One Was a Soldier (53 page)

He eased away from her just enough to speak. “Give me a try, Hadley.”

She pictured letting him get to know her. To know her history, all the crappy things she’d done, all the terrible choices she’d made, all the shit she had dealt with. She pictured him backing away, not showing up, making excuses. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stand it when that happened. “No.” She pushed him to arm’s length. “You were a good lay, Flynn.” She marveled at how she sounded. So cool, so unemotional. “But I’m not interested in a relationship with you.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe you. Tell me you don’t feel anything for me. Look me in the eyes and tell me all of this”—he pressed her hand to his chest—“is just one-sided.”

God. He still thought lovers couldn’t lie to him face-to-face. She looked into his eyes. “I don’t feel anything for you. It’s all one-sided.” She thought she might throw up the ginger ale.

He dropped her hand. Stepped away. Turned his back to her. “God,” he whispered. “God.” He drew his forearm across his eyes. Finally he turned around again. “Okay. Okay.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I guess I really should’ve listened the first five or six times you slapped me down.” He laughed without humor. It was a sound so foreign to him it made her heart twist.

“Look, Flynn, we can still be—”

“Friends?” His voice cracked. “With me slicing myself open every day and you waiting and dreading the next time I break down and beg you to love me? Is that what you really want?”

“No.” Her throat was raw and tight. “I guess I don’t.”

“I didn’t think so.” He gestured toward the tent, glowing in the darkness. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes. I do.”

She didn’t argue. They walked through the field, side by side, separated by cold air and unspoken words. He left her at the entrance to the tent. “Aren’t you coming in?” she said.

He shook his head. In the light, he looked like he had at Ellen Bain’s fatal accident. Weary and sad and older than his years. “My coat’s in the inn. I’m going to go home. Good night.”

She watched him cross the plush yard. Mount the terrace. Disappear through the inn’s French doors. She was strong. She could let him go.

She couldn’t stop the voice in her head, though.

There you are.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27

When they went for Opperman, they let Russ tag along. It wasn’t his arrest—in the ten days since he had called in Ellen Bain’s evidence, the Army CID, the FBI, and the Treasury Department and the GAO had all jumped on board. He was low man on that totem pole. The army guys were respectful, and the Feds were polite, but every investigator and agent he met let him know—subtly or baldly—that this case and this collar were way out of his league. He just smiled and let his Cossayuharie accent thicken until Tony Usher, who was on the prosecution team, said, “Cut it out, goddammit. You sound like you’re auditioning for the lead in
Li’l Abner
.”

Waiting in an unmarked government vehicle outside the Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort, it was worth it. They could have called him a traffic crossing guard and asked him to fetch the coffee, and it would have been worth it.

“You ready?” Tony put on sunglasses against the early morning sunshine.

Russ checked his gun and reholstered it. “Oh, yeah.”

Tony looked at his watch. “The MPs should be pulling Wyler McNabb in just about now.” He glanced over the seat to the CID investigator waiting with them. “And Arlene Seelye.”

The radio crackled. “Hotel team, this is Square One.” An anonymous van held the FBI control team, which would be coordinating the raids on BWI Opperman’s Plattsburgh matériel depot as well as their offices in Baltimore. “We are good to go.”

Russ, Tony, and the CID investigator got out. Throughout the parking lot, car doors slammed as agents and accountants and lawyers and evidence techs finally made their move. Bellhops stared and guests scrambled out of the way of the entrance and then the team was inside, barked commands echoing off the paneled walls, a rumble of feet as they spread out to the offices, the computer room, the registration desk, locking down all communication, seizing every workstation, evidence-wrapping every file cabinet.

Russ caught a glimpse of the manager, her mouth open, as he led the arrest team toward the stairs. “Two flights up here, then stairs on either end the rest of the way up,” he reminded them. “One elevator for the guests, one for the employees.”

The FBI agent in charge, a short, curly-haired woman who looked way too young for her position, nodded. “You four, secure the elevators, Lofland and Born, with me.” She gestured toward the stairs. “You can wait here if you want, Chief.”

