“That’s the plan.” He slid the hot chocolate into a plastic cup holder. The prices she had been quoting for publishing the damn thing would have made his eyes pop out if he hadn’t been wearing his glasses, but she was convinced the increased sales would make it worthwhile. Linda knew a damn sight more about the care and feeding of money than he ever would. He hadn’t asked if increased sales would make their lives more worthwhile.
“Dispatch, I’m rolling out of Main and Canal, heading for Route forty-seven. Anything else?”
“Reverend Fergusson called a half hour ago. Said she’d be in her office in the church until five thirty or so. Want me to raise her for you?”
He tapped the microphone against his chin. “No,” he said, “I’ll swing by that way. Let me know if you can’t get Noble, we may have to call in one of the part-time guys. It’s gonna be a mess out here within a few hours.”
The church was dark when Russ pulled into the tiny parking area out back, but he could see lights shining from the attached building that housed the offices and parish hall. The kitchen door was locked tight. He followed the walkway shoveled around the parish hall until he reached the big double doors. Open, of course. He shook his head. It wouldn’t occur to her to lock the door behind her.
“Clare? Hey, Clare, it’s me. Russ.” He brushed snow off his parka. The coffeemaker squatting on the table was on. So were the hall lights. In Clare’s office, the remains of a fire burned low on the brick hearth. Her appointment book, a fistful of pink phone message slips and a half-full mug of cold coffee sat on her desk.
“Clare? You here?” Maybe she had run over to the rectory? He backtracked outside, crossed the parking area and craned to see over the tall boxwood hedge separating Clare’s driveway from the church grounds. The rectory was dark. No tire tracks or footprints marred the fresh snow on her steps.
Frowning, he returned to her office. What the hell had taken her in such an all-fired hurry she couldn’t bank the fire or turn off the coffeemaker? He glanced at her appointment book. Nothing for Saturday except a morning visit to the Infirmary. He flipped through the pink phone message slips. Nothing. He walked down the shadowy hall to the cold, dark church. A single votive candle hung in a red glass container to the left of the altar, washing a carved wooden cabinet with a ruddy glow. “Clare?” he called. His voice echoed back from hard lines of stone.
He slapped his gloves against one thigh, talking himself out of the unease creeping up the base of his skull. She had probably been called away on one of those mysterious “pastoral emergencies.” No big deal. There was nothing compelling him to find out what it was. Of course, if he listened to the answering machine, he might be able to figure out where she had gone without making an ass of himself calling around. He stalked back up the hall, annoyed at Clare for being so damn hard to get hold of, annoyed even more at himself for wasting time worrying about it.
The main office was as dark as the church. He snapped on the lights, dropped into the secretary’s chair, punched the blinking red button on the answering machine. It beeped and obediently began reciting its messages. Next to the phone was a spiral-bound book for written messages, yellow carbon copies, and unused pink tear-out squares. He sat up straighter. There were carbon records of his calls, that one about the baptism, a meeting, and there, slopping over two spaces, a detailed message he hadn’t seen on Clare’s desk.
Russ held the memorandum book at arm’s length, tilting his head back to make out the words. A meeting with Kristen McWhorter up in the mountains? He closed his eyes, envisioning the route described on the message copy. Somewhere around Tenant or Buck Mountain? West of Lake Lucerne. Wherever this cabin was, it would be one hell of a tough drive for Clare’s car. He cut off the recording in the middle of some woman going on about her son and dialed the station. “Harlene? I need you to find a phone number for me. Kristen McWhorter. It’ll be in either McWhorter file.”
He traced the slashes underlining URGENT! while waiting for Harlene to return with the number. Jumping into that piece of flashy junk and driving into the mountains without stopping to think about the consequences sounded just like Clare. Somebody needed to teach that woman to measure twice and cut once.
“Chief?” Harlene rattled off Kristen’s number. “Anything I can help with?”
“Nah. I’m just trying to track down Reverend Fergusson. She’s not here at the church. If she happens to call in, make sure you find out how I can reach her.”
“You got it.”
He hung up and immediately dialed Kristen’s apartment. It rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello?”
“Kristen? This is Chief Van Alstyne.”
“Oh, Christ. What is it now? You find something new?”
“No. Kristen, did you call Reverend Fergusson earlier today and ask her to meet you and your mother at a cousin’s cabin? Someplace near Tenant Mountain?”
There was a blank pause. “What? I’m sorry, Chief, my cousins live in trailers, not mountain cabins. I haven’t spoken with Clare since the day before yesterday. What’s going on?”
The unease Russ had been fending off jelled into a solid icy mass of dread. “I’ll get back to you.”
“Can you—”
He dropped the receiver in its cradle, rubbing his forehead with his fist. Christ on a bicycle. The question of who had set out to lure Clare into the Adirondack wilds would have to be put on hold. Whatever was waiting for her there was more important.
He tore the yellow carbon sheet out of the memorandum book and left the church office at a fast dogtrot. In his cruiser, he radioed Harlene while firing the engine up and maneuvering out of the tiny parking area. “Ten-fifteen, this is ten-fifty-seven, come in.”
“Ten-fifty-seven, this is dispatch, come back.”
“Harlene, I want you to call in Tim and Duane for traffic duty. Somebody pretending to be Kristen McWhorter conned Reverend Fergusson into driving up into the mountains.” Squinting at the yellow sheet, he read the directions to Harlene. “I’m heading after her. I’m inbound to the station, gonna switch this cruiser for my truck. She’ll handle the roads up there better.” He slowed to take the left onto Main.
“Do you want me to send backup along?”
He frowned at the snow spattering against his windshield. “No. I have a feeling we’re going to be short-handed as it is. I can handle this. Ten-fifty-seven out.”
He pulled into the station’s parking lot as he hung up his mike. His truck was parked in the rear, already blanketed with snow. He killed the cruiser’s engine, got out, unlocked the trunk. From its locked safety box, he removed the rifle and a box of shells. He cracked the magazine. The chambers were loaded.
Russ laid the rifle and the ammunition in the backseat of the pickup before starting it up. It roared to life reassuringly, warming up fast as Russ swept the dry powdery snow off the windows and headlights. By the time he hiked himself up into the cab, warm air was blasting from the vents. He tossed his gloves onto the yellow memorandum sheet, reversed, and rolled out of the lot, the four-wheel-drive gripping tight to the packed-down snow.
He made good time, considering the roads. Traffic was heavy on Route 9, as he had predicted, shoppers heading home to fix dinner passing shoppers just hitting the stores. The evening trade would be starting soon, maybe not dinners-out so much in this storm, but worse, habitual drinkers who spent every Saturday night on a barstool, Christmas party-goers who wouldn’t see anything wrong in having just one more cup of rum and eggnog.
The driving was trickier once he had taken the exit to Tenant Road. His truck held well to the road, but it was a bad surface, driven over just enough to be slushy and half-frozen. His windshield wipers beat away steadily at the spitting snow. The sound made him think of Wednesday night, driving through the last storm, Clare in the passenger seat, exhausted and weeping. Paying attention to everyone’s feelings except her own, until they snuck up and blindsided her. A single car approached. He squinted to make it out, snorting as it crept past slowly. Some Subaru. God damn, he should have dragged her to the Fort Henry dealership and made her lease something winter-worthy.