Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) (42 page)

Fortunately, he didn’t have to do much entertaining. As soon as they’d gotten coffees—more proof that law enforcement runs on caffeine—they’d hunkered down with Harlene, who was fighting her way through a jam-packed bandwidth so they could pick up what sounded like an ongoing argument with a sergeant from NYSP Troop G. “We don’t need an entire SWAT team,” Tom O’Day was saying. “We just need a couple of guys.”

“Call the Essex County Sheriff’s Department.”

“They’re flat out with traffic, and they don’t have a Special Forces team.”

“What about your own shooters?” the statie asked. “You Feds spend more on your teams than we get for the whole damn troop.”

“We need to keep this as quiet as possible. And with this weather, it’ll take our team the rest of the day just to get into place. Your station’s thirty miles away.”

“In case you didn’t know, we’re a little busy with the weather as well. We got accidents, downed live power lines, and stranded civilians from here to Ogdensburg, and one of Troop B’s men has gone missing in the park. These are the Adirondack Mountains, Agent. We usually do our drug busts in the summer, when you can get up the damn roads.”

Tom O’Day looked at his wife and made a
now what?
gesture. She leaned toward the mic. “Sergeant, we’d like to speak with your supervisor.”

“I’ll be sure to have her call you back, ma’am.” Even over the uncertain radio signal, Lyle could hear the statie’s kiss-off-and-die tone. “She should be back within a few hours.” The sergeant signed off.

Marie O’Day handed the mic back to Harlene. “You know if we go up there into their jurisdiction without at least some NYSP support, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

“The Essex County Drug Task Force?” Lyle suggested.

She waved her hand. “Would be great, if we had three or four days to coordinate. Your Officer Knox kept yapping about how the missing girl is going to die at any second without medical care.”

Lyle decided to ignore the agent’s poke at Knox. They were here, after all, which meant however Hadley nettled them, she did it right. “Where’s LaMar’s meth house located?” Maybe he could call in a few favors, if it wasn’t too far off the beaten path.

Tom O’Day stood, towering over Lyle. “Do you have an area map?” Lyle led the agents into the squad room, where a New York State map shared wall space with a window-sized map of Washington County. O’Day went to the smaller map.

“Here.” O’Day pointed to the tip of a lake. “There aren’t any actual towns around. See this spot on County Highway 16? There’s a road that branches off here. You follow it all the way up past the lake—”

“Lake Inverary.”

“Yes. As I was saying—”

Lyle didn’t wait to hear the rest. He bolted back to the dispatch center. “Harlene, get that sergeant from Crown Point back on the line.”

Harlene bent to the task of routing her signal across the depleted network. The O’Days followed him, both wearing identical frowns. Marie O’Day crossed her arms. “What’s going on? That place isn’t anywhere near your jurisdiction.”

Lyle held up a hand as the state troopers’ station came on the line. “Sergeant, this is Deputy Chief MacAuley of the Millers Kill Police Department.”

“Deputy Chief, I already told those feebs they were barking up the wrong tree. We’re busting our nuts up here. We don’t have time to send a squad on a wild goose chase.”

“Sergeant, is the missing trooper Lieutenant Bob Mongue? From Troop B?”

There was a pause. Then a suspicious “Ye-es.”

Lyle grinned at the agents. “Then Sergeant, this is your lucky day. I know where he is.”

5.

“Ready?” Russ looked at Clare. She nodded. “Count of three. One, two,
three.
” They lifted the blanket beneath Bob Mongue. Russ, who was kneeling in the narrow rear well of the Ford, grunted as he scootched backward. Clare strained to get her end of the blanket higher than her chest.

They were trying to transfer Bob from his berth in the canoe to the backseat of the pickup, which they had moved from the garage onto the road in front of Roy’s house. She and Russ had dragged Bob across the ice in the canoe, which he hailed as the only civilized way to travel. Of course, he was hopped up on Oxy again, so his opinion was a little suspect.

When Clare had awakened midmorning, after an uncomfortable night plagued with dreams she thankfully couldn’t remember, Russ tried to persuade her to stay with the lieutenant while he retrieved the truck and went hunting for Travis and Hector, where they were hoping Mikayla would also be. She countered by offering to go get the Ford while
he
stayed with Bob, on the grounds that he would be a more effective protector if the bad guys came back. They bickered about it for a while until Bob declared them both ready for martyrdom and pointed out that splitting up that last time hadn’t worked well for anyone.

