I Shall Not Want (9 page)

“Lucia. Have you called nine-one-one?”

“Yes.” There was a noise, as if the older woman were gasping for breath. “There are two officers here. An ambulance is coming.”

“How can I help?”

“I was—” Her voice faded away.

“Lucia? Lucia? Where are you?”

“Sorry. I’m off Route 137 in Cossayuharie. The van—a tire blew. We went off the road.”

“We?”

“Some of the men are hurt,” the nun said. “They’re afraid. They’re running off into the woods—please, Clare, please—”

“I’ll be right there. I’m getting into my car right now. You sit still and do whatever the EMTs tell you to. I’ll take care of everything else.”

“Thank you—” The call went dead. Clare dropped the phone back into her cargo pocket. Swung open the back door and dropped the bag of booze on the floor. She paused, hand in pocket, fingers curled over her keys. She could just get in and drive away. She didn’t have to say anything to Russ.

Cowardly
, Master Sergeant Ashley “Hardball” Wright, her survival training instructor, sneered.

Rude
, Grandmother Fergusson chided.

She turned back to him and was startled to find he had recrossed the parking lot and was a scant few feet away from her again. “I’ve got to run,” she said. “This missioner nun I’ve agreed to help, Sister Lucia, she’s—”

“Been in a single-vehicle accident. It’s a bad one. I’m headed there.”

“Oh.” His phone call. Of course. “I guess I’ll see you there.”

“I guess I’ll take you there.” He turned toward his truck, beckoning her to follow him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He turned back toward her. “Do you even know where it is?”

“Off the Cossayuharie Road…” Her voice sank as she realized Sister Lucia’s description covered a lot of ground.

“I guarantee I can get you there ten–fifteen minutes faster than you would on your own.” He shrugged. “But it’s up to you.” He strode toward the pickup.

She stood, paralyzed, for a second.
Don’t be stupid
, Hardball Wright said.
Just walk away
, her grandmother urged.

“Wait!” She dashed across the lot. “I’m coming with you.”

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, but kept the same steady pace toward the Ford F-250. By the time he crossed to the driver’s side, she had climbed into the cab and was buckled in, staring straight through the windshield as if the Napoli’s Liquor sign were the most interesting thing she had seen all day.

He fired up the truck. Unclipped the light from its mount and, rolling down his window, slapped it on the roof of the cab. “Hold on,” he said.

He pulled onto Route 137, accelerating until he was roaring down the county highway at a good twenty miles above the speed limit. He took his attention off the road for a split second, just long enough to glance at her. It was funny. When he’d thought of her these past months—when he’d let himself think about her—it was always as she was the day Linda died: white-faced, bruised, bloody-mouthed. Her eyes going green with horror as she stared at her hands.
Oh, my God
, she had cried.
What have I done
?

This Clare’s pointed nose and high cheekbones were flush with health. She radiated energy, from her crossed arms to her boots, planted square and firm against the floorboard. Whatever was making her eyes glint brown, it wasn’t horror.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me it’s your fault I’m going into harm’s way? That if it hadn’t been for you, I’d be in prayer and meditation right now instead of waiting to hear if I’m called up? Aren’t you going to take responsibility for me screwing up my pastoral duties, and Linda and her sister dying, and every person you work with and every crime ever committed under your watch and”—she waved a hand at the coffee-colored fields unfolding all around them—“and global warming? Didn’t you say we had to have this conversation?”

He did. Except he was going to look like an idiot if he just repeated everything she’d said. Christ, what did he think he was going to achieve by getting her in the truck with him? He should have left her there in the parking lot, her and her spiffy little Subaru and her grocery sack of liquor.

“Don’t you worry
you
might be drinking too much?” he said, seizing on another topic as a man who’s run out of ammunition might lay hold of a stick.

“Oh, for—”

They sailed over a rise to face a line of brake lights stretching down to the bottom of the valley. “Shit!” he said. “Hang on!” He stood on the brakes. The pickup skidded, slewed sideways in a shower of gravel and old salt, and came to rest three inches from the back end of a Toyota Corolla, whose driver was watching him with terrified eyes through her rearview mirror.

