“Yeah . . .” he nodded. His head was working slowly, but it was working. “Katie’s things. McWhorter and whoever killed him could have been headed for Albany to get something from the house she lived in.”
“You haven’t been there, yet, have you?”
“No, the Albany P.D. is supposed to cover that.” His numb brain finally sparked the right connections. “Shee— it!” he said, snatching at the radio. “Do you remember the address?”
Clare spread her hands helplessly. Russ clicked on the mike. “Dispatch, this is Chief Van Alstyne of the Millers Kill P.D. Can you connect me direct to cruiser Fifty-seven-fifteen?”
There was a blare of static and then Kevin Flynn’s voice from the speaker. “Fifty-seven-fifteen. Go ahead.”
“Kevin? This is the chief. Cancel the Burnses. I want you and Mark to go to the station, get the Katie McWhorter file, and find the address of her student digs in Albany. Then get on the horn to Albany and have them send someone there immediately. I think whoever killed McWhorter may be headed for that house.”
“Ten-four, Chief. Fifty-seven-fifteen out.”
Clare looked out the window at the snow-blotched roadway. “You think they might catch the killer?”
“Maybe. The paramedics weren’t sure about the time of death, ’cause the cold and the snow do funny things to body temperature. But McWhorter wasn’t killed much more than three hours ago, I’ll bet. If the snow slowed his killer down enough, and if he takes his time at Katie’s house, maybe the Albany P.D. will walk in on him. Worth a shot.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Now? Now I’m going to drop you off at the rectory. What do you think, you’ve got a free pass to tag along every step of the way?”
Evidently, she did. It wasn’t that her arguments for coming with him were irrefutable. She didn’t actually refuse to get out of the truck. But somehow, she was still there when he cruised past the Burnses, noting the lit windows and the two vehicles in the driveway. “That doesn’t mean they’re not involved,” he said to her smug smile. “It just means they aren’t in Albany right now.” He put another call through to the station, asking Durkee and Flynn to head over to the Burnses after they had gotten hold of the Albany police. “And for god’s sake make sure someone in Albany calls me if they manage to collar anyone!” he concluded.
Clare’s smile disappeared when they drove up to the tiny rental park where Kristen McWhorter lived. “What’s she drive?” Russ asked as they cruised slowly along a row of tightly packed, two-story town houses.
“An ’eighty-nine Honda Civic,” she said, rubbing condensation off the window, trying to spot Kristen’s car somewhere in the parking lot. “Black.”
“I don’t see it.”
They parked in the first available space and waited. After a while, he turned on the truck’s radio and fiddled until he had the all-talk station. A gravelly-voiced man was dispensing investment and business advice to callers who identified themselves with names like “Randy from Salt Lake City” and who started each conversation with “I have an extra thirty thousand dollars in convertible debentures to invest . . .” The show broke frequently for mutual fund advertisements and the local weather, which could be summed up as deep and getting deeper.
“I can’t believe Kristen had something to do with her father’s death.” Clare’s voice broke in on a guy complaining about his wife sheltering her income in off-shore banks.
“I think you can’t imagine people you like doing bad things, that’s what I think,” Russ said. “You said the same thing about Karen and Geoff and Ethan.”
“I never said I liked Geoff Burns,” she said, grinning.
“Too bad it wasn’t McWhorter,” he said. “He made such a satisfying heavy.” She nodded. “Too bad it isn’t like ninety percent of murders,” he continued, “where the husband or the wife or the friend is standing there with the weapon in hand when the cops arrive, saying, ‘But I didn’t mean to do it!’ ”
Headlights gleamed at the entrance to the parking lot. A small car crept in, tires churning against the snow. The black Honda Civic pulled in a few spaces away from the pickup. Its interior light flashed weakly as someone opened and shut the door. Russ could barely make out the figure struggling up the sidewalk through the screen of heavy snow, something sizable clutched in her arms. He and Clare both opened their doors, the contrast between the almost too-warm cab and the bone-chilling wind taking his breath away for a moment. He could hear the noise Clare made as her stupid little indoor boots sank into five inches of fresh snow.
“Kristen?” he called.
She whirled, bringing her fist up. Her keys stuck up between her fingers like stubby claws. She held a bulky knapsack against her chest.
Russ raised his hands. “It’s me, Chief Van Alstyne. Reverend Fergusson is with me.”
“What? What’s going on? Is it Katie’s baby?”
“We need to talk to you. May we come in?”
Under her black knit cap, Kristen looked at them suspiciously. “Okay.” She waded through the snow drifting across her walkway and unlocked the town house door. She kicked her boots against the side of the door to knock off the snow. Russ and Clare followed suit. Inside, they all crammed together on a tiny patch of tile, trying to wrestle off jackets and tug off boots without spreading any more snow than necessary onto the pale green wall- to-wall carpet.
Kristen’s place was not what he’d expected from her all-black wardrobe and gothic hair. Instead of vinyl upholstery and posters of thrash groups on the walls, she had import-shop bamboo furniture in white with flowery pastel fabric. Reproductions of gauzy paintings of ballerinas hung over shelves filled with thin paperbacks and stuffed animals. The room of a young girl. One more thing Darrell McWhorter had taken away from her.
“What are you doing out here so late?” Kristen asked, dropping the knapsack on a glass-topped coffee table. “Is there news on Katie’s case?”
Clare looked at him as if to say, okay, how do you do this? Damned if he knew.
