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.”
