“You don’t have to go out of your way,” he said. “I can walk from here.”
She snorted. The light changed, and she accelerated down Main.
“When are you going to give me the talk about God?” he asked.
“Which one?”
“You’re a priest. Aren’t you supposed to be comforting me? Telling me about heaven and all that?”
“What do you think heaven is?”
“I don’t believe in it.” Christ, he sounded like a five-year-old. A five-year-old who needed a nap.
“Then don’t worry about it. Whatever happens, happens. It’s the one thing we’re all going to get to learn firsthand, eventually.”
“But… doesn’t it all seem like such a waste?”
She turned toward the police station, thumping over the depression in the sidewalk into the lot. She put the car in park and turned toward him.
“Nothing is a waste. You don’t have to believe in heaven to believe that.” She took his hand again. “All the good things Linda did in her life, all the people she touched, all the work she did, all that lives on. Her life had value. It had weight and meaning. She affected the world around her in ways you will never, ever even know about.”
He sat with that for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I can believe in that.”
She smiled, a little. “Humanist.” She leaned back and unlocked the doors. “I’ll assume you have a ride with one of the guys, but if you need me, give me a call.”
He nodded. Opened the door.
“Russ?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m praying for you. Day and night.”
He nodded again. “Thanks.” He watched her reverse, then pull into the light Tuesday afternoon traffic.
When he turned toward the entrance, Lyle and Mark were waiting for him in their shirtsleeves. He raised his eyebrows. “Mighty cold to be hanging around outside without a coat on.”
“Then let’s get inside,” Lyle snapped.
Russ let the two of them precede him through the old bronze doors and up the marble steps. Decades ago, when the force had been twice the size it was now, there had been a sergeant’s desk here at the top of the stairs, with room for a half-dozen chairs against the wall. Now it was just a bare stretch of marble you had to cross on your way down the hall, furnished with nothing except two flagpoles, one for the American flag and the other bearing the state flag.
Lyle stopped him with a hand to his chest right in front of the Great Seal of New York. Mark sidled farther down the hall and stopped, clearly listening for anyone who might come their way.
“What is this?” Even the comparatively chilly entranceway was warm enough to make Russ’s glasses cloud over. He took them off. “You guys hitting me up for my lunch money?”
“Russ.” Lyle sounded dead serious. “I’m not telling you this as your second in command. I’m telling you this as a friend. You’re going to wind up in a boatload of trouble if you’re seen driving around town with Clare Fergusson.”
“She gave me a ride back into town after paying a condolence call on my mother. For chrissakes, what do you think is going on? My wife just died!”
Lyle thumped him in the chest. “That’s right. Your wife just died. And half the town has heard one sort of rumor or another about you and Reverend Fergusson.” Russ opened his mouth, outraged, but Lyle cut him off. “I don’t want to hear about how innocent it all is! If you don’t have any sense of self-preservation, at least you could think about the lady. What’re the folks who go to her church going to think of her if they see you holding hands and whispering sweet nothings before Linda’s even in the ground?”
Russ reared back. His hands clenched involuntarily. “You’re damn lucky you’re in uniform, MacAuley, because if we were on our own time, I’d be kicking your ass right now.”
“And I’m trying to save yours. What the hell took you so long? Your mom called, and I expected you a half hour ago.”
Through his anger, he felt a twinge of guilt. His men shouldn’t have to rely on his mother to tell them his whereabouts. “I went straight to the high school.”
“Alone?”
He paused.
“Oh, for-Don’t tell me Reverend Fergusson went with you.”
“I got the description and license number of a car that was sitting in my drive Sunday afternoon. No sign of anybody, but the kid who reported it may know more than he’s telling.”
“Did it even occur to you that sharing details about this case with her might not be a good idea?”
That stopped him. The hand-holding jibe pissed him off, but this was just bewildering. “Why not?”
“Because Clare Fergusson falls within the circle of possible suspects.”
“Clare?” He couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud. Replacing his glasses, he looked at Lyle. In focus, his deputy chief appeared even more upset. “I’m sorry,” Russ said. “You’re right. I can see where people might get the wrong idea seeing me and Clare together. Trust me, it won’t happen again anytime soon.” And God, wasn’t that a depressing thought? “You don’t need to worry about the case, either. We didn’t really discuss it. Just talked about our impressions of Quinn Tracey-he’s the kid who saw the car-and your theory of the case. Mostly it was, you know, grief stuff.” Lyle still looked skeptical. “She is a priest, you know.”
“I know, Chief. I know.”
From his post, Mark coughed and clomped around in an unsubtle way. Lyle gestured, and they both crossed to the hallway. Harlene was hustling toward them, her unhooked headpiece trailing wires behind her.
“There you are,” she said. She looked at the three of them skeptically. “You all right?” She flapped her hands. “Never mind. Dr. Dvorak just called. He has the preliminary autopsy results.”
An icy boulder rolled down Russ’s gullet and lodged there. “Okay,” he said. He nodded at Lyle. “Let’s go.”
Harlene goggled at him. “You some sort of masochist, or what?”
“Harlene-” Lyle warned.
Russ shook his head. He looked into Harlene’s round eyes and felt a surge of gratitude for all the people who cared for him. None of whom, of course, had the least bit of tact. “I need to do this,” he told her. “Whatever it takes to find her killer, I need to do it.”
“Damn fool,” she said under her breath.
“But I do think we ought to bring Mark,” he said to Lyle.
“Me?” Mark snapped to attention like a Labrador sighting a duck. He had never attended a briefing at the ME’s office.
“You. I gotta be realistic. I may not absorb everything, so an extra pair of ears will be helpful. Plus”-Russ shrugged-“you’re detective material. We got to get you out there, exposed to this stuff.”
“I’ll go get our coats,” Mark said, and bolted down the hall toward the squad room.
Lyle looked at him assessingly. “I guess you’re not completely lost to reason.”
Russ ran one hand through his hair. God, he felt old, old, old. “Don’t count on it,” he said.
FIFTEEN
Mark Durkee had met the Washington County medical examiner before. He wasn’t sure what made him uneasy in the man’s presence-the fact he spent his days elbow-deep in dead bodies, or the mad-scientist look he had perfected, thanks to an assault two summers before, which had left him with a white scar that twisted out of his short gray hair to bisect one eyebrow. He also had a permanent limp he treated with a silver-topped cane. Thumping his way down the mortuary hall toward them, his white coat flapping behind him, Dr. Dvorak looked like a figure straight out of one of the Stephen King novels Mark had devoured in his teens.
Dvorak raised his eyebrows when he saw the chief. Or rather, he raised the one that was still mobile, giving his face a satanically lopsided look. “Good lord. Are you completely lacking in good sense?” he said. “Are you sure you want to be part of this?”
