In the Bleak Midwinter

Clare nodded. “I’ll consider myself impressed upon.” The diploma wall also held a photo collage that stretched a good three feet square. She could pick out shots of parties and Christmas celebrations, elderly residents surrounded by three and four generations of family, doctors in white lab coats and nurses in cheerful-print smocks. A very large Easter Bunny in one picture turned out to be Foubert himself. She laughed.

“My Hall of Fame. Or Shame, as the case may be.”

“We have a similar one hanging outside our parish hall. But your pictures are definitely more fun than ours.” She opened her mouth soundlessly, struck by a sudden thought. “Are there pictures of all your volunteers here?”

“There sure are. We couldn’t run this place without them. I can’t afford to hire LPNs to do what they’re willing to do for free.”

“You must have a photo of Katie McWhorter, then.”

Foubert’s pleasant expression tightened under his bushy eyebrows. “I read about her in the paper.” He looked down at the pipe in his hand. The tobacco smouldered fragrantly. “She was such a wonderful kid. A little too much on the serious side for her age, but a damn hard worker. And smart.” He shook his head. “What a waste.” He looked up. “You leave the city to get away from that sort of thing, but it’s everywhere nowadays, isn’t it? There isn’t any safe spot anymore.” He rose from behind his desk and hunkered down in front of the collage. “Here she is. This was taken last year, at the Christmas party. She was prettier than she photographed. It was her expression, I think.”

Clare got out of her chair for a better view.

“The residents loved her. She never got antsy around them, the way some of our teenage volunteers do. She liked being here.”

“Who’s the boy with his arm around her? He looks sort of . . . have I seen him here during one of my visits?”

“No, he’s off to college as well. That’s her sweetheart, Wes Fowler. He was another volunteer.” Foubert laughed softly. “They used to take breaks together, go out to his car. Later I’d see them come in all pinked up and grinning. Kids.” His smile faded. “What a waste. What a terrible waste. I remember once when—”

Clare sat back in her chair. Foubert’s voice seemed to come from far away, as if he were on the radio in another room. Her ears buzzed.

Wes Fowler.

What had Doctor Anne’s son said about the boy? Serious, studious, hard working. Just like Katie.

Golden boy. From a family that had everything the McWhorter’s didn’t. The Fowlers three-thousand-square-foot dream home was maybe ten miles from the apartment on Depot Street, but it could just as well have been on the other side of the planet.

A boy who had everything going for him, including an appointment to West Point and a beautiful girlfriend from a family as well-respected as his own. What would a boy like that do to hide a screwup? A really big, life-altering, won’t-go-away-for-the-next-eighteen-years screwup?

Wes Fowler.

The boy Katie didn’t want her family to know about. He evidently felt the same way about keeping it secret.

She was going to have to tell Vaughn Fowler and his wife about this. Oh, God.

“—you’d think, wouldn’t you? Reverend Fergusson?”

“Huh?”

“Are you okay? You look odd.”

“I feel odd. I mean—yes, I’m okay.”

She stood up. Foubert rose with her, clasping one huge paw around her arm. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, thank you.” She smiled at him, a kind of social grimace. “I do need to be going, though. I just remembered something important.”

“Alright, then.” He cradled his pipe in the ashtray. “I wish I knew who to send my condolences to about Katie. She never talked about her family.”

“She has a sister, Kristen. She’s asked me to perform the burial service, as it happens. If you’d like, I’ll let you know when and where. She has to wait until the police, um . . .”

“Yeah. I do. I’d like that, please.” Foubert plucked a business card off his desk and handed it to her.

Hand halfway to her pocket, Clare stopped. “Paul, could I borrow the photograph of Katie? I’ll return it.”

He squatted and peeled the picture off the board, balling up sticky gum between his fingers before giving it to Clare.

“Thank you.”

He opened the office door and ushered her out. “I’ll be hearing from you, then. Stop by the next time you’re visiting, will you?”

“I sure will do that, yes.” She took off with indecent haste. The photograph of the young couple, projections for the cost of the church roof, Karen Burns’s angry face, all jostled for space at the front of her consciousness.

Wes Fowler! My God!