In the Bleak Midwinter

“Lord, yes, you’d be able to hear him if he wasn’t. He’s a noisy boy, that one, always wanting to talk with us.” Deborah gestured Clare through the archway leading from the kitchen into the living room. “He gets the cutest expression, too, like he’s thinking, ‘Who said that?’ whenever he makes a noise.” She led Clare through a carpeted hallway into a white-walled nursery with two cribs. The windows and cribs were swathed with petticoat fabric, and dancing bears lined the walls like gingerbread men.

Cody sprawled in the middle of one of the cribs, his round tummy pushing out his fuzzy blue sleeper. “Gosh. He’s gotten bigger. I can’t believe it’s only been ten days since I saw him last.” Clare found it hard to connect this fat and contented infant with the bundle she had unwrapped that night in the parish kitchen.

“He’s close to ten pounds. The doctor’s very pleased.”

Ten pounds must be good. “Shouldn’t he be sleeping on his stomach?”

“Oh, no. Only on the back, we know that these days. Cuts down on the instances of crib death.” Deborah smiled at Cody, the chocolate-sundae smile people get around babies. “We don’t want anything happening to this little guy.”

Clare reached inside the crib. “May I?”

“Touch him? Go ahead, until he’s hungry again nothing’s going to wake him up.”

Clare settled her whole hand over Cody’s head and blessed him with an inarticulate surge of tenderness and amazement that the most helpless of creatures were caught and held by God. As she signed the cross on his forehead, Deborah nudged her arm and pointed to a needlepoint hanging near the window. HE KEEPS HIS EYE ON THE SPARROW it read. “Yes,” Clare said. “Yes, he does.”

In the living room, Clare admired more pictures of graduations and proms and weddings before getting to the point. “I understand the Burnses have been visiting Cody. Did Ms. Dunkling from DSS tell you about the note that was left with Cody?”

“Ayuh, she did, she’s kept me up to date on everything about Cody. She’s wonderful that way.”

“Is it true Mr. Burns was here this past Wednesday? In the evening?”

“Ayuh, though that’s not the only time it’s happened. Mrs. Burns showed up at the pediatrician’s office when I took Cody in for his checkup. And they came ’round unsupervised a day or two after I got him, although to be fair, there hadn’t been much time to arrange a proper visitation and they did call first.”

“Did Mr. Burns call before he stopped by that night?”

Deborah crossed her legs, a slither of polyester. “No, he didn’t, and to tell you the truth, the whole visit made me nervous. I won’t say he was drunk, because he wasn’t, but he smelled like he had definitely dropped off at the Dew Drop Inn for a few after work.”

Clare shook her head. “After work?”

“I figured he must have left his office, gone out for a beer or two and then hit on the bright idea to visit Cody. He was still in his coat and tie. Really, I don’t like to complain. I understand how hard it is for the adoptive parents to wait, and I’m not against a few visits. I like the company, and it’s good for the kids and the parents. But, Lord!” She threw her hands in the air. “I can’t have folks showing up here at eight o’clock at night, sulking all over my living room and disturbing the baby’s routine.”

“Geoff Burns seemed sulky?”

“I guess angry would be a better word. He showed up without so much as a by-your-leave, invited himself in just as I was getting ready for Cody’s eight o’clock feeding, and acted mad at the whole world. Insisted on holding the baby, but he was so mad or tense or something that he got Cody all riled up and the poor thing wouldn’t settle down to his bottle for over half an hour.” She leaned forward. “Babies can sense people’s moods very well in their body language, you know.”

Clare took a drink of coffee. The newspaper headline she envisioned, PRIEST SUPPORTS MURDERER’S ATTEMPT TO ADOPT VICTIM’S CHILD had been joined by a subsidiary lead: DIOCESE SUED BY DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES.

“Deborah,” she said, “how long does it take to get to the Old Schuylerville Road from here?”

“Hmmm? Are you heading that way next? Let’s see, if you take the turn at Power’s Corners and then use old Route eleven, you can reach it in about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes.” Long enough to get to the spot where Darrell McWhorter’s body had been dumped, take off for Albany, and still be home in time to meet the Millers Kill police at his front door. Clare had a sudden urge to drive to the Burnses’ office right that minute. She wanted the truth from them, no matter how wrong it might prove her instincts.

She put her coffee on a needlepoint coaster. “Deborah, thank you so much for having me over to take a look at Cody and chat.” She stood. “I’d like to stop by and see him again sometime, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Deborah McDonald stood, gathering the mugs in one hand. “Not at all. I’m glad of the company, like I said.”

The two women walked to the kitchen. “I promise you I’ll talk to the Burnses and mention your concerns.”