“I can manage it,” he said dryly. They ran up the stairs, one flight, two, three, until they reached the top floor and Opperman’s personal suite. They flanked the door, two on each side. Russ had just enough time to wonder who was bringing the battering ram when the teeny-bopper agent pulled out a magnetized card and sliced it through the keyslot. She swung the door open and she and her partner stormed in, shouting, “Federal agents! Stand up and place your hands on your head!” The other agent was right behind them, and then Russ. It wasn’t his collar. It didn’t matter. They would get the credit, but he got to watch John Opperman slowly rise to his feet, his face twisted in shock and fear. He got to watch Opperman’s eyes darting from side to side, looking for a way out, looking for some flunky to make it all go away. He got to watch the moment when Opperman spotted him, his eyes narrowing, the fear on his face curdling into hatred.

“Gotcha,” Russ mouthed.

*   *   *

They held the CEO in his four-room apartment as the GAO and Defense accountants ransacked the place, loading banker’s boxes with papers and external drives and a laptop. Downstairs, and in Plattsburgh and Baltimore, the same evidence hunt was going on.

Opperman lawyered up immediately, and the first suit arrived before they had even moved downstairs. The second and third got there while the first was still haranguing the agent in charge. Russ was impressed. BWI must have hot-and-cold running attorneys, to get them out to this remote corner of New York State so fast.

When the techs had wrung the rooms dry, the agent in charge announced they were taking Mr. Opperman to Albany to process him. The lawyers stopped their arguments and requests and comments, conferred in whispers with the CEO for half a minute, then disappeared through the suite’s door.

“Rats leaving the ship?” Russ said under his breath.

The agent snorted. “I wish. By the time we get off the Northway, there’ll be six of ’em waiting for us.” She glanced up at Russ. “Would you like to help us escort the detainee to our transport, Chief?”

Russ guessed that was his reward for not stroking out during the run upstairs. “Yes, ma’am, I would.”

All traces of Opperman’s earlier rage and terror were gone. Walking to the elevator between Russ and the agent in charge, two FBI guys looming behind him, the CEO might have been strolling with some low-mid-management employees. He made the handcuffs look like a fashion accessory.

The three FBI agents packed the rear of the elevator, leaving Russ and Opperman staring at their own hazy reflections in the bronze doors. Opperman smiled at himself. “I’ll be back here by tonight, you know.”

Russ pasted a similar pleasant expression on his face. “I don’t think so.”

Opperman’s smile thinned. “Do you seriously think you’ve taken me down, Chief Van Alstyne?”

Russ shook his head. “No. I think Ellen Bain and Tally McNabb took you down. I’m just here to witness it.”

“Two tragic deaths, which have nothing to do with me.”

“The CID’s arrested Arlene Seelye, and Wyler McNabb is in army custody right now. I don’t know about her, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s going to go down with the ship. My guess is, he’s going to talk like a little girl at a slumber party.”

“A disgruntled employee.” Opperman’s expression was bland. “I have access to the top legal talent in the country. They’re going to tie these spurious charges into so many knots, you’ll be retired to a trailer park in Gainesville before you see me inside a courtroom.” The elevator chimed and the doors opened. They stepped out into the lobby. “You’re a little man in a little town who has to go hat in hand before your aldermen to beg for the bullets in your gun and the paper in your copier. You have no idea of the power money can bring to bear, Chief Van Alstyne. None at all.”

*   *   *

He had to take a walk around the hotel to clear his head after depositing Opperman in the FBI’s car. When he finally went back inside, he found Tony conferring with Amy Nguyen, the Washington County ADA, and a federal prosecutor up from the capital. They fell silent as he approached. The Fed excused himself to rejoin his colleagues.

“What?” Russ glanced from face to face. Tony was grim. Amy looked apologetic. “Okay, what’s the bad news?”

“John Opperman’s lawyers have already opened negotiations,” Tony said.

“Christ. That’s a land speed record.”

Amy pursed her lips. “They want the state to drop the conspiracy to murder charge in exchange for full cooperation on the federal fraud and theft investigation.”

“What?”

“It’s a complicated case,” Tony began.

“So what? It’s theft. Murder beats theft.”

“Conspiracy to murder.” Amy massaged her temples. “Difficult to prove.”