He turned to Clare. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She patted herself on her chest. Took a breath. “Yeah.”

He switched on the siren and inched into the oncoming lane. He could see the obstruction now—some farmer’s disk harrow had decided to break down, half on, half off its trailer, and the two pieces of machinery were blocking most of the road. The farmer, who had been shoving fruitlessly at the rear wheel of the harrow, turned to glare at them when Russ rolled to a stop. He turned off the siren but left the lights. Powered down the window on Clare’s side.

“Don’t you have a hand to help you with that thing?” he said.

“No, I don’t have no goddamn hand to help with the goddamn mess! Can’t get no goddamn help for love or goddamn money. Goddamn sumbitch a-hole—”

“I’ll send somebody from Fire and Rescue.” Russ closed the window over a steady stream of profanity and inched past the unsteady tangle, forcing the nearest car to roll most of the way into the drainage ditch to avoid getting clipped. Clare pointed to its driver, who was using body language to let Russ know what he thought of him.

“Another satisfied customer,” she said.

“Idiot shouldn’t have gotten so close to the accident.” He gave the accelerator a little kick. “You got John Huggins’s number in your phone?” John Huggins headed up the volunteer Fire and Rescue department.

“Just at home.”

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “He may already be at the scene of the single vehicle. Tell him he needs to get a couple of his guys over here to direct traffic and help Farmer Greenjeans haul his machinery off the road.”

Clare examined his contacts list. “Got it.” She dialed, and held the phone to her ear. Once past the remaining stalled cars, Russ sped up. “Uh—no,” Clare said, beside him. “It’s Clare Fergusson.” She glanced at Russ. “He gave it to me. He asked me to—” She sighed. “He’s fine. He’s sitting right next to me. He handed the phone to me so he could concentrate on his driving.”

There was a pause.

“Yes. Is that a problem?” Her voice was sharp. “No, don’t answer that. Listen, there’s a farmer with a broken down—” She looked over at Russ.

“Disk harrow,” he said.

“Disk harrow, about two, two and a half miles east of Napoli’s on the Cossayuharie Road. Russ—the chief wants you to send over a couple of men to help with the situation.” With her free hand, she poked at one of the bobby pins that was trying, and failing, to keep her whiskey-and-honey hair in a twist at the back of her head. “I know about that. We’re on our way there now.” She rolled her eyes at Russ. “Thanks, uh—Mr. Huggins.” She thumbed off the phone. “I never know what to call him. He always refers to me as Fergusson.”

“I’m sure he’d answer to Chief.”

She crossed her arms over her chest again and made a rude noise. “There’s only one chief in this town, and he’s not it.”

He blinked.

“I mean, you can’t hang a name on yourself and think it makes you a leader,” she said quickly. “You have to make yourself a leader, and then the title just comes naturally. I mean, I can call myself the Grand Duchess Anastasia, but it doesn’t—”

“I know what you mean.”

Her mouth clicked shut. She made a little hissing sound.

“You know, you can’t lead men and women without making yourself responsible for them.”

She turned her head away. Looked out her window. The road rose up to meet them, carrying them up into one of the mountainous fingers that pierced the rolling farmlands of Cossayuharie. The air around them darkened as the trees closed in. When she spoke, her voice was almost inaudible. “I never wanted you to lead me,” she said to the glass. “I just wanted—”

He didn’t get to hear what she wanted. They curved in a long arc down and around a steep cut in the hillside and there was the accident scene, at the point where the forest once more shaded into farmlands, laid out in front of them like a set of toy vehicles that some giant kid had played hard with and then abandoned.

“Oh, my God,” Clare said.

A large white van lay, overturned, among the trees, its crumpled side panel showing where it had rolled. More than once—it must have done a complete 360 and then some to be that far from the road. Only one ambulance, from Corinth—he frowned—but he could see two EMTs, bent over somebody at the side of the van. The Volunteer Fire Department’s pump and hose trucks were angled off to the side, with Huggins’s SUV parked tight behind. He pulled in behind Huggins. Clare had unbuckled and was swinging the door open before he had killed the engine. She dashed toward the ambulance. “Stay out of the way!” he shouted. She waved one hand in acknowledgment.

