In the Bleak Midwinter

“Chief Van Alstyne. All that tousled hair and those sexy lines at the corners of his eyes. He has that rugged, all-American look, like the kind Ralph Lauren puts in his ads, except his models always have this slightly gay edge to them. The chief is very . . . heterosexual.”

Clare laughed. “The chief is also very married, Lois. Just how much of the sherry have you had?”

“Don’t worry,” Lois said, floating back into the hall. Clare followed her. “I’m sure there’s enough left to rustle up another glass for you.”

In the large, sunlit parish hall, things did seem almost normal. Clare worked her way back to the white-draped refreshment table, greeting the people she knew by name and smiling at those she didn’t know yet. Mae Bristol, as plump and pale as an over-risen bun, was serving up coffee and tea from the church’s silver service. She always wore a printed silk dress with a matching hat—this Sunday it was cabbages in shades of blue. The sherry bottles were between the creamer and the coffee cups. They looked seriously depleted.

“This is stupid, Miss Bristol. My parents let me drink wine at home!” A slim girl in a fashionably skinny velvet-and-patchwork dress leaned across the white tablecloth. Her hair was perfectly retro-seventies, straight and shining and parted in the middle. She reminded Clare of the girls at her old high school whose outfits always looked like they were straight off the pages of Seventeen magazine and whose hair was always blown dry to frothy perfection. She could still remember feeling angular and underdeveloped and unfeminine next to them, a jock whose clothes never looked right off the basketball court or the track, a girl whose fingernails were always lined with grease because she’d been helping her dad with airplane maintenance. It had been—what?—seventeen or eighteen years since she graduated? Funny how the individuals changed, but the type remained. There would always be girls who had been blessed by the gods of adolescence, and girls like Clare. She reached around the latest version of the homecoming queen and snagged one of the sherry bottles. Age, thank heavens, most definitely hath its privileges. The girl flashed her a well-polished look of teenage disdain.

“Then your mother can come over here and get a glass for you, Alyson. I’m not giving you any sherry until then, and that’s final.” The girl flipped her dazzling hair in annoyance and flounced away as well as she could in her high-heeled platform boots.

“The difficult age,” Clare said, filling her glass to the top and handing the bottle back to Miss Bristol.

The elderly lady fixed Clare with her black-currant eyes. “That girl is spoiled rotten,” she said. “I had her in my fourth-grade class, and she was spoiled then. Alyson will always be at the difficult age, whether she’s seventeen or seventy.”

“Ah,” Clare said. “Well.”

“Oh, don’t mind me, Reverend. I never felt I could speak my mind when I was teaching, so now that I’m retired, I’m making up for lost time. Which reminds me. Some of those men who believe they run the church undoubtedly want to let you know their opinions about this police business. You stand your ground. I think you’re doing a splendid job.”

“Goodness,” Clare said. “Thank you, Miss Bristol.” She turned away, feeling as if she’d been given a sticker for good behavior from an otherwise strict teacher. She took a sip of her sherry, spotting Russ standing by the door to the street. Casual, not obviously blocking it, but making it impossible to get past him without at least making an excuse. He really was tall, several inches above anyone else in the room. It was more noticeable in a group. She wended her way toward him through the crowd, careful not to spill any of her drink on the faded rose-patterned carpet. As she nodded and smiled at her congregants, Vaughn Fowler fell in beside her.

“Any luck with identifying the victim?” he asked.

“At the church door? No,—no.” She had to forcibly restrain herself from adding “sir” every time she spoke to Colonel Fowler. Mr. Fowler.

“Let’s hope someone here will be able to help the police, then. Speaking as a vestry member, I don’t like it. The sooner we get this off church property the better. You do realize there could be a question of liability for St. Alban’s?”

“Liability? For a murder? I don’t see how.”

“If there was some connection. Do the police have a suspect yet? If it’s a member of our congregation, we may need to consult the diocesan attorney to ensure that the church, as a corporate entity, has no responsibility.”

“Ah . . . as far as I know, Chief Van Alstyne hasn’t singled out any one person as a suspect. After all, finding out who she was is a very preliminary step.”