I Shall Not Want (5 page)

Father? I’m finished up. Them floral guild folks are still puttin‘ up palms for the service tomorrow, so I’m not locking the sanctuary.“ Mr. Hadley hovered in the doorway to the church office. Unless he was cleaning, repairing, or tending, Clare never saw him go into the offices. Fair enough. He had his own kingdom in the boiler room and the furnace room and the mysterious Sexton’s Closet.

Lois, their church secretary, glanced at the clock. “School bus time?”

“Honey’s out on another interview.” Mr. Hadley sounded out of breath. He clapped one meaty hand against his chest. “Sorry,” he said, panting. “Guess I come up those stairs too fast. Anyways, I don’t want them grandbabies of mine comin‘ home to an empty house.”

“Absolutely not. When my children were small, I was always there when they got home. Give them a good snack, make sure they’ve started their homework, and then you can have Happy Hour in peace.”

The Reverend Elizabeth de Groot looked scandalized. She had been assigned as St. Alban’s deacon in January, and two months sharing an office had not accustomed her to Lois’s sense of humor. Clare was beginning to suspect it wasn’t going to happen.

“How’s Hadley’s job search going?” she asked, before Elizabeth could say anything.

“I don’t mind tellin‘ you, it’s been disappointin’. Used t’be plenty of good jobs for a body not afraid a hard work. Now what the Mexicans don’t come up and take, they ship overseas.” He made a gesture that said
what ya gonna do
? “Eh-nh. She’ll find sumpin‘ sooner or later. She’s at the police station today.”

Lois and Elizabeth did not look at Clare.

“Hard to picture her in uniform,” Mr. Hadley went on, unaware of the charged atmosphere. “Allus wanted to be an actress when she was little. Pretty enough for it, too. But I guess it’s hard to make a livin‘ at it.”

“I’m praying for her,” Clare said. “Let me know if there’s anything more concrete I can do.”

“Eh.” He fished a less-than-clean handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face with it. “If you know anybody in the police department, you can put in a good word.”

Lois choked, coughed, and grabbed for her water bottle. “You okay?” the oblivious sexton asked.

Red-faced, Lois waved him off. “Fine,” she gasped.

“You’d better get going if you want to make that school bus.” Clare glared at the secretary, who was thumping herself on the chest. “We’ll make sure Lois doesn’t swallow any more words the wrong way.”

“ ‘Kay. See ya tomorrow. ’Bye, Father.” Mr. Hadley thumped off up the hall.

Lois blinked several times, then ran her fingers through her strawberry-blond bob, restoring it to its usual razor-cut perfection. “Let’s see. Where were we?”

Clare decided discretion was the better part of valor. “Holy Week. We need three more readers, and somebody has to let the AA group know their meeting is going to conflict with the Stations of the Cross.”

“Why do you let that man call you Father?” Elizabeth smoothed her Chanel-style jacket over her woolen shift. She was the only woman Clare had ever seen who managed to turn a Little Black Dress into clergy wear. “Don’t you worry he’s being satiric? Denigrating your authority?” Elizabeth was big on clerical authority.

“People can call me what they want. At least it’s grammatical, which is more than you can say about
Reverend
.”

“How about
Mother
?” Lois suggested.

“Only if followed by
Superior
.” Clare shook her head. “The only gender-neutral title that’s both proper and traditionally Anglican is
bishop
, so that’s what I’m going to shoot for. How do you think I’d look in a purple shirt, Elizabeth?”

A shout down the hall saved the older woman from coming up with a tactful lie.

“Clare! Reverend Clare!” Laurie Mairs appeared in the doorway. “It’s Mr. Hadley! Come quick!”

Clare pelted down the hall, the flower guild member close behind her. The door to the sanctuary had been left open, and as she burst through into the church, she could see Mr. Hadley collapsed near the center aisle, his face half in a puddle of vomit.

“Oh, my God,” Clare said.

Delia Hall, the other volunteer, was dancing back and forth, unable either to go to the fallen man’s aid or to back away. “Oh, Clare, thank heavens! He sat down on the pew, like he was tired, and then he simply toppled over! Do you think he’s—could it be—” She tipped an invisible bottle to her mouth. The Sexton’s Closet was rumored to have its own stock.

“No.” Clare knelt by the sexton. His face was pale, damp with sweat where it wasn’t smeared with vomit. She touched his cheek. “Mr. Hadley?” He was clammy beneath her hand.

