In the Bleak Midwinter

Clare shook her head. “Dear God.” She shivered. “Imagine lying there hurt, unable to move or help yourself, and seeing the car lights disappearing . . .”

“Don’t. Don’t think about it too much,” Russ broke in. “We won’t know anything until the coroner’s report. Don’t start speculating or you’ll make yourself crazy.”

She looked up at him. “The voice of experience?”

“The voice of experience,” he agreed. They both looked into the darkness at the creek’s edge. Impossible to tell, from here, what was rock and what was shadow and what was water. “There’s something else,” Russ said.

“What?”

“I think this murder may be connected to the baby you found.”

“What? Why on earth would you—”

“Because I have two unusual, unexplainable events happening back to back. A girl abandons a baby. Now a girl shows up dead. This isn’t New York City, where kids are stuffed into trash cans and Jane Does turn up twice a week. This is my town. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in my town.” She cocked an eye at him. He swung his arms wide in frustration. “I mean, of course it happens, obviously it has, but it sure as hell makes the back of my neck crawl. Which is my brain’s way of telling me to keep my eyes open.”

A halloo echoed further up the trail. A state trooper, bundled up to his ears and wearing his distinctive hat over a knit balaclava, heaved into view around the bend, lugging a chest. “Chief Van Alstyne?” he shouted.

“Yeah, here,” Russ called. “Kevin, go on and help him with that.” Flynn loped back up the trail and took one end of the box. When they reached the chief, they dropped the chest, stenciled PROPERTY NYSP CRIME SCENE UNIT and the trooper pulled off a glove to shake hands with Russ.

“Sergeant Hayes,” he said. “How can I help you, Chief?”

“We need photos, mostly, starting here, where the tire tracks terminate,” Russ led the technician toward the site of the disturbance, careful to put his feet into his old boot prints, “and here, where she fell, or they fought, and the slope . . .” he pointed down toward where the body lay hidden. Hayes nodded. “And then let’s get her in situ as quickly as we can, so these fellows can take her over to the morgue and our doctor can take a look at her.”

They backtracked to the others. Hayes opened the crime-scene chest and began digging out lights and camera parts. Russ pulled Clare to one side. “Why don’t you take my keys and go back to the car,” he said. “At least one of us can stay warm. I’d have Kevin drive you back, but I may need him here . . .”

Clare shook her head. “I’d rather stay. At least until you bring her up. I’ll walk with her back to the ambulance.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to. I need to.”

He looked at her for a long moment. The reddish lights from the flares were like the last glorious minutes of a sunset falling across his face.

He smiled faintly. “I think I like the way you work, Reverend.” Clare shrugged one shoulder and looked away, embarrassed at getting extra credit for just doing the right thing. “Okay,” he said. “Stay back out of the way and don’t let your feet get numb.”

By the time Sergeant Hayes had photographed every mark in the snow, and the chief and Officer Flynn had gone over every branch and every tree for hairs and fibers, Clare had stomped a circle of snow into packed ice. No wonder cop shows never portrayed this part of the job. It was mind-alteringly dull to watch. If she hadn’t had to keep moving in order not to freeze, she might have fallen asleep. Hard to keep that edge of horror over the death of another human being when it was surrounded by so much tedious scutwork.

The paramedics, who had waited a lot more comfortably thanks to their arctic-weight snowsuits, skidded down the slope in a zigzag pattern, dragging the pallet behind them. Clare watched as they conferred with the police officers at the water’s edge.

“Okay,” someone said, “let’s do it.”

“One . . . two . . . three . . .” said another voice. There was a cracking sound. Someone grunted.

“Watch the water, watch the water!”

“Got ’er. Okay, okay, let go now.”

Russ detached himself from the group and hiked up the slope to Clare. The paramedics followed, with Hayes and Flynn behind them in case they slipped. The figure strapped onto the pallet looked like something out of a fairy tale, white skin and dark hair, a train of servants and attendants. The flares’ glow gave the scene an otherworldly cast.

When they reached the trail, the paramedics came close to tipping the pallet as they slipped carrying harnesses over their shoulders. “Be careful with her,” Russ snapped. Clare had been bracing herself for a disfigured death, but the body was more like a statue of a pretty, round-faced girl, asleep with her head fallen to one side. There were leaves frozen into her long hair. Clare looked at Russ. “May I touch her?” she asked.

He nodded. “Carefully. Don’t move her.” Clare made the sign of the cross on the girl’s marble forehead.