FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7

Clare hadn’t taken a sleeping pill the night before, and she hadn’t had a nightmare, but she was still sodden with fatigue when she rolled out of bed at 6:30 A.M. for the 7:00 Eucharist. She debated taking an upper for twenty seconds before popping one in her mouth. By the time she closed the rectory door behind her, she was feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, congratulating herself for making a smart choice.

She wrapped up the Eucharist in thirty-five minutes and was standing by the great double doors, bidding farewell to the communicants—all seven of them—when Russ wedged his way past Mrs. Mairs into the narthex.

“I didn’t expect to see you today. What are you doing here?” Clare asked.

Mrs. Mairs tittered. “Can’t wait to see the bride-to-be. That’s a good sign.”

Russ smiled patiently at the octogenarian before turning to Clare. “You said we had to go to the Stuyvesant Inn, remember? To okay the napkins or mints or whatever?”

Clare waited until the last of the congregation left the narthex. She kicked away the stand and let the heavy double-braced door glide slowly closed on its hydraulic hinges. “I said I have to go. I didn’t mean to drag you into this.” She headed up the aisle. Russ fell into step beside her. “If I hadn’t been sure my mother never would have spoken to me again, I would have just asked Julie McPartlin to do the deed in her office.” She opened the door to the hallway. “It’s still awfully tempting.”

He laughed. “You may be the only southern woman in existence who prefers elopements to white weddings.”

She went into the sacristy. “Me and every other clergywoman. Do you know how many weddings I’ve officiated at? And I haven’t been ordained five years yet.” She stripped her alb over her head and snapped it to get the wrinkles out. “Another five years and I’ll run screaming when I hear the opening strains of Pachelbel’s Canon.” She slid the alb onto a wooden hanger and replaced it in the closet. “Which reminds me. If you have any musical preferences, speak now or forever hold your peace, because Betsy Young has announced she and the choir will be providing the wedding music as a gift to us.” She removed the stole from around her neck, kissed it, and draped it over a padded dowel with the others.

“Hmn. I was thinking you could walk up the aisle to ‘She Drives Me Crazy.’”

She gave him a look.

“Then we could come back down to “Goody Two Shoes.’” He swiveled his hips in a surprisingly agile figure eight. “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?”

“I drink.”

“Who says the song is about you?”

She shoved him. “I’ll tell Betsy we’d like ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ and ‘Come Down, O Love Divine.’”

He laughed. “Chicken.”

She grabbed her keys and her coat from the hook inside the sacristy closet and ushered him out. “Seriously. You don’t have to do this. I know you’re flat out with Tally McNabb’s murder investigation.”

He let her lead him back to the narthex. “First, we’re nowhere near to calling it a homicide. Second, if my department can’t get along without me for an hour, I’m not doing my job right. Third”—he stepped into the early morning sunshine and stood to one side as she locked the great doors—“I put my work ahead of everything else when I was married to Linda. It didn’t turn out so well.” She turned to look at him, and he braced his hands against the wooden door, trapping her between his arms. “I want to do it differently with you. You deserve the best I can bring to the table.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. “Thank you.”

“C’mon. I parked over in Tick Solway’s lot across the street.” It hadn’t been Tick’s lot since he died two years back and his son inherited, but that was the way things worked in Millers Kill. Clare was sure half the town still referred to the rectory as Father Hames’s house, and that paragon of virtue had been gathered into Abraham’s bosom six years ago.

It was five minutes before traffic thinned enough to allow Russ to pull his truck onto Church Street. “What’s with all the cars?” Clare looked at her battered Seiko. “The morning rush to Glens Falls ought to be over by now.”

“Leaf peepers. For the next two weeks or so we’ll see almost as many tourists as we get during ski season.” He braked as an Explorer with New Jersey plates cut in front of him to turn onto Main.

“I’ve never quite understood how driving an SUV three hundred miles expresses your love of nature.”

“Don’t say that in front of any local business owners.”

A thought struck her. “Aren’t you going to be short on manpower? With an investigation and a boatload of tourists in town?”

“Yep.” He cut the wheel, and they made the sharp turn onto Route 57. “I can already hear Lyle. ‘Ask not for whom the overtime tolls, it tolls for thee.’ What we really need is another sworn officer.”

“What about trainees from the police academy?”

“That was fine to plug the gap while Eric and Kevin were away, but in the long run, I need someone full-time. Someone who can cover me or Lyle or Eric when things get tight.”

He swung onto the bridge. Up and down the river, the trees reflected in the calm water, red and gold, yellow and bronze, green and copper. It was made more beautiful by its brevity; the glory of a few days, a week, and then it was gone.

Russ sighed with pleasure. “Poor bastards.”

“Who?”

“Those folks you were talking about who have to drive three hundred miles for this. Looks like someone set the river on fire, doesn’t it?”

The river. The fire. The pale Nile green water and the buildings beyond, stone blocks and mud bricks baking in the endless sun. The car exploding, and the barn burning and the fire racing across the dry field. The column of oily smoke, and the chunks of masonry smashing into the hard-baked dirt. The blood. The screams.

“Clare?”

She shuddered back into the here-and-now.

“Are you all right?” Russ’s voice was concerned.

“Yeah. I’m—” not fine. Just tell him. I’m. Not. Fine. “Okay. Just a little tired.”

She was a coward. She was straight-up chickenshit. He thought she deserved the best he had to offer. She knew better. She had something ugly living in her, no different in its way than the colon cancer that had eaten up her sister from the inside out.

She just wanted it to be over and done with so she didn’t have to think about it ever again. The moment the idea touched down in her head, her skin goosefleshed. Was that what Tally McNabb had come to?

“Do you want to go home? We can reschedule. Or, hell, just have your mother decide everything.”

“My mother?” She breathed in. She was a big girl. She could handle a few bad memories. “You mean, my mother who wants you to wear a kilt?”

“What?”

