One Was a Soldier (24 page)

She didn’t realize she had sunk into a reverie until she heard Tally say, “Major. I mean, Reverend.” Sarah opened her eyes.

Clare Fergusson collapsed onto the chair opposite McNabb. “What are you still doing here?”

Sarah’s heart turned over in one slow despairing beat before she realized Fergusson was speaking to Tally.

“I dunno,” Tally said. “No place better to go, I guess. My husband’s away gambling for a few days.” Her voice made it clear she thought games of chance were a monumental waste of time. Unless, Sarah thought, it was that the husband wasn’t alone at whatever casino he had fled to. “How’s Will doing?” Tally asked.

“He’ll live.” Fergusson slid down until the back of her head could rest against the top of the upholstered chair. “God. I’m so tired. I’d sell my grandmother’s wedding ring for a drink right now.”

“Let’s find a bar,” Sarah said. “I’ll buy the first round.”

Tally’s mouth opened. “What happened to encouraging her to deal with her stress in a healthy way?”

Fergusson started laughing.

“At this point, I’m going to consider alcoholism a viable alternative. All things considering.” Sarah bent over and rubbed her hands over her face.

Fergusson’s smile faded away. “Are you implying I’m an alcoholic?”

Sarah looked at her. “Based on what little I’ve been able to pry out of you, I think you have a problem with alcohol.” She folded her hands and rested her chin on her knuckles. It made a hard, uncomfortable perch, which was just what she needed right now. “Then again, what the hell do I know? I completely missed Will’s suicidal intent.”

“Oh, for chrissakes,” Tally said. “Quit beating yourself up over it. Anybody who’s seen a public service announcement on TV knows what the three or five or seven warning signs are. Will’s not stupid. He didn’t
want
to tip anybody off. Because then somebody woulda stopped him. It’s the same reason Clare doesn’t want to talk about drinking. Because she’s afraid if she does, somebody will stop her from doing it.”

Fergusson opened her mouth. Closed it again.

“It’s like we’re all sick, you know? Like we all got something wrong with us, but we won’t tell the doctor and get it treated. Because we’re afraid the cure is going to be worse than the disease.”

Sarah was surprised at Tally’s outburst, and by her insight. The young woman hadn’t struck her as being that tuned in to others.

“You don’t cure PTSD,” Fergusson said. “You learn to live with it. I don’t think taking a drink now and then or using a sleeping pill when you can’t get back to sleep after a nightmare is necessarily a bad thing.”

Tally scooted to the edge of her chair and stared at the priest. “Aren’t you tired of being afraid all the time? I am.”

“Then why in God’s name are you thinking about going back to Iraq? What’s that about? Facing your fears? Unit cohesion with the rest of the construction team?”

Tally crossed her arms over her chest. She rubbed the tattoo on her arm. “I’m not going back. I’ve decided.”

“Oh.” Fergusson deflated. “Okay.”

“What’s that going to mean for your job?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her arm again. “Maybe lose it, I guess. It’s not the worst thing that could happen to me.” Her gaze shifted toward the corridor. Somewhere down that hall, Will Ellis lay, broken. “It’s not near the worst thing that could happen to me.”

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5

It was Bev Collins and her home health aide who heard the noise. A boom, then a crack, loud enough to make the aide start and say, “What was that?”

“Gunshot.” Mrs. Collins laid down a set of threes. She and Tracy played canasta every Wednesday, and Tracy allowed her one beer for the game. Her doctor said the sugar in it would kill her, but by God, if she had to do without beer, too, she’d just as soon go anyways.

“It’s too close to be a gunshot. It sounded like it came from next door.”

“Young lady, I have hunted and shot for nigh on seventy years. I’d still be doing it if I could see worth a damn.” Mrs. Collins’s upcountry accent changed “worth” to “wuth.” “That was a small-caliber sidearm. Either somebody’s gotten sick and tired of those damn raccoons taking down the garbage cans, or he don’t know jack about cleaning his weapon and accidentally discharged it.”

“Raccoons aren’t out at three in the afternoon.” Tracy got up from the kitchen table and went to the window. “I can’t see anything through the safety fence. I better go out and take a look.”

“Safety fence.” Mrs. Collins shuffled to the icebox and took out another beer. What Tracy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “Swimming pool. The river’s too good for folks nowadays.” She hadn’t taken more than a few swigs when Tracy tore back into the kitchen.

