In the Bleak Midwinter

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her turn toward him. “I’ve been debating telling you something. I’m not sure if it’s covered by pastoral confidence or not, since it was kind of in a public place. Heck, for all I know, Lois could have overheard it.”

“What?”

“This morning, things seemed to be going well at first. I thought we had convinced McWhorter to release Cody to the Burnses. But then, just like that, he changed his mind. Karen went absolutely wild. She was yelling, ‘I could kill you’ at McWhorter.” Clare hunched her shoulders and sighed.

“They do start to look more and more like couple number one, don’t they?”

“Was McWhorter killed and then dumped?” she asked abruptly.

“Nope. He got out of the car and was shot there on the side of the road.” Flashing yellow lights up ahead. Plows and sanders were out, trying to keep up with the relentless accumulation of snow.

“Why would he be in a car with the Burnses? Where does this road go?”

“Away from town, it heads toward Schuylerville and Saratoga and the Northway. As for why he’d be in the car with them, I’d guess they were making a payoff.”

Clare shook her head. “No. Even if they were going to exchange money for the baby, which would be a complete turnaround from their earlier position, why would they be heading out of town together? McWhorter was . . . not smart, exactly, but crafty. Looking out for himself as well as the main chance. Why agree to go off on a lonely road with someone who’d been screaming she was going to kill him this morning?”

He tried to come up with a reason that made sense. The frustrating feeling that this case was getting more complicated rather than less was creeping up like a fog around his head. It had been a long, hard day, and he wanted to go home and tumble into bed and forget half-frozen corpses and bloody snow and shotgun-toting teens and sisters who cried until their cheeks ran black.

“The Northway—that’s the highway that runs the length of the state, right?”

“Route Eighty-seven, right.”

“That’s how you get to Albany.”

“Yeah . . .” he nodded. His head was working slowly, but it was working. “Katie’s things. McWhorter and whoever killed him could have been headed for Albany to get something from the house she lived in.”

“You haven’t been there, yet, have you?”

“No, the Albany P.D. is supposed to cover that.” His numb brain finally sparked the right connections. “Shee—it!” he said, snatching at the radio. “Do you remember the address?”

Clare spread her hands helplessly. Russ clicked on the mike. “Dispatch, this is Chief Van Alstyne of the Millers Kill P.D. Can you connect me direct to cruiser Fifty-seven-fifteen?”

There was a blare of static and then Kevin Flynn’s voice from the speaker. “Fifty-seven-fifteen. Go ahead.”

“Kevin? This is the chief. Cancel the Burnses. I want you and Mark to go to the station, get the Katie McWhorter file, and find the address of her student digs in Albany. Then get on the horn to Albany and have them send someone there immediately. I think whoever killed McWhorter may be headed for that house.”

“Ten-four, Chief. Fifty-seven-fifteen out.”

Clare looked out the window at the snow-blotched roadway. “You think they might catch the killer?”

“Maybe. The paramedics weren’t sure about the time of death, ’cause the cold and the snow do funny things to body temperature. But McWhorter wasn’t killed much more than three hours ago, I’ll bet. If the snow slowed his killer down enough, and if he takes his time at Katie’s house, maybe the Albany P.D. will walk in on him. Worth a shot.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Now? Now I’m going to drop you off at the rectory. What do you think, you’ve got a free pass to tag along every step of the way?”

Evidently, she did. It wasn’t that her arguments for coming with him were irrefutable. She didn’t actually refuse to get out of the truck. But somehow, she was still there when he cruised past the Burnses, noting the lit windows and the two vehicles in the driveway. “That doesn’t mean they’re not involved,” he said to her smug smile. “It just means they aren’t in Albany right now.” He put another call through to the station, asking Durkee and Flynn to head over to the Burnses after they had gotten hold of the Albany police. “And for god’s sake make sure someone in Albany calls me if they manage to collar anyone!” he concluded.

Clare’s smile disappeared when they drove up to the tiny rental park where Kristen McWhorter lived. “What’s she drive?” Russ asked as they cruised slowly along a row of tightly packed, two-story town houses.

“An ’eighty-nine Honda Civic,” she said, rubbing condensation off the window, trying to spot Kristen’s car somewhere in the parking lot. “Black.”

“I don’t see it.”