The horror in Russ’s voice made her laugh, thank God. “That was her suggestion after I told her it was unlikely you’d agree to your police dress uniform. She thought all the men could wear kilts.”

“That’s the nuttiest—”

“They did it at my brother Doug’s wedding.”

He was silent as he slowed the truck and made the turn onto the Sacandaga Road. Finally, he said, “It might be worthwhile just to see how Lyle reacts.”

She laughed, and the moment was behind her, left beside the river as they rolled up and up through the stone-and-wire-rimmed pastures until they crested a rise and there was the Stuyvesant Inn, looking like a painted Florodora Girl in a wide green skirt sitting in the middle of dairy country.

It seemed Stephen and Ron were reaping the leaf-peeper bounty as well; their small three-car parking area was filled, and the sign pointing vehicles to the back was in its wooden frame. Russ ignored it in favor of pulling his truck half on, half off the grass beneath a blazing red maple near the road. “Fast getaway,” he said, when she looked pointedly at the parking sign. “In case of a police emergency.”

“Uh-huh.” They walked up the curving drive and mounted the steps to the wide front porch. In honor of the season, the chintz pillows on the curlicued wicker furniture had been replaced with needlepoint. Lacy throws and plaid lap robes draped over scrollwork settees and fan-back armchairs.

Russ pressed the brass buzzer. “I always feel like I’m going to break some god-awful piece of bric-a-brac worth a fortune when I’m here.”

“Maybe we can bypass the house and walk straight around to the tent for the reception,” she said, and then the door opened and Stephen Obrowski was there. “Welcome! Welcome!” He pumped both their hands at once, so it appeared, for a moment, as if they were about to begin a folk dance. “Congratulations,” he said to Russ. “You’re a lucky man.”

“Thanks. I agree.”

Stephen tugged them inside. Gray-haired, red-cheeked, Obrowski always reminded her of some jolly British print of a century ago: The Genial Innkeeper or The Happy Host. Instead of a buxom wife in an apron, however, he had the tall and Teutonic-looking Ron Handler, emerging from the kitchen at the end of the hall wiping his hands on a dish towel.

“Great to see you, Clare.” Ron kissed her cheeks. “And Chief Van Alstyne. You’re looking as butch as ever.”

“Ron,” Stephen warned.

“I kid, I kid. Look, why don’t you show them where everything will be set up, and then we can go over the menu and the notes Mrs. Fergusson faxed.” Ron tilted his head toward Clare. “I don’t like to leave the kitchen while we still have guests eating breakfast.”

“Notes Mrs. Fergusson faxed?” Russ said, at the same moment Clare said, “If this is a bad time…”

“Of course not.” Obrowski steered them toward the archway on the left while his partner vanished back down the hall. “Now, we thought we’d put the pianist here in the double parlor”—he pointed to a grand piano—“and leave the rest of the furniture pretty much as it is, to encourage folks to sit and talk.”

“There’s a pianist?” Russ looked at Clare. “I thought it was a DJ.”

“The DJ will be outside, in the dancing tent,” Stephen said.

Clare was starting to get a bad feeling. “When you say ‘dancing tent,’ does that imply there’s going to be a nondancing tent?”

“That’s right. The dining tent will have roll-down walls and heaters, to keep everyone comfortable through dinner and the toasts and all that.” Obrowski looped them through the second parlor, emerging back in the wide entrance hall. “We’re going to have the coat check back here, with a rolling rack tucked beneath the stairs, and then right here in the hallway, we’ll have one of the bars.” He looked at Clare hesitantly. “I know it’s a little unorthodox, but I thought it would keep traffic flowing and prevent the guests from bunching up around the drinks.”

“One of the bars?” Russ shook his head. “Christ on a bicycle. It’s like the sacking of Richmond in reverse.”

Clare caught the look on the innkeeper’s face. “It’s fine, Stephen. Russ’s idea of a wedding is fifteen minutes in front of Judge Ryswick.” And boy, wasn’t that getting more appealing by the minute?

“Ah. Of course. I understand. Trust me, it sounds like a lot of fussy details right now, but the night of your wedding, when you’re here with your beautiful bride on your arm, you’ll be glad we took pains to get everything just so.” Stephen hurried ahead and cracked open the doors on the other side of the hall. He peeked inside.

“Having you on my arm is not what I’m looking forward to on our wedding night,” Russ said into her ear.

“Hold that thought.”

Stephen beckoned to them. “We have a couple of guests eating breakfast, so we’re just going to walk through the dining room and then on to the kitchen. We can collapse the dining room table by a few feet, but we can’t remove it from the room, so the plan is to have the desserts and coffee served from here.” He opened one door. “Excuse us, folks. We’re just doing a wedding walk-through.” He led them into the elaborately paneled room. “We’ll take the chairs out, of course, and put the tea service on the sideboard—”

Beside her, she could feel Russ stiffen. He was staring at the other end of the mahogany dining table, where a forty-something woman in a starched shirt was buttering toast and a young black man with very little hair was working his way through eggs and sausage. The woman’s eyes opened wide. She put her toast and her knife on her plate. “Chief Van Alstyne.”

*   *   *

“I see you decided not to head all the way back to Fort Drum. You hoping to become better acquainted with our little town?” Russ’s tone triggered Clare’s early alert system. This wasn’t some tourist whose purse had been returned by the police department.

The woman’s nose pinched in and her mouth thinned. “I did a little research and became better acquainted with you last night. Twenty-two years in the army, twenty of them as an MP, retired as a CW5. Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Presidential Commendation with Valor. Investigator in chief for the 6th Military Police Group, Fort Lewis, training command at Fort Leonard Wood…” She steepled her fingers. “So what was the Deputy Dawg act yesterday?”

His service records, Clare thought. The only place that information was accessible—and then only by authorized military personnel.

Russ crossed his arms. “Why don’t you tell me why you really came here looking for Tally McNabb?”

