In the Bleak Midwinter

He drove forward, past the park, past St. Alban’s, onto Elm Street. Over her protests about not trying to make it into her driveway, he shifted into second and churned a path up to her kitchen door. He was damned if he’d make her walk any farther than she had to in those skimpy boots she had on.

The truck idled quietly. “The guys on the graveyard shift always swing by my place around dawn,” he said. “Give me your key. I’ll radio them tonight before I turn in, ask if one of them will drive your car back into town if the roads are plowed by then.” She nodded, rubbing her eyes once more before fishing a key chain out of her pocket. She looked like a little kid at the end of an overlong day, all flushed cheeks and exhausted, tear-bright eyes. She pulled a key off the ring and handed it to him. “You need me to come in?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I started out this evening hoping I could help you get it all off your chest,” she said, smiling. “Didn’t expect to be on the receiving end.”

He draped his arm over the back of the seat. “Will I embarrass you if I tell you I admire you? The way you listen to people, the way you want to help?”

She smiled more emphatically. “Yes, you will. But thanks. For everything. You’re right, you know. I do need a friend.” She looked at him seriously. “Thanks. For letting me be just Clare. Instead of the Reverend Fergusson. It’s been a long time since I—it’s a rare thing to have someone you can just be yourself with, you know. Your whole self.”

He was going to make a crack about hanging out with heathens more, but he couldn’t, not with her looking at him that way. He shifted his gaze to the dashboard, unable to meet her eyes. “Good night, Clare.”

“Good night, Russ.” She opened the door and slipped from the cab.

“Clare—” he said. She paused, her hand on the door, the snow swirling around her and into the passenger seat. Her hair stirred in the wind, already hung with feathery snowflakes.

“Nothing,” he said. “Talk to you tomorrow.” He waited until he had seen her inside the kitchen before he shifted the truck into gear. She waved at him from the window. He pulled out of her snow-drifted driveway and drove away from the rectory at a much faster speed than was safe.

CHAPTER 17

Clare paused in front of the parish bulletin board, a packing box of Christmas banners propped against one hip. Still woolly-headed from the late night and high emotion, she had tackled the messy, mindless task of digging the church’s Christmas decorations out of the undercroft this morning. The Sunday-best of her parishioners’ photographs contrasted with her rumpled, sweaty, dusty state and reminded her that she would have to wash and change in order to be presentable. The picture of Karen and Geoffrey Burns caught her eye. They looked so happy and relaxed in the photo, with the kind of sleek contentment that more than enough money brings.

For all of Geoff’s raging and Karen’s desperation, Clare still couldn’t believe that their desire for a child could lead them into murder. She had seen them with that baby in the hospital, seen the instant love and tenderness that was ordinarily lost in the brassy blare of their personalities. Within their small universe of two, they were gentle, caring people. It struck her that perhaps they needed a child most of all so they could show that vulnerable side to another human being.

“Reverend Clare?” Lois’s voice broke her concentration. She hoisted the box higher and walked into the secretary’s office.

“A few messages for you,” Lois said. “Karen Burns called, and Mr. Felton’s daughter, to reschedule your visit. He’s going in for some tests and he won’t be back to the Infirmary until tomorrow.”

“Anything serious?”

“She didn’t sound too concerned. The last one was Kristen McWhorter. Is she related to the—”

“Her sister. What did she say?”

“She’s going to see her mother, and wondered if you’d come along.” Lois pushed the pink message memos across her desk. “Her number’s there.”

“Thanks.” Clare dropped the box against the wall and took the paper slips. “Say, Lois, you don’t know anyone who could get the mold spots out of these felt banners, do you?”

The church secretary sniffed a few times. “That’s what that smell is.” She tilted her head so that her perfectly cut bob swung sideways. “You’ve come to the right person. Not that I ever have to deal with mold, you understand, but I do know the best dry cleaner in the three-county area.”

“Somehow, I knew you would.”

In her office, Clare flung herself into her chair with a creak and a snap. She picked up two of the pink papers and held them up, one in each hand, as if weighing Karen Burns against Kristen McWhorter. She looked out the window at the diamond-pieced sky, longing for a four-hour nap. Steam off the smell of moldy old boxes, burrow under her grandmother’s quilt, turn her Thelonious Monk CD on low and forget about the world for awhile.