Russ had reached the point where they could hoist Bob onto the seat. “Can you get him a couple inches higher?”

Clare gritted her teeth and heaved. Bob and the blanket slid onto the backseat. Clare handed up the duffel bag. Russ stuffed it behind the lieutenant, then settled a blanket over his injured leg, stretched out along the seat. Bob leaned back against the duffel, brushing snow off himself.

“How is it?” Russ asked.

“’S fine. I’ll probably want to brace my good foot on the floor when we’re moving, though.”

“Be grateful you’re such a string bean. I can barely squeeze in back there.” Russ shut the narrow crew door. “Clare, I’m going to want you to drive. Climb on in and let the heater blast, will you? I’m going to check the house to see if there’s anything else useful for us.”

Clare got behind the wheel. The cab had already started to heat up while they were parked, and for a moment, she simply lay back against the seat, soaking up the sensation of warmth. She unzipped her coat so as to heat up her inner layers, then rubbed her belly as the baby began to roll and kick inside her.

“Acting up, is he?”

She laughed a little. “Yeah. Lately, it seems as if as soon as I stop moving, he starts.”

“He?”

“Or she.”

“You’ll pardon me for sticking my oar in, but you two seem more than usually nerved up for first-time parents.”

Clare adjusted the blowers to send more heat into the back. “Well. The baby was unplanned.”

“Hell, our first three were unplanned. After that, my wife and I just decided to expect she’d get pregnant. That way, we weren’t shocked when it happened.”

Clare laughed. “How many children do you have?”

“Five. Including one with Down syndrome.”

Clare’s smile died away.

“So I know what it’s like to be facing … well, let’s say a different outcome than you had hoped.”

She turned around in her seat. “How did you know?”

“Heard you two last night. Him asking you if you’d dipped into the Oxys. You talking about your problem.”

Her voice stuck in her throat. “I was … it’s not really the pills. I was drinking. A lot. After I finished my tour of duty in Iraq.” She wiped her hand over her eyes. “I don’t usually talk about this.”

“Yeah, I can see why. Your husband’s kind of an asshole about it.”

“No! He’s not! He’s just feeling out of control. It’s not his fault. Before we married, we agreed—”

“Not to have kids. Yeah, he told me.”

Unwillingly, Clare’s mouth quirked up. “Do you always get people to open up about their deep, dark secrets?”

“It’s a useful trait for a cop. Or, I’m guessing, a minister.” He shifted, bringing his good leg down. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re good for him. He used to be stodgy.”

“Stodgy?”

“Like a superannuated Eagle Scout. He needed some shaking up. You know what they call him over at the Troop B barracks?”

“What?”

“Russ Van All-shine.”

She was giggling when Russ opened the passenger door. “I see you two are getting along.” He tossed a plastic grocery sack into her lap and brushed the snow off before climbing in. He unzipped his parka and held his hands next to the vents. “Colder’n a witch’s tit out there.” He nodded toward the sack. “Peanut butter and crackers and some of those pudding cups. As soon as they thaw out we can eat ’em.” He reached for the mic and switched on the radio. “Might as well try this one more time.” He scanned up the dial, then down. Nothing but static. He set it to the emergency frequency. “Troop G Dispatch, this is Russ Van Alstyne of the MKPD, do you copy?” He paused. Nothing. “Any emergency service on this channel, this is Chief Russ Van Alstyne of the MKPD. Officer in need of assistance.” Nothing.

“The tower’s down,” Bob said. “Up here, with all the mountains around, they need those physical relays to get through.”

“Yeah.” Russ balanced the mic in his hand for a second, then hung it up again. He turned toward the back. “Bob, hand me the shotgun.” The trooper complied.

“What are you planning to do?” Clare tried to keep her voice level.

“You’re going to drive up South Shore and keep going up Haines Mountain Road. Slowly. Walking pace.” She nodded. “I’m going to be in the back.”

“With Bob?”

“No. In the bed. I want a clear line of sight in case we come under fire.”

“Do you think that’s likely?”

“I hope not. My idea is to drive until we spot some sign of life—parked cars, smoke from a chimney, the sound of a generator. Then we’ll stop and I’ll go forward on foot to check it out and hopefully find Mikayla.”

