CHAPTER 6

Dvorak was right, Russ thought. As soon as the sun dropped behind the mountains, the mercury plummeted. Turning onto Church Street, he could see the time and temperature sign outside of Farmer’s and Merchant’s Savings and Loan. Twenty-one degrees, and with the air so clear it was bound to keep on dropping overnight. At least they were done with snow for awhile. Hell of a lot of snow for the beginning of December. Lousy for driving, but good for all the bed-and-breakfasts catering to skiers.

At a red light, his gaze dropped to the folder on the seat beside him. He’d spent the rest of his Saturday afternoon showing the X-rays to all three dentists in town, with no results. He didn’t want to consider the possibility that she might have been a tourist. Somebody who had come up to Millers Kill for antiquing or leaf-peeping or skiing and decided it would be the ideal place to drop her baby. If she was an out-of-towner, he might never be able to get an I.D. on her.

He drove past St. Alban’s, onto Elm, and pulled into Clare’s driveway. The connection to the church. That was the key, his best lead so far. Either the dead girl or the man who had impregnated her had some tie to St. Alban’s, and he needed the priest’s help to find out what it was. He killed the engine and sat for a moment, looking at the glow of lights through the windows, the intermittent puffs of smoke from the stone chimney. Admitted to himself that he wanted to check up on Clare, too. Not that she’d appreciate the idea. Russ got out of the car and crunched his way across her snow-covered lawn. The Dutch-Colonial house had a deep-hipped roof and a wide porch supported by four plain columns. He swept his boot back and forth as he climbed the stone steps up to the porch, clearing off a little of the snow. There must be another doorway out back by the ramshackle garage that she’d been using. Kind of a shame, because the double front door, with its small, stained-glass windows, was one fine piece of woodworking. He loved old houses.

He tried the wrought-iron door handles. They turned easily. After what she had seen, she still wasn’t locking her door. He sighed, rang the bell. From inside, he could hear a muffled lumping, then a faint “Coming!”

The left door opened wide, framing Clare in a swirl of smoke. She coughed. “Russ!” she said. “I didn’t expect you. Do you know anything about fires?” He followed her into a roomy foyer, wiping his boots on a worse-for-wear rag rug stretched out in front of the door. The air was acrid, making his eyes sting.

“Holy cow, Clare. What’re you doing, burning wet leaves?”

She reached for his coat. “I tried to get a fire going in the fireplace in the living room. But something went wrong.” He shrugged out of the bulky nylon parka and she hung it on an old coatrack.

On either side of the door were broad archways. From the size of the brass chandelier hanging in the room to his left, Russ guessed it was meant to be a dining room, although it looked more like a warehouse at the moment, with boxes and mismatched wooden chairs taking up most of the space. He bit back a smile. Evidently even the prospect of living out of cardboard hadn’t made the Reverend any more receptive to the idea of the church ladies swarming through her things, doing up the house for her.

Through the right arch, he could see the source of the problem. The Colonial-style brick fireplace in the center of the wall held a pile of overly large logs that were sputtering flames. Smoke curled under the mantel and filled the room. Since he didn’t hear anything, he guessed the quaint rectory had never been fitted out with anything as modern and useful as smoke alarms. “Let me see what I can do,” he said. “You open a few windows.”

The first thing he saw once he was on his knees on the flagstone hearth was that the flue was closed. He pulled its handle forward, opening it. The air rushed up the chimney with a sucking sound, drawing the smoke with it. There was an iron woodbox to the left of the fireplace and a wrought iron carrier holding kindling. “You got a newspaper handy?” he asked. She scooped yesterday’s Post-Star off a pine coffee table. He knocked the slightly singed logs to one side and replaced them with crumpled wads of paper, then laid on several small pieces of kindling and a quarter-split log. She had one of those silly brass canisters with foot-long match sticks on the mantelpiece.

“You’re supposed to use newspaper?” she asked, as the fire caught cleanly and began to burn. “I didn’t know that.”

“Where did you learn to make a fire?” Russ asked.

“Survival training,” she admitted. “You know, using pine needles, branches, a gum wrapper . . .”

“Do yourself a favor,” he said, grinning. “Use paper instead. And start small. Don’t pile on the big logs until you’ve got a roaring fire going.”

“I did have a roaring fire going!” she said. “For a minute or two.”

“What, when the pinecones caught on fire?” Russ laughed.

“The smoke’s cleared out,” she said with dignity. “I’ll close the windows.”

Russ took in the room while Clare cranked the casement windows shut. There was an overstuffed sofa and a few fat chairs with faded chintz covers grouped in front of the fireplace, and a needlepoint rug over the floorboards. The low built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace were piled with haphazardly arranged books, pictures, and plants, and topped by two narrow clerestory windows.

“So what brings you here? Besides saving my bacon from getting smoked.”

“Wanted to talk about the case.”

“Ah,” she said. “Then why don’t I get us some coffee first? Make yourself at home.”

“Coffee would be great. This is quite a place you have here. Do you know when it was built?”

She disappeared through a swinging door in the back of the room, but her voice floated out to him. “Nineteen-twelve. It’s very Arts-and-Crafts, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah.” He walked back to the foyer and pulled off his wet boots. “Linda and I have an eighteenth-century farmhouse out near Fort Henry. No closets, eleven rooms and not a level wall or floor in any of them.”

“Must take a lot of work,” Clare shouted from the kitchen.

“Yeah, but I like it. Pretending I’m Bob Vila is a hobby of mine.”

