In the Bleak Midwinter

  “What do you mean by ‘arranging’ for people to look at the photographs? Flash them in front of every member of the congregation as they leave the church?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  “I can’t do that, Russ. Even if I were inclined to try to order them to do something, I’m their priest, not their commanding officer. Besides, you ever hear of a little thing called ‘separation of church and state’?”

  “Oh, c’mon, Clare, I’m not asking you to march ’em all past a lineup at gunpoint. There are how many members of St. Alban’s?”

  “Around two hundred families. We’ll get maybe a hundred folks at the ten o’clock service, and thirty or so at seven-thirty.”

  “I’ve got an eight-man force that has to cover three towns as well as investigate this murder. Can you imagine what going door-to-door with every member of St. Alban’s will cost us in lost hours? I can’t spare the time this case will take me as it is. You know domestics, drunk driving, and shoplifting all increase around Christmas. Gimme a break. Help me out.” She crossed her arms and worried her lower lip. He pressed his point. “Neither of us wants to see something preventable happen because my officers were canvassing your congregation.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Spare me. Next you’ll be trotting out a poor orphan boy and his sick dog. Just because I wear a collar doesn’t mean I’m a soft touch.”

  “Okay, okay, scratch the last. Please. I’ll go by your rules, Clare, whatever you say. I need your help.”

  She crossed her ankle over her knee, like a guy, and rested her mug on her leg. “This is what I can do. I’ll explain that your Jane Doe may have had some connection to the church. I’ll offer anyone who’s willing to help the chance to look at the photographs.” She looked into the fire. “I’ll remind them that somewhere she’s got parents, or brothers and sisters, who don’t know where she is or what’s happened to her.” She paused for a moment, then looked back at him. “You can take down the names of anyone who views the pictures, and I’ll have Lois give you a copy of our membership directory.” She smiled a one-sided smile. “The rest, I’m afraid, will have to be legwork.”

  “You really like that word, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay. Thank you. I know this is a lot to throw on you, this being your, what, third week? Thank you. For everything.”

  “Oh, lord. My sermon was going to be on Cody, and then the announcement about the Burnses’ attempt to have him fostered with them. Do I have to tell everyone we think this girl is his mother? Not that I want to sweep it under the rug, far from it, but it will make things sound awfully odd. ‘Here’s the baby, here are the adoptive parents, and, oh, by the way, will you all look at pictures of the dead mother?’ ”

  “No. As a matter of fact, I’d rather play that piece of information close to my vest. Let’s just say I have reason to believe the dead girl had some connection to St. Alban’s and leave it at that.”

  Clare leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I’m still going ahead with my announcement after the sermon, asking the congregation to write letters in support of the Burnses. I cannot believe they had anything to do with that girl’s death.” She shook her head. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I hope you can find out her name soon. It sounds so callous to keep calling her ‘that girl.’ ”

  He nodded. “I know. I want you to ask yourself if you can’t believe the Burnses might have done it because they really haven’t ever given you any cause to think they might be capable of such a thing, or if you can’t believe it because you’ve met them, they belong to your church, and they’re ‘nice people.’ ”

  She frowned, bit her lower lip again. “They’re very intense, very focused on getting Cody. But anyone who’s been trying to have a baby for so long would be that way, I think. And they strike me more as the types who would throw money or the force of law at a problem and expect it to go away.” She looked at Russ. “I met with them just this morning, did I mention that?”

  “Last night you told me you had an appointment with them. How did it go?”

  “Fine. Karen was all bubbly and hopeful, and Geoff was . . . his usual self. They certainly didn’t behave like a couple who committed murder the night before.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone after they committed murder?”

  “Um.” She looked into the fireplace.

  “Um?”

  “I’ve seen people after they’ve killed. How’s that?”

  Russ retreated from the sharpness in her voice. “I didn’t mean to be flip. What I’m saying is that you can’t always tell by someone’s behavior afterwards.”

