D-

Remember the guy I told you about? He’s making me an offer. The kind that’s too good to be true. What do you think?

Love, L

The part of him that was a cop was envisioning a scenario that blew MacAuley’s the-chief-was-the-target theory out of the water. “Hey, Lyle,” he yelled. He heard a thwap of files hitting the kitchen table, and then Lyle strolled through the door.

“AllBanc says no activity on the checking account or the credit cards.”

Russ waved the information away. “Take a look at these e-mails.” He stood, gesturing for Lyle to take his place. “Linda and her sister, writing to each other.”

Lyle brought out his reading glasses and leaned toward the monitor.

“Try this on. There’s an evening or an afternoon out. This guy brings Linda home. Maybe he was tight, or stoned, or maybe he was just the type who liked hurting women.”

Lyle, engrossed in the screen, made a go ahead noise.

“He pushed himself onto her. Linda said no. Probably-and I can just imagine her doing this-she handed him his head on a platter. And then the bastard pulled out his knife and-”

Where did he get a knife? If they had been on a date? Not that it was a date, of course. Just that the guy, Mr. S, had thought so. But Russ knew Linda, and she wouldn’t have stepped out the door with Mel Gibson himself if he wasn’t dressed right.

“We don’t have the knife, do we?” he asked Lyle, who had finished with the e-mails Russ had highlighted and was scrolling down the other entries in the mailbox.

Lyle shook his head.

Oh, Christ, Russ thought. Oh, Christ, let it not be-“Kevin,” he yelled.

The kid appeared in the doorway too fast not to have been listening to every word.

“I’ve got a gun locker in the barn. It’s where I keep my hunting stuff, in the old tack room-”

Flynn nodded, his red soul patch bobbing up and down hypnotically. “I looked at it, Chief. There are two rifles and a shotgun. All locked down. I thought that was the right count.”

“It is. What about my knife?”

“Your knife?”

“It’s an old military issue K-Bar.” Russ gestured, approximating the size. “I use it for field dressing. It should be wrapped in a flannel cloth, lying on the little shelf next to where I keep my recycled shell casings.”

Kevin paused. Russ was so used to the young man blurting out whatever was on his mind that it took him a moment to realize Kevin was weighing his words.

“I saw the shell bucket,” he said carefully. “You can go take a look yourself, but Chief, there’s no knife there.”

Mark hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes. They felt dry, gritty, despite the four hours of sleep he had grabbed at home. Before leaving for her shift at the hospital, Rachel had pointed out very clearly that if he was in the state police, he wouldn’t have to work twenty hours out of twenty-four.

Harlene poked her head into the squad room. “Anything?”

He grunted. “Plenty.” He tapped his pen against the pad he had been filling up with names, dates, and addresses. “The trick is going to be following up. Most of these guys were released from Fort Leavenworth. Where they’ve wound up is anyone’s guess.”

The chief, before leaving for the crime scene this morning, had tried to come up with a few likely names. Guys he had put away over the years who might come gunning for him. He had failed miserably. Of course, the shape he was in, it was a miracle he could remember his own name, let alone some long-gone bad guy. Harlene had come to the rescue, dragging out an ancient paper copy of the chief’s service record, listing posting after posting after posting. A bunch of commendations and medals, too, which the chief had never mentioned. Typical.

Now Mark was on the trail, convincing records clerks to track down old cases, making notes of their dispositions. “Y’know, Eric McCrea really ought to be doing this,” he told Harlene. “He’s in the National Guard. He knows how to talk to these people.”

Harlene snorted. “Yeah, like you’re some sort of long-haired hippie who can’t relate. You’re more spit-’n’-polished than anyone in this force, Eric McCrea included.”

Mark ran his hand over his high-and-tight self-consciously. “Ya think?” He took pride in his appearance. In the discipline of small things.

Harlene nudged him. “Don’t worry on it. You’re doing good.” She tapped the bone-dry mug sitting next to his pad of paper. “I don’t usually offer, but you look like you could use some coffee.”

“Thanks, yeah.”

There was a small noise in the doorway. Mark and Harlene both turned. “Is… do you know where Chief Van Alstyne is?”

Over the past two years, Mark had seen Reverend Clare Fergusson a lot of times, and in a lot of situations you wouldn’t expect to find a priest. He’d seen her late nights at the hospital, soaking wet from the river, splattered with mud and blood and grimy with smoke. But he’d never seen her looking… lost. Her dark blond hair was drawn back in a raggedy twist and her skin was taut over her bones, giving her a more pointed expression than usual.

Harlene, who had-as the chief liked to say-a heart as big as her mouth, crossed the room, opened her arms, and enfolded the taller woman, parka and all. “You heard, did you?”

The reverend nodded. “I just got back from a week’s retreat this morning. I was in a meeting when my friend Dr. Anne told me.”

Harlene stepped back but still kept her hands tight over Clare’s arms. “I expect it’s all over the Washington County and Glens Falls hospitals by now. If doctors and nurses could work as fast as they can gossip, there wouldn’t be anybody left sick in this world.”

“What… what happened?”

Harlene sucked in a breath to tell the priest everything when Mark interrupted. “She was killed sometime this weekend. Maybe Monday. That’s all we really know right now.”

The reverend’s eyes were huge in her narrow face. “It couldn’t have been an accident?”

Mark shook his head. She looked down at the floor. “I didn’t think so,” she said. “I just hoped…” She raised her head, focusing on Harlene. “I don’t even know if it’s a good idea for me to contact Russ or not. But I had to do something. How is he?”

Mark leaped in before Harlene could speak again. “I guess you’d have to compare him to how he was. When did you see him last?”

“Um.” She hesitated. “This is Tuesday. About two weeks ago, then.”

Harlene was looking at Mark curiously. He ignored her. “Didn’t you two usually have lunch together Wednesdays? At the Kreemy Kakes Diner?”

“Not since…” She blinked at Harlene, then at him. Her cheeks were warming to a bright rose color. “I’m not sure if you know, but he was having some… difficulties at home…”

“His wife kicked him out, and he went to stay with Margy Van Alstyne. Ayeah. We know all about it,” Harlene said.

“Oh. Well, we haven’t-the last time I had lunch with him was right before that.”

“And of course, you were away for this retreat all last week,” Mark said. “Where was that? Does St. Alban’s have some sort of place where you guys can escape to?”

Her greenish-brown eyes sharpened. “Officer Durkee, if you want to know something, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hide behind the veneer of conversation.”

He held up his hands. “Not meaning any disrespect, Reverend. But you are friends with the chief. And you knew Mrs. Van Alstyne.”

“We had met. I wouldn’t say that I knew her.”

He chose his next words carefully. “Ma’am, one of the theories we’re working off of is that whoever killed Mrs. Van Alstyne was trying to hurt the chief. Either they were going after him and didn’t find him there, or they went after Mrs. Van Alstyne deliberately, to, you know, punish the chief. So I’d like to know where you were and if you noticed anything odd while you were there.”