She had set up a square chest on legs under the big front window and put it to work as the bar. Nice decanters. Russ uncorked one and took a sniff of Scotch. The smell was enough to make his mouth water. Sighing, he replaced the top. The little cane-seat chairs on either side didn’t look as if they could hold his weight, but he liked the plain, bare window, showing off the small panes of glass that ran along the edges. That was the one thing that drove him nuts about his wife’s custom curtain business—every window in his house was swagged and draped and ruffled with about fifty-seven yards of fabric.

Two standing lamps flanked a folded gateleg table behind the sofa. There was an assortment of family pictures, some in fancy silver frames, others in good-quality wood. He picked up the largest photo, taken on a beach somewhere. An older couple who must be Clare’s parents sitting on a driftwood log. A younger Clare in shorts and cotton sweater, her arm around a similarly dressed blond girl of eye-catching good looks. Two blond guys flanking them, not much taller than the girls but broad-shouldered and big. Which would explain the two separate photos of men in UVA football uniforms.

A smaller picture in an elaborate frame caught his eye. Mom and Dad dressed like one of those rich couples in a Cadillac ad, and Clare, who was decked out in a heavily embroidered robe, smiling and teary-eyed. Inside a church somewhere, from the looks of it. The two beefy brothers were accompanied by two cheerleader types, one of whom held a baby.

“Here you go,” Clare announced, backing through the door at the rear of the room. She lowered a tray containing two plain crockery mugs and a sugar bowl onto the coffee table. The smell was incredible.

“Damn, that is one good-smelling coffee. ’Scuse my French.”

She sat in one of the plump chairs and picked up a mug. “Why thank you. I grind my own mix. Jamaican Blue roast, Colombian . . . I put in a little ground hazelnut and cinnamon . . .” She smiled, the smile of a really good cook attempting without success to look modest. “The secret is to use fresh-roasted beans and fresh spices, and to grind ’em yourself. Don’t bother with the stuff in the supermarket that’s been sitting around in a bag for who knows how long.”

Russ took the other chair. “I’ll keep that in mind. Next time I have a spare half hour to make a cup of coffee.”

She laughed. “I didn’t know how you take it, so . . .” she said, waving a hand over the sugar bowl, packets of artificial sweetener, and creamer.

“I should probably be a macho guy and say I drink it black, but the truth is, I like it real sweet.”

“Oh, yeah. I drink mine sweet, too, but I’m always a little embarrassed by it. I used to stash sugar in my pockets and slip it in on the sly at briefings. Hey. Do you think how people drink their coffee reveals their personality?”

Russ stirred sugar into his mug and took a sip. He closed his eyes. “This is good. I needed this.” He opened his eyes and looked at Clare. “No. How you drink your coffee while you’re eating donuts, that reveals your personality.” She was wearing a woolly turtleneck tucked into a pair of khakis and what looked like some New York designer’s idea of army boots. She was curvier than he had thought when he had seen her in baggy sweats and thick outdoors clothes. “You run today?” he asked.

She nodded. “Six miles. I needed it, too, after last night.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen my share of dead bodies, and I’ve never gotten used to it. To tell you the truth, I hope I never do. Seeing someone who’s been murdered . . . that should make you lose sleep at night.”

Clare sat up a little straighter. “She was definitely murdered? It wasn’t a suicide?”

“Oh, no, it was murder, all right.” He told her Dr. Dvorak’s findings. When he got to the part about giving birth recently, her eyes went wide.

“Cody’s mother,” she said. “Good Lord. I have to admit, when you said it was too much of a coincidence last night, I chalked it down to, um . . . paranoia.”

“Thanks a lot. If I were a woman, you’d have called it intuition.” She made a face at him. He continued, “Dvorak is going to send DNA samples to Albany, along with some of Cody’s, to make sure. Of course, that will take up to four months.”

“That poor girl. I can’t imagine . . .” Clare looked into the fire. “I wish she could have known Cody was settled with the couple she had picked out for him. Before she died. Was killed.”

He got up and laid another two logs on the fire. “Don’t be wishing that so quick. As far as I’m concerned, Geoff Burns is my number one suspect. With Karen Burns following close behind.”

“You must be joking! The Burnses? You’re just saying that because you don’t like Geoff.”

“I admit that. I don’t like Geoff Burns. He’s an arrogant, self-important, humorless pain in the butt.” He sat down on the edge of his chair, leaning across the table. “But think about it, Clare. Who else has a better motive? The father of the baby? He’s gonna kill to avoid a few bucks child support a month? Or the Burnses, who have been trying for years to get a child, and are running out of resources and time and have no friends at DSS?”

She crossed her feet under her, tailor style. “You know nothing about this girl. What if Cody’s father was a married man, with a family, and she was going to blackmail him? Or what if her boyfriend killed her because Cody wasn’t his? Or . . . or . . .”

“Or what if she was a hit-woman for the Mafia and they rubbed her out before she could testify to the Feds?”

“Don’t be smart. You see what I’m saying, here. You can’t pin a murder on the Burnses without doing a lot more leg-work. Just because they’re convenient.”

“Legwork?”

“Well . . . that’s what they say on TV.”

“I’m not going to cut the investigation short, no. In fact, I want you to help us with something.”

She shifted forward in her chair. “Yeah?”

“The one thing we do know about the girl is that she knew the Burnses were looking for a baby, and that she left Cody at the church.”

“Or she agreed to let someone leave him at the church.”

“Right. Somewhere, there’s a connection. She was either a member of your congregation, or she worked there, or the father of the baby did, or she had friends there.”

“You think someone in my parish will be able to identify her?”

“Yeah.” He leaned back into his chair. “How would you feel about arranging for people to take a look at some photos tomorrow?”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and bit her lip. In the warm light, her hair was the color of honey and molasses. Russ looked into his coffee.

“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 touched 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.”