned. “Clare, I’m going to say it again. I advise you most strongly against allowing an unwarranted search of the rectory.”

Clare shook her head. “No. Let them.”

“In that case, Investigator, I insist on being present.”

Jensen shrugged. “Sure. But you better get in gear. We’ll be over there in fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes after Officer Entwhistle finishes with the fingerprints.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jensen gestured toward Noble. “Anytime now, Officer Entwhistle.”

Noble lurched into action. He touched Clare on the elbow and steered her toward the hall, her lawyer at her side.

Karen Burns paused in front of her husband. “I’m going to drop her off at our house with the new deacon. I want her to stay there until I get back.”

“Understood,” Geoff Burns said.

And all the time, Russ stood there. Watching Clare. His last sight of her was her face, turned back toward him, as she rounded the corner.

“Listen,” Burns said. “From now on, I don’t want you talking with her. You can’t help her case, and you can only hurt your own. Do you hear me? Van Alstyne?”

A prayer she had told him about chased itself round and round in his brain.

Oh, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.

Clare let herself be trundled out of the station like a juvenile delinquent being picked up by her exasperated parents. “Take your car to my house,” Karen told her, tugging on a wool beret to protect her hair from the steadily falling snow. “You can watch Cody until I get back from the search of the rectory. Which I still really, really don’t like.”

Following her lawyer down the steps, Clare made a feeble attempt to assert her independence. “Can’t I just go home and wait until they’re done?”

“No.” Karen turned toward the parking lot behind the station. “In the first place, you do not want to be there when a bunch of jackbooted thugs go through your every possession. In the second place, I’ve already imposed on the new deacon too much. You can pay off some of your legal fee by babysitting Cody. When I get back, we’ll talk. I want to go over everything that’s happened up to this point.”

“Oh, lord. Karen, I haven’t thought to ask what this is going to cost me. I don’t even know what you charge.”

A smile slanted across the lawyer’s face. “I told you. I’m going to take it out in babysitting.”

“But-”

Karen flicked the snowflakes off Clare’s shoulder before resting her gloved hand there. “You’re my priest,” she said, “and I consider you a friend as well. Neither of which might get you off the hook, normally. But you saved my baby boy’s life. That gives you an unlimited line of credit at Burns and Burns.” Then she surprised Clare by pulling her into a hug. “We’ll get you out of this,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.” She released Clare and held out her hand. “House key?”

“It’s unlocked.”

“Okay.” She paused at her Land Rover’s door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Go straight to my house. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, and for heaven’s sake, don’t hang around here waiting for Chief Van Alstyne.”

Clare, who had been thinking of doing just that, started.

“I mean it, Clare, I don’t want you seeing him or talking to him until we get this thing straightened out.” With that final admonition hanging in the air, Karen got into her SUV and started it up. Clare, watching her pull out of the lot, felt rather like Cinderella being warned that her outfit and ride had an expiration date.

She dragged herself over to her Subaru, got in, and drove to the Burnses’ on autopilot. Their house, on a broad and affluent old street, could have been Judy Garland’s family home in Meet Me in St. Louis. Artificial candles still glowed in each window. Clare parked beneath the porte cochere and bent her head forward in a brief prayer that she not make more of a spectacle of herself in front of the new deacon than she already had.

The Burnses didn’t have a mudroom, they had a back pantry, where Clare let herself in and kicked off her boots. “Hello,” she called, hanging up her parka. “Don’t be alarmed. It’s Clare.”

She heard the thudding of tiny, footsie-clad feet. Cody skidded through the kitchen just as she emerged from the not-a-mudroom.

“Care!” He flung up his arms for a pickup.