He grunted when she opened his door, but he handed her his crutches and braced his hand on her shoulder while he lowered himself out of the truck cab. She returned the crutches when he was on the ground. “Thanks,” he said. He caught her arm before she could move away. “That certainty thing,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m not. Certain. About lots of things. I just know where I belong.”
They walked down to where the men were standing, Clare shortening her usual stride so as not to outpace Russ. The man with the cane turned as they approached. He was short and squared off, his cropped graying hair almost the same shade as his expensive wool coat, and he might have been dapper if it weren’t for the ropy white scar that split his forehead from eyebrow to hairline. “Reverend Clare,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Dr. Dvorak.” She hugged him. “I’m delivering Chief Van Alstyne.”
Russ leaned on one crutch and shook hands with the medical examiner. “Hey, Emil. Anything yet from the dive team?”
The uniformed man had turned around as well. “Nothing yet. But I expect we’ll hear from them soon. They’re maxing out their time for this water temperature.”
“Bob.” Russ nodded.
“Russ.”
“Still haven’t made the BCI, I see.”
“I’ll get there.” Bob’s eyes flickered toward Clare. Russ followed his glance.
“Have you met Reverend Clare Fergusson?” he said. “She’s the rector of St. Alban’s in town. Clare, this is Sergeant Robert Mongue. He’s with the state police.”
Clare grinned at him. “Your uniform was the tip-off.” He was as tall as Russ, but thinner, and his hair had long ago fled south. “Are you part of the dive team, Sergeant Mongue?”
“Nope. But they’re assigned to our troop, so when they deploy, it becomes part of an NYSP investigation.”
“Of course,” Russ said pleasantly, “it’s in our jurisdiction.”
Sergeant Mongue nodded. “Absolutely. It’s been two weeks, hasn’t it? Tough, not developing any leads in all that time.”
“Well, you know, when you take the time to actually investigate, as opposed to just picking a solution out of a hat…”
Clare thought she saw Sergeant Mongue’s nostrils flare. He glanced down at Russ’s cast. “I was sorry to hear about your leg. I heard you tripped and fell on your ass?”
Two pink spots stained Russ’s cheeks. “It was an accident at a crime scene.”
“Have you ever thought about establishing some minimum physical requirements for your department? You know, staying physically fit plays a major part in reducing accidents.”
“I think the normal activity involved in community policing gives my men plenty of exercise. It’s not like they spend all day sitting in a car with a speed gun.”
“Do you hear something?” Clare said, happy to jump on any excuse to stop the pissing contest. The diesel- pumped roar of a boat motor echoed across the ice and water. They all turned toward the reservoir.
The boat swung around the edge of the shoreline. It was low and wide and traveling slowly to give the ice- crusted water plenty of time to ease around the prow. Clare could see three figures, bulky and anonymous in orange dive gear, sitting aft. Another two people, bundled against the cold, were in the cockpit.
“How do the divers manage in this kind of weather?” Clare said. “That water’s still mostly covered in ice.”
“They’re wearing dry suits and neoprene liners,” Sergeant Mongue told her. “They’re probably more comfortable than we are right now. The real trick in extreme weather is keeping the tender and the pilot warm.”
The boat steered toward the aluminum dock, and Mongue excused himself to step out onto the floating platform.
Russ’s eyes narrowed. “The real trick in extreme weather.’ ” He parroted Mongue’s voice very well. “Like he knows.”
“What’s with you two?” Clare pitched her voice low. “I thought I was going to pass out from the testosterone fumes.”
He laughed. “Just a little intramural rivalry.”
The boat slid into position next to the dock, and the tender-at least that’s who Clare assumed it was, since the woman neither piloted nor dove-tossed a line to Mongue. They tied the boat into place and the divers stood up, lifting a webbed stretcher, and Clare had so steeled herself for the sight of Allan Rouse, pale and cold and waxy, that it took her a moment to process what lay on the stretcher.
“That’s a skeleton,” Russ said.
Dr. Dvorak glanced at him. “Very good.” He turned to the divers, clambering over the side of the boat while balancing the remains. “Be careful.”
The one who wasn’t toting a skeleton removed her suit hood and climbed over the boat’s bow. “Are you the M.E.?” she said.
Dr. Dvorak was beckoning the two divers closer. “Yes,” he said, his eyes fixed on the remains. “Can you stop here for a moment?” he said when they reached his side. The remains were loosely wrapped in a fine net, and Clare could see that although the divers had been meticulous about keeping the pieces together, most of the bones were no longer connected to one another. Dr. Dvorak bent over the skeleton, examining it closely, touching it here and there with a single finger. The bones were long and brown, as if they had been steeped in tea for a decade or more. He straightened. “I think I can tell you with absolute confidence this is not Allan Rouse,” he said to Russ.
“Ya think?” Russ glared at the bones as if they had been laid on the stretcher for the sole purpose of frustrating his investigation. “Who the hell is it?”
“Whoever it is, it…” Dvorak drew a thoughtful finger across the skeleton’s pelvis, and another along the length of its thighbone. “He,” he said, more emphatically, “has been in there for a long time.”
The woman diver drew up to the stretcher, Bob Mongue close behind her. “We almost didn’t spot it,” she said. She had short, dark curls plastered against her scalp, and a cool, appraising look not unlike Dr. Dvorak’s. Clare figured you’d have to be pretty unflappable to go diving through muck or dark water looking for dead people. “It was the car we noticed first.”
The medical examiner went around to the other side of the stretcher, peering closely at the skull and neck bones. “Very well preserved,” he said to himself.
“What car?” Russ said. He looked toward Bob Mongue. “You remember any missing person and car?”
The dark-haired diver shook her head. “This wasn’t a car either of you guys would ever have heard about. From what I could see was left of it-the leather top and tires, some of the body-this was like a Model T or something. Old. Like, your-grandfather-drove-it-when-he-was-a-kid old.” She peeled off a rubbery orange glove and ruffled her hair. “We can go in for it if you want. There aren’t any single pieces left big enough to call for the winch. There’s a leather roof, some wire-spoke wheels, stuff like that.” She looked at Russ and Bob Mongue, who were staring at her. “Hey, we figured we were there for the body. Nobody said anything about a car.”
Clare couldn’t stand biting off her question one second longer. “Did he commit suicide, do you think? Drove into the water and drowned?”
The diver shook her head. “It was in the middle of the reservoir. His car never would have gotten that far.”
Russ looked at Clare. She felt like she could read his mind. And he could read hers. “But he could have driven it in,” he said, not looking away from her. “If he had come here a few days after the dam was finished and the river began piling up behind it. He could have driven right into the rising water-”
“At night,” Clare said. “Into the condemned property, where nobody in his right mind would have gone.”
“And parked the car. Waiting for the water to take him.”
“I hate to toss a spanner into such a neat and tidy conclusion, but this man didn’t drive himself anywhere,” Emil Dvorak said. “Or if he did, he wasn’t alone.” He gently cradled the skull through the fine netting, lifting and rotating it so they could all see the back, where a network of fine cracks radiated out in a circle, like a fractured porthole. “See how depressed this is? This man may have been left in the water, but he didn’t drown. He was killed by a massive blow to the head.”