The woman’s eyes flicked toward Clare and Obrowski. Clare would go if Russ asked her, but she was damned if she was going to back down for anyone else. The innkeeper was another matter. “Stephen,” she said, “can we meet you in the kitchen in a few minutes?”

“Absolutely,” Stephen said, with the gratitude of a man whose job made him privy to more dirty laundry than he wanted to hear. He headed for the door. Paused. “I’ll have Ron make a fresh pot of coffee.” That thought seemed to make him happy again.

When the door swung shut behind him, the woman stared at Clare with a gaze like a dissecting knife. “Who’s she?”

Instead of answering her, Russ pulled a chair away from the table. “Clare?” She sat. “I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye of the U.S. Army Finance Command.” He gestured toward Clare. “The Reverend Clare Fergusson.”

She wasn’t sure what was going on, but since it looked like Russ had already taken the role of bad cop, she figured she ought to be the good cop. She smiled, showing many, many teeth. “Hello!”

“This isn’t a matter for a civilian, Chief. Even if she is a priest.”

“Didn’t I mention?” Russ took the chair next to her. “This is also Major Clare Fergusson of the 142nd Aviation Support Battalion.”

The private, who had stopped eating when it was clear Russ wasn’t going to keep moving along, straightened in his seat.

“I don’t care if she’s commander of the Big Red One. I’m not going to—” Seelye slapped her napkin down. She looked at Russ. Despite the heat in her voice, her gaze was cool. Assessing. Whatever she saw, she decided to change tactics. “Mary McNabb, a.k.a. Tally McNabb, was under investigation for peculation.”

Russ cocked an eyebrow. “She had her hand in the battalion cookie jar?”

“We believe she made off with a considerable sum.”

“I have a feeling the army and I probably have different ideas as to what constitutes a considerable sum.”

Colonel Seelye paused. “In the neighborhood of a million dollars.”

Russ whistled.

“Nice neighborhood,” Clare said. Seelye looked at her as if she had just spat chewing tobacco on the table. Clare tried not to let her cheeks pink up.

“That’s a hell of a lot of money to sneak off with under the army’s nose,” Russ said. “Didn’t she have any oversight?”

“McNabb altered the records. Destroyed data. She was very skilled. And the chief financial officer of her unit was … lax.”

Clare nudged Russ’s thigh. He nodded to her. Go ahead. “Tally had been stateside since March,” she said. “Her discharge came through in May, and she’s been living openly in Millers Kill since then. How come you’re only now showing up to investigate her?”

Seelye crossed her arms over her chest. The private stared at the eggs congealing on his plate. Clare looked at Russ. What did I say?

“I don’t think it’s because they’ve been taking their own sweet time. I think they didn’t know about it before now.” He twisted in his chair and propped an elbow on the table, for all the world as if he and Clare were having a postbreakfast chat over the paper. “Tally McNabb may have been a damn good bookkeeper, but she wasn’t any sort of criminal mastermind. I think she had help covering the theft up. From the inside.” He glanced toward Seelye, then back to Clare. She frowned. From the inside? The whole Army was one big “inside.” “From another MP,” he clarified.

Quentan Nichols. Clare’s mouth formed an O. Russ swept his lashes low in acknowledgment.

Seelye didn’t react. “I need to search that house, Chief.”

“That house is the property of a civilian who isn’t here to give his consent. You take what you have to a judge, you get a warrant, and I’ll be glad to help you execute it. Hell, I’ll have my whole department pitch in.”

“This case is not in your jurisdiction.”

“Maybe not, but Tally McNabb’s death is.”

“Your people searched their house.”

“With probable cause, post death by gunshot.”

“I want to see your files.”

“You want a lot, don’t you?” He stood. “C’mon, Clare. We have some faxes to decipher.”

Clare rose to her feet. A hundred questions were screaming in her head, but she smiled and nodded at the soldiers. “Colonel. Private.”

“Ma’am,” the young man said.

Seelye shot him an icy look. She steepled her fingers again. “This isn’t over, Chief. If you try to play hardball with the United States Army, I will have your ass hanging from my company flagpole. That’s a promise.”

Russ flattened his hands against the table and leaned forward. “I was playing hardball with the army back when you were still buffing up your butter bars and trying to memorize the ten-code.” He straightened. “Get a warrant, and we’ll talk. Until then…” He flipped his hand open.

He gestured Clare ahead of him. She felt as if she had a gun sighted between her shoulder blades as she walked to the kitchen door. As soon as the door had swung shut behind them, she opened her mouth.

Russ held a finger to his lips and dragged her around the industrial-sized center island toward Ron and Stephen, who immediately stopped talking. Ron twisted around and moved a stovetop percolator off the enormous gas range. “What was that all about?” Stephen asked.

“Police business,” Russ said.

Ron rolled his eyes.

Russ ignored him. “How long have they been here?”

“They checked in late Wednesday night,” Stephen said. “They were complaining about not being able to get a room at any of the motels.”

“They were damn lucky we had a party cancel. The Adirondacks during peak foliage?” Ron blew a raspberry.

Stephen frowned at his partner.

“Don’t give me that Mrs. Grundy look,” Ron said. “I told you they weren’t here for antiques and cider.” He pointed to Russ. “Is there anything we need to worry about? Seeing as they’re involved in police business?”

“No. They’re cops. Military police.” He turned to Clare. “I’ve got to get back to the station. Do you mind handling the rest of the wedding hoopla without me?”

“No-o-o. I would mind the walk back to town, though.”

Russ made a frustrated sound. “Sorry. I forgot. Okay, let’s go.” He took off toward the hallway.

“Uh—” She looked helplessly at Stephen and Ron.

“Go, go.” Stephen flapped his hands at her. “Call us when you’re free. We can set up another time. Just don’t leave it too long!”

“Unless you want to think twice about the whole thing.” Ron indicated the door Russ had disappeared behind. “As I recall, Prince Charming is supposed to chase after Cinderella, not the other way around.”

