In the Bleak Midwinter (26 page)

Clare tossed the rag into a bland, stainless steel sink, and replaced the spoon in the pot. She leaned one hip against the counter, her arms crossed again, while Russ rocked back and forth in his boots, reluctant to tread muck all over her floor, hesitant about taking them off.

“Oh, take off your boots and sit a spell,” Clare said, as if he were a book she could read. Bent over unlacing, he could hear her deep breath. “I wanted to apologize for last night,” she said. “I never just break down like that. It was inappropriate and poorly timed and I’m sorry.” It sounded as if she had practiced the speech.

Russ straightened, sliding his boots off heel by heel. “Never? You never break down and cry?”

A flush rose in her cheeks. “Okay, almost never. Certainly not with someone I haven’t known for very long.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, this is embarrassing.”

He sat in one of the four wooden chairs clustered around the kitchen table. “Funny. It doesn’t feel as if we haven’t known each other for very long. Does it?”

She blinked. “Honestly? No. It doesn’t.”

He spread his hands. “Remember what you asked me last night? ‘Who do you go to when you feel this way?’ ”

She smiled faintly, then laughed, a breathing out kind of laugh. “You’re doing me, aren’t you? That’s supposed to be me. Okay, okay, you’re right. I guess I don’t need to apologize for dumping on you.”

“I bet you’d call it ‘sharing’ or ‘venting’ if somebody did it to you.”

“Hmmmm.” She turned to the stove to transfer sauteed mushrooms from an iron skillet to the sauce pot.

The rectory kitchen was a faded white, with a dull and unpolished white linoleum floor, unornamented white cupboard doors, a serviceable white refrigerator, and a matching dishwasher next to the sink. The whole room had been turned out as cheaply and inoffensively as possible around fifteen or twenty years ago, he guessed. Reminded him of army housing.

Clare had evidently dealt with the blandness by littering the refrigerator door with photos, clippings, and cartoons, and hanging up a series of framed prints, each one featuring a single vegetable: an improbably wide carrot, a voluptuous eggplant, an aggressive tomato.

Crimson and yellow canisters marched across the white and gray-veined countertops, accompanied by thick glass jars filled with exotically-shaped pastas. The sauce pot she was vigorously stirring was a startling cobalt blue, and whatever was in it, it smelled to him like he had died and gone to Provence.

She turned back to him in time to see the expression on his face. She laughed. “Hungry? Why don’t you stay for supper?”

“Oh, no. No, I couldn’t,” he said, as unconvincingly as possible.

She opened the refrigerator door, retrieved a wedge of cheese and plunked it on a cutting board in front of him. “You can grate the Parmesan,” she said. She rummaged in one of the drawers a moment before handing him what looked like the top of an egg beater with no beaters attached. “Just stick a chunk of cheese in that opening there and turn the handle,” she said, pointing. “It does all the work. Grates hazelnuts, too.”

She opened the oven door, releasing a cloud of bread-flavored steam. His stomach rumbled at the smell like a dog whining to be fed. “Almost done,” she said, shutting the door and retrieving her wine glass. She leaned against the counter. “I went with Kristen McWhorter today to her parent’s apartment.”

“That dump? Jesus, you—sorry—you shouldn’t be wandering around that neighborhood by yourself. And for God’s sake, stay away from that family until we’ve closed on whoever killed McWhorter.”

“For God’s sake? For God’s sake I should stay away?” She grinned at him hugely. He shook his head, pushed his glasses up his nose and applied himself to the overcomplicated grating gadget she had stuck him with.

“As I was saying, I met Brenda McWhorter, and she told me that between the time I saw him at St. Alban’s and the time he showed up dead, Darrell McWhorter got in touch with the man he said was Cody’s father. Evidently, he had seen the two of them together some time before Katie left for college, although Brenda didn’t know anything about it. Obviously, he thought he could get money out of the guy by threatening to reveal his identity.”

“What?” He let the grater drop to the cutting board, a pungent chunk of Parmesan still stuck in its basket. “He made a call to Cody’s father? Was she sure? It couldn’t have been to Katie’s killer? Darrell knew who had killed her and was preparing to blackmail him?”

