One Was a Soldier

Clare turned her mug over. “Erla, I’ll be partial to your coffee three days after I’m dead.”

The waitress eyed Russ as she filled Clare’s cup. “I heard you two are getting married the end of this month. Never saw that one coming.”

Russ laughed.

Erla served up his coffee and then tapped the large plastic sheets against the table. “You need to look at the menu?”

“I’ll have the chili, please,” Clare said.

“Reuben with fries.”

“That’s what I like,” Erla said. “Folks that know what they want without shilly-shallying.” She winked like a burlesque performer and whisked away, menus in hand.

Clare leaned forward, but instead of making a joke, she said, “Quentan Nichols is here. In town.”

The clatter and conversation in the Kreemy Kakes diner created a kind of homey white noise, loud enough to keep a private discussion private, soft enough to hear the person across the table. “Huh,” he said. “Okay. It looks like I really do owe you an apology.” He rubbed his lips. “I’d better tell Seelye.” Then the meaning of her statement caught up with his brain. “Wait. How do you know he’s in Millers Kill?”

“He’s at St. Alban’s, right now.”

“Oh, for chrissakes, Clare-” Erla appeared again with their order. “’Scuse my French,” he said as she unloaded the thick china dishes. He waved away the waitress’s offer to bring them anything else. “Nichols may not have killed Tally, but he sure as hell has his hands dirty.” He shoved against the table and stood up. “I’m going to take him into custody for questioning.”

“Sit down.”

The steel in Clare’s command voice dropped his ass back into his chair before he could think about it. “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

“Oh, cut it out. I just want you to hear me out before you run off half-cocked.”

“Right. Wouldn’t want to do anything without assessing all the information and thinking it through carefully.”

She gave him a look. “Listen. Nichols admits he enabled the theft by steering his patrols away from the transit warehouse where the money was stored.” She dug her spoon into her chili. “He says he didn’t know what she was doing and he didn’t want to know. He thought it was all love’s sweet bliss until she got back stateside and dropped him like a hot rock.”

“More like a hot million,” he said around a bite of his sandwich.

“After he came here to try to see her-that was the night I got home, you remember?”

He smiled slowly. She pinked up. “Yes, well. Anyway, after that, he decided to figure out what it was, exactly, that he had done for her back at Balad Air Base. He spent a month or two digging around and figured out she must have altered the invoices coming from the States to hide the theft. So he sent a request in to USAFINCOM’s attached investigators, asking them for copies of the original invoices. Guess who shows up in person?”

“Colonel Arlene Seelye?”

She frowned. “Yes, Arlene Seelye. She confiscates all the stuff he’s amassed in the course of his investigation, tells him she’s taking over, and then-get this!-has him transferred to Fort Gillem.”

He had a good idea where this was going, but he let her spin it out.

“ She’s after the money. For herself.” Clare emphasized her point with her spoon, dropping a blob of chili on her paper place mat.

He finished chewing a bite of Reuben. Wiped his mouth. “Did he happen to say why he showed up at your church?”

“I was the only one of the therapy group he could track down. He needs help if he’s going to find the money before she does.”

Russ held up his hands. “I want you to repeat that last sentence to yourself. Tell me what it sounds like.”

“He’s not going to keep it!”

He looked at her steadily. She bit the corner of her lip. “He’s going to keep it?” Sighed. “He’s going to keep it.” Then she frowned. “Wait, what about Colonel Seelye transferring him? That’s way too easy to be checked. He couldn’t have made that up, could he?”

“If I were running this investigation, and I suspected an MP of involvement in the crime, but didn’t have enough evidence to charge him, the first thing I’d do would be to contain him. So he can’t muck up any evidence or help out his co-conspirators.” He shoved the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth. Clare stared into her coffee, still frowning. Probably trying to figure out a way to redeem Nichols. He felt himself smiling like an idiot around the bread and pastrami.

Clare raised her eyebrows at him. “What?”

He swallowed. “Just you.” He stood up and pulled out his wallet. “C’mon. I want to talk to this guy.”

“Russ. He came to me for help. I told him to wait in the parish hall. I can’t lead the local police in to clap him in irons.”

“I think we’ve been over the fact that the church as sanctuary doesn’t fly in the twenty-first century.” They had had this same lunch so many times he didn’t have to see the bill to know the total and tip. He tossed the money onto the table and stood aside to let Clare out. “Besides. If Nichols is still there, I will wear a kilt to the wedding.”

Nichols wasn’t in the sanctuary. Nor in the sacristy, the parish hall, or the undercroft. He had picked up a great deal about church architecture for a nonreligious man, Russ realized.

“Sorry, Clare.” They surprised her secretary eating freeze-dried tuna out of a pouch. “He must have left before I got back from lunch.” She waved her plastic fork. “Obviously not lunch-lunch. I was running errands. I found a great dress for your wedding, and I’m getting it altered. It was a size six. A little bit too big.” She beamed. “Hi, Russ.”

“Hi, Lois.”

“A little bit too big, Lois? Really?”

The secretary smiled smugly.

In her office, Clare tossed her coat onto her battered love seat and flung herself into her desk chair. “Dang it!” She tilted back with a creak and a snap. “What are you going to do now?”

He leaned against the tall bookcases lining one wall. “I’m going to call his command and find out if he’s unauthorized absence. If he is, they’ll have people after him. Then I’ll tell Seelye. Based on what he told you, he’s definitely an accessory. If she wants, we’ll put a BOLO on him.”

“What about her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nichols may be after the money for himself. I’m willing to accept that.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She frowned at him. “There’s still the matter of Colonel Seelye. She found out about the theft, got Nichols out of the way, and hightailed it here, conveniently just after Tally was found dead.”

“What are you saying? Are you trying to implicate Seelye in McNabb’s death?”

“The timing works. She doesn’t have any airtight alibi. She could have-”

“Okay, first”-Russ held up one finger-“Tally McNabb committed suicide. All the physical evidence points to that conclusion. There is no evidence supporting any other conclusion. Second”-he held up another finger-“Colonel Seelye’s a CID investigator chasing down the theft of one million dollars. Of course she hightailed it over here. What do you think she’d do? Sit on her ass until Tally McNabb finished laundering the money?”

“Exactly!” Clare sprang her chair forward, jumping to her feet. “One million dollars! Which is up for grabs now that Tally McNabb is out of the way.”

“Oh, for chrissakes. Will you give it a rest already?”

She strode toward him, her cheeks flushed, her hazel eyes glinting brown. He wanted to shake her shoulders until she dropped this fact-free victim fantasy she’d dreamed up for Tally McNabb. He wanted to strip her naked and fling her on the lumpy love seat and not let her up until he had wrung them both dry. How could one woman make