In the Bleak Midwinter

Crimson and yellow canisters marched across the white and gray-veined countertops, accompanied by thick glass jars filled with exotically shaped pastas. The sauce pot she was vigorously stirring was a startling cobalt blue, and whatever was in it, it smelled to him like he had died and gone to Provence.

She turned back to him in time to see the expression on his face. She laughed. “Hungry? Why don’t you stay for supper?”

“Oh, no. No, I couldn’t,” he said, as unconvincingly as possible.

She opened the refrigerator door, retrieved a wedge of cheese and plunked it on a cutting board in front of him. “You can grate the Parmesan,” she said. She rummaged in one of the drawers a moment before handing him what looked like the top of an egg beater with no beaters attached. “Just stick a chunk of cheese in that opening there and turn the handle,” she said, pointing. “It does all the work. Grates hazelnuts, too.”

She opened the oven door, releasing a cloud of bread-flavored steam. His stomach rumbled at the smell like a dog whining to be fed. “Almost done,” she said, shutting the door and retrieving her wine glass. She leaned against the counter. “I went with Kristen McWhorter today to her parent’s apartment.”

“That dump? Jesus, you—sorry—you shouldn’t be wandering around that neighborhood by yourself. And for God’s sake, stay away from that family until we’ve closed on whoever killed McWhorter.”

“For God’s sake? For God’s sake I should stay away?” She grinned at him hugely. He shook his head, pushed his glasses up his nose and applied himself to the overcomplicated grating gadget she had stuck him with.

“As I was saying, I met Brenda McWhorter, and she told me that between the time I saw him at St. Alban’s and the time he showed up dead, Darrell McWhorter got in touch with the man he said was Cody’s father. Evidently, he had seen the two of them together some time before Katie left for college, although Brenda didn’t know anything about it. Obviously, he thought he could get money out of the guy by threatening to reveal his identity.”

“What?” He let the grater drop to the cutting board, a pungent chunk of Parmesan still stuck in its basket. “He made a call to Cody’s father? Was she sure? It couldn’t have been to Katie’s killer? Darrell knew who had killed her and was preparing to blackmail him?”

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “He told Brenda he knew who had fathered Katie’s baby. She didn’t know his name or their plans for meeting.” She grimaced. “The woman was so self-absorbed, it was scary. She hadn’t even been bothered that Darrell was going to cut a deal with the man who might very well be her daughter’s killer.”

He picked up the grater and pressed the cheese further into the opening. “That’s assuming we’re dealing with one person. That Katie’s lover was also her killer. And Darrell’s.”

She sipped her wine. “It certainly indicates they were one and the same.”

He finally jammed the Parmesan in and slid the cover shut. He cranked hard, nearly wrenching the gadget from his hand. He gripped it more tightly and tried again. The nutty-sweet smell of Parmesan burst from the grater as he showered the cutting board with fine shavings. “I was going with this scenario: Geoff Burns killed Katie, Darrell had something that linked Burns to her murder and threatened him, Burns met with Darrell and iced him. Literally.”

“But if Darrell was blackmailing the father of the baby, and not Geoff Burns . . .”

“Maybe he was working both of them. There’s no guarantee whoever it was met with Darrell, after all. Maybe he had the wrong guy, anyway. What if he was thinking of some boy she walked home from school with, or went to the sock hop with?”

Clare pulled a chair from under the table and straddled it backwards, still holding her wine glass. “Listen to you. Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor?”

“No. What is it, like a Columbian necktie?”

“It’s a principle of logic that says that the simplest theory is usually the right one. Which is simpler, that Geoff Burns killed Katie, negotiated with Darrell, was blackmailed by Darrell who also and at the same time was blackmailing Cody’s biological father, and shot him? Oh, also rifling Katie’s student digs and returning home in time for us to see both their cars in their driveway at eleven thirty?” She pointed a finger at him. “Or is it simpler to say there’s one man, who fathered Katie’s child, and in a panic to cover it up, killed both Katie and her dad, the only two people who could reveal his identity?”

“Murder isn’t something you can apply principals of logic to, Clare. Bad guys kill people for reasons that are too stupid to believe.”

“I’m not saying his reasoning was logical. I’m saying we need to be logical.”

“We do?” He shook a last few flakes of Parmesan free and laid the grater on the board. “We?”

She pushed back her chair and took the cutting board to the counter. “You know what I mean.” She pointed to one of the cupboards. “Plates are in there.”