In the Bleak Midwinter Read online

  This time, she did bring her glass, as well as the remaining bottle. “Want a slug?” she asked, brandishing the cream sherry in her fist.

  “I don’t think you can have a slug of sherry,” Russ said. “No, thank you.”

  Clare sat down in the seat she had vacated, thought for a moment, then moved to where Alyson had been sitting, turning that chair sideways to catch more of the sun. “Lord, it gets cold in this room,” she said, pouring herself a measure of sherry. “I must say, though, the sun makes it almost bearable.”

  “You’ve got thin Southern blood, that’s your problem. Keep your thermostat set at sixty and always wear no more than two layers of clothing. That’ll toughen you up.”

  “Ugh.” She took a sip of sherry. “My mamma would call this a little tot.” She drawled the expression. “Every drink to my mamma is either a little tot or a splash. A tot of wine. A splash of bourbon.” She took another small sip. “So. What do you think?”

  “What do you think?” Russ countered.

  “I think Alyson’s not being entirely honest. I can’t say why. It’s not as if I know her or her family. It was just . . . something off.”

  “Mmmm. I agree. You notice that we still don’t know what Katie’s connection to St. Alban’s is. Alyson only mentioned knowing her from school. Maybe that’s what she’s hiding.”

  “Why, though? I mean, if you consider Alyson as a suspect, which I find very difficult to do, what possible motive could she have?”

  “Jealousy? Rivalry?”

  “They moved in entirely different circles, it sounds like. I remember Ethan Stoner from that fight you broke up on Friday. I realize he wasn’t showing at his best, but I find it hard to believe that even cleaned up and sober, he’d appeal to Alyson.”

  “Hmmm mmmm. Ethan Stoner. I hate to think he could do something as bad as this. He was awful edgy and upset that night, wasn’t he?” Abstracted by thought, his upstate accent thickened, so that “wasn’t he” came out “wun’t he?” “Maybe he had real reason to be so upset.”

  “Are you going to go out and talk to him this afternoon?”

  “No. If I’m going to move him onto the list of possibles, I want more information first. There’s a good piece of advice about interrogating suspects: never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to. Not that you ever know all the answers. But if I haul Ethan in now, I’ll be working in the dark. No, I’m going to find Katie’s parents first, if I can, or her sister. Get a handle on who she was, what she was about.”

  “What do you mean, find her parents if you can? There can’t be that many McWhorters on or around Depot Street.”

  “You haven’t seen the area. It’s our own quaint, rural version of a rat-infested slum. Mostly six-or eight-or ten-unit apartment buildings, falling down around the tenant’s ears. Not that most of ’em would notice if a place came down. Half the residents of that area don’t have telephones. They have twenty-four-inch TVs and satellite reception, but no phones.”

  “Being poor doesn’t make a person bad, Russ. Just as being rich doesn’t make a person good.”

  “I don’t blame anyone for being poor. Hell, my mother was poor after my father passed on. I blame people who could change their condition but are too lazy or too attached to drugs or booze or who just plain don’t care that they live like pigs and suck off the public teat.”

  Clare dropped her glass to the table and stared at him incredulously. “Maybe, if instead of being angry at them, you got angry at the forces that shaped their lives, you might find yourself an instrument of change, rather than just a complainer. Maybe if you tried seeing individuals instead of some amorphous ‘them,’ you’d see people with problems, not just people who are problems.”

  “Of all the—’scuse me for being blunt, Clare, but that’s naive.”

  “No, it’s not. Reaching out to people who may not even realize what sort of help they need is hard, thankless work. I’ve met men and women who’ve dedicated their lives to it, and they’re some of the toughest, least starry-eyed people I know.”

  “I notice you’re not doing that inner city thing, though.”

  She threw up her hands. “I think you’ve pretty well proved that Millers Kill has the full compliment of modern problems, even without an ‘inner city.’ Part of my work here is going to be to lead my congregation into service. To get them to open their eyes and see the need all around them.”

  “And do what?”