“It’s—she’s—call the police! She’s killed herself!”

*   *   *

“I would say a single shot, through the mouth, to the back of the head.” Emil Dvorak, the Millers Kill medical examiner, pushed against his silver-headed cane to straighten from his crouched position at the edge of the pool. “I can confirm that, at least, as soon as you remove her from the water.”

There was a faint clicking noise as Sergeant Morin of the New York State Police Criminal Investigation Unit snapped off picture after picture on his digital camera. Tally McNabb was floating on her back, ribbons and streamers of blood trailing over and around and beneath her. Tiny pieces of bone and brain floated on the surface of the pool. “I’d like you to take prints from all the exterior doors,” Russ said.

“Sure.” Morin dropped his camera into his kit. “What about the inside?”

“Depends on what we find in there.” Russ looked up to the open second-floor window. Sheer white curtains fluttered out of the frame to catch in the wind rising from the mountains. From McNabb’s backyard, he could see the edge of the hills, russet and brown and yellow, and a dark wall of clouds moving toward them.

“You think there’s somebody in there?”

Russ shook his head. “Not alive.” He turned to Lyle MacAuley. “Have you raised the husband yet?”

Lyle shoved his phone into his jacket pocket and shook his head. “Nothin’. The foreman at BWI Opperman says he’s on leave for the next two weeks. I got the names of a couple friends, and we can probably get a few more if we canvass the Dew Drop. He was a regular, right?”

“That’s what the owner said.” His eyes were drawn, again, to the open window.

“You thinking murder-suicide?”

“Maybe.”

“If McNabb killed her out here and then offed himself, what in the hell is that .38 doing down there? Or are you going to suggest he switched weapons midstream?”

Both men looked into the pool. The gun, black and malignant, lay in twelve feet of water, according to the warning embossed on the plastic lip of the pool gutter.

Russ pinched the bridge of his nose. “She locks all the doors to her house, comes out to the pool in jeans and a sweater, and shoots herself at the very edge of the water.”

“It does keep things nice and neat. If that matters to you.”

“Maybe McNabb did her and tossed the gun in. Chlorine washes away a lot of evidence. He could already be at the Albany airport.”

“We got a BOLO out on him. If he tries to run, somebody’ll spot him.” Lyle zipped his jacket against the chilly air. “Maybe the disappointed boyfriend did her. Or both of ’em.”

“Quentan Nichols? He hasn’t been back here since August.”

“That you know of. Maybe he just figured out how to keep a lower profile.” Lyle looked up as the locksmith on call crossed the yard, his tools out. “C’mon. Let’s see what’s in there.”

The house was clean and orderly, with no evidence of a struggle and no indication that anyone had been there. The locksmith confirmed that the back door he opened would have latched automatically behind anyone who exited the garage. Lyle pointed out the spare key, hanging from a nail next to the door. “Looks like she didn’t intend to come back inside.”

Russ grunted. “Or someone didn’t intend her to.”

They found a gun locker in the unfinished basement. Russ asked Morin to print the battered metal chest, without much expectation of finding anything.

The message light was blinking on the kitchen phone. Russ tugged on his purple evidence gloves and hit the
PLAY
button. The first message was a shade above a whisper, as if the woman speaking didn’t want to be overheard. “Tally, where are you? Kirkwood’s having a hissy fit because you haven’t called in sick.” The second message was professionally warm. “Tally? This is Elaine Kirkwood in human resources. Are you ill? Please remember we need you to either phone in or request a personal day in advance.” The final message was a voice that made his skin crawl. “Hi, Tally. This is John Opperman. Please call me at your earliest convenience.”

“Whatever happened, she didn’t plan it in advance,” Lyle said.

“Get back to the HR woman. Let her know we’re investigating Tally’s death. I want to know her work history. Did she report directly to Opperman? Does she have any incidents on her record? Maybe lodged a complaint against him?”

“Russ.” Lyle stepped closer. “There must be two hundred people employed by BWI Opperman, if you count the construction crews and the part-timers. I know how you feel about Opperman, but you can’t automatically make him a person of interest because one of them decides to snuff it.”

“He doesn’t get my back up because he took Linda to the Caribbean, Lyle.”

His deputy chief looked at him.

“Okay, he does, but that’s not the
only
reason he goes on the list. The man built his company over the dead body of his former partner.”

