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.
“Tired?” Terry McKellan grinned. His coat’s moulton collar, the same color as his moustache, made his fat, friendly face look like Mr. Badger in Wind in the Willows.
Clare nodded. “You’d think with sixteen hours of night, I’d be getting more sleep, wouldn’t you?”
He grinned. “Only if you’re not up on police business.”
Clare started. She hadn’t told anyone about chasing down Darrell McWhorter’s murder scene or questioning Kristen. “What? I’m sorry, I don’t . . . ?”
“I understand there was a cop car in your driveway last night.” He winked. “And your car was at the police chief’s all night Wednesday. Small town, Reverend Clare.”
She gaped. “Good heavens.” Gossip had simply never occured to her. Especially when the whole thing was so innocent.
McKellan grinned again, wiggling his badger-colored eyebrows for effect. “May be time to trade that MG of yours for something less conspicuious. Come to my bank, I’ll make sure you get a great rate on a loan.”
“Mr. McKellan! Chief Van Alstyne is a married man!”
“So?”
She sighed with exasperation. “He had been in an armed confrontation earlier that day. I was at his place Wednesday for counseling.” Stretch the truth too far, missy, and it’ll snap back to hit you in the nose, her grandmother said. She ignored the waspish voice. “It was snowing hard by the time I left, so he drove me home instead of me taking my car, which, as everyone keeps pointing out, is terrible in winter driving conditions.”
McKellan looked disappointed.
“Last night, he stopped by around dinner and I invited him to share a little stew with me while we discussed the Burnses and the baby.” It really had been entirely innocent. She had never done or said anything to Russ that she couldn’t have done or said in front of the entire vestry. So why did she feel like she was lying to Terry McKellan?
He squeezed her sweatered arm. “I’m suitably chastized. Next person I hear talking about it, I’ll set him straight.”
“Thank you.”
“You should still come in and see me about a car loan, though.”
In the parish office, Clare hitched one hip onto the unnaturally neat desk. “Lois, have you heard any gossip about—” she looked at the secretary’s disdainful expression. “Never mind.”
Lois tore off a pink memo slip and handed it to the priest. “Gossip.” She sniffed. “Never listen to it, never repeat it.”
Clare glanced at Lois’s Parker-penmanship writing. “The Department of Social Services? For me? How did—” she looked at the memo again, “—Ms. Dunkling sound?”
“Ms. Dunkling sounded just a tad put out.”
“Just a tad, huh? Guess that means the letter-writing campaign is having some effect.”
Lois lowered her reading glasses and raised her eyebrows. “Uh-huh.”
“No sense putting it off. Better beard the lion in her den. Lioness.” Clare reversed step in the hall and poked her head back through the door. “And can you speak to Mr. Hadley about getting some wood and kindling into my office? I don’t intend to shiver all winter long with a perfectly good fireplace just sitting there.”
She pretended to ignore the warning that floated down the hallway after her. “Winter hasn’t even begun yet, Reverend . . .”
The radiator was wheezing under its window in a respectable effort to take the chill off. Clare slipped her copy of Mr. Corlew’s report in the “Building Maintenance” file, which already took up an entire desk drawer and threatened to spill over into a cardboard filing box at any moment. She poured a cup of coffee from her thermos, grimaced at the taste, and abandoned it on the bookshelf cabinet. Her desk chair creaked and snapped as she sat down and reached for the phone. Waiting for Ms. Dunkling to come on the line, she flipped through her calendar. Infirmary visits. Music meeting. Stewardship committee. Marriage counseling. “Yes, hello. Angela Dunkling, please. Clare Fergusson.” She frowned and jotted down a note to call Kristen McWhorter about the funerals. “Ms. Dunkling? This is Clare Fergusson of St. Alban’s.”
“Yes, Ms. Fergusson. I called you about these letters I’ve been getting from your membership.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded nasal and inflectionless, like someone who had long ago memorized her speech and could recite it without thought or effort. “DSS is not an organization you can lobby, Ms. Fergusson. We have a legislative mandate to answer only to the best interests of the families we serve. Taking time out to read and answer a bunch of letters only results in less time and resources for our vital mission to protect the children of New York.”
Clare frowned. “Are you saying that getting information about Cody’s prospective adoptive parents isn’t an important part of your job?”
Angela Dunkling let out an irritated snort. “Of course it is. Believe me, we have considerable information on the Burnses already. We don’t need to hear from everybody who goes to church with them about what a great couple they are.”
Clare tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. If the letters were so ineffective, why was she getting this call from a DSS caseworker? “Why not simply file the letters in with the other information you have, then? Why are you answering them?”
“Let’s not pussyfoot around this, okay? Your people are sending us letters, and they’re getting their state legislators and senators to send us letters, too. I don’t need some House Rep breathing down my neck over this just because some supporter of his has decided the Burnses would make ideal parents. It’s our job to determine what living arrangements will serve the best interest of the child. We’re still waiting on the police investigation to try to track down the biological parents of the child.”
“Parent. His mother is dead.”
“Father, then. The child can’t be cleared for adoption until we’ve made a final determination of his status vis-à-vis his father or living relatives.”
“So meanwhile, Cody spends his first formative year in a foster home instead of with his future parents?”
“Ms. Fergusson, he’s in a perfectly good home with a caring, experienced foster mom. I’ll give you her number and you can check her out yourself if you’re so concerned.” There was a pause, the faint sound of a Filofax flipping. “Deborah McDonald. 555-9385. Believe me, we’re not running orphanages out of Charles Dickens.” Ms. Dunkling sighed exasperatedly. “Do you have any idea how many prospective parents are out there looking for the Great White Baby? There are couples who’ve been on lists a lot longer than the Burnses. Why should they get to jump line?”
“Because Cody’s biological parents left a note saying so?”
“Forget it. Call off your hounds, Ms. Fergusson. We don’t need the additional headache and believe me, it’s not going to alter our final disposition in the case. If you want to help the Burnses, tell them to settle down and learn to work with the system instead of trying to manipulate it to serve their own purposes. And tell them to stop making unauthorized visits to Mrs. McDonald. They know the rules.”
“What—they’ve been just stopping by to see Cody? That’s a problem?”
“Yeah, it is a problem. As prospective adoptive parents, they shouldn’t be seeing the child without DSS supervision. Call Mrs. McDonald, she’ll tell you. Wednesday, Geoff Burns showed up without so much as a phone call at eight o’clock at night. Believe me, stunts like that aren’t going to help their application any.”
Clare rested a hand on her open calendar. “This past Wednesday? The eighth?” The night Darrell McWhorter was killed.
“Yeah. Why?”
“No reason. Yes, I’ll talk with them about that.”
“And you’ll stop the letters?”
Clare paused for a fraction of a second. “I’ll pass on your comments to my parishioners. I can only suggest, I can’t order them to do anything.”
The DSS caseworker grunted. “I’ll look forward to being able to get back to work without attempts at coercion, then.”
Clare rang off quickly. She tapped a finger on the square labeled “Wednesday, 8th.” Eight o’clock. Russ said they had told his officers they had been home all night. Perhaps Geoff Burns considered that to be the end of the workday and not the night? Maybe he stopped by Mrs. McDonald’s on his way home and hadn’t thought to mention it. Maybe he had driven straight home and spent the rest of the night watching TV with his wife. Maybe he had a passenger in his car when he visited Cody. Maybe he killed Darrell McWhorter, drove to Albany, rifled Katie’s room and returned to Millers Kill with no one the wiser.
Clare folded her arms against her desk and slid flat until her head was resting on her arms. Dear Lord. She closed her eyes. Please, please don’t let me have been wrong about them.