In the Bleak Midwinter Read online

  “You wouldn’t happen to remember the names of the friends you were with, would you?” He tried to make his question as inoffensive as possible.

  “Sure we do,” Darrell said, “It was the Jacksons, Dave and Tessa. They live out to Cossayaharie, where we used to. You wanna phone number so you can check up on them or something?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Russ said, omitting the “yet.” “While I’m here, do you have a sample of Katie’s handwriting I could take with me? Printing would be best. I’ll send it on to the state lab to see if they can match it to the note that was found with the baby.”

  “Let me check her room,” Brenda said, hoisting herself from the couch.

  “Why d’you need that if you know the baby is Katie’s?” Darrell said.

  “Just another way of making sure. The medical examiner sent a scraping of Katie’s genetic material down to Albany for DNA testing. That will prove Cody is her son. That’s the baby’s name, by the way. Cody.”

  Darrell rubbed his lips with the edge of his hand. “I heard about that DNA testing on some news report.”

  “It’s one hundred percent accurate. Once we have an idea who the father is, we can do the same thing. It takes a few months to get the lab work back, but there’s no way to fudge your DNA. It either matches, or it doesn’t.” He paused, let that one sink in. “What kind of car do you drive, Mr. McWhorter?”

  “Huh? An ’eighty Ford Ranger pickup.” He ground the cigarette stub out in the standing ashtray. “Look, Chief, I don’t know what Kristen told you and I don’t care, I ain’t seen Katie since she left for Albany this summer. And neither has my wife.”

  Brenda hurried into the room, puffing from the exertion. “Here. It’s a college application she didn’t finish. She printed it, like it says on the form.”

  Russ took the thin sheaf of papers from Brenda. “Thank you.”

  “What do you need to find the father for, anyway?” Darrell asked.

  “In the first place, the father has rights to the child. Either to take custody of the boy, or to consent to adoption. Understand, we were looking for Cody’s parents before we discovered Katie’s body. More important, now we’re working on the theory that the man who fathered Katie’s child either killed her, or has knowledge that could lead to her murderer.”

  “And if the father ain’t found, we’re the closest relatives of the baby, right?” Darrell’s eyes lit up with the greatest interest he had shown so far during the interview. The thought of placing a baby with this pair started the acid sizzling along the nerve edges in Russ’s stomach. The Burnses would be Parents of the Year material compared to these two.

  “Right,” he said.

  “So, we should get custody of the boy, right?”

  At this, Darrell’s wife frowned. “Honey, we’re kinda old to be having a baby around again.”

  “Naw, naw, that baby belongs to us. How do we get ahold of the people who got him now?”

  Russ pulled one of his cards out of his breast pocket. “I’ll write down the number at DHS you can call.” He leaned over an oblong table reeking of ashes and dusting spray, fishing for his pen. “The other side of this card has my number on it. Call me if you think of anything that might have slipped your mind. I know it’s been a shock.” Though they seemed to have recovered mighty quick.

  “A shock,” Brenda agreed. Darrell took the card, reaching out his hand to Russ, who gritted his teeth and shook hands.

  “Thank you for telling us about Katie,” Darrell said. “And about our grandson. We’ll call DHS right away and see about that little boy.”

  Russ paused at the door. “DHS hasn’t gotten my paperwork yet, identifying Katie as Cody’s mother. You may have to wait a day or two.” Maybe he could lose it. Not that it would do Cody any good in the long run. Just give him an extra week with the foster mother before McWhorter got his hands on him.

  Brenda looked distinctly unhappy. Darrell smiled. “It’ll be worth the wait. It’ll be just like having a little piece of Katie back with us again.”

  Clumping down the stairs, Russ was in what his mother would have called “an old cow stew.” When a door inched open, revealing a bearded man with spectacularly bad teeth, Russ glared at him with such venom the man nearly caught his facial hair in the frame as he slammed the door shut. Russ toyed with the idea of shouting “Washington County Probation Department!” to see how many residents would cut and run. It would feel good to do something constructive, even if it did mean filling out packets of forms at the county jail.

