All Mortal Flesh (19 page)

Clare forced a small smile. “We live in a small town, and there are always people who are going to find it impossible to believe a man and a woman can be friends.” Lacking pockets in her alb, she slid her hands inside her sleeves and clenched her forearms. Her flesh was icy. “The chief of police and I have a lot of professional interests in common. We’re both trying to serve the well-being of the people of Millers Kill.”

“So… does the chief also have regular meetings with the Presbyterian and Baptist ministers?”

“Uh… I really don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

“You know that two weeks before she died, Linda Van Alstyne asked her husband to leave their marital home.”

Clare nodded.

“According to Debbie Wolecski, that was because Russ Van Alstyne told his wife that he was having an affair with you.”

Clare closed her eyes for a moment. “Mr. Beagle—”

“Call me Ben,” he said cheerfully.

“Ben. I don’t know exactly what the chief said to his wife before or after their decision to separate, but I’m dead sure it wasn’t that we were having an affair. May I suggest that thirdhand quotes from a grief-stricken family member who was speaking to a woman struggling through a crisis point in her twenty-year marriage might not be the most reliable information in the world?”

“So, you’re saying you and Russ Van Alstyne weren’t involved in a relationship?”

God, she hated this. If she told the truth, she’d be throwing Russ to the wolves, and if she sidled around it, she’d be painting Linda Van Alstyne as a jealous, paranoid woman.

That was it. She could tell the truth about not being able to tell the truth.

“Anything I say at this point is going to reflect badly on Mrs. Van Alstyne and probably cause pain to her sister. I’m not going to do that.”

He nodded. “How long have you been here at St. Alban’s?”

“Uh.” She thought he’d keep pressing her about Russ. His switch to another topic threw her. “A little over two years.”

“Where were you before this?”

She snorted. “At seminary. And before that, in the army.”

He grinned. “Interesting career choice.”

“It kind of chose me.”

“Hah. Right. Well, thanks for talking with me.” From the depths of his parka, a cell phone began to ring. “If I have any other questions, I’ll call you.”

I’ll make sure I’m out
, she thought. Beagle checked the number and half-turned away from her to take the call.

She headed up the aisle toward the sacristy, eager to shed her alb and stole and get into her office, where there was at least an occasional wheeze of hot air from the vent. Something tickled in the back of her mind, something off, but it wasn’t until she was stripping the alb over her head that she realized: The woman who had been sitting near the north wall had disappeared. There was no way she could have gotten past Clare at the main entrance, which meant that she had to be back in the offices or in the parish hall.

Maybe Linda Van Alstyne’s sister had to use the ladies’ room before leaving.

Maybe the archbishop of Canterbury was going to come through the door to congratulate her on a job well done. Clare hung up the long white robe, checked herself in the sacristy mirror—hair still up in its usual knot, blouse buttons done up around her clerical collar, no obvious lint clinging to her long black skirt—and strode down the hall toward her office.

She didn’t make it very far. Debbie Wolecski stood in the doorway, arms crossed, glaring at Clare. Linda Van Alstyne had been a beautiful woman, and her sister had traces of her looks in her large blue eyes and her delicate bone structure. But Debbie Wolecski’s features had been dried to hardtack by a lifetime of Florida sun, and the roundness that had softened her sister had been ruthlessly banished. Clare could see Wolecski’s collarbones slicing across the neckline of her skimpy sweater.

“I want to talk to you,” the woman said.

“All right.” Clare gestured toward the door. “Do you want to come into—”

“My sister would be alive right now if it weren’t for you.”

Clare gaped.

“You ran around with her husband, and filled his head with lies about Linda, and then when push came to shove you gave him an ultimatum, didn’t you? You told him it was you or her.”

Clare meant her response to be a measured
I’m so sorry about your loss
. Instead, she blurted out, “That’s not true!”

“You must have brass balls to get up in front of a church and pretend to be all holy. You’re nothing but a cheap tramp home wrecker. You wanted my dear brother-in-law? Well, now you got him. Did you know he was a boozer? He used to drink himself into a stupor every night. And when he wasn’t drinking, he was off on deployment or on a case. Did he tell you that my sister had three miscarriages and he wasn’t there for a one of them?”

