Lois’ eyebrows arched.
“I think I’m going to need some help on this one.”
“I think you might,” Lois agreed.
Her desk chair creaked as Clare tilted back, looking out the window. Flurries swirled through the air outside, making tiny ticking noises as they hit the glass. The only help she could think of was Chief Van Alstyne. Whom she had already impositioned for a ride from the hospital and bulldozed into offering to take her along on his Friday-night patrol. He was going to think she was only ever after him for something at this rate. Which was a shame, because she had really liked him. He was good people, as grandmother Fergusson would say. He reminded her of friends she had in the army, friends who could always see her, no matter what uniform she was wearing at the time.
Okay. She could ask how the search for Cody’s birth mother was going. Find out what was happening with DSS—surely he’d be up to date on that. And if she gave him a chance to change his mind about Friday night, it would probably be the right thing to do. She should do that. Well. Maybe. She picked up the receiver in one hand and the Millers Kill directory in the other.
Russ was having one of those days that, if it were on video, you’d fast-forward through until you got to a good part. One of his officers had called in with a suspiciously early-in-the-season flu that was probably being treated with shots of cherry brandy and a long ride on a snowmobile. When Russ had taken a break from patrolling and shown up for an unexpected lunch at home, Linda had been too busy sewing up another order of curtains to eat with him. And she had asked him to drop off her loan application at the bank, when she knew he hated running personal errands in uniform. He always ran into somebody who would make some crack about how he was using the taxpayer’s dime.
He had a mountain of paperwork covering his ugly gray metal desk, stuff he’d been putting off and putting off until it had become a full day’s job. When he’d bitched about it to Harlene, she told him if he’d worked at it a little at a time, he wouldn’t be staring down the barrel now, which he already knew, which made him even more pissy.
And now this little gem. Circled in red in the
The usual stuff. What was making him grip his coffee mug to keep from throwing it across the room was the paragraph devoted to the Burnses. How the hell the reporter had found out about them he didn’t know, but there it all was, in glorious black and white: Saint Alban’s, the note, Burns complaining about DSS, and a plea to the mother to contact the couple directly. “We only want to help,” Karen Burns was quoted. “We believe what the mother did was courageous, not criminal.”
He looked out his window, almost lost between the bulletins and WANTED posters and advisories taped up all over his wall, and watched the hard, dry snow spitting through the air. Temperature dropping, cold night tonight. He thought about Cody-No-Last-Name, thought about what might have happened if Reverend Fergusson hadn’t been heading out for a run that night. Maybe whoever had left the baby had been nearby, watching and waiting for someone to discover the box. Maybe not. Courageous. Yeah.
The phone rang. Through the frosted glass window in his door, he could see Harlene’s outline as she crossed the office to pick it up. A moment later his line buzzed. “Hey, Harlene, can you get me some more coffee while I take this?” he yelled. He couldn’t hear her reply distinctly, but he thought it was something about being the dispatcher, not a geisha girl. He lifted the receiver.
“Chief Van Alstyne? Clare Fergusson. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”
“No, no,” he said, “Not at all. I’m staring at about a thousand state and county reports I’m supposed to have filled out sometime in November and I’m contemplating whether I can throw Geoff Burns in jail for interfering with an investigation. I can use a break.”
“You’re contemplating what?”
“I take it you haven’t read today’s paper. The article about the abandoned baby.”
“No. It’s here somewhere . . .” There was a rustling and a thumping sound. “Got it. Where is it?”
“Right on page three. Take a look at where Geoff Burns offers his protection and free legal services to the mother!”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “Holy crow,” Clare said after a moment.
“Yeah. After I had deliberately left out the note and the location where Cody was found. It’ll serve that little weasel right when he starts getting crank calls from half the teenagers in the county, claiming to be the baby’s mother.”
“Is that what you mean by interfering with an investigation? Because, you know, if the reporter had come to me, I wouldn’t have known I wasn’t supposed to say anything about the note.”
“It’s not just that, Reverend . . . Clare. This crap about protecting the mother from misguided officials. Burns might as well come right out and say ‘Come to us, and we’ll see the police never lay a hand on you.’ What are they gonna do, give her ten thousand and ship her off to Bolivia? Geez, that really frosts my cookies.” There was a strangled sound from the other end of the line. After a moment, he realized Clare was trying not to laugh. “Well, it does.”
“I’m sorry, it’s really not funny.” She snickered. “ ‘Frosts my cookies’?”
“Now you know one of our quaint local expressions.” The sound of her muffled laughter took the edge off his anger. He sighed.
“Okay. Do you really think that Karen and Geoff might make contact with the mother and not tell you?”
“Yes.”
Now she sighed. “Me, too. Is there anything you can do now the information about where Cody was found is out in the open? You can’t really mean to arrest the Burnses.”
“I’d like to. At least, I’d like to arrest Geoff Burns. Jesus Christ, what an arrogant little snot. Sorry.” Russ held the newspaper out at arm’s length to reread the paragraph. “But no, I don’t have any grounds. As much as he’s pushing the line, he hasn’t gone over it. There’s nothing illegal about giving your opinion on what the mother did or
