In the Bleak Midwinter

“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.”