I Shall Not Want

shell-shocked Knox. 'Time for us to go, ladies. Mrs. Bain, you call us if anything else makes you nervous, okay?'

'Rushing off to St. Alban's?' Geraldine gave him a roguish wink. 'Word is you've got yourself a sweetheart over there.'

'Geraldine,' Mrs. Bain said in a repressive tone.

'What? He can't wear the willow forever, a good-looking man like that.' Geraldine looked him up and down. 'If I weren't old enough to be your mother, I'd give that Reverend Fergusson a run for her money.'

Beside him, Hadley Knox made a gurgling noise. He leaned in toward the Bain women. 'I don't know as you should let that stop you, Geraldine. You know what they say about older women.' Then he winked. She hooted with laughter.

Mrs. Bain frowned at her sister-in-law. 'Oh, you and your foolishness!' She turned and looked up at him. 'Russell, you will let Warren know what happened, won't you? He does worry so about me.'

'Of course.' He opened the door.

'Be good!' Geraldine's voice trailed after him. 'Don't do anything I wouldn't do! And if you do, don't get found out!'

On the ride back down Route 17, Knox peeked at him several times, as if trying to work up the nerve to ask something. He figured it was about him and Clare, so he was surprised when she said, 'Don't you find it kind of frustrating? Spending the whole day holding hands and soothing nerves?' He glanced over at her. 'I mean,' she went on, 'it's more like babysitting than police work.'

'Weren't you the one who said being a cop was like being a mother?'

'Oh, crap.' She covered her face with her hands. 'I did, didn't I? I can't believe I said that in a job interview.'

'Don't be. It's one of the reasons I hired you.' Ahead of them, the light at the intersection turned red. He took his foot off the gas. 'Sometimes it gets a little frustrating, yeah. Mostly because I want to see some development on this case, and nothing's happening. But I try to remember that for most of the folks here, this is police work. Making sure Mom's not trapped in her house with a broken hip. Stopping cars from speeding around the schools and the park. Asking the neighbors to turn it down so everybody can keep it friendly.'

'Do you ever wish it was more… I don't know, exciting?'

'I was an MP for over twenty years. Believe me, I saw plenty of exciting. No, I knew what I was getting when I came back to my hometown.' The light turned green again, and he rolled onto Main Street. 'Did you?'

She looked startled. Then thoughtful. 'I don't know. I knew what I wanted, though.'

He expected fresh air or a safe place to raise my kids or a new start.

She pursed her lips. 'Anonymity.'

'Huh.' He bumped the cruiser over the walk and into the station parking lot. 'I suppose, to the rest of the world, Millers Kill is pretty anonymous.' He twisted the key in the ignition and the engine died. 'Of course, within the town, you can't ask someone for a dance without everybody weighing in on it.'

Getting out of the car, the heat that had been soft and drowsy in Mrs. Bain's grassy yard pressed down on them like a tar-smeared steamroller. All he wanted to do was check in, sign out, and get to his mother's house, where he could strip down to his shorts and try to catch a breeze in the backyard.

Clare's house would be cool. She believed air-conditioning was a constitutional right. He had helped her install a window unit last summer. She would have iced tea-sweet, like they made it down south- and cold beer. A glass for him and a bottle for her. He could stretch out in one of her oversized chairs and they could talk.

Yeah. Talk.

He knew, as soon as he stepped onto the marble floor of the entryway, that something had happened. He could hear the churn of conversation all the way down the hall. Eric emerged from the squad room, grinning. He sketched them a jaunty wave. 'I'm outta here. My son's got a game.'

'What's up?' Russ asked.

Eric's grin widened. 'Go take a look.'

Russ strode in, Knox on his heels. Lyle and Kevin were bent over a desk, heads bumping together, examining what looked like circ sheets. 'What's up?' Russ asked.

Lyle looked up, grinning. 'We've ID'd John Doe one. He's Rosario de las Cruces, late of Prendiepe, Mexico. The Agencia Federal de Investigacion faxed a whole buttload of stuff on him.' He waved Kevin back and handed the papers to Russ. 'He's associated with the Punta Diablos gang, which has members on both sides of the border: pot coming north and guns going south. He spent a nickel in prison, Federales de somethin'-or-other; you can read it for yourself'-he jammed a finger at the appropriate spot-'but he's got no record of ever being in this country, which is why his prints didn't turn up with our usual search.' He grabbed the papers back out of Russ's hands and yanked one sheet to the top. 'Here's the Anti-Gang Task Force report on the Punta Diablos; they think de las Cruces was fairly high-level management but not at the top. Didn't get near the product-he was put away for unlicensed possession of a gun, criminal threatening, and currency violations.'

'Currency violations?'

'Money laundering.'

Russ felt a flare of excitement as the facts finally began to line up. 'Our mid-level manager?'

'Could be. Although, seeing as he's dead, he's not telling anybody the names and addresses of his distributors.'

'Unless he recorded the info somewhere.' He and Lyle smiled at each other in wolflike satisfaction. 'CD?' he asked. 'Or one of those little whatchamacallits that you stick in the side of a computer?'

'Flash drive,' Kevin Flynn said.

'Thank you, Kevin.'

Lyle shook his head. 'Too easy to duplicate. Plus, it's hard to really erase one of those things. They'd want something they could destroy completely if the Feds came knocking.'

'Good old paper and pen?'

'A notebook,' Lyle said. 'Or a diary, or a journal.'

'When they tossed Clare's place'-some of the good feeling fizzled away-'that's what they were looking for. Whoever 'they' are.'

Lyle rocked back on his heels and rubbed two fingers over his lips. 'They didn't find it that night. And it wasn't bagged with the money and the.357 Taurus. So either Esfuentes never had it, or he kept it someplace else entirely.'

'Or it's still hidden at the church,' Knox said.

They both turned to face her. She shifted from foot to foot, looking like she wished she hadn't spoken up. 'There are books and notebooks all over the place. In the main office. In Reverend Clare's office. Hell, in the Sunday School room. Amado went everywhere, cleaning. He could have slipped it between a couple of other items and no one would have noticed.'

Lyle was nodding. 'Makes sense.' He looked at Russ. 'You said he led a pretty prescribed life, right? The Catholic church in Lake George, visits to the house out at your sister's farm, and St. Alban's.'

'Right.'

'He's not gonna leave it at the Catholic church. What if he can't get back? Same deal for stashing it in one of the volunteers' cars.'

'It's possible he left it at the migrants' bunkhouse.' Which meant the same crew who tossed Clare's house might be coming over to the McGeochs. He'd have to warn Janet not to let the girls anywhere near the new farm.

'Possible,' Lyle said. 'But he didn't leave the gun and the money there. The place has