In the Bleak Midwinter

“Ms. Dunkling sounded just a tad put out.”

“Just a tad, huh? Guess that means the letter-writing campaign is having some effect.”

Lois lowered her reading glasses and raised her eyebrows. “Uh-huh.”

“No sense putting it off. Better beard the lion in her den. Lioness.” Clare reversed step in the hall and poked her head back through the door. “And can you speak to Mr. Hadley about getting some wood and kindling into my office? I don’t intend to shiver all winter long with a perfectly good fireplace just sitting there.”

She pretended to ignore the warning that floated down the hallway after her. “Winter hasn’t even begun yet, Reverend . . .”

The radiator was wheezing under its window in a respectable effort to take the chill off. Clare slipped her copy of Mr. Corlew’s report in the “Building Maintenance” file, which already took up an entire desk drawer and threatened to spill over into a cardboard filing box at any moment. She poured a cup of coffee from her thermos, grimaced at the taste, and abandoned it on the bookshelf cabinet. Her desk chair creaked and snapped as she sat down and reached for the phone. Waiting for Ms. Dunkling to come on the line, she flipped through her calendar. Infirmary visits. Music meeting. Stewardship committee. Marriage counseling. “Yes, hello. Angela Dunkling, please. Clare Fergusson.” She frowned and jotted down a note to call Kristen McWhorter about the funerals. “Ms. Dunkling? This is Clare Fergusson of St. Alban’s.”

“Yes, Ms. Fergusson. I called you about these letters I’ve been getting from your membership.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded nasal and inflectionless, like someone who had long ago memorized her speech and could recite it without thought or effort. “DSS is not an organization you can lobby, Ms. Fergusson. We have a legislative mandate to answer only to the best interests of the families we serve. Taking time out to read and answer a bunch of letters only results in less time and resources for our vital mission to protect the children of New York.”

Clare frowned. “Are you saying that getting information about Cody’s prospective adoptive parents isn’t an important part of your job?”

Angela Dunkling let out an irritated snort. “Of course it is. Believe me, we have considerable information on the Burnses already. We don’t need to hear from everybody who goes to church with them about what a great couple they are.”

Clare tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. If the letters were so ineffective, why was she getting this call from a DSS caseworker? “Why not simply file the letters in with the other information you have, then? Why are you answering them?”

“Let’s not pussyfoot around this, okay? Your people are sending us letters, and they’re getting their state legislators and senators to send us letters, too. I don’t need some House Rep breathing down my neck over this just because some supporter of his has decided the Burnses would make ideal parents. It’s our job to determine what living arrangements will serve the best interest of the child. We’re still waiting on the police investigation to try to track down the biological parents of the child.”

“Parent. His mother is dead.”

“Father, then. The child can’t be cleared for adoption until we’ve made a final determination of his status vis-à-vis his father or living relatives.”

“So meanwhile, Cody spends his first formative year in a foster home instead of with his future parents?”

“Ms. Fergusson, he’s in a perfectly good home with a caring, experienced foster mom. I’ll give you her number and you can check her out yourself if you’re so concerned.” There was a pause, the faint sound of a Filofax flipping. “Deborah McDonald. 555-9385. Believe me, we’re not running orphanages out of Charles Dickens.” Ms. Dunkling sighed exasperatedly. “Do you have any idea how many prospective parents are out there looking for the Great White Baby? There are couples who’ve been on lists a lot longer than the Burnses. Why should they get to jump line?”

“Because Cody’s biological parents left a note saying so?”

“Forget it. Call off your hounds, Ms. Fergusson. We don’t need the additional headache and believe me, it’s not going to alter our final disposition in the case. If you want to help the Burnses, tell them to settle down and learn to work with the system instead of trying to manipulate it to serve their own purposes. And tell them to stop making unauthorized visits to Mrs. McDonald. They know the rules.”

“What—they’ve been just stopping by to see Cody? That’s a problem?”

“Yeah, it is a problem. As prospective adoptive parents, they shouldn’t be seeing the child without DSS supervision. Call Mrs. McDonald, she’ll tell you. Wednesday, Geoff Burns showed up without so much as a phone call at eight o’clock at night. Believe me, stunts like that aren’t going to help their application any.”

Clare rested a hand on her open calendar. “This past Wednesday? The eighth?” The night Darrell McWhorter was killed.

“Yeah. Why?”