Read Online All Mortal Flesh by Julia Spencer-Fleming - Free Book Online

you.”
    “I’m in a meeting.” Clare’s voice was tight. “They’ll have to wait. Or call for an appointment.”
    “No, you have to see her now.”
    Lois’s tone caught Clare’s attention. The secretary’s face was drawn taut, her lips pressed bloodlessly together.
    “Okay,” Clare said. “Elizabeth, please excuse me.” She stepped into the hallway. “What is it?”
    Lois gestured down the hall, to the door leading into the sanctuary. “Just… go.” She retreated into Clare’s office. Clare could hear her asking de Groot how the tea was.
    Clare walked toward the church with a rapidly coalescing mass of dread filling her stomach. It had to be bad news. But not a parishioner. She had had parishioners sicken, be injured, die. Lois would have told her the details. She wouldn’t have been so shaken. It had to be something personal.
    Oh, God, what if it was her father? He owned a small aviation business, he flew nearly every day—what if something had gone wrong?
    No, that didn’t make any sense. Her mother or one of her brothers would have called her directly. Who else did she know who might be—
    Then she realized. There was someone else whose job exposed him to danger. She pushed open the door to the sanctuary and spotted a figure standing in the dimness of the north aisle. “Is it Russ?” she said. “Has anything happened to Russ?”
    Anne Vining-Ellis, Clare’s closest friend among her congregation, turned. Her face, usually gleaming with a sly sense of humor, was grave. “No,” she said. “It’s his wife. Linda Van Alstyne was murdered yesterday.”
     
     
     

EIGHT
     
     
    It was more like a wake than a meeting. Six o’clock Tuesday morning. Mark’s shift was officially over, and he had been awake since Monday morning, but he looked like an ad for Sealy Posturepedic next to the chief.
    They sat in the bullpen, everyone who was working the investigation. Eric McCrea kept glancing between the chief and Lyle MacAuley, like he was watching to see which one would be the first to crack. MacAuley was at the whiteboard, writing down what little information they had. Noble Entwhistle sat in his usual spot, his notebook open on the desk in front of him. He looked the same as always, and different. Like someone had taken a drawing of him and rubbed out some of the edges with a gum eraser.
    Kevin Flynn, who usually rattled all over the place talking and asking questions, sat silently. He was still in his civvies, although at some point he had put on his Day-Glo orange POLICE vest. Once in a while he looked as if he might say something, but he’d just drop his head and crack his knuckles instead.
    And the chief… Mark wasn’t a religious man, but when he saw the chief come though the doors in the predawn darkness, he thought,
God, don’t ever let me come to that
.
    “… just bring us all up to date,” MacAuley was saying. “Eric?”
    McCrea stood. “The state CS techs didn’t find anything that leaped out at them. There were some hairs and a variety of prints. We’ll see when we get the report. The neighbor destroyed any tracks there might have been in the snow when she drove up to the door and then ran in and out.”
    “Friend,” the chief growled. He was sitting in his usual place for a meeting, atop the sturdy oak table near the whiteboard, his feet resting on a chair.
    “Uh… I’m sorry, Chief?”
    “Meg Tracey isn’t a neighbor. She lives on Dunedin Road. She’s—she was Linda’s best friend.”
    Lyle wrote her name and
BEST FRIEND
on the whiteboard. “What do we know about her?”
    The chief blinked. “Know about her?”
    “Chief, she found the body. We should at least eliminate her as a possible.” Lyle’s voice was gentle. “Eric, you took her statement. Anything?”
    McCrea flipped open his notebook. “Her husband teaches at Skidmore. They’ve got one kid at Syracuse and two more at home. She doesn’t work. She claimed she was at her house, alone, all afternoon