  She waved a hand. “No, no, I’m sorry. Sensitive area. You’re right.” She looked into his eyes. “I do recognize that part of me doesn’t want anyone from my parish to be involved. That I can’t believe that one of my . . .”

  “Nice, white-collar Episcopalians?”

  She smiled ruefully. “One of my nice Episcopalians could do something so brutal. Now, if someone had been murdered with poisoned sherry . . .”

  “Or clubbed to death with a nine-iron . . .”

  “Or strangled with a shetland sweater from Talbots . . .” They both laughed. Clare smiled at him. “I’m really glad you came over.” She pushed her hair back with one hand. “Finding her has been weighing on my mind all day, but there was no one I could talk with about it.”

  Russ removed his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. “Yeah. You need to talk to someone who’s been there. That’s why cops tend to go off-duty straight to the nearest bar instead of going home. It’s not any different than coming off patrol someplace, you and your buddies getting together to drink too much and tell lousy jokes and talk about what happened over and over again.”

  “Because nobody else will understand.”

  “Yeah.” They looked at each other in agreement, then she turned to the fire. He rolled the mug between his palms, watching the play of firelight over the many textures in the room. They sat for awhile, the fire hissing and popping occasionally, comfortable with not talking. Russ finished off his coffee and smiled to himself. It was so many years since he had made a new friend, he’d forgotten how enjoyable it could be, getting to know someone whose mind was both fresh and familiar.

  “What?” Clare asked.

  He hadn’t realized he had been smiling at her. “Oh, just that you remind me of myself. Cops and priests have a lot in common, don’t you think? Confessions, sin, helping folks no one else wants to help . . .”

  “Funny uniforms, working odd hours, lousy pay . . .”

  He grinned. “Laughing at things no one else could laugh at . . .”

  “Heck,” she said, “it’s just like the army, except without free medical coverage.”

  Russ groaned and pulled himself out of his chair. “Speaking of odd hours, I’d better head home before Linda decides I’m out on a call and puts my dinner back in the freezer.” He glanced at the fire, burning bright and clean. “Make sure you bank that fire before you go to bed. You don’t want to have the volunteer fire department out here in the middle of the night.”

  “I promise.” Clare got up and headed for the foyer. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow at church?”

  He snorted. “Maybe not for the whole service. That might blow a gasket on this old unbeliever.” She handed him his parka. “What’s the best way to make sure everyone has the chance to look at the photos?”

  “Hmmm. If you station an officer near the main door of the church, and you take the parish hall, we should be able to ensure anyone who wants to help out will be able to get ahold of a picture.” She looked up at him while he shrugged on his coat. “Can we try to keep this as low-key as possible? There will be little kids there, you realize.”

  Russ paused from tugging on his heavy boots. “I realize that. I’ll take care to be as unobtrusive as possible. I promise.”

  “Just promise me you’ll look into every possibility, and not just focus on the Burnses.” She t
ouched his arm briefly. “As far as we know, the last thing she wanted in life was for her baby to be settled with them. I’d really like to see that happen.”

  “I promise I’ll conduct a thorough investigation. Don’t worry, my own theory won’t stop me from chasing down any other leads. It’s not so much that I want to nail Geoff Burns, Clare, it’s that I want to catch whoever did this. Do you realize that if I’d started Friday night’s patrol at the kill instead of ending up there, that girl would be alive today?” He kept his eyes on his gloves as he pulled them over his hands.

  She rested her hand on his arm again, saying nothing, looking at him with those clear, bright eyes. They were more brown than green tonight. He shook his head sharply.

  “Oh, shit, I know I can’t stop bad things from happening. But I don’t have to like it. Excuse my French. This is my town. My home, where I grew up. They could have hired anybody to do my job, but they gave it to me, and sometimes I get the feeling, Clare, I tell you, like when I first held my sister’s newborn, like I had been given something amazing and valuable, and it was up to me to guard her and protect her.” He let out his breath explosively. “Am I making any sense at all?”