He found Kevin Flynn arguing with John Huggins, Hadley Knox close by, her arms wrapped around herself. “You okay?” Russ asked. She nodded.

“… how much assistance could they need?” Huggins was saying to Flynn. The fire chief’s shoe-leather face and squat four-by-four body made Flynn look even more like a junior varsity basketball player than usual, but the kid wasn’t backing down an inch.

“We won’t know that until your guys get out there and find them!”

“Settle down, Kevin. Give me a report.”

Flynn shot him a frustrated glance. “The driver says she heard a loud noise and then lost control. It looks like the left front tire blew. She went—well, you can see where she went.” He flung his arm out to where tender new grass and delicate maple saplings had been torn raw and crushed. “No witnesses to speak of. The driver said she saw a big boxy vehicle, maybe an Aztek or a Humvee or Jeep Cherokee, but it didn’t stop.” He sounded disgusted. “Didn’t call it in, either. The driver’s complaining of chest and shoulder pains, difficulty breathing, difficulty moving her legs, dizziness. We’ve got one guy unconscious, one guy with a broken arm, and one more banged up pretty bad.”

“That it for injuries? One driver, three passengers?”

Kevin blew out a puff of air. “I don’t know. Officer Knox and I responded with lights and sirens. Like we’re supposed to.”

Russ nodded.

“So when we come over the hill, we see guys running into the woods; I can’t tell you how many. They just scattered.” He glanced past Russ to where the long shadows of the mountains were darkening the woods and fields. “Some of them may be hurt.”

“As I was telling the kid, if they’re well enough to evade arrest, they’re well enough left alone.” Huggins removed his helmet and scrubbed at his bald spot. “I don’t see any need to send my guys chasing after them.”

“Evade arrest?” Russ’s question was aimed at Flynn, but Huggins answered.

“Illegals. Gotta be. Not a one of the ones left behind speaks a word of English. Probably one of them whaddayacallits. Where they smuggle ‘em in.”

“The driver is a nun!” Kevin said.

Russ pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “John, we’re not working for the Border Patrol. We’re working for the town, and the town doesn’t want injured people wandering around the woods in Cossayuharie, even if they don’t speak English. Get your men walking a search pattern. Tell ‘em to shout
No soy del I-C-E. Estoy aquí ayudarle
. Can you repeat that?”

Huggins screwed up his face, as if he were swallowing something nasty. “No soy del I-C-E. Eztoy ackee a-you-darrel.”

“Close enough.”

“Don’t know why they can’t just learn English,” Huggins said, stomping back to the pump truck.

“I didn’t know you speak Spanish, chief.”

“The army likes its warrant officers to have a second language. Got the chance to polish it up in Panama and the Philippines.”

Flynn looked impressed. Of course, it didn’t take much to impress a twenty-four-year-old who had never been out of New York State.

“C’mon, let’s see if we can sort out these people.” He headed toward the battered van, Flynn falling in beside him. After a beat, so did Knox. “You see or hear anything that might make you think they had another reason to flee?”

Flynn shook his head. “Nope.”

“Well… .” Knox sounded hesitant.

“What is it?” Russ stopped and faced his newest officer. She was biting the inside of her cheek. “Listen,” he said. “You know how you tell your kids there aren’t any dumb questions? Well, there aren’t any dumb details. Noticing things around you, at an accident, on a crime scene, patrolling, making a stop—someday it could make the difference between life and death.
Your
life and death.”

She nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Two of the guys left behind were talking about the accident. One of them was saying he heard two pops, you know, two noises like the tires were blowing out, and the other guy said he heard three.” She looked up at Flynn. “But Officer Flynn said it was one tire blown out. When we got here.”

Next to him, Flynn stiffened. “You speak Spanish, too? Why didn’t you tell me? We coulda questioned those men!”

She shrugged. “You told me our job was to secure the scene.”

Russ sighed. “Hadley. We’re a small department. We can’t afford to have anybody sit on his ass and say, ‘That’s not my job.’ Pardon my French.”

“I didn’t—”

He held up one hand. “We work as a team. If you have anything to contribute to the team, whether it’s an observation, or a skill, or a piece of knowledge, I expect you to put it out there. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”