Clare looked out the windshield at the steadily falling snow. “Are you going to be able to see smoke or cars from a safe-enough distance? In this?”

“Our other alternative is for you two to head for help while I reconnoiter on my own.”

“No.” She took his hand. “We stick together.”

He twined his fingers through hers for a moment before twisting to the rear again. “Bob, you have the Glock and the Taurus Clare took from Roy. Don’t hesitate to shoot out the windows if you need to.”

Bob etched a salute. “It’d be my pleasure.”

Russ snorted. “I bet.” He pressed his lips to hers, the briefest of kisses, and opened the door. Clare waited until she could see him in the rearview mirror. He thumped twice on the cab roof. She took a deep breath, shifted into gear, and drove forward.

6.

In the end, it was one Essex County deputy, two guys from the Troop G tactical team, the Feds, and him and Hadley.

“Us?” Kevin asked the dep.

“You,” MacAuley said. “You’ve been working the case all along.”

“But…” Hadley’s hands twitched. The dep had dragged them into the chief’s office as soon as they had gotten into the station. “Shouldn’t you be there, too?”

“Somebody’s got to run this insane asylum until the chief gets back. It’s getting worse out there, not better.”

MacAuley was right. Snow on top of the ice was bringing down even more trees and lines. National Grid crews were out replacing utility poles for the second time. Near Plattsburgh, an entire substation had crumpled beneath the weight, and Kevin had heard they were bringing in linemen from as far away as the Carolinas to help. The governor had declared a state of emergency.

“You two will only be backup,” the dep went on. “The Feds and the tac team will take lead. All you have to do is take custody of Annie Johnson, if, please Jesus, she’s there, and find out where her daughter is. We’ll plan our next move on her information.”

“And if Mikayla is there?” Hadley asked.

“Get her medical attention ASAP. There’s the Moses-Ludington up in Ticonderoga, that’ll be the closest hospital. At some point, if you can manage it, see if you can get to the chief’s cabin. A statie named Bob Mongue drove up to check on him and Reverend Fergusson, and I suspect they’re all stuck out there in the woods. Take a set of chains and your SUV. That oughta do you.”

Harlene gave him a yell about the Essex County sheriff’s office on the line, and MacAuley took off for her dispatch board. Hadley looked at Kevin. “We’re going to get stuck, you know. Inverary Lake is practically in the High Peaks. They probably already had five feet of snow before the ice hit.”

He couldn’t put an arm around her, not in the chief’s office, so he settled for a shoulder bump. “It’ll be fine. Turned out pretty good the last time, didn’t it?”

7.

It wasn’t a column of smoke or the noise of a generator that tipped Russ off. It was the smell. A combination of rotten egg and scorched oil and vinegar, it cut through the clean scent of the snow and the pines, pinching his nose, making his eyes water. He rapped on the roof of the cab.

Clare slowed to a stop, then rolled her window down. “Want a break?” In the hour that they had been creeping up Haines Mountain Road, he had called three stops to warm himself up in the cab, eat some peanut butter and pudding, and slug back some of the slowly melting water.

Russ swung himself off the bed. “No.”

Clare sniffed. “What is that god-awful smell?”

From the backseat, Bob said, “That, Mrs. Van Alstyne, is the smell of crystal methamphetamine.”

Clare wrinkled her nose. “And people
ingest
it? It must give an unbelievable high. I mean, to get past that.”

Russ hung his arm in her window. “It doesn’t smell once it’s cooked.” He gestured for the box of shells. She handed it to him. “I’m going to walk from here.”

“Let me come with you. You won’t have any way to let us know if you get in trouble.”

“If I get into real trouble, I’ll fire two blasts. If you hear that, I want you to head for the county highway as fast as you can without putting ’er in a snowbank.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“Clare.” He laid one gloved hand on her arm. “The best thing you can do is be here, in the truck, waiting to make a getaway if I come running. The second-best thing you can do is find help as quick as you can if I don’t come running.” He looked toward the backseat. “Bob? Make sure she doesn’t come after me.”

“I should what, shoot her in the leg?”

“Just remind her that you’re completely helpless without her at the wheel, and that if she gets hurt or captured, you could die here.” He glanced at Clare.