In the Bleak Midwinter

The living room of the group house was cheerfully ramshackle, furnished with someone’s old family-room sofa, crate-style and director’s chairs, an elaborately carved coffee table that had been the height of Mediterranean chic in 1972, and the ubiquitous cinder-block-and-board shelving. The girls sat on the sofa together. Clare retrieved the yearbook from the coffee table.

“This is his senior picture.” Wes was a good-looking boy, square-jawed and athletic, a young version of his father.

“What is this, skinhead hair?”

“No, he’s in the U.S. Military Academy.”

“And he got an early start on the buzzcut thing. No, I’ve never seen this guy.” Ebony leafed through a few pages. “Here’s Katie.” She read the script below the photograph. “ ‘SUNY Albany. Favorite memory of MKHS, the junior trip car wash fund-raiser, and Mr. Delogue’s class. Quote: I think I can, I think I can.’ ” She flipped through a few more pages. “Man, I knew she came from a small town. Look at these folks. What’s the matter, they don’t allow black people in Millers Kill?”

“Ebony!” Emily squealed.

Clare smiled crookedly. “Let’s just say that diversity is not their strong suit.”

“No lie. Hey, Em. Isn’t this that girl who came to see Katie at the beginning of the year?”

“What? Who?” Clare leaned over the coffee table to see.

“This blonde copping an attitude. Remember her, Em?”

On a page of candid photographs, Ebony had one finger squarely on a Seventeen magazine blonde with perfect skin and a form-fitting tie-dyed dress.

“Alyson Shattham was here visiting Katie?” Clare blinked in disbelief.

“It wasn’t like, a social call.” Emily said. “She was a bitch on wheels.”

“She had some sort of problem with Katie. Actually, she had a problem with all of us. Acted like her shit didn’t smell.” Ebony looked at Clare, biting her lip. “Oh. Sorry, Reverend. I forgot.”

“That’s okay. Tell me what you remember about Alyson’s visit.”

“She wanted to speak with Katie. She was, like, very rude. They went into the kitchen to talk and shut the door.”

“She was definitely riding Katie. But Katie, she could hold her own. I don’t know what they went on about while they were in the kitchen, but blondie flounced out of here like somebody had caught her tail in a crack.”

“Did Katie ever tell you what they talked about?”

“No. She was, like, very private with stuff bothering her. She would smile and change the subject if you asked if she was okay. Like, she didn’t want to burden anybody.”

Ebony nodded in agreement.

“Did either of you ever see Alyson here again? Or did Katie mention she saw her again?”

Ebony and Emily looked at each other.

“You ever see her after that time?”

“Nope.”

“Me, neither.”

Clare stood up straight and rubbed her forefinger across her lips. Alyson Shattham. Now that was interesting.

Clare picked up the yearbook. “I think I’ll show this around at the computer center where Katie worked. Maybe someone there overheard her or saw her with either Wes or Alyson.” She glanced out the window. “Then I’d better head back home. I don’t want to get caught in any more of this upstate weather. I have a friend who doesn’t trust my car in the snow.”

Clare checked her rearview mirror, changed lanes, and wedged her soda between her thighs. She adjusted the radio tuner as an eighteen-wheeler passed her. Traffic was light on the Northway this Saturday afternoon.

“WNCR’s accu-weather update!” the speakers blared. She turned the volume down. “A low pressure system continues to move in fast from the northeast,” the announcer said portentously. “I’m looking for snow to start mid-afternoon, with temperatures falling into the single digits by nightfall and increasing storm intensity. Accumulations from four to six inches along the Hudson Valley areas, higher in the mountains. Get out those skis if you haven’t already, because it’s prime time at the peaks!” The weather report broke for an ad extolling snowboarding at Hidden Valley Ski Area.

“Wonderful,” Clare muttered. She ate a few more french fries. She was a long way from being able to “smell snow” as Russ claimed he could do, but even she could tell the lead-gray clouds darkening the sky to the north meant another snowstorm. Didn’t it ever stop snowing up here?

“Is it my imagination, or is this a really snowy December?” the DJ asked.

“It’s not your imagination, Lisa, this is the third snowiest December since 1957,” the smooth-voiced weatherman said. “And with the storms now forming over the Rockies and the Canadian plains, we may set a new record before the month is over.”

Clare groaned.

“So get out and get that Christmas shopping done before you’re stuck indoors waiting for the plows, right, Dave?”

“That’s right, Lisa!”

“Let’s have something seasonal, then!”