Russ had already backed the truck onto the drive when she caught up to him. She swung the door open and jumped in. He started down the road before she had finished buckling her seat belt.

He unhooked the mic from its mount. “Dispatch, this is Van Alstyne, IOV.”

The radio cracked. “Chief, this is Dispatch, go ahead.”

“Is Lyle or Eric in?”

“Eric’s out interviewing friends and family. Lyle just headed to the courthouse with a warrant request. He’s fixing to get into McNabb’s bank account. The rest of ’em are in the seat.”

“Anybody not on patrol yet?”

“Hadley. She got in late.”

“Good. Have her contact McNabb’s telephone carriers. Landline and cell. I want a record of all incoming calls for the week up to her death. She’s looking for out-of-state numbers, especially ones originating from a Missouri or an Illinois area code.”

“Roger that.”

“And Harlene? Do we still have the hard copy of the intake file for Quentan Nichols? It would have been late June.”

“Probably.”

“Find it and put it on my desk. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Van Alstyne out.”

He hung up the mic.

“You think she and Nichols stole the money together.”

“If she took it, she didn’t do it alone. Do you know anything about how you draw pay during deployment?”

“Um … I showed up at the quartermaster’s and signed for it. At the bigger camps, like Liberty or Anaconda, you could use a card at the CX or to get cash.”

“Where’s the cash come from?”

She blinked. “I never thought about it.”

“It’s just like a civilian bank. The army flies it in, shrink-wrapped on pallets. The cash is transferred under guard to a secure location, where it’s locked into a vault and disbursed as necessary.”

“Huh. So when Seelye said upwards of a million, she meant one million actual dollars?” Clare shook her head. “That’s gotta be a big amount. Physically, I mean.”

Russ flicked on his signal and turned onto River Road. “Yeah. McNabb was a finance company specialist. That means she only intersected with the cash at the end, when it was in a vault, under tight control. Or maybe not even then. It sounded as if she was in accounts management, not dispersal.”

“A bookkeeper, not a teller.” Clare scarcely noticed when they crossed the bridge. “She can cover up the loss, but not remove the actual loot from where it’s supposed to be.”

“That’s right. She would have needed an accomplice who had access to the money earlier. One of the ground crew. Or a truck driver. Or one of the MPs assigned to guard the cash.”

“Quentan Nichols. Do you think he gave Tally advance warning that the investigators were after her?”

“That’s why I’m having Knox pull the phone records.”

She stared out the side window. The sun made the autumn leaves look like they had been lit from inside. Almost too bright to look at against the white clapboard farmhouses and the October blue sky. She turned back toward Russ. “Maybe it wasn’t love that kept him coming back trying to talk with her. Maybe it was one million dollars.”

“Well, you know what they say. Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a cool million in the bank.” His mouth quirked. “Either Nichols had already gotten his cut, and he called to warn her in order to save his own skin, or she still owed him money, and he called to warn her in order to keep the cash flowing.”

“Or he showed up in person to collect.” She watched as he swung onto Church Street. The gazebo in the center of the park was still hung with red-white-and-blue bunting. Maybe one more concert this weekend before the town boarded it up for the winter. “Where does her husband fit in?”

“I’m sure he was happy to accept whatever money she gave him, no questions asked.” He braked to let a handful of shoppers cross the street. “I still want to question him, but unless there’s some evidence of domestic abuse we haven’t turned up yet, he’s dropped down several notches on my list.”

Clare could think of other reasons Wyler McNabb night have killed his wife. A million of them. Maybe she was going to break it off and take the money with her. Maybe he was going to break it off and he wanted it all for himself. Maybe only she knew where it was hidden, and his attempts to wring the location out of her went south. “Where do you suppose she stashed it?”

“That’s not my problem, thank God.” He drove past the church, past the boxwood hedge, and turned into her drive.

“What do you mean? A million in untraceable cash? If that’s not motive for murder, what is?”

He engaged the parking brake but kept the engine running. He turned, slinging his arm across the seat back. “You’re not seeing the whole picture. The McNabbs spent money like water in the past couple of years, buying cars, a boat, a swimming pool, and God knows how much in useless crap and rounds of drinks at the Dew Drop. Their relationship, by all accounts, was rocky. She was stressed by two tours of duty in Iraq, one of which included grand larceny. One of the guys in her group just tried to kill himself. Then she finds out the CID is about to show up. She’s looking at fifteen years’ hard time in Leavenworth and complete financial ruin from the restitution order.” He laid his hand over Clare’s. His voice gentled. “I know it’s hard to accept—but her .38 must have looked like her only friend in the world at that point.”

*   *   *

Eric McCrea knew that most cases were cleared with systematic, step-by-step investigation, methodical and well analyzed. Still, there was an element of luck to police work, too, and he didn’t know a single cop who’d disagree with him on that score.

Eric McCrea was about to get lucky.

He had been working his way down the list of McNabb’s family and friends, trying to find someone who might give the weasel up or at least tell the truth about his relationship with his wife. Eric had spoken to two co-workers already that morning, respectable, solid family guys who lived on quiet streets and kept their lawns mowed. Neither of them had ever socialized with Wyler McNabb, except for the company parties BWI Opperman put on. Neither of them knew much about Tally McNabb other than that the couple had been together since high school. No one recalled Wyler talking about or spending time with another woman.

“He sucked when he was on construction,” one man said. “Got fired off the resort here. He got rehired as a foreman, though, and he actually did better at that. He wasn’t dumb. Just allergic to hard work.”

An opportunist, Eric thought. Lives off others.

“He was kind of an asshole,” the other man said. “Thought he was smarter than he was and wanted you to think so, too.”

Arrogant, Eric thought. Confident he can get away with murder.

