bring herself to volunteer. Her thoughts and self-recriminations chased themselves around and around in her head like disease-raddled rats on a rusty wheel.
She didn’t realize she had sunk into a reverie until she heard Tally say, “Major. I mean, Reverend.” Sarah opened her eyes.
Clare Fergusson collapsed onto the chair opposite McNabb. “What are you still doing here?”
Sarah’s heart turned over in one slow despairing beat before she realized Fergusson was speaking to Tally.
“I dunno,” Tally said. “No place better to go, I guess. My husband’s away gambling for a few days.” Her voice made it clear she thought games of chance were a monumental waste of time. Unless, Sarah thought, it was that the husband wasn’t alone at whatever casino he had fled to. “How’s Will doing?” Tally asked.
“He’ll live.” Fergusson slid down until the back of her head could rest against the top of the upholstered chair. “God. I’m so tired. I’d sell my grandmother’s wedding ring for a drink right now.”
“Let’s find a bar,” Sarah said. “I’ll buy the first round.”
Tally’s mouth opened. “What happened to encouraging her to deal with her stress in a healthy way?”
Fergusson started laughing.
“At this point, I’m going to consider alcoholism a viable alternative. All things considering.” Sarah bent over and rubbed her hands over her face.
Fergusson’s smile faded away. “Are you implying I’m an alcoholic?”
Sarah looked at her. “Based on what little I’ve been able to pry out of you, I think you have a problem with alcohol.” She folded her hands and rested her chin on her knuckles. It made a hard, uncomfortable perch, which was just what she needed right now. “Then again, what the hell do I know? I completely missed Will’s suicidal intent.”
“Oh, for chrissakes,” Tally said. “Quit beating yourself up over it. Anybody who’s seen a public service announcement on TV knows what the three or five or seven warning signs are. Will’s not stupid. He didn’t
Fergusson opened her mouth. Closed it again.
“It’s like we’re all sick, you know? Like we all got something wrong with us, but we won’t tell the doctor and get it treated. Because we’re afraid the cure is going to be worse than the disease.”
Sarah was surprised at Tally’s outburst, and by her insight. The young woman hadn’t struck her as being that tuned in to others.
“You don’t cure PTSD,” Fergusson said. “You learn to live with it. I don’t think taking a drink now and then or using a sleeping pill when you can’t get back to sleep after a nightmare is necessarily a bad thing.”
Tally scooted to the edge of her chair and stared at the priest. “Aren’t you tired of being afraid all the time? I am.”
“Then why in God’s name are you thinking about going back to Iraq? What’s that about? Facing your fears? Unit cohesion with the rest of the construction team?”
Tally crossed her arms over her chest. She rubbed the tattoo on her arm. “I’m not going back. I’ve decided.”
“Oh.” Fergusson deflated. “Okay.”
“What’s that going to mean for your job?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her arm again. “Maybe lose it, I guess. It’s not the worst thing that could happen to me.” Her gaze shifted toward the corridor. Somewhere down that hall, Will Ellis lay, broken. “It’s not near the worst thing that could happen to me.”
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5
It was Bev Collins and her home health aide who heard the noise. A boom, then a crack, loud enough to make the aide start and say, “What was that?”
“Gunshot.” Mrs. Collins laid down a set of threes. She and Tracy played canasta every Wednesday, and Tracy allowed her one beer for the game. Her doctor said the sugar in it would kill her, but by God, if she had to do without beer, too, she’d just as soon go anyways.
“It’s too close to be a gunshot. It sounded like it came from next door.”
“Young lady, I have hunted and shot for nigh on seventy years. I’d still be doing it if I could see worth a damn.” Mrs. Collins’s upcountry accent changed “worth” to “wuth.” “That was a small-caliber sidearm. Either somebody’s gotten sick and tired of those damn raccoons taking down the garbage cans, or he don’t know jack about cleaning his weapon and accidentally discharged it.”
“Raccoons aren’t out at three in the afternoon.” Tracy got up from the kitchen table and went to the window. “I can’t see anything through the safety fence. I better go out and take a look.”
“Safety fence.” Mrs. Collins shuffled to the icebox and took out another beer. What Tracy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “Swimming pool. The river’s too good for folks nowadays.” She hadn’t taken more than a few swigs when Tracy tore back into the kitchen.
“It’s-she’s-call the police! She’s killed herself!”
“I would say a single shot, through the mouth, to the back of the head.” Emil Dvorak, the Millers Kill medical examiner, pushed against his silver-headed cane to straighten from his crouched position at the edge of the pool. “I can confirm that, at least, as soon as you remove her from the water.”
There was a faint clicking noise as Sergeant Morin of the New York State Police Criminal Investigation Unit snapped off picture after picture on his digital camera. Tally McNabb was floating on her back, ribbons and streamers of blood trailing over and around and beneath her. Tiny pieces of bone and brain floated on the surface of the pool. “I’d like you to take prints from all the exterior doors,” Russ said.
“Sure.” Morin dropped his camera into his kit. “What about the inside?”
“Depends on what we find in there.” Russ looked up to the open second-floor window. Sheer white curtains fluttered out of the frame to catch in the wind rising from the mountains. From McNabb’s backyard, he could see the edge of the hills, russet and brown and yellow, and a dark wall of clouds moving toward them.
“You think there’s somebody in there?”
Russ shook his head. “Not alive.” He turned to Lyle MacAuley. “Have you raised the husband yet?”
Lyle shoved his phone into his jacket pocket and shook his head. “Nothin’. The foreman at BWI Opperman says he’s on leave for the next two weeks. I got the names of a couple friends, and we can probably get a few more if we canvass the Dew Drop. He was a regular, right?”
“That’s what the owner said.” His eyes were drawn, again, to the open window.
“You thinking murder-suicide?”
“Maybe.”
“If McNabb killed her out here and then offed himself, what in the hell is that.38 doing down there? Or are you going to suggest he switched weapons midstream?”
Both men looked into the pool. The gun, black and malignant, lay in twelve feet of water, according to the warning embossed on the plastic lip of the pool gutter.
Russ pinched the bridge of his nose. “She locks all the doors to her house, comes out to the pool in jeans and a sweater, and shoots herself at the very edge of the water.”
“It does keep things nice and neat. If that matters to you.”
“Maybe McNabb did her and tossed the gun in. Chlorine washes away a lot of evidence. He could already be at the Albany airport.”
“We got a BOLO out on him. If he tries to run, somebody’ll spot him.” Lyle zipped his jacket against the chilly air. “Maybe the disappointed boyfriend did her. Or both of ’em.”
