“That’s so romantic.” And it was true. Every story of “how we met” was romantic because every one had the magical element of blissful chance-if he had kept on the old secretary, if her mother hadn’t told her about the job-and the sense of divine providence. They were meant to meet. They were destined to fall in love.
Russ Van Alstyne walked through the living-room door.
He was jacketless, in jeans and a uniform shirt, which meant he was probably not officially on duty. He was carrying a cardboard box big enough to hold the contents of a file cabinet drawer, and as he turned, scanning the room for Mrs. Rouse, Clare had just enough time to register that he was overdue for a haircut, before his eyes settled on hers.
He covered the space between the door and the love seat in three steps and was lowering the box to the floor before he shifted his gaze from Clare to the woman sitting next to her. “Mrs. Rouse,” he said, “I want to take a minute to go over what I’m bringing with me, but first”-he smiled a little-“can you point me toward a bathroom?”
“Through the dining room, into the kitchen, on your right,” she said.
“Thanks.” His eyes returned to Clare. “Reverend.”
“Chief.” She twisted toward Mrs. Rouse, quite deliberately not watching him walk away, and picked up the first thread she could find leading back to their conversation. “So you’ve been married since…?”
“Nineteen sixty-four.”
“And have you lived in this house since then?” Clare glanced around the room, safe now that Russ had disappeared through the dining-room doorway. “It has a wonderful feel to it. Very welcoming, as if it’s been sheltering a family for a long time.”
Mrs. Rouse smiled. “Thank you! But no, we didn’t move here until we’d been married about ten years. When we started out, we were the proverbial church mice. We had Kerry right away, which was what everyone did in those days, start your family before the ink had dried on the wedding certificate.” She leaned forward and patted Clare’s knee. “Your generation is much more sensible. Wait until you’ve established yourselves before having children.” Clare had a flash of self-consciousness-is that what I’m doing?-before returning her attention to Mrs. Rouse. “Of course, Allan was working for the clinic, so it wasn’t as if he was earning what he could have in private practice.”
“Did he ever consider leaving the clinic?”
“All the time. At least during those early years. He had a plan all worked up for after he had fulfilled his obligation to Mrs. Ketchem. She had paid his way though medical school and his residency, you know, so that he could come back and serve in her clinic.”
“Like the military.”
“Yes. He was going to go back to New York once his seven years were up and join in a partnership with some of his friends from medical school. Then life would be grand, we wouldn’t have to eat beans, etcetera. I used to tease him about it, call him Jacob. Laboring seven years to win his bride.”
“But you didn’t leave.”
“No. He became very close to Mrs. Ketchem in her final illness. He was with her when she died, you know. I think he became caught up in her vision of what the clinic could mean for the town. He knew darn well the board of aldermen would never find anyone as dedicated to the job as he was.” Her smile tipped up on one side. “And it didn’t hurt that they revisited his salary after Mrs. Ketchem died. It’s funny,” she said, her eyes easing into nostalgia. “During the years when you’re living on macaroni and cheese and falling into bed exhausted each day from taking care of little kids, you long so for the future. And it isn’t until the future arrives that you realize how wonderful it all was.”
Clare reached for Mrs. Rouse’s hand at the same moment Russ reentered the dining room. Without turning to look, she knew he was there, circling around the shining walnut table, coming through the archway, crossing the floor. “Mind if I interrupt you two?” he said. Mrs. Rouse’s relaxed expression tightened into taut lines of reined-in panic.
He squatted next to the love seat, resting one hand on the cover of the cardboard box. “The first thing I want you to know is that we’ll be calling the friends that you said you were calling the night your husband disappeared. We’re not checking up on you-”
Oh yeah? Clare thought.
“-but maybe talking with the police will jar some memories loose.” He smiled, an I’m-on-the-job-so-everything-will-be-all-right smile that seemed to ease Mrs. Rouse’s tension.
“I’ve got a lot of your husband’s financial information here,” he said. “Bank account statements, credit card bills, things related to your expenses. There were also a lot of miscellaneous papers in the middle drawer of his desk; I’ve packed them up, too.”
“I can’t imagine what use all that will be, except for you to see I spend too much on clothes.” Renee Rouse laughed, a brittle sound that died away almost before it had begun. “What do you think you’re going to find?”
“I don’t know yet. But if we go on the assumption your husband is alive, then either he’s taken himself off deliberately, or he is, for some reason, unable to come home to you. I’m going to look for something that might give us a push in one direction or another.” Clare watched Mrs. Rouse’s face as she came to the realization that there could be explanations behind her husband’s disappearance almost as painful as his death.
“One thing we know is that he had his wallet and his checkbook with him. You two keep your accounts at Key Bank, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’d like to contact the manager and have them place an alert notice on your accounts. They’ll notify us if a check is written on the account or if he uses his ATM. Obviously, this’ll be a lot easier if you aren’t writing checks and using your card-”
Mrs. Rouse held up one hand. “I have a separate account that I use most of the time. Allan’s checkbook and ATM card are to our big joint account, and I hardly ever draw on that. He was-” She caught herself, her eyes terrified by the way she had put him into the past tense. “He is,” she began again, “the bill payer in our house.”
At that moment, a single voice in a one-woman conversation flowed out of the kitchen, cascaded through the dining room, and began to swirl around the living room. “Here comes the coffee! And Lacey has the tea. Nancy, you go back and bring out the tray with the sugar and cream on it, will you? I hope everyone is okay with leaded. I couldn’t find the decaf. But nowadays they say it’s not the caffeine that’s bad for you, but the stuff they use to take it out. So we’re probably all better off.”
Renee Rouse stood. “Yvonne’s finished in the kitchen.”
“Now, Renee, you sit right down and rest! That’s what we’re here for, to make things easier for you. Who wants a cup? And there’s another crumb cake in the kitchen I’m going to bring out.”
Russ, who had evidently already met Yvonne, squared the box of documents under his arm and thrust his hand toward Mrs. Rouse. “I’ll let you know the minute we have any news,” he said, his voice pitched low. “You have my card. Call me at any time, day or night, if you need to.”
“Thank you, Chief.”
“It looks like a homemade crumb cake. You can always tell because the store doesn’t use enough butter to hold things together. Of course, enough butter, you might as well just call ahead and book your bypass surgery. So who made the crumb cake? Fess up!”
Russ glanced at Clare, as if he might say something, then settled for nodding and disappearing through the living-room door as fast as he could.