“Accordin’ to you.”

“If I’m wrong, it’ll be easy enough to find out. It shouldn’t take more than a phone call.”

Lyle sighed. “All right.”

Russ moved on to the den. He poked at a stack of documents and bills next to the computer. “I want her e-mails. Bank statements, travel reservations. Run down her friends. Did she talk to anyone about killing herself? Or about trouble with her husband?”

“I’m going to need Eric.”

Russ blew out a breath. “Okay. Kevin and Knox must be done taking the neighbors’ statements. I’ll release them and set them on patrol.”

“They’ll be on overtime.”

“I know, I know.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll have to take a break soon. Clare and I have another premarital counseling session this evening. I’ll have my phone on, so you can reach me for anything, and I’ll head back here as soon as we’re done.” He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “I’d reschedule, but we’ve only got three more weeks to the wedding.”

“You don’t need to reschedule. Eric and I can handle—”

“Russ?” Dr. Dvorak’s precise European voice cut Lyle off.

“Yeah, Emil.” Russ crossed into the kitchen. Its open door led into the garage, and from there to the yard. “You all set?” The wind had risen, the temperature low fifties and dropping fast. As he and Lyle emerged from the garage, Kevin and Knox rounded the side of the building.

“Yes, the body is in the mortuary transport.” He gestured toward the pool, its bloodstained waters turning gray beneath the looming clouds. “I will want to be able to compare the weapon’s particulars against the cranial damage the deceased sustained.”

“Uh…” Russ looked at Lyle. “Get a diver?”

“You want to call in the staties to get a gun out of a pool? Hell, you can see the thing from here. Just have somebody strip down and jump in.”

“You volunteering?”

“Hell, no. Rank hath its privileges. That’s a job tailor-made for a rookie.”

Russ, Kevin, and Emil Dvorak all looked at the newest member of the department. Russ was trying to manage his newly integrated force in a gender-blind fashion, but he didn’t think letting Hadley peel down to her skivvies was going to fly. Hadley stared back at them wary-eyed.

“No, no, Jesum, not her. I didn’t mean her.” Lyle, for the first time in the nine years Russ had known him, looked embarrassed.

“I’ll do it.” Kevin unbuckled his rig and handed it to Knox. “Can I use one of their towels, Chief?”

“Sure. Don’t leave your prints on anything.”

The young officer disappeared into the garage. Russ looked at Emil. “You said you could confirm she’d been shot through the head when you got her out.”

The medical examiner nodded. “I don’t need to autopsy her to see the bullet went through the back of her throat and exited out the upper rear of her skull.”

“She ate her gun,” Russ said.

“It does have the hallmarks of the classic suicide technique used by someone who wants to leave no chance that his attempt might fail. However, I cannot confirm the wound was self-inflicted. The time of death will be difficult, due to the temperature of the pool, and the presence of water creates a capillary osmosis, drawing blood out of the body even after the heart ceases.”

Lyle translated. “You’re saying there’s a chance she was killed elsewhere and dumped in the pool.”

“I have no evidence yet with which to express my opinion. I do want to make you aware there is a slight possibility you are dealing with a homicide.”

Kevin emerged from the garage wearing his T-shirt and purple evidence gloves, a large floral towel wrapped around his waist. Lyle coughed, a sound suspiciously like a laugh, and Knox said, “Don’t you want to take your shirt off? So it’ll be dry after?”

Kevin shot her a look. “I’m fine.” He dropped the towel, revealing striped boxers, and plunged into the pool. Twenty seconds later, he emerged from the water, teeth chattering, the .38 in one hand. Lyle held an evidence bag out. Kevin kicked to the edge of the pool and dropped the gun in. “D-d-do you want me to look for the casing, Chief?”

The afternoon hour and the approaching storm meant they were losing light fast. Maybe Kevin could strike it lucky. “As long as you’re wet, yeah, go ahead.”

Kevin dove again. He went under two times, three, each time breaking the surface gulping for air and shaking his head. After his fourth dive to the bottom, his lips were tinged blue.

“Come on out, Kevin. No sense in you getting hypothermia.” Russ wondered how difficult it would be to get the pool drained. If Emil Dvorak confirmed the .38 caused her death, they’d be fine. If not, he’d sure like to know if there was a shell casing down there or not.