One Was a Soldier

enforcement, he knew someone who knew someone.

Russ had copied Usher’s latest contact information from the annual Christmas letter he got. He figured it was a fifty-fifty chance the man was at the same posting, so he felt he’d already accomplished something when the private who answered put him through.

“Major Usher.”

“Tony? It’s Russ Van Alstyne.”

“Chief Van Alstyne! Well, I’ll be damned. How are you? Hey, Latice and I were so sorry to hear your news about Linda.”

“Thanks. I appreciated the card. I’m doing well. I’m actually getting married again. End of this month.”

“Well, hush my mouth. Good for you. Let me guess, high school sweetheart?”

“Nope. She’s an Episcopal priest from southern Virginia who’s fourteen years younger than me.”

Usher roared. “Damn, Chief, you always could land in a pile of horse shit and come up smelling like roses.” His laughter died down to a wheeze. “So. Sweet as your life is, I don’t think you’re calling me just to brag.”

“Got a favor to ask.” He outlined the situation with Seelye, what he knew about her so-called investigation, what he had heard about Quentan Nichols, and what he suspected, based on the events of the past week and a half.

“Hm-mm. It does sound like sloppy police work, to say the very least. Can I ask your part in this? I’m not seeing where you have a duty to investigate.”

“I don’t. Which is why I’m calling in a favor instead of going through official channels. There’s been no crime in my jurisdiction-yet-but several persons of interest live in my town, or worked in my town, or keep popping up in my town. I want to be prepared, and for that, I need more info.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Might take me a while. I’ll try and get back to you before the end of the day.”

As it turned out, Russ had logged out and swapped his uniform for jeans and a flannel shirt and was headed to the parking lot before Usher called again. He checked the number on his cell phone to make sure it wasn’t his mom-if her furnace acted up again, she could start a fire and wait till he got home. He was looking forward to an entirely different sort of hot date tonight.

“Van Alstyne here.”

“Hey, Chief, it’s Tony Usher.”

Russ climbed into the cab of his truck to escape the cold wind blowing off the mountains. “You know, Tony, you can call me Russ. You outrank me now.”

Usher laughed. “Right. How many people you know in that little burg of yours call you Russ?”

“Well… the Episcopal priest does, but I call her ma’am.”

“Mm-hm. That’s what I call Latice. You know the three little words every woman wants to hear? ‘Right away, honey.’”

Russ laughed.

“Okay, I got the skinny on this lieutenant colonel of yours. She’s U.S. Army Financial Command, attached to the 10th Soldier Support Battalion, but you probably knew that already. Her specialty is financial fraud and loss prevention, which makes her a logical go-to person when you’ve got a theft of this size. She has a good record, nose clean. Married, with two kids in college.”

Russ started up the truck’s engine. “That must call for some money.”

“Tell me about it. The schools Kanisha’s looking at run to fifty thousand a year. I may have to rob a bank next fall to pay for it.”

Russ twisted the temperature control to hot and turned the blower on. “What about the investigation?”

“Well, that’s the real interesting part. I asked a JAG who’s prosecuted several fraud cases to talk to her contact in FINCOM. As far as she could tell, no one in that office has seen a major theft investigation come across the transom. Now, Seelye is high enough up there to take a case without having to run it by her colleagues, but regs state everything must be logged and a file started, both hard copy and electronic.”

“Let me guess. There’s no record of the missing million or Tally McNabb.”

“You got it. No log, no file, no nothing.”

Quentan Nichols had told Clare that he was the one who had started the investigation, and when he went looking for more help from FINCOM, Colonel Seelye had shown up and taken the case away from him.

“Tony, did you get a sense of what Seelye was doing in Iraq? Could she have been part of the plot to steal the cash from the start?”

“She was doing loss prevention in Camp Anaconda, according to my contact. Reviewing contracts, running spot accounting checks, the sort of thing a bank’s financial control officer does-and don’t forget, we’re running the biggest bank in the country. I have to say, though, you’re not talking about a high level of sophistication here. This is basically a couple guys shifting a box out of a warehouse. It doesn’t take any special knowledge.”

“Except knowing that the box had a million inside.”

“Right. My guess-and you can take it for what it’s worth-is that she spotted something that tipped her off to the missing money. It was her job to pass on all accounts coming in and out of Anaconda. For whatever reason, she decided she could use that money more than the army could. I bet if you dug into her personal life, you’d find a major weak spot. Husband’s business failed, or they lost all the kids’ college money.”

Russ smiled. “Good to know you can still think like a cop, counselor.”

“Hey. I learned from the best.”

“Thanks-and thanks for getting me the info. I owe you a big one.”

“You can pay it off by sending us a picture of your wedding. I want proof you’re not getting hitched to some gap-toothed second cousin. I know how you northern rednecks roll.”

Russ was still laughing when he said good-bye. His smile faded as he thought about Seelye, and the money, and about Nichols and McNabb. McNabb and Seelye were out of his reach. Nichols, on the other hand…

He glanced at the instrument panel clock. Five thirty. He made another call, to the same Fort Gillem MP station that had sent him a copy of Nichols’s transfer orders. “This is Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne from Millers Kill, New York,” he said when he had gotten hold of the officer of the day. “Chief Nichols was consulting with me about a veteran’s suicide we had here.” That wasn’t stretching the truth too much. “I need to follow up with him.”

“Sorry, sir, but Chief Nichols is off base at this time.”

“Can I reach him later?”

“No, sir, he’s been temporarily detached to Fort Drum to assist in an investigation. I can look the number up for you if you want to contact their MP station.”

“Thanks, no. I’ll try them later.” Russ hung up. Fort Drum. Four hours away by car. That was quite a coincidence. He wondered who Nichols knew in their MP post. Obviously, Seelye wasn’t the only officer who could pull a string and get someone reassigned.

Russ tried on the idea that Nichols had been telling Clare the God’s honest truth. He wasn’t prepared to credit the man with no interest in getting the monies for himself, but it was sure looking more and more likely that he had been right when he said Seelye was on the take.

He needed to talk to Clare. He shifted the truck into gear and pulled out of the station parking lot. Traffic at this hour was as heavy as it ever got out of tourist season. Brake lights bloomed and faded in the twilight as cars and SUVs stopped and started their way up Main toward Church Street. Which is why Russ was able to spot Clare, in jeans and a jacket, coming out of the Rexall.

He jerked his truck out of traffic and pulled into a no-parking tow zone. He unrolled the passenger-side window and leaned over. “Hey!”

She looked up, surprised.

“Didja walk?”

“Of course.”

“Get in.”

She hopped into the cab, stuffing the small paper pharmacy bag into her coat pocket. “When you said you wanted to take care of me, I didn’t think it would involve driving around town looking for a chance to pick me