The next stop on the list was in an entirely different neighborhood—the Meadowbrook Estates Park, a tightly packed collection of rusting, rattling single-wides that had neither a meadow nor a brook to soften the hard-packed dirt between the concrete slabs and hook-ups. This was the home of Morris Slinger Jr. Fetch, as he was known, was one of those guys who managed to live off a combination of disability, small-time dealing, and the generosity of his friends. The most generous of whom was Wyler McNabb.

Eric was pleased to see Fetch’s Camaro beneath a fabric-topped, PVC-pole car park. He had tried the place yesterday, but his target had been gone. He pulled in, blocking the Camaro, and got out.

He banged on the door. Behind and around him, he could hear the pop and scrape of aluminum latches on aluminum frames, as Fetch’s neighbors stuck their heads out to watch the show.

“This is the Millers Kill police,” Eric roared. “Open the door!”

The door opened. Fetch stood inside, tall, blond, and still gangly, even though his teens were well past him now. “Hey. Sergeant McCrea.” He was trying for some enthusiasm. “What’s up, man?” He plucked at his T-shirt. “I’m clean. You can walk right in and see for yourself. Clean as a whistle.”

“I’m looking for a buddy of yours. Wyler McNabb.”

“Wyler.” Fletch’s voice relaxed. He stopped tugging his shirt out of shape. “Yeah, man, I just dropped him off at his house, like, less than an hour ago. What’s up?”

A flare of excitement shot up Eric’s spine and detonated inside his skull. He kept his face blank and his voice hard. “Where were the two of you?”

“At the Mohegan Sun. They had this off-season special, Monday night to Friday morning. Our room was, like, dirt cheap and we got free breakfast, too.”

The Mohegan Sun. The Connecticut casino was on Kevin’s list of out-of-state locations. Easy to follow up on.

“You were both there. The whole week.”

“Yeah.” Fetch mimed pulling a slot machine lever with one long, skinny arm. “It was just for the gambling, man. The casinos, they’re way strict. They even think you’re carrying, next thing you know security’s tossed your ass out the door and you ain’t gettin’ in again.”

“Why’d you take your car instead of his?”

Fetch shrugged. “He asked me if I wanted to drive. He paid for the gas and tolls and shit.” His face creased with concern. “You know, for real, Wyler likes a good time, but he don’t party. He don’t use shit, and he don’t move it. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re going to come up with nothing.”

Eric thought, for a moment, about calling in the CSI and impounding Fetch’s Camaro. Just because they had spent four glorious nights in some resort didn’t mean they hadn’t snuck back home for a little wet work. In which case, there might be fiber or skin or hair inside that car. He decided against it. If they hadn’t already cleaned and vacuumed after McNabb’s death, he was pretty sure Fetch wasn’t up to the task of sanitizing the environment himself.

“I want you to stay here.” He jabbed his finger at Fetch, not quite touching him. “You stay here, and the car stays here.”

Fetch’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Okay. Uh, for how long?”

“Until I tell you. Got it?”

Fetch nodded.

Eric gave him one more look, the one that said, I will mess you up if you cross me, and strode back to his unit. He waited until he had pulled out of the mobile home park to pick up his mic. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-twenty-five.”

“Fifteen-twenty-five, this is Dispatch, go ahead.”

“I’ve got a forty on Wyler McNabb. He was dropped off at his house within the last hour. He was supposedly at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut since Monday afternoon. Can somebody verify that stay for me?”

“Roger that, fifteen-twenty-five.”

“I’m proceeding to 16 Musket Way to bring the suspect in for questioning.”

“Roger that, fifteen-twenty-five. Do you require backup?”

Did he require backup? Hell no. Not against a limp-dicked woman-killer like McNabb. “Negative on that, Dispatch.” If McNabb did come after him, so much the better. He told Harlene what she would want to hear. “I’ll proceed with caution, Dispatch. If anything looks off, I’ll call for support.”

He hadn’t thought much of Tally McNabb’s cheating. Sure, it had been common among troops in Iraq, but so were sand fleas—and he sure wouldn’t have taken one of those into his bunk. Even if she had slept with every guy in her unit and then shown pictures of it to her husband, by God she had been one of their own. A brother in arms. He wasn’t going to let her down at the last.

*   *   *

Approaching the house, Eric saw the first sign McNabb was home. The garage doors were open, and McNabb’s ATV had been rolled onto the blacktop. Eric entered through the overcluttered garage and pounded on the kitchen door. “This is the Millers Kill police. Open up!”

There was a long pause. Finally, a voice said, “Prove it.”

Oh, for chrissake. “Look out your front window, asshole. You can see my cruiser sitting at the foot of your drive.”

Another period of silence. Then, “Whaddaya want?”

“I want you to open up this goddamn door before I kick it in!”

The door cracked open. Eric slid his boot into the opening, leaned against the edge of the door with his shoulder, and greased right through. “Hey!” McNabb backed away, bunching his hands into fists. “You can’t do that.”

“We’re like vampires, asshole. You open the door, we get to come in and stay.”

“What the hell do you want?” McNabb was dressed for the outdoors: ripstop woodlands camo pants and a matching shirt. A blaze-orange vest and bill cap were hooked over a kitchen chair.

“Going someplace?”

“I’m meeting some buddies. We’re going riding. No law against that.”

“Riding where?”

“We got a course set up behind the resort. Anybody who works for the company can use it. You can check. Nobody’s trespassing.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass whose woods you’re tearing up on that oversized roller skate. I want you to come with me to the station. We need to have a talk with you.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet.”

“Then screw you. I know my rights. I don’t have to talk with you or with anyone.”

Eric lunged forward. Twisted his fingers in McNabb’s collar and contracted his bicep, jerking the younger man up until he was dangling, boot toes pattering against the kitchen floor. McNabb gurgled. Clawed at Eric’s hand. “You can come with me conscious, or you can come with me unconscious. That’s as far as your rights go.”

“Uck oo!” McNabb swung wildly, unaimed blows Eric deflected with his forearms.