Clare went pale.

“Didn’t get into that during your romantic interludes, did he? Bet he didn’t tell you he left the army because he had a fucking breakdown and nearly got his whole platoon blown up, did he? Or that he dragged my sister back to this godforsaken hole because he was such a mama’s boy he couldn’t cut a real job in Phoenix?”

It was like being battered by a howling wind, her breath snatched away, her eyes tearing.

“What did you get? Flowers? Fancy dinners? Dirty weekends at expensive hotels? You know who bought that? My sister! Every penny he has comes from her, her work, what she got from our parents. I’ll see you in hell before I let either one of you touch it. In fact”—she stepped forward, jabbing a shiny acrylic nail at Clare’s chest—“I’m going to see to it that everyone knows what a slut you are. We’ll see who wants to come to your church once they hear—”

“Shut up, Debbie.”

Clare blinked. Russ stood in the doorway to the parish hall, his hands jammed so tightly into his parka pockets that she could see the outline of every knuckle.

His sister-in-law sucked in her breath. “My God, it is true,” she said. “Linda isn’t even in the ground yet and you can’t keep away from your girlfriend.”

Russ’s boots sounded heavy as he walked up the hallway. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I’m going to cut you some slack because you’re angry and upset.”

“Angry? Upset?” Debbie stared at him, loathing written across her heavily made-up features. “You bastard. I’m going to see you strung up by the nuts for what you did to my sister.”

“You can do what you want after I’ve caught whoever killed her. I don’t care.” Russ stepped toward her. In the narrow confines of the hall, he seemed to loom even larger than usual. “You got that? I don’t care.” His glance flickered toward Clare, so briefly she wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it. “I’ve already lost everything. You want to hang me up by the balls? Fine. I’ll hand you the rope. But first, tell me who Mr. Sandman is.”

What the hell?

“How did you know about that?” Debbie asked. “That’s private! Have you been reading her private mail?”

“This is a goddam murder case, Debbie. There isn’t a single detail of Linda’s life that’s going to remain private by the time this thing is through. Who was she seeing? Tell me!”

Clare was utterly lost.

“I don’t know!” For the first time, Debbie sounded more defensive than angry.

“Was it the same guy she was seeing after we moved back to Millers Kill?”

Clare should have enjoyed the about-face as Debbie gasped and went pale beneath her tan, but she just felt sick. Sick for Russ, and for Linda’s sister, and for everyone who was going to be hurt by the corrosive secrets splashing out into the open.

“Hey, guys.” There was a faint creak as the door to the church swung open. “What’s going on?” Ben Beagle ambled down the hall, his eyes bright. “Chief Van Alstyne?”

“Who’s he?” Russ growled.

Clare resisted clamping a hand over her eyes. This was getting to be like a bad French farce. “Ben Beagle,” she said. “
Post-Star
.”

“I’m very sorry about your loss, Chief.” Beagle fished his notepad out of his pocket. “If you have a moment, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“No.”

Russ’s expression would have sent most people scurrying for cover. Beagle smiled gently. “What brings you to St. Alban’s this morning?”

There was a pause. Russ’s gaze darted between Clare and his sister-in-law. “I was looking for Debbie,” he said.

Beagle’s sandy brows went up. “You knew she was here?”

“I’m here as part of an ongoing murder investigation,” Russ said. He sounded as if he were chewing on rocks and spitting out gravel. “I’m not making a statement to the press.”

“Ben.” Debbie’s voice was thin. “Please. Will you excuse us for just a moment?”

“You know, if I’m going to tell your sister’s story, I’m going to need to talk with Chief Van Alstyne.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with that. Please, Ben.”

For the first time since Debbie lit into her, Clare felt sorry for the woman. Her voice shook, and Clare realized that beneath the vitriol and bravado, Linda’s sister was a hairsbreadth away from completely losing it.

“O-kay. If that’s the way you want it.” The reporter snapped his notebook shut. “I’ll wait for you out by the cars.”

