In the Bleak Midwinter

“I have to introduce you to the Kreemie Kakes Diner version of hot chocolate.” He found everything quickly. Like her office, her kitchen was orderly and well-organized. She was a woman who had her priorities, no doubt about it.

“Here you go.” He put two mugs on the coffee table, then crossed to the front window and tested to see if the tops locked.

She craned her neck to see what he was up to. “What are you doing?”

“Locking you in.” He moved to the front door, threw the bolt and latched it at the top. “Who can I call to come and stay with you tonight?”

“Russ!” She sounded scandalized. “I couldn’t impose on anyone like that.”

He turned to her. “Clare, someone put a lot of effort into killing you tonight. Let’s not make it any easier for him to take a second crack at you.”

“But he’s—”

“We don’t know what he is. The guy who attacked you might be a Popsicle right now. Or he might have gotten onto his snowmobile and ridden away. And don’t forget whoever that woman was who called the church to get you out there.”

She worried her lower lip. “All right. You can make sure the doors and windows are all locked,” she said. “But I don’t know anyone well enough to ask over. It would be an imposition.”

“Your mother teach you that? You sound very Southern when you say ‘an imposition.’ ” He crossed the room to stand in front of her sofa. “You’re exhausted and you can barely walk. You think of someone you can ‘impose’ on right quick like or I’ll station one of my officers here.” She glared at him. “Which will mean taking someone away from traffic duty during a major storm.”

Her face melted into a look of concern. She gnawed on her lower lip again. “Doctor Anne,” she said finally. “Anne Vining-Ellis. She lives a couple blocks away.”

“She the same Doctor Anne who works the Glens Falls emergency room?” Clare nodded. “I’ve met her. I’ll give her a call.” There was a cordless phone on the table behind the sofa. He dialed information, punched in the number and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to check the upstairs windows,” he told Clare.

“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this,” she said.

“Hello, Ellis residence.” He jiggled the latches in Clare’s bedroom. Locked.

“Hi, is this Dr. Vining-Ellis?”

“Sure is.”

Another bedroom was empty except for a Nordictrak exercise machine and a floormat. The windows were locked.

“This is Chief Van Alstyne of the Millers Kill Police Department. We’ve met a few times before—”

“Over a few drunk drivers. Of course. How can I help you, Chief?”

He sketched out the situation while testing the latches in the next bedroom. It looked as if it had been a guest room for the former priest, and nothing had been removed. He was pretty sure the gun and dog prints and the dark Depression-era furniture weren’t Clare’s. Doctor Anne was horrified at the story of her priest’s ordeal. “Of course I’ll come over and stay with her,” she said. “It’s absolutely no trouble at all. I’ll bring my kit and give her a going-over, too, just to make sure she doesn’t need to be admitted to the hospital.”

He thanked the doctor and rang off. One of the windows in the bathroom was propped open a sliver. A fine line of snow had accumulated on the sill. He shut and locked it. The toilet was running, and he couldn’t get it to stop by jiggling the handle. Inside the cistern, the plunging apparatus was falling apart. He frowned. Couldn’t her parishioners pay for a plumber, for Chrissakes? Well, he could pick up something at Tim’s Hardware, put it in for her next time he was around this way.

“Doctor Anne’s on her way over,” he announced as he reentered the living room. Clare groaned. “And she said to tell you it was not an imposition.” He stuck his hand in the water her feet were soaking in. Cooling. “So, you wanna tell me about what happened?” He headed into the kitchen for more hot water.

“Master Sergeant Ashley ‘Hardball’ Wright saved my sorry ass,” she called after him.

He poked his head through the swinging doors before emerging with a teakettle of hot water. “Hey! I thought I saved your sorry ass.”

She smiled faintly. “You helped. You surely did help.” She sipped her hot cocoa and dabbled her feet while he poured a thin stream of steaming hot water into the tub. “How on earth did you know I was out there?”

He told her about finding the paper trail at St. Alban’s and calling Kristen.

“So she didn’t have anything to do with it. Well, I didn’t think so, not after that guy took a shot at me.” She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “Although before that, when I drove my car over a cliff, I had my doubts. Maybe she was just really bad at directions.”

“You drove your car over a cliff? Christ.”

She frowned.

“Sorry.”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t quite a cliff. A big gorge. My car is totaled.” She compressed her lips in an expression he was beginning to recognize. “I loved that car. I don’t get attached to many material things, but I really loved that car.”

“You have any idea who could have been behind this?”