All Mortal Flesh

had a message. And he was well down Old Route 100, absorbed in his wipers beating away the fast-falling snow, when his mother got up from the dining room table to answer her own phone, ringing off the hook in the living room.

FOUR

Later-much later-Officer Mark Durkee would wonder what might have happened if he hadn’t gotten the phone call. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion. He often popped in a video and turned off the phone about an hour before Rachel got home from her shift as a surgical nurse at the Washington County Hospital. Maddy, their five-year-old, was like a crack addict getting a pipeload when it came to her Disney Princess tapes. She wouldn’t budge until her mother arrived, and by then he’d be an hour into his evening nap, soaking up enough sleep to make it through another eight-hour overnight in his squad car.

Or he might have been stretched out in the crawl space beneath their kitchen, stuffing yet more insulation in an attempt to protect the pipes from freezing up yet again this winter. There were always, always leaks and blown fuses and foundation cracks to be repaired in the old house. Mark had probably spent more than the place was worth on making it as solid and square and tight as it could be, but he had seen how the chief had transformed his old farmhouse. Twice a year, they were all invited over, for the Christmas party and the summer barbecue, and damned if every time the chief hadn’t done something to make his house sweeter. He was Mark’s inspiration.

Of course, he might have been running Maddy to Rachel’s parents or to her cousin’s or to her aunt’s for a sleepover or a birthday or to go sledding. Rachel complained about her family taking over their lives at times, but she hadn’t ever

been without their wide and generous circle. He had grown up in a family that was neither warm nor close, and as soon as they could, its members scattered to the four corners, connected by nothing more than Christmas cards and a rare phone call. He liked the fact that generations of Bains made Cossayuharie their home. Times were good and bad, businesses grew and died, but they never lost sight of the fact that it was the family, first and foremost, that mattered.

Which was the gist of the screaming fight he was having with his wife when the phone call came.

“I can’t believe you’d go behind my back like this!” Mark said. “Christ on a crutch!” He rattled a letter beneath her nose. It was on a heavy vellum, with the seal of the New York State Police on the top. He didn’t have to see the body of the letter to know what it said. Since it arrived this morning, he had practically memorized the thing.

Dear Officer Durkee: I very much enjoyed our conversation at the Troy Forensics Conference. Based on the service records you forwarded to me, I’d like to invite you to apply to the NYSP with an eye to joining us here at Troop F…

“I forwarded Captain Ireland my service record? I did?”

Rachel shut the family room door, closing them off from Maddy, before turning on him. “For chrissakes, Mark. It’s an invitation to apply, not a death threat. I knew you’d never screw up the courage to send them your CV without a little push.”

“When were you going to tell me about this? Before or after you set an interview date for me?”

She stomped up the stairs. He followed. “What the hell’s wrong with the Millers Kill Police Department?” he asked.

She turned at the head of the stairs and glared down at him. “Mark, you’ve worked there five years now and you still can’t get moved off the dog shift.”

She disappeared into the bedroom. He trailed after her. She stripped her smock off and tossed it into the corner hamper. “Maddy’s halfway through kindergarten. Next year she’ll be in school from eight thirty until three thirty. She won’t need you at home during the day.” Rachel kicked her work shoes off into the closet. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, this day-night working thing sucks. Big time. I never get to see you.”

“You’re right. It does suck. Now explain to me how the solution to the problem is to for me to join the state police and move to Middletown.”

She unhooked her bra. He looked away, refusing to be distracted by the sight of her full breasts.

“Cut it out,” he said.

“I’ve done my research, you know. With your experience, you could skip trooper entirely and lateral in as a sergeant. You’d be making more money and actually have a chance to climb the ladder. You could be an investigator.”

“I have opportunities right here.”

“As what? The town’s so cheap they don’t even have a detective pay grade. You need to stop thinking the sun shines out of Chief Van Alstyne’s ass and to let him know that you’ve got other options.” She hooked her thumbs in her waistband and shimmied out of her bright blue work pants. “Maybe at least then they’d take your requests for a day shift seriously.”

Mark flopped back on their bed, feeling like his head might explode. He let out a strangled sound of frustration.

“No one’s saying you have to take a job with the state police. But wouldn’t it be neat to know you could?” The bed dipped as she knelt next to him, nude except for her bikini underpants. “C’mon. Try it. An application doesn’t commit you.”

Part of him-the part from the waist down-was telling him, The gorgeous naked woman wants to have sex! Agree with her, you idiot! The part of him above his neck noticed that this wasn’t the first time Rachel had sidetracked a heated discussion with sex. And, funny thing, he never seemed to get back to the points he had been making before they hit the sheets.

Who cares? His groin howled. It’s sex! Sexsexsexsex!

He pushed himself up, off the bed. “Rache, we need to talk about this.”

“We are talking about it. You don’t want to work the graveyard shift anymore. I want you to have the recognition and opportunities you deserve.” She kneaded her hands on the bedspread and leaned forward. He had to look up at the ceiling. “You can even take the letter in, so Chief Van Alstyne can see you’re being all open and aboveboard.” The bed squeaked a little. “Now come on. We’re wasting time. Beauty and the Beast only has another twenty minutes.”

“Rache,” he said to the ceiling, “it’s not just contacting the staties without telling me.”

The bed stopped squeaking.

“It’s… look, I like the MKPD. I like my work. I like knowing Maddy’s five minutes away from her grandparents.” He glanced down.

Rachel’s face was very still. “Do you remember when we got married? I told you I wanted something more than to spend the rest of my life in Cossayuharie.” She rolled off the bed. “I thought you wanted that, too.” She snagged her robe off the hook on the back of the closet.

“Rache, when we got married, I was just starting out. I thought what I wanted from police work was all guts and glory. But working with the chief these past five years-I want what he has. A history with the place he’s protecting. Roots in the community.”

“A girlfriend on the side? A little late-night patrolling action?”

He clenched his hands. “Nobody’s got any proof of that. As far as I know, it’s a bunch of gossip.”

“And that’s one of the things that drives me crazy about living here. There’s no such thing as privacy in a small town.”

“Is this about your sister?” Two months ago, Rachel’s sister Lisa had lost her husband in a mill fire. That would have been bad enough as it was, but the guy had been in the mill in the first place because he had decided to try his hand at assault, kidnapping, and extortion.

“Maybe. A little. I can’t be sure, of course, because half the time when I come into the staff lounge, everybody else shuts up.”

“It’ll be old news soon, Rache. Something else will come along and start the biddies clucking.”

“It’s not just that.” She bent over her dresser and swiped it with the sleeve of her robe. “I’ve been offered another job.”

He paused. “Same place as last time?”