He shifted his gaze toward Kevin and Wyler McNabb. The latter was still seated on the floor, still complaining loudly about his injuries. “What’d Kevin do to him?”
“ I hit him with the baton just above his tailbone.” Hadley indicated the spot on her own back. “I figured it would hurt enough to make him forget about fighting for a while, without causing any real damage.” She frowned. “You don’t think I did, do you? Really hurt him?”
He snorted. “No.” He looked at Nichols again. The chief had settled himself back on the floor, hands open on his knees, the image of compliance. Clare was making a beeline for Russ and Hadley.
“He doesn’t have any place to stay,” she said without preamble. “I was thinking-”
“No.”
She frowned. “You could at least hear me out.”
“You’re not putting him up at the rectory, Clare.” He held up one hand to forestall whatever half-baked idea she was about to start in on. “Knox, get the address and phone number from the husband. Try to get some friends’ or relatives’ names, too.”
She nodded and strode off toward the guy, one hand still resting on her baton. Clare immediately said, “We can at least help him find a local motel.”
“He’s going to be spending the night in the lockup.”
Her mouth dropped open. “For defending himself in a bar fight? You can’t do that to him.”
He stared at her. “Of course I can.”
She blew out an impatient breath. “You know what I mean. Out here, it’s thirty days’ community service or a couple hundred bucks, but when the army gets wind of it, it’ll mean serious trouble.”
She was right. What was a normal Friday night on the town for a twenty-year-old enlisted kid could be a career killer for a thirty-year-old CWO.
“I didn’t say I was going to charge him, just that I’m going to book him.”
She spread her hands in a what? gesture.
“Look.” He touched her sleeve lightly, drawing her in closer. “My primary concern right now is the woman they were fighting over. She’s taken off, and I don’t know if one, or both, of these guys is a threat to her. Until I can locate her and get some more information, I don’t want to release either of ’em. So I’m going to send Knox out to track her down, and in the meantime, both men can cool their heels in the county jail.”
“You’re not going to book the husband? He started it.”
“What are you, the judge and jury? I’m going to develop facts, Clare. Then I’ll make a decision. That’s how people who think things through do it.”
She made a noise.
He smiled despite himself. “I gotta talk to the owner.” He started toward the bar. She fell into step beside him. He sighed. “Now you’ve seen what all the fuss was about, why don’t you go back to the truck and wait for me?”
“Are you kidding?” She looked around with lively interest. “I’ve never been in the Dew Drop Inn before.”
“For a very good reason. This piss-hole is no place for a-a-”
“Officer? Lady? Priest?”
“A nice Episcopalian.”
She laughed.
The owner, washing glasses behind the bar, looked up at Clare. Then at Russ. Back to Clare. Then to Russ. “Chief.” His balding head dipped in a motion halfway between greeting and warning. “She with that black guy?”
“She’s with me.” Russ spread his hands on the bar. The odor of yeast and wood and wet soapy rag, the smell of his days as a drunk, rose up around him. For a second, he felt the deep, gut-pulling urge for a Jack Daniel’s. He ignored it. “Want to tell me what you saw?”
“That black boy came in, ordered some fancy beer I ain’t never heard of. Told him I got Miller’s, Bud, and Matt’s. He bought a Matt’s and hung out at the bar until Wyler McNabb’s wife came up for another Seven-and-Seven. Then they got to talking. Arguing.”
“You hear anything that went on between ’em?”
The old guy was still eying Clare. Trying to figure her out. “Hell, no. After all these years with that damn jukebox playing, it’s a wonder I can hear a customer order.”
“Okay. Then what?”
“Wyler McNabb saw ’em. Came up, started getting in the boy’s face, with his pack o’ friends hanging off behind a ways. I could tell then and there it was gonna come to trouble, so I called your guys.” He raised his eyebrows. “And this woman shows up.” He shook his head. “Pretty goddamn embarrassing. Back in the day, I woulda run ’em all out with my baseball bat, but nowadays a man can’t protect what’s his for fear the lawyers’ll come after him.”
“Mmn. You want to press charges?”
“Naw. Wyler’s a good customer. Likes to buy a whole round at a time for his buddies. If I find something broke, I’ll just hit him up for the cost next time he’s in.”
“Okay.” Russ hooked Clare’s arm and drew her away. “I need to wrap things up, but-”
A pair of bikers walked up to them. One had a handkerchief where his hair used to be, and the other’s gray beard was so long he had twined the end of it into braids. Screaming eagles and snapping flags covered the fronts of their leather vests. Russ tensed, but they ignored him. “Ma’am?” the bearded guy said. “That lady cop over there said you was just back from Iraq.”
“That’s right,” Clare said warily. “I got home today.”
Both men grinned. “In that case, ma’am, we’d be honored to buy you a drink.”
She raised her eyebrows and looked bemused. “Why, thank you. I’d like that.”
“I don’t know-” Russ started, but Clare put her hand on his arm.
“I think I have time for a drink while you wrap things up, don’t I, Chief Van Alstyne?” She smiled up at him in a particularly Southern way, and that was it-she was off toward the bar, looking fascinated as one of ’em rattled on about how a helicopter pilot had saved his life. As they walked away, Russ could see the regimental and service tags from Vietnam sewn on the backs of their vests. These gray and balding bikers were his contemporaries. His brothers in arms.
It didn’t take him long to finish up. Kevin had driven his Aztek, so Russ had Knox transport both Nichols and McNabb in her unit-Nichols up front, as both a professional courtesy and a precaution against McNabb going after him again.
“I want all the info you have for the wife on Eric’s desk,” Russ told her. “He’ll follow up tomorrow and get her side of the story.” Knox nodded. “Tell the booking officer I want both these guys in a twenty-four-hour hold for D and D, and then he can release them.”
Knox worried her lower lip. “What about McNabb’s back? He’s still complaining.”
“Tell him we’ll take him to the hospital, but first he has to have a full body cavity search.” Kevin, who’d been hovering behind Knox, snorted laughter. “If he accepts on those terms, you’ll know he’s really hurting. If not, ignore him.”
“Got it.”
Russ glanced at his other junior officer. “Kevin, we’ll see you at the morning briefing tomorrow.” He pointed to the blue band twining around the kid’s bicep. “You don’t have any other surprises for me, do you? Piercings, earrings?”
Kevin grinned. “Nothing you’ll see, Chief.” Knox glanced toward him, the twist of her mouth suggesting a kind of unwilling curiosity.
Russ shook his head. “Get out of here, both of you.” God, he was old. Old, old, old. Then he turned and saw Clare standing at the bar, laughing at something one of the bikers said, and as he watched she tilted her head back and swallowed the last of a tall glass of peat-brown liquor, her eyes closing, the long line of her throat exposed, and suddenly, in a rush of heat, he didn’t feel old at all.
O ALMIGHTY GOD, WHO HAST COMPASSED US ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A CLOUD OF WITNESSES…
– Collect for the Proper of a Saint, The Book of Common Prayer