“That’s it, asshole, you just assaulted an officer. You’re under—” McNabb’s boot connected solidly to his knee. Eric howled, dropped the perp, staggered back, swearing, sweating, eyes watering. Jesus! It felt like his fucking kneecap was broken.

He raised his head. McNabb was at the other end of the kitchen. Gasping. Spitting. Receiver in one hand. Dialing with the other. Calling a lawyer. Calling the press. Calling his wife. Tattletale. Fucking little tattletale. He charged McNabb, knocking him into the wall. The receiver clattered to the floor. Eric stomped it, once, twice, until it broke into black shards and green chips.

“C’mon, asshole,” Eric rasped. “C’mon. Just you and me now. Let’s do it. Let’s do it.”

*   *   *

“Fifteen-seventy, this is Dispatch, do you copy?”

Hadley unhooked her mic. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-seventy, go ahead.”

“I’ve just had a nine hundred from the McNabb house. That’s 16 Musket Way.”

A nine hundred. A 911 call that was broken off before any communication could take place. Most times, it was a four-year-old after a preschool trip to the fire station. Occasionally, a teen who didn’t realize his prank call could be traced. Sometimes, it was bad. Real bad.

“Eric McCrea reported Wyler McNabb had returned home this morning. Eric was headed there to bring him in. My last contact with him was at oh-nine-forty. He’s not answering my hails.”

Hadley’s stomach rose and lodged in her esophagus, even as her hand flicked on her light bar and siren and her foot tromped on the gas. “Roger that, Dispatch. I am responding.”

“I’m sending in whoever else I can raise, so you’ll have backup.” Harlene’s matter-of-fact recitation faltered. “Be careful, Hadley. Remember what the chief says.”

“Don’t be a hero. Don’t worry. I’m not planning on it.”

*   *   *

Hadley Knox hated suspense movies. Couldn’t watch horror. Any scene involving the hero walking warily into an unknown situation had her holding a pillow over her face and fast-forwarding to the next part.

So she recognized the irony of her position. She had taken on a job that kept requiring her to do the exact same thing she wouldn’t watch in a DVD. The training helped, and the past two years’ experience helped, and practicing three times weekly at the range helped a lot, as she now felt sure she could hit a target smaller than the side of a barn if necessary. Even so, she still felt as if a swarm of half-frozen ants were crawling up her skin as she pulled her unit in behind Eric’s and got out.

One glance told her McCrea hadn’t returned to his vehicle, either to call for help or to secure a prisoner. She unsnapped her holster. Drew her Glock 9. Positioned her arm, straight down and slightly outward, the carrying stance that would, her instructors at the Police Basic course had promised, keep her from shooting her own foot off.

She heard the first noise as she entered the garage. A thud, like a bag of flour being dropped from a height. Then a mangled, indistinct sound, something that had come out of a human throat, something that made those ants march double-time up the back of her neck.

The door that led into the kitchen from the garage was ajar. Not far enough to see inside. Another cry, or shout. Then another. No time to weigh the situation. No time. She took a stance at the door, shoulder-on, presenting the smallest target. Took a deep breath. Raised her near foot and kicked the door in, almost bouncing it back in her face because she overestimated its hollow-core weight. Came down hard on the same foot, still shoulder-on, swept the room with her Glock, yelling, “Police! Drop your weapon and get on the ground!”

She saw McCrea at the same instant, straddling a perp who was already on the floor, and she had a second to think Oh, thank God, he’s okay and then she registered the blood, and saw that McCrea had his service piece in his hand, a big SIG SAUER .45, three pounds of steel, and he raised it up and whack, bludgeoned McNabb in the face with it. Whack! Blood sprayed across the no-wax flooring. Whack! McNabb wasn’t moving, wasn’t resisting, wasn’t making a sound, so Hadley did it for him, let out a screech that would have embarrassed her if she had been able to think about it and launched her whole body forward. She tackled Eric, knocked him to his side, scrabbled for his weapon, all the while screaming, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

He rolled over her, banging her head so hard against the floor she saw stars. He gripped her wrist and banged it again, harder, then again, until her bruised knuckles released and her gun clunked to the floor. He hit it with his other hand and sent it spinning into an overturned chair. She kicked and bucked beneath him, thinking he’s snapped thinking rape thinking I lost my piece, oh, God and the shame and fear and anger coalesced inside her and she head-butted him, then punched him one-two in the diaphragm as he reared back in pain, and as he turned red and choked for air she twisted, rolling to her stomach beneath him, and pushed onto her hands and knees, throwing him off her.

She scrambled for her gun. Seized it. Assumed the stance. Pointed it, not at the feebly croaking Wyler McNabb, but at her fellow officer.

An outline at the door made her jerk her gun up. The chief. His own weapon out, down, to the side. He raised his hands, showing his finger was off the trigger. “Knox?” He glanced at her, at McNabb, at McCrea, half-sprawled on the floor with blood dripping from his nose. “What the hell just happened here?”

“Sorry, Chief.” She was amazed to hear her voice sounding so normal. She holstered her gun and saw that she looked normal as well, blouse still tucked in, service belt still centered. Her awful polyester pants weren’t even creased.

“I asked what’s going on.” The chief’s voice was hard.

She looked at Eric. His arms were shaking. The chief couldn’t see his face, but she could. Terrified. Desperate. Just like she had felt, when he was on top of her.

She opened her mouth to tell the chief everything, and at the same moment she saw what would happen. She was the newest. The only woman. Not really from this town. Flynn would stand by her, but the rest of her brother officers would turn their backs on her. Freeze her out. Their conversations dying away. Her questions and comments ignored.

She would be alone.

“The suspect resisted arrest and assaulted Officer McCrea. Officer McCrea managed to subdue the suspect, sustaining injury in the process. I was about to cuff the suspect and Mirandize him when you came in.”

The chief let his gaze travel around the kitchen. The blood spattered on the floor, the broken phone, the toppled chair. When he spoke, his voice snapped like a broken branch. “Subduing an arrestee means physically restraining him, not hitting him until he can’t fight back.”

