In the Bleak Midwinter

Russ sighed. “The kids—the parents—could have parked in any one of those spots and snuck over to the stairs with the baby. I somehow doubt we’re gonna get an eyewitness with a license number and a description of the driver.”

The priest tapped the glassine envelope. “Chief Van Alstyne, exactly how hard do you have to look for the parents of this baby?” For the first time Russ let himself take a long look into the portable incubator. The sleeping baby didn’t look any different from every other newborn he had ever seen, all fat burnished cheeks and almond-shaped eyes. He wondered how hard up or screwed up or roughed up a girl would have to be to pull a perfect little thing like that out of her body and then leave him in a cardboard box. In the dark. On a night when the windchill hovered at zero degrees.

He looked back at the priest. She was leaning toward him slightly, focusing on him as if he were the only person in the whole hospital. “I don’t need to tell you that leaving a baby like that is called endangering a child,” he said. She nodded. “And of course, if we can’t find the parents, it’s going to take longer for DSS to actually get the baby out of foster care and into an adoptive home. But the thing is to find out how voluntary this really was, giving up the baby.”

Her mouth opened and then snapped shut. He continued. “When a woman really wants to give up her kid for adoption, she usually gets in touch with an agency, or a lawyer, or somebody, well before the baby is born. These throwaway situations—”

“She didn’t throw Cody away. Whoever she is.”

“No, she didn’t. Which makes me think it’s not one of those times when the mother is a druggie or a drunk or a psycho. But it does make me wonder if her boyfriend or her father forced her into it. And if she’s not already regretting what she did, but is too scared of us or of him to come forward and reclaim her son.”

“I never thought of that,” Reverend Fergusson said, biting her lower lip. “Oh dear. Maybe I shouldn’t have—”

The emergency room doors opened with a hydraulic pouf. Russ recognized the small, bearded man in the expensive topcoat and the striking brunette woman at his side, but he’d know who they were even if he had never seen them in the Washington County Courthouse before, just from the look on Reverend Fergusson’s face.

“We got here as soon as we could,” Geoffrey Burns said. His voice was tight. His glance flicked around the treatment area, lighting on the incubator. His wife saw it at the same time.

“Oh . . .” she said, pressing one perfectly manicured hand to her mouth. “Oh. Is that him?”

The priest nodded. She stepped aside, allowing the Burnses a clear view of the sleeping baby. “Oh, Geoff, just look at him . . .” Karen Burns hesitated, as if showing too much eagerness might cause the incubator to vanish.

Her husband stared at the baby for a long moment. “Where’s the doctor who’s been treating him?” he said. He looked at Russ. “Chief Van Alstyne. I take it the Department of Social Services hasn’t seen fit to send anyone over yet.”

“Mr. Burns.” Russ nodded. “I expect we’ll see somebody soon. They’re a little overwhelmed over there, you know.”

“Oh, don’t I just,” Geoff Burns said.

“I take it Reverend Fergusson called you about the note that was found with the baby?” Russ glanced pointedly toward the priest, who lifted her chin in response. “You folks know that it’s way too early to start thinking of this boy as your own. No matter what the parents wrote.”

Karen Burns turned toward him. “Of course, Chief. But we are licensed foster parents without any children in our home right now, and we intend to press DSS to place Cody with us.” Mrs. Burns had a voice so perfectly modulated she could have been selling him something on the radio. Russ glanced at Burns, thin and short, and wondered at the attraction. His own wife was one hell of a good-looking woman, but Karen Burns would put her in the shade.

“Under the standard of the best interests of the child, it’s preferable that a pre-adoptive child be fostered with the would-be adoptive parents, if there are no natural relatives able to care for the child. Young v. The Department of Social Services.”

Russ blinked at the lawyer’s aggressively set brows. “I’m not contesting you in court, Mr. Burns,” he said. “But we don’t know that there aren’t any natural relatives. We don’t know if the mother gave him up of her own free will or not.” He shifted his weight forward, deliberately using his six-foot-three-inches as a visual reminder of his authority here. “Isn’t it a little odd for a professional couple like you to be foster parents?”

Karen Burns laid her hand on her husband’s arm, cutting off whatever he was about to say. “I work from home as well as from my office, part time. On those times we’ve had a child in our care, I just cut way back.”