Debbie nodded. The three of them watched in silence while Ben Beagle disappeared back through the church door. As soon as it swung shut behind him, Debbie turned to Russ. “You have to understand, it didn’t mean anything.” Her voice was low, urgent.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“Look,” Clare said desperately, “I should go.”

Russ caught her sleeve. “Stay. Please.”

“You dragged her here where she didn’t know a soul and then left her alone in that moldy old farmhouse while you worked twelve hours a day. She got lonely!” Debbie shot a poisonous glance toward Clare. “At least she didn’t come yapping to you about true love. She kept it to herself and she got over it. She never forgot where her loyalties lay.”

“Who was it?”

“Some guy named Lyle. I don’t know his last name.”

Clare stared at Russ.
Oh, God
, she thought.
Not this. Please, not this
.

Russ swallowed. “Lyle,” he said. “From Millers Kill?”

Debbie nodded. “She met him at the mayor’s Christmas party, the first year that you guys moved here.” She peered more closely at Russ. “You know him?”

Russ nodded.

Clare wanted to close her eyes. How many times could your heart break for someone?

“I don’t know if he was the same guy she was e-mailing me about for the past few weeks. The Mr. Sandman guy. She was always pretty private, but she got extra quiet about what was going on after you dropped your love bomb on her. Probably worried about leaving a paper trail for the divorce lawyers.”

“There wasn’t going to be any divorce,” Russ said from very far away.

Debbie shot him a look. “The only thing I can tell you is that he was making big time after your announcement. And that she knew him from work.”

“Work,” Russ said. “She didn’t say
her
work, did she?”

“I… I guess not.” Debbie’s face wavered between pain and hopefulness. “Do you think he might be a suspect? This Lyle guy?”

Russ didn’t say anything for a long moment. Clare wrapped her hand around his arm and squeezed hard. To hell with what Debbie thought.

“I don’t know,” Russ whispered. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

Clare showed Debbie Wolecski the way out. Or, to be more precise, the two of them stalked to the church door like cats refusing to yield territory, rigidly apart, unhappily together.

“This isn’t over,” Debbie said at the door.

“I didn’t think it was.” Clare had plumbed the depths of her priestly goodwill and discovered the bottom of it. She sounded like a bitch, and she didn’t care. She wished she could slam the narthex door on Debbie’s behind instead of watching it hiss gently and hydraulically into place.

Russ. Oh, God.

He was still standing in the corridor where she had left him, like a glaciated creature given the appearance of life because the ice all around was keeping him upright. Like the five-thousand-year-old Bronze Age man, found with flowers still fresh in his pouch. He, she had read recently, had been murdered. Betrayed, then left to the cold.

She had a flash of understanding, seeing Russ frozen there. If she let herself soften, if she held him and wept and sympathized as she wanted to, he would shatter. He would shatter, and she did not have the ability to put him back together again. She didn’t know if anyone did.

She swept her arm toward the door. “My office,” she said.

He stared, then lurched into life. She shut the door behind them, glancing at her watch. Nine o’clock. Lois would be arriving at any minute. She pointed to the sagging love seat. “Sit.” He did.

She crossed to her desk and unscrewed her Thermos of coffee. She poured him a mug and stirred in three spoonfuls of sugar from her private stash. “Why did you really come here?”

He accepted the coffee without batting an eyelash at the mug’s
DEATH FROM THE SKY
! logo. “I…” He patted one-handed at his pockets. “I need someplace to look at these.” He pulled out a handful of jewel cases and dropped them disinterestedly onto the sofa.

She picked one up. An unmarked CD. “What are they?”

“The contents of Linda’s computer. Most of it.”

“Why can’t you just take these to your office?”

He shook his head. It was the first unsolicited movement he had made since Debbie’s hateful revelation. “I can’t. The state police have sent in an investigator to take over the case. Right now, she wants to ‘talk to me.’ In the best-case scenario, that’ll mean pulling me off the case due to conflict of interest. In the worst-case scenario, she could detain me.”

She didn’t have to ask what he’d be detained for. “How can the state police just come in and take over? Isn’t there something about jurisdiction?”

“They have jurisdiction. When the cops running the show are dirty.”

Stupid, stupid
! She held her tongue. “What can I do to help?”