The rain that had drifted in patchy showers through the weekend was on again Monday morning, a cold drizzle from a blank gray sky. Perfect weather for a funeral. Clare could have walked-the cemetery was barely a mile away-but she had pressed her Class A uniform and polished her regulation one-and-three-quarter-inch heels, and she wanted to look parade-ground ready for the interment. So she climbed into the rattleclank Jeep and drove.
The new cemetery, as it was called, had been new in 1870, when the dead from the Civil War had claimed the last of the original settlers’ burying ground. Clare rolled through the iron-framed gate and crunched along the twisting gravel drive, past Victorian marble obelisks and yellow weeping willows, past Depression-era granite and dark red alders, until she reached a treeless plain of flat stamped-metal markers and high-gloss composite memorial stones. She parked behind a line of cars. She left her coat in the car but took her hat.
She picked her way through the grass, her heels sinking into the ground with every step. A small striped awning had been erected next to a large mound of excavated soil discreetly covered with bright green outdoor carpeting. She hated that carpeting. She always wanted to roll it away at her interments. Show the reality. Earth to earth.
There were more people than she expected; far more than the number of folding chairs set up beneath the awning. Good. She spotted Trip Stillman and Sarah Dowling standing near the back of the crowd, Sarah in Quaker gray and Trip, like Clare, in an immaculate green uniform whose shoulders were blotched with rain. She joined them.
“Do you know the minister?” Sarah asked quietly.
“That’s the funeral director.” Clare spoke in the same undertone. “They’re not having a religious service. Just a few people speaking. Mr. Kilmer will make sure things move along smoothly.”
The first person to the podium was a cousin. Good choice. Close enough to have some warm anecdotes, not so attached to the deceased that she was in danger of losing it. Clare let her mind and her eyes wander. The woman in the front row who looked a thousand years old must be Tally’s mother. With his face varying shades of purple, green, and yellow, Wyler McNabb was very visible a few seats down from her. Russ had told her Tally’s husband had been discharged, been arraigned, and posted bail all on the same day.
Farther back, Clare spotted the kind-hearted Dragojesich, already wiping his eyes with fists the size of softball mitts. She caught a glimpse of army green at the other edge of the crowd and was surprised to see Colonel Seelye, also in her dress uniform. Perhaps not so surprising, though. Russ had told her the MP wanted access to Tally’s house, bank accounts, and records. Maybe she was trying to get in good with the family. Or maybe she was watching to see who showed up. She spotted Clare looking at her and nodded coolly.
Next up was one of Tally’s friends, a young woman with two-toned hair and way too much eye makeup for a funeral. She was only a few sentences into her remembrances of Tally and Wyler in high school when she started to gulp and cry and her mascara began to run black down her cheeks. Clare felt a nudge. Looked at Trip. The doctor nodded toward the line of parked cars. Eric McCrea, spit-and-polished in his own Class A’s, was striding toward them. She was amazed. Given what Russ had told her about Eric’s treatment of Wyler McNabb, she had expected the sergeant to be holed up with his union representative right now. Or with his lawyer.
McCrea fell in between Clare and Sarah, so that the four of them made a wall of hawkish green punctuated by dove gray. Like Trip, he stood at ease, facing the speaker. His eyes cut toward Clare. “The chief isn’t here with you?”
Clare shook her head minutely. “He offered.” She kept her own spine straight, her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes forward. “The husband is here. Is your presence going to be a problem?”
From the corner of her eye, she could see the ribbons on his chest rise and fall. “You know about that?”
This time she looked at him directly.
Eric’s mouth compressed. “No one’s going to notice me. They’ll just see the uniform.” He faced front again. “I had to come. She was one of us.” Sarah leaned forward and glared at them, her finger to her lips. McCrea dropped his voice to a whisper. “She was one of us.”
There was no honor guard. Clare didn’t know if that was because the area commandant was so overwhelmed with requests he couldn’t supply one, or if the army didn’t send a team for soldiers who had died after walking away with a million dollars of army money. There was a group from the local VFW, though, one big-bellied guy, a pair who looked too thin and frail to hold up their rifles, and a bearded man of about forty. Three of them fired the volley while everyone in uniform saluted and the older folks placed their hands over their hearts and the younger ones stared.
Clare and Eric and Trip and Colonel Seelye kept their salutes as the bearded man and the big-bellied guy-
She turned her face away from the childless mother, struggling to master herself. She stared hard at the trees fringing the older section of the cemetery, their autumn colors burning like banked coals against the heavy gray sky. She paid attention to the details, slick stone and dripping branch, because focusing on the sodden scenery meant she wasn’t falling apart.
That was how she saw Quentan Nichols.
“It was him. I’m sure of it.”
Russ relocated a pile of reports and newsletters from the extra chair to his desk. “Sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.” Clare paced from the desk to the filing cabinets to one of the tall windows. It was streaked and spotted, the watery afternoon light held at bay by the bright fluorescents inside the office. “I want you to do something.”
There was a knock on the door. Harlene stuck her head in. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Clare?”
“I’d love one, Harlene. Thank you.”
“Hey!” Russ crossed his arms and leaned against his desk. “What about me?”
“You got two legs, don’t you?” The dispatcher nodded at Clare. “You look a right treat in that uniform.” She shut the door.
“So what do you think?”
“Sorry, Major, the uniform doesn’t do it for me. Too many bad memories of idiot officers.”
“Russ!”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry.” He straightened and went around his desk. He picked up a file. “Here.”
She took the slim folder. Inside was a fax from Fort Leonard Wood acknowledging the MKPD’s request, blah, blah… she found the information halfway down the sheet. Nichols, Quentan L., posted to Fort Gillem, Georgia, September 26. Copies of the travel order and the transportation receipts. She flipped the page. A different fax headlined Office of the Commandant, Fort Gillem, told her Sergeant Nichols had arrived on October 4 and was currently listed as active duty assigned to the military police post.
She looked at Russ. “He’s in Georgia?”
“Since a week before Tally McNabb’s death.” He took the folder from her. “Did you think I wouldn’t take a look at Nichols? Rule him out as a suspect?”
“But I saw him. Today. At the cemetery.”
“Did you go after him?”
“Of course not! I had to stay till the end of the ceremony, and then I had to introduce myself to Tally’s mother and offer my condolences.” She ground the sole of her ugly regulation pump against the floor. “I should be at her house right now.”