  Clare nodded. “Yes.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m not the sort to usually get melodramatic.”

  She shook her head. “Telling the truth isn’t melodramatic. And I certainly don’t think taking your responsibilities seriously is melodramatic.” She smiled up at him, a small, thoughtful smile. “Sounds to me like you have a vocation, Russ. You’re called to your profession.”

  “Huh.” He thrust his hands in his pockets. “If that’s a calling, it’s a damned uncomfortable feeling.”

  “It can be, at times. Other times, it carries you on like nothing else in the world, because you’re doing what you know you’re meant to do.”

  He grinned at her. “Are you going to bring God into it, now?”

  She crossed her arms. “No, you’ll have to wait for tomorrow for that. And don’t forget something for the collection plate.”

  He laughed. “I’ll be there.” He held his hand out, and she shook it in her firm, no-nonsense way. “See you in church, Reverend.”

  “Police work in the parish hall. It should make for an interesting Sunday.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Waiting her turn to recess down the center aisle behind the choir, Clare inspected the crowd, taking the emotional temperature of her flock. The Right Reverend Malcom Steptoe, one of her teachers, had pounded in the importance of seeing the congregation as a whole. “You’ll meet with individuals and small groups all the time,” he would say. “Once a week, you have a chance to see the whole family of communicants together. Are they peaceable? Satisfied? Discontent? Angry? You must know!”

  Right now, at the end of the Eucharist, several of her family looked entirely disapproving. It wasn’t from her homily on Cody, she knew. That had been a tight piece of writing, comparing the baby to the infant Jesus, and his waiting for a family to the Christian waiting for the advent of Christ on Earth. It segued nicely into her plea for help for the Burnses. And it was under fifteen minutes long, always a plus for a sermon.

  The last of the choir crossed the chancel. Nathan Andernach, the deacon, lined up shoulder to shoulder with Sabrina Campbell, today’s reader, and Clare took her place at the end of the line. “The king shall come when morning dawns,” the choir and congregation thundered, “and earth’s dark night is past.” The three trod slowly down the steps, past the altar rail, into the aisle. “O haste the rising of that morn, the day that aye shall last.” From her unquestioned place in the front pew, Mrs. Marshall gave Clare a look that said, “This is not the way we do, things, young lady.”

  No, this was definitely about the two police officers in the back of the church. During announcements, in between calls for donations to the soup kitchen and volunteers for the Christmas Eve greening of the church, she had outlined the situation as briefly as possible and asked for everyone’s cooperation with Chief Van Alstyne, who had risen from his seat in the last pew and nodded soberly to the crowd. There had been a buzz of conversation, cut short by the offertory and the celebration of the Eucharist. “And let the endless bliss begin, by weary saints foretold,” the congregation sang. Sterling Sumner tugged the end of his scarf around his throat and glared at her as she marched past his pew. “When right shall triumph over wrong, and truth shall be extolled.” Vaughn Fowler was scanning the congregation, frowning slightly. Probably picking out who was going to be most disturbed by looking at pictures of a dead body.

  The choir fanned out in two lines against the back of the church. “The king shall come when morning dawns, and light and beauty brings.” Their harmony soared above the congregation’s melody. Russ Van Alstyne was singing along, his finger tracing across the hymnal, following the words. Now that was a surprise. Nice baritone too, from what she could hear with the choir reverberating only a few feet away. “Hail, Christ the Lord! Thy people pray, come quickly, King of kings.”

  Clare held the heavily embroidered floor-length cope—a literal mantle of priestly authority—out with one arm so she could turn without tangling. She drew a deep breath, letting the words come from a place deep inside herself. “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord,” she said, projecting her voice so that it echoed back enthusiastically from the stone walls. “Alleluia, alleluia!”

  “Thanks be to God,” the congregation responded, “Alleluia, alleluia!” It was an immensely satisfying moment, even if all hell was about to break loose. A polite, Episcopalian sort of hell, of course. She grinned.