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “He told Brenda he knew who had fathered Katie’s baby. She didn’t know his name or their plans for meeting.” She grimaced. “The woman was so self-absorbed, it was scary. She hadn’t even been bothered that Darrell was going to cut a deal with the man who might very well be her daughter’s killer.”

He picked up the grater and pressed the cheese further into the opening. “That’s assuming we’re dealing with one person. That Katie’s lover was also her killer. And Darrell’s.”

She sipped her wine. “It certainly indicates they were one and the same.”

He finally jammed the Parmesan in and slid the cover shut. He cranked hard, nearly wrenching the gadget from his hand. He gripped it more tightly and tried again. The nutty-sweet smell of Parmesan burst from the grater as he showered the cutting board with fine shavings. “I was going with this scenario: Geoff Burns killed Katie, Darrell had something that linked Burns to her murder and threatened him, Burns met with Darrell and iced him. Literally.”

“But if Darrell was blackmailing the father of the baby, and not Geoff Burns…”

“Maybe he was working both of them. There’s no guarantee whoever it was met with Darrell, after all. Maybe he had the wrong guy, anyway. What if he was thinking of some boy she walked home from school with, or went to the sock hop with?”

Clare pulled a chair from under the table and straddled it backwards, still holding her wine glass. “Listen to you. Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor?”

“No. What is it, like a Columbian necktie?”

“It’s a principle of logic that says that the simplest theory is usually the right one. Which is simpler, that Geoff Burns killed Katie, negotiated with Darrell, was blackmailed by Darrell who also and at the same time was blackmailing Cody’s biological father, and shot him? Oh, also rifling Katie’s student digs and returning home in time for us to see both their cars in their driveway at eleven thirty?” She pointed a finger at him. “Or is it simpler to say there’s one man, who fathered Katie’s child, and in a panic to cover it up, killed both Katie and her dad, the only two people who could reveal his identity?”

“Murder isn’t something you can apply principals of logic to, Clare. Bad guys kill people for reasons that are too stupid to believe.”

“I’m not saying his reasoning was logical. I’m saying we need to be logical.”

“We do?” He shook a last few flakes of Parmesan free and laid the grater on the board. “We?”

She pushed back her chair and took the cutting board to the counter. “You know what I mean.” She pointed to one of the cupboards. “Plates are in there.”

Dinner was a lamb stew thick with winter vegetables, garnished with Parmesan. He went through half the loaf of golden-crusted bread sopping up the sauce. “Where’d you learn to cook like this?” he asked between mouthfuls.

“My grandmother Fergusson. We went to live with her and Pawpaw when I was seven. I was a handful. A tomboy in a household of Southern ladies and mad at the world to boot. One day she caught me dropping eggs off the veranda to see what would happen to ’em. She marched me into the kitchen and tied about an acre of apron around me and said, ‘I’m going to teach you to put those eggs to better use, missy.’ ” She smiled. “First thing she taught me to make was meringue. Talk about starting at the top.”

He grinned. “I can just see you. You must have been a cute kid.”

“Lord, no. I was a homely little girl. My sister got the looks.”

He shook his head. “There isn’t such a thing as a homely little girl.” He tore off another hunk of bread. “And I’ve seen pictures of your sister. She was pretty, yeah, but pretty like hundreds of other girls. You,” he dabbed the bread in the air as if sketching her, “you’re… memorable. Who you are just shines through your face.” He popped the bread in his mouth and watched, amused, as she blushed bright red. “You’re one fine-looking woman, Reverend.” She clapped her hands over her cheeks. He laughed.

She snorted loudly and jumped up from the table to ladle more stew into her bowl. “I should have you meet my mother. She loooves,” she drawled out the word, “a flatterin’ man.” She turned and batted her eyelashes hard enough to create a breeze. “More stew, Chief?”

He surrendered his bowl. “Yeah. Sounds like you miss your family.”

“Sometimes.” She put his stew in front of him and sat down. “Sometimes I’m glad we have some distance between us. My decision to enter the priesthood, coming on the heels of Grace’s death, was hard for them. It wasn’t what they had wanted for me.”

“You can’t blame them. It’s a lot to give up.” He blew on a spoonful of stew. “All parents want their kids to have the same things they had. Marriage and a family. I know my mom regrets that Linda and I never had any children.”

