In the Bleak Midwinter

Clare shook her head. “I don’t know much more than you do,” she said. “I’m sure Ethan will be brought in for questioning, but I don’t think Chief Van Alstyne is anywhere near to arresting a suspect yet.” She took a bite of her roll. “Hard to believe that something like this happened here, isn’t it?”

Doctor Anne shook her head. “After thirteen years working the emergency rooms in Washington County and Glens Falls hospitals, I’ve seen way too much to think we’re invulnerable just because we’re small. Small towns have the same evils that big cities do, just in smaller numbers. And instead of some anonymous stranger, the evil is always someone’s neighbor or husband or friend. That’s the hard part, that you can’t blame some ‘other’ when awful things happen. The ‘other’ is one of us.”

CHAPTER 11

When her pager beeped in the middle of one of Mrs. DeWitt’s rambling stories about the Depression, Clare expected it to be the hospital. She was chaplain-on-call this Tuesday, responsible for the spiritual needs that might arise in the intersections between health and sickness and birth and death. Clare lowered her teacup gingerly onto the hand-tatted lace of the table runner.

“Mrs. DeWitt? May I use your phone for a moment? I have to see what this is.”

“Of course, Reverend,” the elderly woman said. “I left it . . . where did I leave it? Try the kitchen table.”

Clare would have sworn that not a thing in Mrs. DeWitt’s house, other than herself, had been made after 1935, so she almost laughed when she found the latest Toshiba micro-cell phone lying on the metal cherry-painted table. She punched in the number.

“Burns and Burns,” a pleasant voice replied.

“Uh . . . this is the Reverend Fergusson. I got a pager message to call here?”

“Oh, let me connect you with Ms. Burns, Reverend.” The voice was replaced by a symphonic rendering of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” The Burnses. Now what? Oh heck, she had tried reaching Russ that morning before setting out on her home visits, but he had already left for the courthouse. Had he found something linking the Burnses to Katie’s death?

“Reverend? Karen Burns. Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.”

“What’s up, Karen?”

“It’s complicated.” Karen laughed humorlessly. “It’s about Cody, so of course it’s complicated. Could we meet? As soon as possible?”

“Sure. I’m at Mrs. DeWitt’s right now. I have one more home visit to make, and I can keep it brief . . . how about an hour, an hour and a half from now? I can come to your office, that’ll be closer than the church.”

“Oh, wonderful. Thank you, Reverend. We’ll see you in an hour or so.”

Clare brought the cell phone back into the living room, her mind caught up in possible scenarios involving Cody.

“Everything all right, Reverend?” Mrs. DeWitt’s heavily wrinkled face creased with concern.

“I hope so, ma’am. But I’ll have to be going soon.”

“Well then,” her hostess said, levering herself out of her faded Morris chair with the help of her cane, “before you go, let me show you an idea I had for the church.” Mrs. DeWitt braced herself against a Philco radio set as she hobbled toward the hall. “The computer room is right down here.”

“The—you have a computer, ma’am?”

“Oh, my, yes. It’s the latest Gateway, customized for me. I ordered it over the Internet. Special-ordered cable access for my modem, too. At my age, I can’t afford to wait around all day for files to download, can I?” She paused, flicked a bit of dust off a Boston fern sitting on a plant stand. “I’ve been fooling around with a Web site for Saint Alban’s, and I want you to tell me what you think.”

Russ picked up his receiver. Put it down. Picked it up. Put it down. “What the heck are you doing in there?” Harlene yelled from the dispatch room.

“What are you doing, spying on me?” he yelled back.

“I can see the active light on the phone, you cranky old buzzard,” she said, appearing in his doorway.

He tapped the folded legal papers lying next to the crumpled remains of his lunch bag. “Judge Ryswick gave me the warrants.”

“For the blood tests on McWhorter and the Stoner boy? Good. Why don’t you go on out and serve ’em, then, and leave the phone system to those of us who understand it.”

He sighed. “I want to talk to Cody’s caseworker at DSS first. If this test clears McWhorter as the baby’s father, he and his wife will get Cody faster than you can say ‘closest living relative.’ I want to try to persuade DSS to keep the baby in his current foster home.”

“They’ll have to do a home visit,” Harlene pointed out. “Maybe they’ll find some reason not to place the baby there.”

“Aw, Harlene, you have to have shit smeared on the walls to get the state to take a kid out of his home. This place looked . . . respectable. Clean. Probably a fridge full of food and the rent all paid on time.”

“So tell them about Kristen.”

“I don’t know if I can! She won’t make a complaint against her father. I can’t tell them something she told me in an interview if she won’t back it up.”