I Shall Not Want

'Carrie,' Kevin supplied.

'Thank you, Kevin.' McCrea smiled at him. Shit. There he was, doing it again. He had to stop trying to be so damn helpful all the time.

'You know how you know if a Christie girl is still a virgin?' MacAuley grinned. 'She can run faster than her brothers.'

McCrea looked at him meaningfully and nudged his head toward Hadley Knox.

'Uh-' The deputy chief was seized with a convenient coughing fit.

Hadley rose from her seat. Looked at MacAuley. Looked at McCrea. 'The way I heard it, it's if she can run faster than the sheep.' She tucked her folder beneath her arm. 'You coming, Flynn?'

II

Clare was three miles out of Millers Kill, at the end of a five-hour drive from Fort Dix, when she realized she was out of booze. She groaned, thinking of returning to her cold house-when she was away for Guard training, she turned the thermostat down to fifty to save on oil-and facing the evening with nothing but some undoubtedly sour milk and a two-day-old Thermos of coffee. No wine. No sherry. No scotch.

No way. She cruised up Route 57, watching the river that gave the town its name running brown and gold beneath the long rays of the setting sun. Driving past St. Alban's, she continued on toward Main, then crossed over the river, headed for the town line. She'd been doing her shopping in Glens Falls, the better to avoid running into Russ Van Alstyne. But Napoli 's Discount Liquor ought to be safe, seeing as the chief of police was a nondrinking alcoholic.

In the parking lot, she unfolded out of her seat and stretched gratefully-up, down, and side to side. The breeze from the west was still cool with the snow lingering in the mountains, but the warmth thrown off by the asphalt testified to the power of the spring sun. Winter was gone, and good freaking riddance to it. If she never saw another snowflake in her life, it wouldn't be too soon.

She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and checked her messages. One from her parents touching base, one from Deacon Elizabeth de Groot, assuring her that they were all doing splendidly without her, and one from Hugh Parteger. 'Vicar! Thanks for stopping by for lunch on your way to that pestilent place south of the Palisades.' She assumed he meant New Jersey. Hugh may have been born in England, but he was a true New Yorker at heart. 'Next time'-his voice dropped-'why don't you just tell your congregation you're reporting for duty and stay the weekend with me? I promise I can show you maneuvers the U.S. Army has yet to think of.'

'Not happening, Hugh,' she told the phone. She erased the message, laughing.

Checking out her order, Mr. Napoli kept peering at her, frowning a bit as he placed the Macallan's and the Harveys and the bottles of Shiraz in their narrow paper bags. It wasn't until she produced her driver's license and checkbook that he smiled at her. 'Reverend Fergusson!' He clutched her license with both hands, his eyes shifting from her picture, to her, and back again. 'I didn't recognize you, with all these soldier clothes on.' He gestured up and down, taking in her desert camo battle dress uniform. 'We haven't seen you in here lately! Now I can tell Mrs. Napoli why.' He took her check, tching. 'The army. Is that any place for a sweet girl like you?'

Clare remembered, too late, that she had also been avoiding appearing in public in uniform. Too many explanations. She smiled flirtatiously. 'Now, Mr. Napoli. You've seen my birth date.' She slid her license off the counter. 'I'm hardly a girl anymore.' While he was gallantly defending her right to be juvenalized two months shy of her thirty-seventh birthday, she extricated herself with a promise not to be 'a stranger.' Bumping out the door with a bagful of booze, she reminded herself to take her civvies with her next time she reported for Guard service, and change before she got in her car to go home.

Russ Van Alstyne was standing beside his big red pickup in the parking lot.

Staring at her.

She swallowed. Hugged her paper sack closer to her chest. Her first thought was, Was he always that tall? Her second thought was, He's lost weight. He was in his semi off-duty uniform, tan MKPD blouse tucked into a pair of jeans that had seen better days, an official windbreaker balancing his salt-stained hunting boots.

Then she realized where he was. Her eyes widened. His did, too.

'What are you doing at a liquor store?' she asked.

'What are you doing in uniform?' he said simultaneously.

They both paused. His dismay-at getting caught?-was plain on his face. 'Are you drinking again?' she said. Her clashing emotions-concern, not wanting to be concerned-made her voice harsher than she intended.

He blinked. Frowned. 'What?'

She waved a hand at Napoli's plate glass windows, advertising specials on Dewar's, Bombay gin, and all Australian wines. 'What are you doing at the liquor store?' She took a step closer, not wanting to shame him by shouting his problem to any shoppers within earshot. 'Please don't tell me you've started drinking again.'

He closed his eyes for a moment. Opened them. When he spoke, his voice was tight with control. 'I am not drinking again. I'm here to get Napoli 's latest bad check report.'

Her mouth formed a silent O.

'Now, would you mind telling me what the hell you're doing in BDUs?'

She shifted one shoulder so he could read her New York State Guard patch. His hand came up and touched his collar, where, like her, insignia told the world his rank. 'Where's your chaplain's cross?'

She mirrored his movement, touching her captain's bars. 'I'm not in the chaplaincy. I'm in the 142nd Aviation Battalion. Combat support.'

'You're what?' He crossed to her in three sharp strides. 'You're in combat support? Are you insane? There's a goddamn war on! Who the hell volunteers for front-line duty with a war on?'

She looked up at him. 'I don't know. You, maybe?'

He hissed through his teeth. The secret he might have taken to his grave, if he hadn't shared it with her. Suddenly, she felt ashamed, as if she had used a cannon to counter a flyswatter. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'I haven't told. I wouldn't ever tell.' That, contrary to what everyone else believed, Russ Van Alstyne had not been drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. He had enlisted-volunteered.

'Christ, I know that. You think I worry about that?' He shook his head. 'At least I had an excuse. I was eighteen and dumb and desperate to get out of town. What possible reason could you have?'

She shifted the paper sack on her hip. 'The bishop and I had several lengthy conversations after… after…' She was searching for a word to pretty up what she had done. She shouldn't do that. She wouldn't do that. 'After I killed Aaron MacEntyre.'

'That was self-defense, not killing. You saved our lives in that barn. His punk-ass friend's, too.'

'I resigned my cure, but, strangely enough, he didn't accept it.'

'You what?'

She ignored his interruption. 'Ultimately, the bishop didn't think what I had… done… was the problem. He thought it was a symptom. Of me not knowing if I was a priest who used to be an army officer, or an army officer who happened to be a priest. He suggested'-she looked up at him, her mouth twisting-'he strongly suggested the National Guard as a solution.' She shrugged. 'So I joined up. At the end of January.' She paused. 'You hadn't heard?'

'No, I hadn't heard. Your name hasn't come up…' His blue eyes unfocused. She could see the lightbulb come on. 'No one talks about you anymore.' She wasn't sure if he knew he was speaking aloud. 'No one ever talks about you to me.'