“Meanwhile, the Feds want to round up anyone involved with the fraud and hang them up as a bad example.” Tony spread his hands. “Don’t look at me like that. Do you have any idea how much money just disappears every damn day in Iraq and Afghanistan? If we can put a few heads on pikes to scare the other carrion-eaters away, we will.”

“What’s a head on a pike, Tony? Five years in a white-collar federal pen?” Russ had to turn away for a moment to control his temper.

“Russ.” Amy Nguyen touched his sleeve. “Wyler McNabb will be punished.”

“Jesus Christ. I can’t believe this. Opperman has one woman killed and drives another one to suicide, and you guys want to take his deposition and send him to a goddamn country club.”

“It’s not what I want.” Amy folded her arms and looked away. “It’s what I can get.”

“We have to work within the system, Chief.” Tony shook his head. “You know how it is.”

Russ pictured Tally McNabb floating sightlessly in her pool. He pictured Olivia Bain, pale and stricken. “Yeah,” he said. “I know how it is.”

*   *   *

He knew Clare would be at St. Alban’s, and he thought he might be interrupting something, but he didn’t care. He needed to wrap his arms around her and smell her hair and remind himself that there were good things in the world.
The peace of God,
she said in the service. God didn’t do it for him, but Clare could.

He was surprised to find her walking out of her office, car keys and coat in hand. He grabbed her and hugged her and she worked her arms free and hugged him fiercely back.

“You heard.” Her voice was full of relief and sorrow. She pushed away to look him in the face. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Come with you where? Heard what?”

She blinked. “I thought they must have called you first. I mean, they got in touch with me because they need a minister and I’m the only one they know.” She shifted her coat to her other arm and tugged him toward the door. “That’s what the notification team suggests, you know. Before they leave. They want you to get a friend or a family member and your pastor.”

“Clare, what are you talking about? Who called you?”

“The Stoners.” Her face, above her white collar, was somber. “They’ve just received word their son Ethan was killed in Afghanistan.”

IN THAT KINGDOM WHERE THERE IS NO DEATH, NEITHER SORROW NOR CRYING, BUT THE FULLNESS OF JOY WITH ALL THY SAINTS …

—The Burial of the Dead: Rite One, The Book of Common Prayer

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1

“He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give new life to our mortal bodies through his indwelling Spirit. My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope. You will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” The Reverend Clare Fergusson closed her prayer book and let the quiet spread. The sun, warm and bright as butterscotch, slanted across the graveyard, splashing over the markers of Ethan Stoner’s forebears. Overhead, a V of geese split the flawless blue sky, silent, except for the thrumming of their wings. It seemed right, Sarah Dowling thought, for a country boy.

Fergusson nodded to the honor guard. The four marines fell in to their places. Two stepped to the ends of the coffin and grasped the flag. A tug, a snap, and they folded it, tightly, precisely, until it was transformed into a perfect triangle of blue field and white stars.

They turned on their heels. One step, two. They drew up and saluted. The white gloves of the guard flashed in the sunlight. One marine held the flag out.

Christy Stoner looked at her mother-in-law, standing behind her. Mindy Stoner placed her hands on the young woman’s shoulders and said something in her ear. Christy accepted the flag. “Thank you,” she said to the marine. She held it by its edges, looking, in her black dress and heels, like a little girl dressed up as Jackie Kennedy.

The honor guard fell back ten paces and presented arms. When the first volley rang out, the baby, in the care of some family friend, began to wail. The widow handed the flag to her mother-in-law and reached for her boy, clutching him close, kissing and soothing him.

Ethan Stoner’s mother watched them, hugging the lifeless flag to her chest, and in her face was a grief so profound Sarah knew she would never reach the bottom of it.

Taps was played by a black-suited high schooler. Too many funerals, Fergusson had told Sarah. Not enough military musicians to go around. When the salute ended, Fergusson doubled over, as if she were bowing to the casket. Sarah was shocked to see her rise with a fistful of dirt. She held it over the now-bare coffin. “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to almighty God our brother Ethan.” She opened her hand, and the dirt spattered across the satin wood. The bald assertion of what was going to happen to the dead man’s body was a jarring contrast to the promises of life. Fergusson said something Sarah couldn’t make out, and several of the family came forward and did the same thing, stooping and then scattering earth on the casket. “Earth to earth,” Fergusson said, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”