  The choir members headed back up the aisles in groups of two or three. Parishioners were rising from their seats, drifting toward the parish hall, putting on coats, collecting squirming children. The din of voices made it hard to hear, so she nearly jumped when Russ spoke quietly in her ear.

  “Nice sermon. In fact, the whole thing was pretty cool. Very ritualistic.”

  “Isn’t it? Come for one of the big feast days. You’ll get to see me cense the altar.”

  “Uh huh. Sounds interesting.”

  “Colorful natives practicing their quaint rituals in their natural habitat.”

  “Speaking of colorful natives, where should I . . . ?”

  “I have to stay here and greet everyone leaving now. You head back to the parish hall, right through those doors there,” she pointed to the front of the church, “down the hall to the right.” The officer Russ had brought with him slipped through the inner doorway into the vestibule. He carried a plain manila folder. “Do me a favor,” she said to Russ, “give people a chance to grab a cup of coffee and have a cookie before you start flashing the photos, okay?”

  “Okay.” He tapped his own folder and pushed his way through the crowded center aisle, apparently not noticing the round-eyed glances directed at him. It must be hard, being a cop, she thought. Always either a hero or a bad guy to the public, never just another human being.

  “Reverend Fergusson!” Mr. Sumner’s preemptory tone jerked her away from her thoughts. “Don’t you think asking the congregation to view pictures of murdered women in the sanctity of their own church is the height of poor taste?”

  Clare’s spine stiffened. It was going to be a long Sunday.

  “No, I don’t think we’ll be called upon to help the investigation again, Mr. Fitzpatrick. That would mean the Millers Kill police couldn’t find the killer, and I’m sure that won’t happen.”

  “Wouldn’t count on that. When I was an alderman, I told ’em we needed another trained investigator. Too many people coming up from the cities these days! It’s getting so you can’t walk down Main Street without tripping over some newcomer from New York or Albany.” The octogenarian wheezed indignantly. Clare laid a steadying hand on his arm, and he responded by seizing her hand and pumping it in time to his words. “Told ’em we’d be needing more investigators, but they wanted to save money, so what do they do? Hire a detective as chie
f and send one of the boys off to the state troopers for the summer. I blame Harold Collins, that cheapskate. You haven’t met Harold Collins, yet, have you? You know how he voted when we had that water treatment problem?”

  “I really have to get back to the parish hall, Mr. Fitzpatrick. It’s been great talking with you, and I hope that bursitis calms down soon. How about I plan on making a visit later this week? I’ll give you a call Monday. Take care!” Clare deftly pried her hand from the former alderman’s clutches and trotted down the aisle as fast as her dignity and her flapping alb would allow. She made it to the sacristy without having to speak to anyone else. She unknotted the cincture around her waist, a rope-like belt symbolizing her vows, and removed her stole, kissing the embroidered cross at its center with a hasty reverence. During the four years she had served the church as a deacon, she had worn the rectangular scarf across her chest, and it still thrilled her to feel it in the ordained priest’s position, hanging squarely around her neck, falling over both shoulders. She yanked the alb over her head in a billow of white linen, shook it with a snap she hoped would take out most of the wrinkles, and hung it. On a wire hanger. Her conscience pricked her. It didn’t make much of a symbol of purity with one sleeve inside out, ready to slip to the floor at any moment. She pulled it off and rehung it on its own wooden hanger.

  In one of her less-mottled mirrors, she was amazed to see herself so collected. Not a hair was out of place in her French twist. After listening to complaints and denials and gasps of horror and agreeing over and over and over again that yes, it was a terrible shame, and no, the police didn’t suspect anyone in their congregation, and what was the world coming to, she felt her hair should be standing away from her scalp in a frizzled heap, the ends smoking.

  There was a knock on the door. Clare sighed. Not another round of questions, please. The door cracked open, admitting a hand holding a very full, very enticing sherry glass.

  Lois sidled into the room. “I asked the refreshment ladies to bring up the sherry from the kitchen. I thought you might need it.”