She leaned back in her chair, her head cocked. “Marriage and a family?”

“You know, giving that up to be a priest.”

She grinned, then quickly covered her smile with her hand. “I think you’re under some misapprehension here. Episcopalian priests don’t take a vow of chastity. We can get married, have kids, the whole nine yards.”

“What?” He dropped his spoon into the bowl and stared at her. “But the old priest, the one you replaced, he was there forever and he never—”

“Some priests choose to remain celibate. But it’s just that, a choice. Not an obligation.”

“Huh. If that don’t beat all.” He watched as she devoured a wad of sauce-soaked bread. He felt unsettled and annoyed, as if she had deliberately kept the truth from him. He tried to picture her going out for a night on the town with a man and his mind drew a blank. “You’d think they’d just call you ministers, then, instead of all this priest business and the white collar and all.”

She sighed, pushed her chair back and headed for the living room. “Hang on,” she said. She reemerged a minute later to hand him a large paperback.

“
The History and Customs of the Episcopal Church in America
,” he read. “Sounds like a real page turner.”

“If I can read up on the Iroquois Nation, you can read up on my church. Now, finish that stew up and you can have some pumpkin roll for dessert.”

He declined dessert on behalf of his waistband, which had a tendency to shrink in the wash when he ate too much. She turned down his offer to help wash the pots and pans, but she did let him load the dishwasher.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No, I’d better get going. It’s late.” He climbed back into his boots and parka. “Thanks for the dinner.”

“It was my pleasure. Company makes the meal, Grandmother Fergusson used to say.”

He stuck out his hand just as she wrapped her arms around herself. Like an idiot, he shoved his hands into his pockets just as she reached out to shake. Finally, he slapped his hand around hers and pumped her arm like he was at a Rotary Club Meeting. Over the lingering odors of dinner, he could smell her, fresh and green, like new-mown hay in his brother-in-law’s field. “Night, now,” he said, and yanked open the door so hard he could hear the hinges bite into wood. They both looked at the door frame. He turned to her, frowning. “And for God’s sake, lock your doors.”

The squad car was freezing. He cursed the heater, cursed the weather, cursed the drive back to a dark and empty house. Why the hell had Linda gone on this fabric-buying trip anyway? He wanted her home. Only two more days. Then he’d feel better.

Clare knew she ought to be more interested in the boiler. She flexed her chilly fingers together and glanced at the papers on the black oak table, listening for the telltale hiss and rattle of the radiators. She seemed to be the only one who noticed that the meeting room—the entire parish hall—never warmed up, so Robert Corlew’s projections on repairing the aging water heater ought to have her spellbound. Contractors, unfortunately, rarely made compelling speakers.

“—rests directly on blocks, so that the insulation can be applied—”

She needed to be getting more sleep. Through diamond-paned windows, she could see the front corner of St. Alban’s, its stone walls massed like a storm front against the wan December light. So little daylight on a Friday afternoon, she thought, already noon and only four more hours ’til sunset. A month or more until she could see longer days. She flexed her shoulders back, stretching the neckline of her thick wool sweater, causing her collar to tug against her throat. She turned her attention back to the table, where Vaughn Fowler was calling the vote.

“Aye,” she said, copying the rest of the votes. Had she just agreed to replacing the hot water heater with a nuclear powered furnace?

“All right, then, we’re agreed to hold off replacing Old Bessy until the replacement prices go down this summer.”

Serves you right, missy
, she could hear her grandmother Fergusson say.
If you’re cold, put on another sweater
.

Terence McKellan and Mrs. Marshall pushed their high-backed chairs away from the table. “Before you go,” Clare said, “I’d like to update you on the Burnses’ situation. The letter-writing campaign is going very well, with lots of participation. The police have a strong lead on the identity of Cody’s father, and as soon as he’s identified, we’re going to try to persuade him to sign adoption papers naming the Burnses as parents.” At least she hoped someone would be able to get the paperwork in front of him before Russ hauled him off to jail. “With that in mind, I have some more facts and figures about the mother-and-baby outreach project that I intend to present at our next meeting.”

Sterling Sumner harrumphed, but the rest of the board managed at least polite expressions of interest. The meeting adjourned. Clare headed straight for the coffee machine. She poured herself a cup, yawning convulsively.