Hadley swallowed. “I was knocked down and away in the struggle. I wasn’t able to assist for several … seconds.” She had no idea if that was plausible or not. “I wasn’t able to control the situation with my sidearm until Officer McCrea was … until the perp was…” She made a motion like pulling dough apart.

“Eric?” McCrea got to his feet. He stumbled and listed to one side, favoring his right knee. The chief looked at him a long moment. “Get out to your unit and wait for me there.”

McCrea nodded. He limped out the kitchen door, not looking at Hadley. When he was gone, the chief crossed the floor. Got down on one knee next to McNabb. Took the man’s chin and gently turned his face side to side. McNabb moaned. “Jesus,” the chief said.

He stood. Fished his phone out of his pocket. Punched a single button. “Harlene? Russ. I want you to send an ambulance to 16 Musket Way.” He paused. “No. They’re fine. It’s for Wyler McNabb.” Another pause. “Just tell ’em it’s not a gunshot or a heart attack. And Harlene? Keep it off the radio. Use the phone.”

He hung up. Looked down at Hadley, looked into her, like he could see everything she had hidden away. Her stomach fluttered. She had to force herself not to drop her gaze. God. No wonder he got such good results in interrogations. “Knox. Hadley. What really happened?”

“What I told you, Chief. That’s what happened.”

“What you told me.”

She tucked her chin.

“That’s your story.”

She licked her lips. “That’s what happened.” To her horror, her eyes welled with tears. “I know I should have done better, Chief. I’m sorry.”

The chief sighed. “So am I, Hadley. So am I.”

*   *   *

The fifteen minutes before the ambulance arrived were some of the longest in Hadley’s life, and that included labor and delivery. When the EMTs finally bustled in, they were efficient and cheerful, taking McNabb’s vital signs, reporting to the ER by radio, not by word or glance suggesting something had gone badly wrong in this kitchen. When they hoisted McNabb on a stretcher and wheeled him outside, the chief jerked his head, indicating Hadley should follow.

He stopped her with a gesture beside McCrea’s car. Eric sat in the driver’s seat, staring out the windshield with unfixed eyes. His usual sharp edges seemed blurred, as if someone had taken his picture and half-erased it.

“I want you to accompany the ambulance,” the chief told Hadley. She nodded. “Eric?” McCrea looked up. “Knox maintains that McNabb was injured because he resisted and attacked you.”

Eric glanced up at her, then dropped his eyes.

“Even if that is true, you used excessive force. I’m suspending you. Two weeks without pay. Starting now. You’ll return your vehicle to the department and leave it there.” The chief held out his hand. “I want your service weapon and your badge now.”

McCrea gaped. “But…”

The chief braced a hand on the top of the car and leaned in. “If McNabb retains a lawyer, and if the board of aldermen demands an investigation, it’ll be a lot longer. Now give me your gun.”

“I have the right to a review.” McCrea’s voice was panicked. “I have that right.”

“Call your union rep and set up an appointment. In the meantime, I’m exercising my right to suspend you.”

McCrea looked at his lap, out the door, at the passenger seat of his cruiser. Anywhere except at the chief. Finally he retrieved his badge and passed it through the window to the chief. Then he leaned to one side and removed his gun from its holster. Handed it, butt side up, to the chief. The chief held the SIG SAUER up where they could all see it. He stared at the tracery of blood on the grip. “The authority we hold is based on the trust of the citizens of this town.” His voice was hard and tight. “When you abuse that trust, you shame yourself. You shame me. You shame everyone who wears our uniform.” He turned his head and stared at Hadley. She wanted to die. He pointed toward the ambulance, pulling into the road, its blue lights flashing. “Go.”

She fled to her car. Dove in, slamming the door behind her as if she could keep the shrieking harpies of her own conscience out with steel and glass. She started the ignition with a shaking hand. Wondered, as she lurched into gear and rolled after the ambulance, if any amount of shunning from her fellow officers could possibly feel as bad as this.

*   *   *

Russ stood outside the main entrance to the Washington County Hospital and shivered. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees when the sun went down, and there was for sure going to be frost on the pumpkin tonight. He should have worn his MKPD-issue parka.

The tap-tap of heels made him turn around. Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye strode up the walk, her khaki skirt and trench coat standing in for a uniform. No matter how casually dressed, active duty military personnel never quite managed to look like civilians. Seelye didn’t.

“I appreciate you for inviting me along on this, Chief.” Her tone wasn’t warm, but she held out her hand.

He shook it. “Don’t thank me yet, Colonel. You can see if McNabb will agree to let you search the house. That’s as far as it goes.”

“I plan on asking him about his wife’s finances.”

He tilted his head. “After I find out what he knows about her death.”

“As you say.”

They entered the building side by side. It was eight fifteen, after visiting hours, and the corridors were mostly empty. Russ led her to the right elevator bank, and they rode to the third floor in silence. One of the hospital security guards was sitting outside McNabb’s room, scratching away with a pencil in a fat, floppy book. Russ plucked the man’s name from the back of his memory. “Hank. Hi. How’s he been?”

“Heya, Chief. Quiet as a mouse. He had a couple guys from work come to visit, and his mama and then his papa. She left mad, promisin’ she was gonna call a lawyer, and he left mad, saying the same thing. I guess they’ll have to hash it out between ’em.”

“Thanks. Why don’t you take a break while I talk with him?”

“Don’t mind if I do. My bladder can’t sit still more’n two hours these days anyway.” The guard ambled off, Sudoku puzzles flashing them at every step.

“He’s already in custody?” Seelye said.

“For resisting and assaulting an officer.” As much as it turned his stomach to do it, Russ was going to stand by the arrest. It was obvious, from Eric’s limp and his bloody nose, that McNabb had gotten a few good hits in.