  Clare tucked a strand fallen from her French twist behind her ear. “To start, I want us to reach out to girls like Katie McWhorter, girls whose pregnancies would otherwise mean a lifetime sentence of dependancy and bad relationships. Help them to stay in school. Teach them how to find a job, be a better mother. Mentor them so they know there are other ways they have value besides producing babies. Support them in changing their lives.”

  “You haven’t seen the ingrained pockets of country poverty yet, Clare. Folks who’ve never held a job, or lived in a house where some man wasn’t beating on a woman, or gotten through a day without pounding down enough booze to make ’em forget their hardscrabble life. I’ve been there, and I’ve seen it all and cleaned up after the messes, and I’m here to tell you, you’re gonna break your heart if you try to change people like that.”

  She smiled at him. Maybe not such a hard case after all. “I don’t have a choice, Russ. We’re all called to see the Christ in all people. Even a down-and-dirty atheist like you must have heard of ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ ”

  “Oh. Well, hell, if you’re gonna bring God into it . . .”

  “You know, I like that about you.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve just seen me celebrate the Eucharist, I’m sitting here in my cassock and collar, and you still manage to forget that I’m a priest. You argue with me like I’m . . . just me. I like that.”

  Russ shifted in his chair. “No big deal. I’m just too ignorant to know there’s a way I’m supposed to treat a priest, that’s all.”

  Clare smiled into her sherry. Russ spun the manila folder around on the tabletop.

  “Katie McWhorter.”

  “Yes.” Clare dropped her glass on the table and rose from her chair. “We can check right now to see if there are any McWhorters listed in the phone book. C’mon into my office.”

  Russ studied Clare’s eclectic decor while she paged through the Millers Kill directory. “No McWhorters listed for Depot Street. Or for South Street or Beale Avenue. No Kristen McWhorter, no K. McWhorter.” She flopped the book shut. “Now what?”

  “Now, tomorrow morning I go to the bank and see if I can find the sister. The best way to a positive I.D. will be to have a family member identify her at the morgue. Failing that, I’ll head for the high school. They should still have Katie’s records.”

  “Would you like me to come along to the bank? Or to the morgue? To be there when you break the news to Katie’s sister?”

  “To what, comfort her in her hour of need? We don’t know if she’s religious or not, Clare. Maybe she wouldn’t want a priest hanging around.”

  “Maybe not. But I’ll bet she’ll want to speak to the woman who was there when her sister’s body was recovered. And you’d be better off having someone from St. Alban’s there when you ask her about Katie’s connection to the church.”

  “I will, huh? And this wouldn’t have anything to do with you wanting to be in on the investigation?”

  “I’m already in on the investigation,” Clare pointed out. “This simply saves some time and lets me hear what she has to say firsthand. And if you’d like, I could help you tell her what happened to her sister. I’m . . . I took a course in grief work at the seminary.”

  “Well, I never took any course. But I’ve broken this kind of news enough times to know what to do. The trick is to not leave ’em hanging. Get to the worst of it fast.”

  Get to the worst of it fast, Russ reminded himself. He arrived Monday morning right at nine o’clock, ope
ning time. He found the branch manager first off and filled her in on the situation. She expressed sympathy, and welcomed him to use her office when he told Kristen the bad news. She left for the service counter and came back with a young woman in tow.

  “Kristen McWhorter?” Russ asked. The branch manager silently shut the door behind herself on the way out.

  “Yes . . .” Kristen said, frowning. She was pretty, in a milkmaid sort of way that even her ink-dark punk hairstyle and thick black eyeliner couldn’t conceal. “Did my father do something?” she asked.

  “Your father? No. I have some very bad news for you, Kristen. This past Friday we discovered your sister Katie’s body near the kill, about a quarter-mile upstream from Payson’s Park. She had been murdered.”

  Kristen stood perfectly still, blinking. “No,” she said. “You’re mistaken. Katie’s in Albany. She’s a freshman at SUNY-Albany, and she hasn’t been home since school started. She’s in Albany.”

