In the Bleak Midwinter

Clare dropped her arms to her sides. She could feel a hot pricking behind her eyes. “Of course. I’m . . . I’m so sorry. I didn’t think . . .” Karen’s scornful look told her it was obvious she hadn’t thought. Clare bobbed her head and left the parking lot as fast as she could, wanting nothing so much as to put the fiasco behind her. What had she been thinking? Her mind drew a blank. She had been dismayed that the Burnses had lied to the police. She had been hopeful that Karen’s confession would finally clear them in the investigation. She had been . . . pleased with herself, bringing a new piece of information to Russ, like some attention-starved dog showing off a trick. She jammed her hands deep into her pockets in disgust. She hadn’t been thinking, just feeling. And reacting.

She stopped at an intersection and waited for cars to pass. Damn, it was cold. Her ears already ached and it was another mile at least to the Burnses house, where her car was parked. Why hadn’t she worn a hat? A stitch in time saves nine, her grandmother said. Proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance. That voice belonged to the warrant officer who had taught her survival course. They were evidently in agreement with Russ.

The light turned green and she crossed. But, dammit, he was so focused on the Burnses he couldn’t consider any other possibility. Why would Karen have told her about Geoff’s absence the night Darrell was murdered if it wasn’t to exculpate him? It was so obvious! But Russ couldn’t entertain the notion that he might be wrong. Him and his ‘Me cop, you priest’ routine. Patronizing jerk.

The flash of red lights and brief blurp of a siren jerked her attention to the road. A cruiser was pacing her, its passenger-side window unrolled.

“Get in, I’ll drive you.”

“No,” she told the car.

“For God’s sake, Clare, just because you were wrong about the Burnses doesn’t mean you have to sulk like a little kid. It’s a long walk to their house.”

“I can use the exercise.”

“Clare, get in the goddamn car!”

“No.”

“I won’t ask again!”

She remained silent, facing in the direction she was walking, her eyes fixed on the building across the next intersection.

“Fine, dammit. Be that way!” The cruiser picked up speed and drove off.

In the fading rumble of its engine and the accelerating swish swish swish of its tires, she could hear her grandmother Fergusson’s voice. Self-righteousness won’t mend any shoe leather, missy, and pride won’t put a meal on the table. Wrapping her arms and her self-righteousness around her, Clare trudged on into the night.

CHAPTER 21

Weekends were peak time for the Millers Kill Infirmary. Children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, busy from Monday through Friday, would come for visits Saturday and Sunday, bringing magazines, photographs, and potted plants that the staff would labor to keep alive. So far, Clare had kept her visits to weekdays, when the corridors were largely quiet and the oldest members of her congregation were happy to see someone from the outside.

But Mr. Howard’s niece had asked her to stop by to encourage the old gentleman, who had just gotten back to the Infirmary after a rough bout of pneumonia, so here she was, hoping that by showing up first thing in the morning she could avoid the sullen teenagers and guilty-looking adults who populated the corridors on Saturdays.

Mr. Howard looked weak and washed-out but seemed to be in high spirits. Clare had visited with him once before, and found what he most wanted was an audience for his stories of the Great Depression and his never-ending string of dreadful puns. He didn’t acknowledge she was a priest: whether that was from faulty memory or a politely unvoiced disagreement with the ordination of women, she didn’t know. They did pray together at the end of her half-hour visit, though. She wondered, leaving him with a promise to say hello to his niece, if the prayers of a man of ninety were somehow more easily heard by God. After that many years, God must seem like just one more old friend living on the other side of the divide.

At the unmanned nurses’ station, Clare tucked her brown police parka under her arm and flipped through the roster of residents, finding names she knew, reading the brief notes to see if anyone was doing poorly or heading for the hospital. The sound of muffled crying caught her attention. She dropped the notebook and stepped around the counter into the corridor. An old woman dressed in a heavy floor-length robe leaned against the wall, her fist jammed into her mouth, her eyes wide and frightened.

“Hello,” Clare said quietly. “Can I help you?”

“I—I don’t know,” the woman said. She looked about her. “I don’t know where . . .”