They entered the single-bed room. Seelye inhaled sharply. Unfortunately, it was obvious that Eric had gotten in a hell of a lot more hits. The colonel looked at Russ like he was something nasty she found underneath the leaf pile. He wanted to explain, wanted to tell her We’re better than this, but what could he say? McNabb’s pulpy, bandaged, purpling face spoke damningly for itself.

McNabb stared at them while Russ pulled out a chair for Seelye and then sat down himself. “Wyler? I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Russ Van Alstyne, chief of police. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“He hit me.” McNabb’s words were slurred by the damage to his cheek and jaw, but his tone was clear. “That bastard hit me. I didn’t do nothin’. I’m gonna sue him, and you, and the rest of the cops, and the goddamn town. You all gonna be taking tickets at the movies for a living when my lawyer gets through with you.”

“I’m not here to discuss what happened today.”

“Oh, I jus’ bet you’re not. How’m I supposed to work like this? I’m due to head off for another construction job at the end of this week. Who’s gonna make up for that if the doctor don’t clear me to go?”

“You’re not going anywhere in the immediate future, Wyler. You’re under arrest, remember?”

“Under arrest my ass. I was defending myself. No judge’s gonna hold me when they see what your cop did to me.”

Russ smothered a sigh. “I want to ask you about your wife.”

McNabb went quiet. He turned his face toward the ceiling. “If you’re gonna break the bad news to me, save your breath. M’mother told me. She killed herself.”

“When was the last time you saw Tally?”

“Monday morning. ’Fore she went to work.”

“How was she when you saw her? Happy? Sad? Did you two argue?”

“Argue? Hell. We fought. I was headed off with Fetch for the week. Going to a big casino in Connecticut. She din’t like Fetch, and she din’t like gambling, and she sure as hell din’t like me being out from under her thumb.”

“So you fought. Were you mad at her?”

“Not mad enough for her to want to kill herself.” He rolled his head back toward them. “Look, she was screwed up in her head about the war. Lots of soldiers come back that way. I saw it on the news. She was going to this counselor. You go ask her if you want to know why Tally did it.” For the first time, his voice shook. His eyes sheened over. “Goddammit. She always was a pain in my ass. Always had to have things her way. Didn’t even wait to tell me good-bye, the—” His voice cracked.

McNabb blinked ferociously and hacked. Russ handed him a tissue, and McNabb spat into it, balling it up in his fist. “When did you get back from the casino?” Russ asked.

“This morning. About an hour before your guy comes along like Vin freaking Diesel.”

“Were you alone at the casino?”

“I told you, Fetch was with me.” McNabb’s mouth dropped open. “Ohh, I get it. You think I was cheatin’ on Tally, and that’s what set her off. Well, I wun’t. One woman is more’n enough trouble for me. I don’t need that kind of complication. Closest I got to girls was the tits and ass show.”

“Did you leave the resort for any length of time?”

“Nope.”

“Did you get any calls from Tally? Or call her?”

“Nope.”

Kevin, who had been detailed the task of faxing McNabb’s picture to area casinos, had already gotten in touch with Mohegan Sun’s security. They were reviewing their camera footage and would send the MKPD the relevant pictures and a summary of McNabb’s movements. It would have taken a seven-hour window to get from Uncasville to Millers Kill and back again. If McNabb had been gone that long, they would know it.

“One more question,” Russ said. “Do you know of anyone who might want to kill Tally? Or any reason why?”

McNabb’s mouth sagged. His eyes bugged. “What? No!”

Russ waited to see if more was forthcoming. It wasn’t. “Okay. Thank you, Wyler.”

“I’m still gonna sue your ass,” the younger man mumbled.

Seelye leaned forward. “I’d like to ask you a few questions now, Wyler. About Mary—Tally’s service in Iraq.”

McNabb made a face that would have been a frown if his eyebrows could have moved. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye.”

For the first time, Russ saw apprehension on McNabb’s face. “What do you do? What, you know, branch are you in?”

Seelye hesitated. Glanced at Russ. “I’m with the military police.”

McNabb turned toward the ceiling again. Clicked his mouth shut. “I’m not saying nothing without my lawyer.”

*   *   *

It was colder outside now. A raw, damp cold that promised more rain in the next day or two. Seelye shivered and buttoned her trench coat. “You folks ever have anything approaching warm weather?”

“July and August. First half of September.”

“And you came here voluntarily?”

He shrugged. “It’s home.”

She made a noise. Fished in her coat for a tissue and blew her nose. “So what do you think?”

“He didn’t do it.” He jammed his hands in his jacket pockets. “Unless he’s the greatest actor since Laurence Olivier. I’ll take a look at the casino report, but I’m betting it’ll show us he was there the whole time. Just like he said he was.”

“You going to clear it as a suicide?”

He nodded. “I’ll give the ME the results of the investigation. He’ll make the ruling. Release the body.”

“And that concludes your interest in McNabb.”

“Unless you’ve got information suggesting someone else might have had the means, motive, and opportunity. Like maybe a co-conspirator.”

She looked at him. “Did you find any anomalous prints at the scene?”

“No.”

“Then, no. I have no reason to suspect anyone else is complicit in her death.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes. Unless it would torpedo my own investigation.” Her wide mouth twisted. “The army’s interest is in getting its money back, after all.”

“Wyler McNabb knows something.”

“Oh, yes. I’m quite sure Mr. McNabb knows a great deal about that money.”

“Let me give you some free advice. John Ryswick is the judge you’re going to be dealing with for the warrants. Give him more information than you think he could possibly need, and make sure you cross your t’s and dot your i’s. Have you gotten the federal district attorney in the loop?”

“Not yet.”

“Hold off as long as you can. Ryswick doesn’t like the Feds.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

He held out his hand. “Let me know if we can assist.”

She shook it. “I will. I plan on wrapping this up and getting out of here as quickly as possible.” She hunched her shoulders against the chill. “This weather is actually making me miss Iraq.”