  “She was identified in a photograph by someone who knew her in high school. We’d like you or your parents to view the body to make a positive identification.”

  “I’ll go. I’ll go right now. It’s not Katie. She’s in Albany. I’ll get my coat right now. You have the wrong person. Oh, no, I’m starting my shift right now. I have to talk with Rosaline about getting off.”

  Russ gestured through the glass walls at the manager. “I’ve already spoken with your boss, Kristen. Everything’s set.”

  The manager came in carrying a heavy coat and a purse. “I brought these from the break room. They’re Kristen’s.”

  Kristen grabbed at the purse and started scrabbling through it. “Wait! Wait! I can prove to you it isn’t Katie. I can call her house. I have her number. I have it here.” She dug through the purse like a small, desperate animal digging for shelter. She fished out a plastic address book the size of a box of cigarettes. “Here. Her number’s here. I can call her, she’s in Albany.” She looked around the office, frowning. “It’s a long distance number, though. Can I use your phone to make a long distance call, Rosaline?”

  “Of course you can,” the manager said. She took Kristen by the shoulders and steered her to the phone on the laminate desk. “Go right ahead, Kristen.” She looked behind the girl’s back at Russ, asking him wordlessly for guidance. Kristen hammered out the number.

  Russ made a smoothing gesture with his hands to let the manager know she was doing fine. “C’mon, c’mon . . .” Kristen said. “Pick up.” Her face brightened. “Emily!” she said. “It’s Kristen, Katie’s sister. Can I speak to Katie?” There was a pause. “Is she in class?” There was an even longer pause. Kristen’s eyes filled with tears and she pressed her palm against her mouth. She looked up at Russ. “She says Katie took a bus to Millers Kill on Friday morning. She hasn’t seen her since.” She blinked and the tears spilled over her cheeks. “Oh God, oh God . . .”

  Russ held out his hand for the receiver. “Let me talk with her,” he said. Kristen surrendered the phone. “Hello, this is Russ Van Alstyne, Millers Kill Police. Who is this, please?”

  “I’m Emily Colbaum. Katie’s housemate.” The voice on the other end of the line was shaky. “Has something happened to Katie?”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Colbaum. We believe she was killed Friday night. Can I ask you a few—”

  The sound of wailing cut him off. He waited. Kristen was leaning against the branch manager, mopping her eyes with a wad of damp tissues. She had black makeup smeared on her cheeks and her dried-blood-red lipstick had come off entirely. “Emily? Miss Colbaum?” he tried again. He was answered with more sobbing. He put his hand over the receiver. “Kristen, will you come over to the morgue with me now? Or do you need more time?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “If it’s her, I want to know. Let’s go.”

  He tried the phone again. “Miss Colbaum? Emily, do you think you can talk with me? Or do you need some time to get yourself together?” She sobbed out something about feeling light-headed. “Emily, listen to me. Are you listening? Is there anyone else there at the house with you? Another roommate?”

  There was a confusing sentence about Heather, who had missed an organic chemistry final.

  “Good. I want you to give her a yell—” he held the phone away from his ear as she did just that. “Uh . . . good girl. You make sure she stays with you until you’re feeling calmer, okay? If you need to, you go on over to the university clinic and tell ’em what happened. There’ll be someone you can talk with there, maybe fix you up with a sedative if you need one.” Wet, weepy snuffles. “I’m going to give you the number of the police station here in Millers Kill. You got a pen and paper? Good girl.” He told her his direct office line. “I’ll be calling you to talk later, Emily, but in the meanwhile, if you think of anything, anything at all, call that number. If I’m not there, you can talk to our dispatcher, Harlene.”

  Emily blubbed a watery thank you and hung up, promising to call with any information she might have.

  Kristen was gamely struggling her way into her long black coat, crying soundlessly, mopping her face with the ineffectual tissues. “Would you like me to come with her?” the manager asked, her face creased with what Russ judged to be equal parts worry over her employee and the prospect of leaving the bank unattended on a Monday morning.

  “No, I have a, um, grief specialist waiting for us at the morgue. We’ll make sure Miss McWhorter’s taken care of.”