He pawed at his chest. “Heavy.” His gravelly voice was so low she could barely hear him. “Can’t…” He worked like a baby with croup, struggling for each breath.

“Clare?” Elizabeth’s voice was calm. Clare hadn’t seen her come in. “What can I do?”

“Call nine-one-one. I think he’s having a heart attack.” She glanced up at the flower guild ladies. “Delia, get a wet soapy towel. Laurie, something to dry him with. We can at least clean him up.”

The fifteen minutes before the Millers Kill Emergency Squad arrived was one of the longest in Clare’s life. She thought every heave of Mr. Hadley’s chest was going to be his last. The whoop and clatter of the ambulance was like the sound of an angelic host, and she could have kissed the paramedics when they hurried through St. Alban’s great double doors.

“Heya, Reverend Clare, whatcha got?” Duane Adams, who cobbled together a living as a part-time cop, part-time firefighter, and part-time EMT, didn’t spare her a glance in greeting her. He and his partner knelt by Mr. Hadley.

Clare backed out of their way, bumping into Elizabeth, who had returned to keep watch with her. “His name’s Glenn Hadley. He’s—um, seventy-four.”

Duane’s partner was strapping an oxygen mask over Mr. Hadley’s face, sliding a blood pressure cuff on his arm.

“Any history you know of?” Duane asked.

“He smokes. He’s got diabetes, but he doesn’t take insulin shots for it.” She rubbed her arm. “I didn’t know what to do for him, other than try to make him comfortable.”

“You called us,” Duane said. “That’s what you do.” His partner unslung a radio and was rattling off a string of jargon and numbers. The only thing Clare recognized was “MI.”

“They’re calling it in at Glens Falls,” the EMT said.

“Okay.” Duane stood. “Let’s get him on the stretcher.”

“Glens Falls Hospital? Why not Washington County?” As soon as she said it, she knew. It was serious. Too serious for their small local hospital to handle. The bad stuff always went to Glens Falls.

“They’ll want him straight to the cardiac cath lab. Any next of kin?” Duane asked.

“Oh, my Lord, his grandkids.” Clare looked at Elizabeth. “I don’t even know how to reach Hadley.”

“You go get the children,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll follow the ambulance to the hospital.”

“Good.” Clare didn’t wait to see the paramedics remove Mr. Hadley. She dashed back to her office and grabbed her coat and keys. “Lois,” she yelled, “call the police station and see if they can pass on a message to Hadley Knox.” She stopped in the door of the main office, shrugging into her coat. “Mr. Hadley’s had a heart attack. He’s headed for Glens Falls. I’m picking up her kids and bringing them back here.”

“I’m on it.” Lois reached for the phone.

As Clare slopped across the tiny parking lot, wet from the melt of the last stubborn snow piles, she heard the ambulance siren rise like a screaming bird into the air.
Lord, be with them
, she prayed.
Be with us all
.

Hadley picked a fuzz ball off her wool skirt. It was an old A-line, left behind in the closet of her grandfather’s house from a Christmas visit. She had needed something to go to Midnight Mass in, and back then she had enough money to buy something she was only going to use once. Well, she’d gotten her dollar’s worth from it now. She had worn it on every job interview in the past two months. Too bad the only thing it had gotten her were a few long looks at her legs.

The man scrutinizing her paperwork had certainly checked her out, coming up the hallway to the squad room and going toward his desk at the far end of the room. She hoped it was because he was a cop and not because he was going to be trouble. She eyeballed his desk. A mug with a bunch of pens. A brass nameplate: LYLE MACAULEY, DEPUTY CHIEF. No pictures of the wife. Not that that always meant anything.

Being a good-looking woman in a male-dominated field was tricky. She had always been able to handle her co-workers okay, but catching the eye of a superior meant trouble for everybody. There wasn’t going to be any privacy here; it looked like everyone on the force worked out of this room. Five desks, a bunch of chairs, and a big old wooden table. File cabinets, whiteboard, and maps squeezed in between tall, elegant windows from another age.
We’re not in California anymore, Toto
.

“You’ve got great scores here.” Lyle MacAuley held up the results from her NYS Police Test.

“Thanks.” She shifted in her sturdy metal seat.

“And your scores from the California Department of Corrections are good, too. You worked for them two years?”

