In the Bleak Midwinter

“I’ll stop by my office. You can leave me a message and I’ll call you from there.” She tucked the yearbook under her arm and shook hands with the Fowlers. “I’m sorry to lay all this on you this morning. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.” She waved to the Shatthams as she stepped off the porch. Before the door closed, she could see Barbara Shattham embracing Edith Fowler.

In her car, Clare let her head drop back against the headrest and closed her eyes, boneless. She opened them again. Through steel and glass, she could hear the familiar flat pulsing of rotors. She pressed her face against the chilly window. There it was, at maybe eight hundred feet, flying northwest. Maybe a skiing trip. She squinted. Looked like a Bell AH-51. Good ship, fast, reliable. Before she left Virginia, she had been trying to talk her dad into replacing his old OH-50.

Shifting, she flipped open the glove compartment and flicked through the maps there. Eastern New York State, with a city map of Albany. She folded the heavy paper into a manageable size and started the engine. She could see the helicopter in the passenger-side window now. As she watched, unable to look away, it heeled its tail rotor up, accelerating toward the Adirondacks. She rubbed a gloved hand over her dry lips. God. She wished she were up there right now.

CHAPTER 22

Emily Colbaum was a tiny, fey girl with huge brown eyes and a close-cropped haircut that looked like Audrey Hepburn on speed. She stood in the doorway of the room she had once shared with Katie McWhorter, crossing and uncrossing her arms. “You see, Reverend? I mean, I’m not a complete slob, but it would be hard to know what went missing.”

Clare crawled backwards from underneath Katie’s bed. “I’m really not so concerned about what the man took. I was hoping maybe there was something left behind. A photograph, a note from a phone message . . . something.” She grunted in frustration as she clambered to her feet.

“The cops were pretty thorough. Of course, I think they were thinking, like, drugs, or something bad like that, like the only thing that could get a girl killed was either a rapist or being mixed up in something bad.” Emily crossed her arms around herself again. “Katie wasn’t like that.”

“I know.” Clare sat on the bed that had been Katie’s. The posters on her half of the room ran heavily to cute kittens with inspirational sayings and landscapes with greeting-card poetry. There was nothing hinting of a secret life in her messy desk and overstuffed bookcase. Clare brushed a piece of a dust bunny off her nose. She was eighteen, and pregnant. Let’s say by Wes Fowler. She didn’t want anyone to know. Why?

“Emily, did Katie ever talk about what she wanted to do after college?”

“Oh, sure. She wanted to get into computers. Maybe Web designing, SYSOP, she had lots of ideas. She wanted her own business, to work for herself. She could have done it, too. She was just amazingly hardworking. She was like, never partying or blowing off class.”

“So getting married or having children right away wasn’t in her plan.”

“No way. I couldn’t believe it when they told me she’d had a baby. I just couldn’t believe it.”

“Hey, who’s here?” A black girl trailing layers of knitwear sidled around Emily into the room. She had multiple earrings and a small stud set in one nostril. “Hi, I’m Ebony.”

“Ebony rooms with Sara, across the hall.”

“Yeah, the room where you don’t have to listen to that nasty dog next door.”

“Yeah, but you get the street lamp all night long. This is Reverend Clare, from Katie’s hometown. She’s kind of helping Katie’s sister.”

“Hi, Ebony.” Clare rose and shook the girl’s hand. “I have a picture I already showed Emily, of Katie with a boy. I think he might be the father of her baby.” She dug into her pants pocket, grateful she was wearing off-duty khakis and a wool turtleneck instead of her usual garb. “Have you ever seen him?”

Ebony studied the photograph. She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t think I ever saw any guy with Katie, you know? She was . . . focused. She wanted to hit the ground running.”

“I was telling the Rev how I was, like, in disbelief when I heard she had had a baby.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ebony agreed, handing the photo back to Clare. “I thought she was just putting on weight. We all were complaining about the food, and the freshman fifteen and all that stuff. Most of us eat at the dining halls, and man, that stuff is nasty for your figure.”

“I remember,” Clare said, smiling a little. “Look, I left a yearbook from Katie’s high school downstairs. There are some more pictures of the boy—his name is Wes. Did she ever mention that name?”

Ebony and Emily looked at each other.

“You ever hear that?”

“Nope.”

“Me, neither.”

“Would you take a look at the yearbook? Just in case?”