  What would the McWhorters want with Cody? More accurately, what would Darrell want with Cody? The monthly foster child support check from the state? Jesus Christ, what if Darrell’s tastes ran to little boys? It was a stretch, but, still . . . Russ wiped the hand Darrell had shaken on his parka before opening the outside door. Either he convinced Kristen to make a complaint against Darrell McWhorter, or he had better find another candidate as the baby’s father right quick. Because if he didn’t, Cody would be one of those slack-faced little kids sentenced to poverty and neglect. Or worse.

  CHAPTER 10

  Russ’s wave of determination to help Cody broke apart on that jagged rock of modern life, the telephone answering machine. He tried to reach Kristen at her apartment and was met with a blast of unintelligible music that sounded like jack-hammers destroying a guitar shop, followed by a half-screamed order to leave a name and message. Saint Alban’s office had on a machine, too, asking him to call between the hours of eight-thirty and three. In case of pastoral emergency, you can reach Reverend Clare Fergusson at the rectory. Except he couldn’t. On her message Clare sounded too enthusiastic to make her apology for not picking up the phone believable. In case of pastoral emergency, her pager number was . . . Russ began to wonder about these pastoral emergencies. What were they, deathbed confessions? Emergency baptisms?

  He weighed the idea of paging her, but decided against it. Instead, he left a message describing his meeting with the McWhorters and asked her to call him back. He slapped his chest and rummaged through his pockets until he found the paper with Emily Colbaum’s number, then sat through a recording featuring a whole flock of giggling females telling him he had reached “the girlz in the house!” He left his name and number and tried the DSS case worker’s office next, only to get caught up in a voicemail system. He tried following the automated directions—press two, press the pound sign twice, if you know your party’s extension—and wound up in the mailbox of the educational scheduling department. He banged the receiver down and unloaded a piece of army vocabulary on the person who had first replaced an operator with a machine.

  He stomped into the dispatch room, hoping Harlene would ask him what was wrong so he could let loose his opinion of people who were never at the damn phone when you needed them. Harlene wasn’t there. He followed her voice into the squad room, a kind of big-city name for a cluster of six desks and a water cooler. Lyle MacAuley and Noble Entwhistle must have just checked in at the end of their shifts, but instead of filling out their incident reports, they were huddled with Harlene over a big red camping cooler.

  “Hey, Chief!” Noble said.

  “Oh, here he is, you can give it to him now,” Harlene said, elbowing Lyle. Lyle dug into the cooler, emerging with a large package neatly wrapped in butcher’s paper.

  “For you, Chief,” he said, grinning. “Steaks and the round. I hit the jackpot with a twelve-point stag the day before season close.”

  Twelve-point antlers. Russ tried to suppress his pangs of envy. At least Lyle was being liberal with the venison. God damn, a whole deer season come and gone and he had been too busy working to ever get out and—the day before season close? When Lyle had been scheduled on the duty roster? “Weren’t you sick with the flu for two days before Thanksgiving?” Russ asked. “What did he do, walk into your yard and have a heart attack?”

  Lyle smiled more broadly. “I guess that’s the way it happened, Chief.”

  Russ l
ooked at Harlene and Noble, both of them grinning their fool heads off. Russ pulled himself up to his full height and tucked the package of venison under his arm. “Then I’m sure it will be good and tender, Lyle, seeing as how he died peaceful-like, of natural causes.”

  Their laughter followed him back to his office where he put on his parka and turned out the lights. At the door, he paused, thinking, before wheeling and scooping up the Katie McWhorter file. He returned to the squad room and laid it on Noble Entwhistle’s desk. “Noble, you read the file on our homicide yet?” he asked.

  Noble ambled to his desk and flipped open the folder. “Nope,” he said.

  “Take a look at it tonight before you go home. Tomorrow, I want you to get a life picture of the victim from her sister and start making the rounds of all the motels and bed-and-breakfasts and whatall. See if you can find someone who remembers a pregnant young woman checking in. We’re especially interested in any man who might have been with her. Get the bus station, too, see if anyone picked her up when she arrived in town Friday.”

