“Is there… I mean…” Mark didn’t want to know, but he was compelled to ask. “Do you have something you don’t want her to know?”
The chief looked at him.
The babble of indistinct voices that had accompanied their talk suddenly sharpened. A woman shouted, “Russell! Russell!”
“That’s my mother,” the chief said, starting forward. Without thinking, Mark threw his arm across the door.
“You gonna keep me in here, Mark?” The chief’s voice was low. “You think I did it after all?”
“No, sir,” Mark said, because where would he be if it were true? He dropped his arm. The chief brushed past him and hiked up the hall.
Harlene’s dispatch center was jammed with people, cops and civilians alike. Lyle McAuley held Margy Van Alstyne by the shoulder as she listened, pink-faced and trembling, to something he said. That shyster Geoff Burns was in Jensen’s face-the first time Mark had ever been glad to see the obnoxious little prick. Noble stood behind the BCI investigator, imitating a wall. A bleached blonde in a ridiculously skimpy jacket wept with fury, mascara running black down her tan skin, while Kevin Flynn fussed around her, trapped between comforting her and staying the hell out of her way. And Eric McCrea was body-blocking a guy with a goofy tie and a notepad. “Oh, crap,” Mark said. He didn’t know the man’s name, but he recognized a reporter when he saw one.
“What the hell’s going on?” the chief said in a voice loud enough to stir the American flag in the front hall.
“Russell!” his mother said.
“Durkee!” Investigator Jensen looked like she wanted to rip him a new one.
Geoffrey Burns broke away from Jensen and shoved through the crowd to reach the chief’s side. “Don’t say another word until we’ve had a chance to talk,” he said. “I’m your attorney.”
“I don’t need a lawyer,” the chief said.
“Be smart for once in your life, Van Alstyne. Unless you’ve got your bunkmate all picked out at Clinton, you need a lawyer.”
“Fine,” the chief snapped. “I’ll call the bar association and ask for a referral.”
Burns butted up against the chief. His clipped, dark beard pointed accusingly at his would-be client’s chest. “I don’t like you any better than you like me, Van Alstyne. But I’m doing this as a favor to Clare. Do you want to be the one to tell her you turned down my representation?”
Mark could hear the chief’s teeth click, the hiss of his breath releasing. “No,” he said.
“Good.” Burns turned toward Jensen. “No more questions until I’ve had a chance to confer with my client,” he said.
“Russell.” Mrs. Van Alstyne waded toward them. “The man from the state police came to Kilmer’s-”
“They’re desecrating my sister’s body,” the bleached blonde said. Her voice shook with anger. “This bastard killed my sister and now he’s sending storm troopers over to pry open her coffin and… and…” She choked on tears and spittle.
“Goddammit, I didn’t kill your sister! That woman-”
“
“He was with me.” A woman’s voice, pitched to carry over the crowd. Heads turned. People pushed each other for a better view. The reporter pivoted, his face alight with interest.
“He was with me,” Clare Fergusson said. “He spent the night with me.”
THIRTY-THREE
He arrived at the cabin just as the last streaks of orange and red were fading from the sky. He had a bag of groceries in each hand, and he balanced his steps carefully as he crunched up the snow-packed drive to the door. Maple and alder and birch trees cast pale violet shadows on the snow. Behind them, the forest thickened into the darkness of hemlock and eastern pine. He paused, one boot on the deck stairs. Above the cabin’s deep-eaved roof, he could see the first star of the evening glimmering through a thin veil of chimney smoke.
She opened the door, spilling golden light. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing?” She bent down-slipping something on her feet, he guessed-and stepped onto the deck.
“First star,” he said.
“Did you make a wish?” He could hear, more than see, her smile.
“I don’t know what to ask for.”
“Ah.” No smile now. “That’s the problem, isn’t it.”
He trudged up the steps. “I brought dinner.”
“You didn’t have to do that. I overcompensated and carried a ton of food up here with me.” She opened the door for him. “Trust me, we could be snowed in until spring and we wouldn’t run out.”
He paused in the doorway. Looked down at her. “And isn’t that a tempting thought?”
He could see her cheeks flush before she turned away. She pushed him into the cabin. “C’mon, don’t let all the heat out the door.”
He let her relieve him of the groceries as he took off his boots and parka. “This is nice,” he said. The cabin was one big room, with an assemblage of living room furniture to his left and a dining table to his right. A glowing wood-stove set on a platform of riverstones divided the front of the cabin from the kitchen. Russ followed the line of its broad stone chimney to where it vanished through the roof. “What’s upstairs in the loft?” he asked.
“The bedroom,” Clare said absently, pulling a box of soba noodles and a jar of natural peanut butter from one of the bags. “What were you thinking of?”
“Pad Thai?” she went on, lifting a clove of garlic.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. Pad Thai.” He shook himself like a dog emerging from a river. “Mom’s still on the high- protein, low-carbs diet. I need a pasta fix some bad.” He went around the woodstove, shucking his sweater over his head as he did so. There were a pair of spindle chairs pulled up to a small kitchen table, hard against the back of the chimney. He tossed it over the back of one and rolled his sleeves up.
“How is it going? Staying with your mom?”
He grabbed the tray of chicken breasts and ripped off the cling wrap. “It’s okay, I guess. It helps that she got that house after Janet and I had flown the nest. If I were back in the same room I had in high school, I think I’d feel like even more of a failure than I do now. As it is, it’s more like being a houseguest than like moving back home.”
Her hands stilled over the peppers. “Oh, God, Russ. I’m so sorry.”
He wiped his hands on a dishrag and took hold of her shoulders. “Listen. I know we have to talk. When you asked me up here, I knew it wasn’t a date or an invitation to a seduction. But, dammit, before we get to the part where we tear our guts out, I’d like to enjoy a nice meal with you. How many times have we ever had dinner together?”
“Three,” she said.
“Okay.” He shook her gently. “Can we put all that other stuff aside for an hour or two? Can we just put on the radio and talk about our jobs and the weather and the idiots in Washington like a real couple would do?”
She nodded. Slowly, she smiled. God, he loved seeing her smile. “So,” she said. “How ’bout them Patriots?”
She dug up candles in the pantry. Their light reflected in the glass-front bookcase behind the dining table. “I’m worried about Kevin,” he was saying. “He has the potential to be a good officer, but he’s still awfully immature. He needs to broaden his experience. I think the farthest away from Millers Kill he’s ever been was the senior class trip to New York.”
