One Was a Soldier (5 page)

Clare, he saw, had scanned the scene and was sensibly holding back. Or at least she did until Hadley waved. “Reverend Clare!” Well, she did go to Clare’s church. He could hardly blame her for being happy to see her pastor again.

The two women embraced, but Russ’s attention was caught by the perp in the BDU pants. He had been leaning forward, taking the pressure off his cuffs, but now he sat upright, craning his neck to get a better look at Clare. His expression, beneath the blood from his nose and a cut on his temple, was wary.

Clare was hugging Kevin now, setting the kid’s cheeks on fire. Russ crossed the floor. “Couldn’t wait to get started, huh?” He shook Flynn’s hand. “It’s damn good to have you back again, Kevin.” He slapped him on the shoulder, seeing, as he did so, the blue tattoo twining around his officer’s arm.

Kevin’s eyes followed his gaze. “It doesn’t show in uniform, Chief. I made sure of that.”

“Hmn.” Russ turned toward Hadley. “Knox? Talk to me.”

“Two guys, one gal.” She indicated the sullen white guy on the floor. “Wyler McNabb, the husband. He was here with his wife, Specialist Tally McNabb.” She pointed toward the black soldier. “Chief Warrant Officer Quentan Nichols, the boyfriend, who showed up apparently unexpected by either of the McNabbs.”

“A warrant officer?” Clare looked up at Russ. “May I speak with him?”

“Do you recognize him?” At Knox’s and Flynn’s puzzled expressions, he added, “Most of the army’s aviators are warrant officers.”

“No…” Clare’s expression was thoughtful.

“Then hang on a sec.” He turned to Knox. “Where’s the woman?”

She swiveled. “She was right here a minute ago.”

“You didn’t have her under restraint?”

“No. We figured—” She glanced at Flynn. “That is, I figured there were several individuals involved in the fight, but these two were the proximate cause. Since nobody else was hurt”—she laid her hand on her baton—“or hurt enough to complain to me or Officer Flynn, I thought we should book the two principals and leave it at that.”

She still had a tendency to give information like she was answering a quiz at the police academy, but he had to admit, she was always thorough.

“Go see if she’s in the ladies’ room. Clare?” He tipped his head toward Nichols.

Clare walked over to the man and plopped cross-legged in front of him as if sitting on a dirty barroom floor were something she did every day. “Chief Nichols,” she said, “I’m Clare Fergusson.”

He took a long look at her insignia. “Major,” he said. “I thought you were 31B for a minute there.”
31B?
Russ couldn’t help himself, he stepped forward. “Then I heard the officer call you Reverend, but you don’t have any chaplain’s cross on.”

“That’s my civilian job,” she said. “I’m Guard. I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with 31B.”

“I am.” Russ reached down and hauled Nichols into a standing position. “It’s the MOS for military police. Mr. Nichols isn’t an aviator, are you, Mr. Nichols?”

The man shook his head. On his feet, he was several inches shorter than Russ, but he must have outweighed him by ten, twenty pounds of solid muscle. And Kevin had put him down?

“He’s an MP,” Russ said. Clare scrambled up off the floor.

Nichols eyed him. “You army?”

“I was. A long time ago.” Russ held out his hand to Hadley. “Gimme your clip, Knox.” She frowned but fished it out of her pouch. He turned back to Nichols. “Are you going to give me any more trouble if I cut you loose?”

“No, sir.”

“You don’t have to ‘sir’ me.” Russ snipped the clip through the flexible restraints. “I was a CWO just like you.” He glanced at Clare. “Her, you have to call ma’am, though.” She made a face.

Nichols rubbed his wrists.

“You have any ID?”

Nichols reached for a pocket on the side of his BDUs. “I’m retrieving my billfold.” Russ caught Clare’s flashing look from the corner of his eye.

He took the leather wallet. Twenty bucks. A military police badge. A base ID for Fort Leonard Wood, in Missouri. An Illinois driver’s license with a Chicago address. “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Nichols.” He handed the ID back. “I don’t suppose you’re working a case and just happened to forget to notify the local law enforcement?”

The flat, wary line of Nichols’s mouth widened into an embarrassed grimace. “No.”

“Didn’t think so. Would you care to give your version of events?”

Nichols’s gaze shifted away from Russ. “I’ve been trying to contact Tally—Specialist McNabb—ever since I got back stateside. She didn’t answer my e-mails. Her phone wasn’t working. I decided to take leave and come out here to talk to her in person.”

“Did you know Specialist McNabb was married?”

Nichols kept his eyes straight ahead. “Yes, sir. Chief.”

“And you didn’t think that might be the reason she was ignoring you?”

“She … I was under the impression the marriage was broken, Chief.”

Russ let his silence speak for him.

“It’s not what it sounds like! She wasn’t—” Nichols turned to Clare. “It’s different over there.”

“Yes.” Clare nodded, a small, sober agreement. “It is.”

Russ sighed. “So you came to the Dew Drop—how’d you find out she was here, anyway?”

“Her neighbor gave me a friend’s name and address. The friend told me where I could find her.”

“You flash your badge around to get that information?”

Nichols grimaced. Fresh blood welled out of the cut in his lip. “Yes.” He looked at Russ. “I didn’t set out to do it. It was the only way I could get the neighbor to open her door and talk to me.” His mouth twisted. “I take it seeing a black man on your porch is no common occurrence here in the Great White North.”

Russ opened his mouth. Closed it. “Mr. Nichols, what would you do if a civilian law enforcement officer came onto your post, used his police credentials to question a dependent, and then went to the enlisted men’s club and got into a fight with somebody’s significant other?”

To his credit, Nichols didn’t hesitate. “Arrest him and charge him.”

Russ nodded. “Wait here.” He crossed toward the bar. Hadley met him halfway across the floor, coming from the opposite direction. She looked upset.

“She’s not in the building anymore, Chief.”

“Not anywhere?”

“I checked both restrooms. The second bartender says the door to the storage room out back wasn’t locked, because he’d been hauling kegs in and out. Once you’re in the storage room, you can get out through the delivery door.”

Russ huffed in frustration. “Is she trying to get away from Nichols? Or from her husband?”

“Maybe from you,” Hadley said. “She was hanging around the boyfriend, and she sure didn’t seem afraid of her husband. He yelled something about her getting rid of Nichols, after he was in custody, but she ignored him. She only took off after you and Reverend Clare came in. Maybe she thought you were here to haul her away?”

He glanced back toward Nichols. Clare was still standing there. She was speaking to him in low tones that didn’t carry. As Russ watched, she laid her hand on Nichols’s arm.

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.