  The officer ran his finger down the case entry form. “Yup.”

  “Thanks. Good night, all.” Noble was the right man for this job. Unimaginative, not the sharpest pencil in the box, but methodical, with an ability to put people at ease and get them to open up. Russ pulled his knit cap firmly over his head before braving the cold. Outdoors, the temperature had fallen still further. Thank God he had the Ford pickup tonight, with its fast-working heater, and not the old whore. He’d stop at his mother’s, give her the venison, and wangle a dinner invitation for later in the week, when Linda was away on her buying trip to the city. Maybe he ought to introduce Mom to Clare. Interesting to see how they’d get along.

  It was out of the way to his mother’s, but he drove by the rectory just to make sure everything was all right. The lights were all off. Had he left her his number at home so she could reach him? Yeah, he had. His dashboard clock glowed. Geez, he’d better hurry, or he’d miss another dinner.

  Clare folded her hands together and bowed her head. “Lord God,” she said, “for the blessings of food and fellowship we are about to receive, make us truly thankful. Open our hearts so that in the midst of plenty, we are aware of those who hunger, and in the midst of friends, we remember those who are friendless. Give us a hunger to do your will, and an appetite to see your kingdom, here and in the world to come. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

  “Amen,” the rest of the room said. The silence was broken by the clatter and ring of utensils and glasses, the scrape of chairs and the sound of eleven voices, all asking to pass this and that at the same time.

  The first Monday of the month was the Foyers dinner, an informal gathering of members of the parish, offering a chance to eat and get to know each other outside of the confines of Sunday service or a committee meeting. Tonight’s meal was at the home of Chris Ellis and his wife, Anne Vining-Ellis. Anne was a physician practicing in Glens Falls, and everyone, including her own husband, referred to her as Doctor Anne. The Ellises were practically neighbors of Clare’s, only three blocks away on Washington Avenue. Their huge Victorian house would have been imposing if it weren’t for the obvious wear and tear on the place from their three teenage boys. The formal dining room, where two round tables held tonight’s guests, was decorated with a chandelier, a Boaz Persian carpet, several sets of skis propped up in the corner, and a deep gash in the wall, approximately hockey-helmet high. One of the boys, pressed into service as a waiter for the evening, shambled back and forth from the kitchen to the tables on overlarge feet.

  Doctor Anne, sitting on her right, passed Clare a bowl of rice. “I recommend starting with this if you plan on having Phoebe’s green chile stew,” she said. “Hot? I can’t begin to describe it. I think she brings it to these things in order to hear people gasping and crying out for water.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Clare said. “Maybe I should go for that casserole over there instead?”

  “Judy Morrison’s tuna hot dish,” Doctor Anne said. “Judy converted from Lutheranism.” She looked meaningfully at the casserole. “After she learned to cook.”

  “This is a veritable culinary minefield, isn’t it? Just waiting for a wrong step. Tell me, am I supposed to take at least a taste of everyone’s offering?”

  “Only if you want to gain thirty pounds in the next year. I keep trying to get people to bring light dishes to these dinners, but do they listen? Look at Sterling’s Swedish meatballs. I happen to know he uses the fattiest ground chuck he can get and then lards it with several eggs before cooking it in a butter-based sauce. Is it a miracle that man’s not dead of a heart attack? You be the judge.”

  Clare laughed. She could feel the tension that had caught in her shoulders dissipating under Doctor Anne’s acidic humor. It had been a difficult day all the way around, first in the morgue and the police station, then helping Kristen at Ruyter’s Funeral Home. Ignoring the ache of old pain while Kristen ricocheted between anger and bewilderment and grief with the speed of someone fast forwarding through cable channels.

  It was good to lean back and listen to the stream of culinary critiques and gossip, and have nothing more taxing to look forward to than a walk home and an early bedtime. “The only thing that could make this any better would be a cold beer,” she murmured.

  “That’s definitely the missing element, isn’t it? It would certainly help wash down Phoebe’s chili.” Doctor Anne passed Clare a basket of rolls. “Sometimes there will be wine at one of these dinners. No one bothers when Chris and I play host, because I’m such a fanatic about drinking and driving I practically give Breathalyzer tests at the door.”

