Julia Spencer-Fleming - All Mortal Flesh

“No, you’re not!”

The deacon ignored Clare’s protest. She crossed to her tiny office and emerged with her wool coat slung over her arm.

“There’s absolutely no reason for you to go,” Clare said.

“I don’t think there’s much of a reason for you to go, either, but you’ve convinced me it’s a pastoral call. All right. I will accompany you on the pastoral call.”

Clare opened her mouth to argue. Elizabeth speared her with a look. “If you’re going to argue that it’s not safe for me to come along, you’ll have to include yourself in that assessment.”

Clare shut her mouth.

The ride out to Old Route 100 was harrowing. The wind picked up the already fallen snow and whirled it in the air to mix with the stuff pelting down from the leaden clouds. Three times, Clare had to take her foot off the gas and let the Subaru roll to a near stop because she couldn’t see two feet past the hood of the car. Other vehicles appeared out of the spidery whiteness, headlights blossoming, then winked away into the storm.

Then there was Elizabeth de Groot.

“Have you considered applying to a more urban parish?” she asked. “Perhaps in a more stimulating environment, you wouldn’t need to keep throwing yourself into risk-taking experiences like you do here.”

Clare didn’t answer.

“You know, the bishop thinks very highly of you. But let’s face it, on the overall balance sheet, have you been an asset or a debit to the diocese as a whole? What do you think?”

Clare gritted her teeth and leaned closer to the windshield.

“In the short time I’ve been here, I can see how much you care for your congregation. But don’t you think the members of St. Alban’s have a right to expect their rector to keep her focus on them?”

Clare snapped the radio on. “Traffic reports,” she said.

Later, de Groot mused, “Maybe you’re meant to be back in the military. A military chaplain. Travel. Adventure. Lots of eligible young men.”

“A church of one,” Clare muttered.

“Hmm? Do you think that might suit you better?”

Clare knew responding would only encourage her, but she couldn’t let that one stand. “The army spent a lot of time and money training me to fly helicopters. If I ever went back, I’m pretty sure that’s what they’d want me to do.”

“Really? How do you think you’ve handled the move from such a dangerous profession to such a peaceable one?”

And so the psychoanalyzing went on, until Clare was ready to drive the two of them into a ditch. The sight of the MacEntyres’ massive barn was more welcome than she could have dreamed. There was something different about it this afternoon. She slowed almost to a stop and squinted through the gray-and-white blur. A gust of wind tore open the storm’s veil, and for a moment she could see clearly the double doors at the top of the ramp, open, and the rear of a pickup truck inside. Then the wind reversed and everything vanished again.

She drove up the driveway a car length or two and parked. She didn’t want to get stuck reversing out. “Bundle up,” she said, turning off the engine. With the blower and wipers off, she could hear the storm beating against the car, the wind whistling and thumping, the snow hissing and tapping.

Hearing it still didn’t prepare her for steeping out into it. A cold gust clouted the side of her head, and she tugged her hat down deep over her ears and eyes. Elizabeth emerged from the other side of the car with her scarf wound around her head and across her face.

At least it’ll keep her from going over my career prospects, Clare thought. She headed down the drive.

“Where are you going?” Elizabeth pointed behind them. “The house is that way!”

“I saw a pickup parked in the barn,” Clare yelled. “I’m not sure, but I think it might be Quinn Tracey’s.”

Elizabeth, either bowing to Clare’s wisdom or eager to get out of the storm, nodded. She followed in Clare’s tracks. They waded across the road and up the ramp, entering the barn along with the wind and the snow that was coating the truck’s bed. Clare walked far enough forward to get out of the worst of it.

“Is this his truck?” Elizabeth asked, tugging her scarf beneath her chin.

Clare pointed to the attached plow. “I don’t know, but I’m willing to guess so.”

“Where do you think they are?”

Clare walked farther in, until there was nothing but wide wooden flooring beneath her feet. Straight across from them, another double door was firmly closed against the weather. Just as in the cattle pens below, a transverse aisle ran the length of the barn. The remainder of the barn, two levels strutted with dark, hand-cut beams, was filled with hay. Hay in tightly rolled, spiraling bales. Hay in silvery-green mounds.

Elizabeth sneezed.

Clare looked toward the east end of the barn. Nothing there but a two-story-high wall pierced with five windows at irregular intervals. The window glass, rippled and melting with age, was crusting over with frost. The barn was, Clare realized, shaped very much like a church.

Elizabeth sneezed again. “Where do you think they are?”

“There’s a poultry barn and an equipment shed out back, but I doubt they’re there,” Clare said. “I suspect the downstairs is the hangout of choice. It’s the cattle pen, and it has to be a good twenty degrees warmer than it is up here.”

“Sounds good to me. How do we get there?”

Clare swiveled around. “There’s a door outside, but when I was here last time, I saw a ladder coming down from the west end, there. Look.” Sure enough, they could see two grainy supports and three rungs sticking up out of the floor.

Elizabeth sneezed. “It better be nailed in place.”

“Do you have allergies?”

Elizabeth looked at her with watery and red-rimmed eyes. “Yes. The sooner I can get out of here, the happier I’ll be.”

“Do you want to go back to the car?”

“Doh.” The deacon was as grim as Clare had ever seen her.

“Okay. Give me a sec to check the inside of the pickup, and then we’ll go down. I want to go first.”

“Of course.”

Clare couldn’t tell whether de Groot was being sarcastic or just prissy. Either way, she’d better hurry. She strode back to the pickup. The wind ripped into her as she stood on the running board and looked inside. She opened the driver’s door and slid in on her knees. Maps in the door pockets, three scrapers stuffed behind the seat. She popped open the glove compartment. Insurance and registration, in Quinn Tracey’s name. Paper napkins left over from a fast-food joint. Beneath them, two condom packages and a tin box of breath mints. What her brothers used to call their Hope Springs Eternal Kit.

In other words, nothing. No blood smears, no hidden K-Bar. She flipped down the sun visors and was startled by a piece of paper fluttering to the floor-mat. She pawed at it, clumsy in her gloves, until it came up into her hand.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am sorry. I tried and tried but I could not control my urges and now a woman is dead. My friends tried to help me but no one knows that I am a killer inside. I am responsible. No one else but me. I’m sorry, but this is the only way I know to stop myself.

Quinn

“Sweet holy-” Clare stuffed the typed note into her pocket and slid out of the car. She looked around wildly. “Elizabeth? Elizabeth!”

The ladder. She hadn’t waited. Clare sprinted toward the west end of the barn, her boots thudding on the boards, almost skidding into the open square that led downstairs. She grabbed the edges of the ladder and scurried down, jumping the last rungs.

Too late. Elizabeth stared at Clare, eyes wide and terrified, frozen into stillness by the glittering knife held against her throat.