  He held the office door open for the women. “Kristen, don’t worry about coming in to work tomorrow,” the manager said. “I’ll make sure your shifts are covered. Take all the time you need, honey.” She hugged the girl awkwardly.

  Outside, it was another bitterly cold and clear day. Kristen rubbed her gloved hands over her cheeks as they drove. The heater wheezed and complained and started warming the car minutes before they reached the county morgue’s parking lot. Clare was already there, waiting in an older-model cherry-red MG that was going to give her more trouble than she could imagine on the winter roads. She got out as he parked the cruiser.

  “Let’s get inside before we do introductions,” he yelled across the lot. She nodded and disappeared into the building, climbing the steps two at a time. He held Kristen’s arm to steady her until they got into the waiting room, then released her to help her out of her enormous coat. She had stopped crying and was looking around her with the same absorption she would have shown watching a fascinating movie. Not that there was anything fascinating about the dun-colored walls that someone had attempted to brighten with scenic travel posters. He had seen that look before, many times. It was the look you got when the bottom fell out of your world, and your own life seemed as distant and unreal as any big-screen fantasy.

  “Kristen?” Clare took the girl’s coat from Russ and tossed it on a chair next to her own. “I’m Clare Fergusson.” She held out a hand to Kristen, who took it mechanically. “I was there when your sister’s body was discovered.” Kristen’s lips flexed and quivered. “I’m also a priest.” Given the clerical collar peeking out from underneath her black sweater, Russ thought that was pretty self-evident. He went to the window separating the waiting room from records storage. Tapping the bell three times brought the morgue assistant, who took in the scene in the waiting room and went to unlock the inner doors without a word. “Would you like me to come with you?” Clare went on, gently leading Kristen to the hallway. “Sometimes, it can make it less scary to be with someone else.”

  Kristen stopped, looked into Clare’s face. “I’ve never seen a body before,” she said. “Isn’t that strange?”

  “No, not strange at all,” Clare said, linking her arm through the girl’s. “It’s not bad, like you might think. Death looks different from life, from sleeping, but it’s not ugly.”

  Russ had seen more than a few ugly deaths in his time, but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut. The attendant paused at a small desk outside of the body storage room. “We’re here to identify the Jane
Doe,” Russ said quietly.

  The attendant made a note in the log book. “She’s in number three,” he said, looking at Kristen’s black-smeared face. “You can go in alone, miss, or I could come with you, or . . . ?”

  She shook her head at the young man and tightened her hold on Clare’s arm. “Will you come?” she asked. “I forgot your name.”

  “I’m Clare. Yes, I’ll come with you.”

  The attendant opened the dull metal door. Russ caught a glimpse of white tile and harsh fluorescent lighting before the door closed again, Clare and Kristen on the other side. It was a lousy place for a person to end up, laid out naked in a stainless steel drawer. Of course, there were worse ways to finish it. Zippered inside a body bag and hustled into a refrigerated cargo hold, for instance. He shut his hand reflexively. At times like these, he could still feel the material they made those bags from. He stilled his breathing, forcing himself not to get impatient to leave Death’s waiting room. What the hell was taking them so long?

  Clare pushed the door open, letting Kristen pass through first. The girl looked into Russ’s eyes, her own dazed, full of clouds. “It’s her. It’s my sister.” She bit down hard on her lip. “I thought . . . I thought she’d finally be safe once she was in Albany. Once she was away. Why did she come back?” Fresh tears rose in her eyes. “Why did she come back?”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Kristen, what did you mean when you said you thought your sister would be safe once she was away at school?” Russ handed Kristen black coffee in a mug decorated with fat country sheep and geese, part of a set his sister had given them one Christmas that he and Linda had agreed were too damn cutesie-poo to keep at home. He hated Styrofoam cups: too small, too fragile, and too wasteful.

  Kristen bent over the mug until her face was almost obscured by ink-colored hair and steam. “Nothing. I don’t know. I don’t know what I was thinking.”