  “We had sangria at the Foyers dinner I went to in August,” Clare said. “A barbecue.”

  “This was when? During the selection process?”

  “Uh huh. And it was about as comfortable a meal as one can get, when you’re eating with your prospective employers. I dreaded spilling something and making a horrible stain on myself, so I stuck to smoked turkey on a dry roll.” She made a face. “I’m surprised no one concluded I was anorexic.”

  Doctor Anne laughed. “Where was this?”

  “The Fowlers.”

  “Oh, my lord, and you had to listen to Vaughn speechifying about the charm, intelligence, good looks, and record-breaking success of his kids, did you?” She rolled her eyes. “Me, I figure if the police aren’t actively looking for my sons, they’re doing okay. Vaughn and Edie, they’ll take the family to the beach because they want to see their children walk on water.” She laughed. “Oh, come here, darling, say hello to Reverend Fergusson.” Doctor Anne snagged her son as he shuffled past with an empty water pitcher. “I was just telling the Reverend how highly accomplished you are. This is my oldest boy, Anderson.” The teen ducked his head awkwardly, setting his long blond hair swinging around his face. He mumbled hello. “Anderson’s in his last year of school at Millers Kill High. When he’s done, we’re throwing him out of the house and forcing him to support himself as a karaoke singer in nightclubs.”

  “Ma!” the boy protested. “She says that because I’m in the drama society. I’m going to Brown. I got my early acceptance,” he told Clare.

  “Congratulations. That’s a great university. It’ll be a big change from Millers Kill High School, won’t it?” she asked.

  “You bet. I can’t wait. Hey, they were talking about our church today, did I tell you?” Anderson looked at his mother. “It was all over the place that Ethan Stoner killed his old girlfriend and Alyson Shattham identified her from a picture right in St. Alban’s! That was way cool.”

  “What?” Clare looked from Doctor Anne to her son. “Anderson, there’s no evidence that Ethan Stoner killed anyone. The police are looking for anybody who knew Katie McWhorter and who might be able to give some information on the case.”

  “That’s not how I heard it. It sounded like the cops were ready to haul old Ethan into the county jail and charge him with murder. You me
an like somebody else might have done it?” He sounded disappointed. “Shoot. If it was Ethan, it would have been the biggest thing to hit the high school since girls’ basketball took the state championship.”

  Of course it would be, in a town of eight thousand. An awful, low, unworthy thought occurred to Clare. What if Geoff Burns was guilty of Katie’s murder? She could see the headlines in every paper in eastern New York state: SAINT ALBAN’S PARISHIONER SLAYS MOTHER OF ADOPTED SON! And in smaller type: PRIEST SPEARHEADED EFFORT TO PLACE INFANT WITH MURDERER! She shook her head. No. She knew the Geoff Burns type. All the heat and fire came right out, up front, leaving behind nothing more menacing than low-level discontent and grumbling.

  “I think we’ll have to wait and see what Chief Van Alstyne comes up with in his investigation before we can make any reasonable guesses about Katie’s murderer,” she said. “Did you know Katie McWhorter, Anderson?”

  He draped a gangly arm across the back of his mother’s chair. “No, not really. I knew who she was, ’cause she was in Honors track, like me, but she was a year ahead of me.”

  “Millers Kill High is a big school, too,” Doctor Anne said. “It’s got the kids from this town, Cossayaharie, and Fort Henry.”

  “I know most of the other seniors,” Anderson said. He pounded his fist against his forehead. “Oh, duh, I should have known Alyson was exaggerating about Ethan. She’s, like, ‘I’m the center of attention and the rest of you aren’t.’ I think she’s still fried about not getting elected to the student council in September. So now she’s like, ‘Ethan’s O. J. Simpson and I brought him down.’ ” He looked at his mother. “She never got it that the reason she was in with everyone last year was because she was going out with Wesley. But now, she wants to buddy up with the jocks or the brains—”