In the Bleak Midwinter

“Krissie . . .” Brenda’s hands fluttered ineffectually. Clare suddenly saw, very clearly, the small woman inside that bulky disguise. Had she done that to herself? Or was it more of Darrell’s handiwork? “I tried . . . you don’t understand. You never understood what it was like to need someone.” She looked down at the paperwork charting how her and Darrell’s money had grown over the years. She looked beseechingly toward Clare. “In a lot of ways, he was a real good husband and father.”

Clare clenched her teeth tightly to keep her gorge down.

“Ma, I gotta know. Was he doing Katie? Did he start messing with her after I moved out?”

“Kristen! How can you say that!”

Her daughter leaned over the speckled countertop, hands braced. “I know. We never say that, do we? We none of us ever came right out and said what was happening, did we? Not even Katie and me. Did he, Ma? Did he?”

Brenda dropped her gaze to the carpet and shook her head. “He . . . I dunno if Katie told him something or if it was . . . if it was just you. He was good around Katie.” She looked up at her daughter again. “I couldn’t lose him, Krissie. I didn’t think . . .” She looked at the papers in her hand. “I didn’t think about it, that’s all. You gotta learn to overlook some things when you’re married. He took good care of me, and he loved me.” She started to cry.

“Aw, Ma. Jesus, Ma. You didn’t think about it.” Kristen plodded around the counter and put her arms as far around her mother as she could. “Ma, he used all of us.” Her voice cracked, but she went on, “I made myself into the kind of person who will never get used again, and you can, too. It’s not too late.”

Her mother shook her head. “I ain’t tough like you nor smart like Katie. I’ve always needed somebody to help me get along. I know you hate him, and I can’t blame you, you got that right. But I don’t know what I’ll do without him. God damn him for thinking he could make one last big deal.”

Clare stepped forward involuntarily. What?

Kristen wiped her eyes and nose with her sleeve. “Geez, him and his big deals . . .”

“Kristen.” The girl looked at Clare, red-nosed and blotchy-eyed. “If your father was killed while involved in one last ‘big deal,’ whoever he was dealing with may have been his killer.” Brenda jerked her head off her daughter’s shoulder. “It may have been Katie’s killer.”

Kristen and Clare both looked at Brenda, who stepped back out of her daughter’s hold. “No,” she said. “I don’t wanna borrow trouble, Krissie, and neither do you.” She darted a glance at Clare. “I already said my piece to the cops, I don’t got anything else to say.”

“Ma . . .” Brenda shook her head, backing away another step. Kristen’s eyes narrowed. “Ma,” she hissed, “if you know something and don’t tell me, I’m heading out this door and you can bury Dad in a shoebox by yourself for all the help you’ll get from me.”

Clare laid a hand on the girl’s arm. “I don’t think your mother’s reluctant so much as she’s scared. Is that it, Mrs. McWhorter?”

The woman shifted from foot to foot, her gaze darting from Kristen to Clare to Kristen again, her face a mask of misery. “I don’t want no trouble from the police,” she said.

“The police will have to know what you tell us,” Clare said, “but I don’t see that they need to know who told us.” She caught Brenda’s eyes, wide and white, and made herself still, wiping out everything she already knew about the woman, her whole body open, listening.

Clare held Brenda’s gaze until the older woman sighed and quivered in relaxation. “Darrell said he knew who the baby’s father was. Said he had surprised Katie and him together last winter, in a car.” She looked at the sheaf of papers trembling in her hand. “He said he could get money from the guy. He called him that afternoon, that last afternoon.”

“Darrell called someone?”

“Oh my God, Ma, do you know the phone number? Do you know his name?”

Brenda’s face quivered. “He didn’t tell me none of the details, honey. You know I’m not good—”

“Not good with details. Yeah, I know.”

“There was a phone number written down.” Clare’s heart squeezed with excitement. Now they were getting somewhere. “I thought about doing something with it, but I wound up throwing it into the disposal.” Clare couldn’t help a small groan of frustration. “I was scared. I figured whoever this man was, he’d killed your father and maybe your sister and who’s to say he couldn’t kill me, too. I may not be smart, but I know when to keep my mouth shut.”

“Mrs. McWhorter, when Darrell told you that he was going to get in touch with this man, did either one of you consider that you were going to be making a deal with the man who probably killed your daughter?” Clare knew she was speaking too sharply, but Brenda’s monstrous self-absorption was sucking the patience out of her.