“Three.” She knew what was coming next. “I got laid off in a budget cutback. If you look on my résumé, you’ll see my supervisor is one of my references.”

“Mm.” He glanced at the paper on his desk. He had bristly gray hair and bushy eyebrows that looked like they came out of a Halloween disguise kit. “You have a gap of almost two years between the end of your DOC job and now.”

“I was a stay-at-home mom for a while.” She had been a frantic paddling-to-keep-their-heads-above-water mom. The crap jobs she had been forced to take—scooping ice cream, handing out brochures, walking around in high heels and a bathing suit at a car dealership—weren’t worth putting down on paper.

“How come you’re applying for a position as a patrolman? I mean, patrol officer. I’d‘ve thought you’d be looking for a job with the New York DOC. The pay’s better.”

She shook her head. “The nearest correctional facility they’re hiring women guards for is Dannemora. I need to stay in this area.”

“Because of the kids?”

She shrugged.

“Look, I’m not supposed to ask this, so if you get pissed off you can report me to the EEOC, but have you thought about what you, a single woman, are going to do about your kids? We can’t guarantee mommy hours, you know.”

He was right. He wasn’t supposed to ask her this, and it did piss her off. She tried to keep it from showing in her voice. “We’re living with my grandfather, Glenn Hadley. He has a part-time job with flexible hours.”

The deputy chief slitted his eyes. Hadley could almost see a list of names clicking through his mind. He might look like an over-the-hill hayseed, but she suspected it wouldn’t do to underestimate MacAuley’s smarts. She wondered if the illegal question was just another kind of test.

“Glenn Hadley.” His eyes popped open. “Works at St. Alban’s?”

“Yeah. He’s the sexton. That’s what they call the custodian there.”

“Don’t mention that when you talk to the chief.”

The surge of hope—she was going to talk to the chief! She was a serious candidate!—almost made her ignore MacAuley’s weird advice. Almost.

“What, that granddad’s a janitor?”

“Just don’t mention St. Alban’s or anything to do with it.”

She frowned. “He doesn’t have something against Christians or something, does he? Because I’m not super devoted or anything, but I do go to church.”

“No, no, no, nothing like that.” MacAuley compressed his lips. Thought for a moment. “The chief lost his wife this past January.”

“I’d heard that.”

“He was… with the minister of St. Alban’s when it happened. Not
with
her like there was anything funny going on,” he added, so quickly she couldn’t help but think there must have, in fact, been something funny going on. “It’s just that he feels if he hadn’t been with Clare—with Reverend Fergusson—he could have saved his wife. So now, being reminded of her bothers him. Being reminded of Clare. Reverend Fergusson. You understand?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, not understanding. Not caring. “I won’t mention St. Alban’s.”

“Okay.” He shoved his chair back. Stood up. “Let’s go see the chief.”

Hadley stood, working her face into the right expression. Ready, willing, and eager. Not desperate. She couldn’t afford to look desperate. The prisons were out of commuting range. The private security firms had turned her down. There were only a handful of places where a high school grad could make a decent living, and not one of them was hiring. If she couldn’t land this, it was going to be waitressing in Lake George or Saratoga, living off tips and praying nobody got sick or broke a leg. The MKPD had dental. Dental! It had been more than two years since she and the kids had seen a dentist.

MacAuley led her down a short hall, through the dispatcher’s station, and rapped on a door with a pebbled glass window and CHIEF RUSSELL VAN ALSTYNE painted in gold. “C’min,” a voice said.

She followed MacAuley into a messy office, heaps of magazines and papers piled on a battered credenza, the walls covered with posters and bulletins and a huge map of the tricounty area. A leggy philodendron was dying atop two old file cabinets.

The chief was on the phone, one hand cupped over the receiver. “Hang on,” he said. MacAuley tossed her folder onto an equally messy desk. She watched as the chief picked it up one-handed. Long, square fingers. Brown hair with an equal sprinkling of blond and gray, as overgrown as the philodendron.

“Yeah,” he told the phone. “Okay. Put us on the list if you find out anything.” He laid the folder down without opening it. “No, but send us any prints. We’ll run comparisons when we do the ground search in August.” Looking at Russ Van Alstyne, she found it hard to picture August. His face was winter-pale, with deep lines etched on either side of his mouth. Ice-blue eyes. She figured him to be about her dad’s age, although there was a solidness to the chief that her dad, the king of adult ADD, had never had.