jiggling the handle. Inside the cistern, the plunging apparatus was falling apart. He frowned. Couldn’t her parishioners pay for a plumber, for Chrissakes? Well, he could pick up something at Tim’s Hardware, put it in for her next time he was around this way.
“Doctor Anne’s on her way over,” he announced as he reentered the living room. Clare groaned. “And she said to tell you it was not an imposition.” He stuck his hand in the water her feet were soaking in. Cooling. “So, you wanna tell me about what happened?” He headed into the kitchen for more hot water.
“Master Sergeant Ashley ‘Hardball’ Wright saved my sorry ass,” she called after him.
He poked his head through the swinging doors before emerging with a teakettle of hot water. “Hey! I thought I saved your sorry ass.”
She smiled faintly. “You helped. You surely did help.” She sipped her hot cocoa and dabbled her feet while he poured a thin stream of steaming hot water into the tub. “How on earth did you know I was out there?”
He told her about finding the paper trail at St. Alban’s and calling Kristen.
“So she didn’t have anything to do with it. Well, I didn’t think so, not after that guy took a shot at me.” She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “Although before that, when I drove my car over a cliff, I had my doubts. Maybe she was just really bad at directions.”
“You drove your car over a cliff? Christ.”
She frowned.
“Sorry.”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t quite a cliff. A big gorge. My car is totaled.” She compressed her lips in an expression he was beginning to recognize. “I loved that car. I don’t get attached to many material things, but I really loved that car.”
“You have any idea who could have been behind this?”
“How about this? This morning, I found out that Katie’s secret lover was Wesley Fowler. His family are members of the congregation. And about as far from the McWhorter’s as you can get, socially, culturally, economically . . .”
“How the hell did you get that piece of information?”
She told him about her visit to Paul’s office at the Infirmary and the photograph. “It’s still in the pocket of my parka. Your parka,” she amended. “I visited the Fowlers to see if they knew anything about it, which they didn’t, unsurprisingly. Then I went to Albany.”
“Albany?”
“I wanted to see if Katie’s roommates might recognize Wesley’s picture.”
He rolled his eyes. “You know, Clare, the Albany PD already questioned at least two of the roommates.”
“But they didn’t have a picture, and I did. And I had his yearbook.” She twisted on the sofa to face him more fully. “Ow! You were right about the hot prickles. Anyway, at first I thought it was a bust, because none of the girls recognized Wes. But then, just by chance, they spotted a picture of Alyson Shattham. And guess what? She had been to see Katie. It was not a cheerful social visit. They had a fight.”
“When was this?” He swept the newspaper off one overstuffed armchair and perched on the edge.
“Beginning of the school year. September.”
“Huh. Little Alyson Shattam. Who said she hadn’t seen Katie since graduation.”
“Guess who Alyson’s boyfriend was all through last year.”
He smiled slowly. “Wesley Fowler.”
“Ten points.”
“Where is this kid? Still in town?”
“No, he’s a plebe at West Point. His father’s gone down to bring him back, though. They should be here tomorrow.”
He began twisting the sheets of newspaper into kindling. “Want a fire?”
“Please.”
He raked the old ashes to one side and laid splitwood from a big basket over the paper. He crossed two small logs over the kindling and struck one of her silly six-inch-long matches. “Alyson and Wes,” he said, tossing the match on the fire with five inches left unburnt. “A boy and a girl. Go to the same church. Are their families friends?”
“Oh yes,” she said. He sprawled back onto the armchair. “Oh, I feel warmer already. I may become addicted to fires.”
“Yeah, the Shattams were with the Fowlers this morning when I went over. I knew about Alyson and Wes before, though. Dr. Anne’s son gave me the inside scoop on all the high school gossip this past Monday. Sounded like they were the classic king and queen of the prom pair.”
“You sound a tad disenchanted, there.”
“Oh . . . that’s just an old high school outsider looking in, I suppose.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ve met Alyson. She clearly believes that the world owes it to her to treat her like the princess she is. And from what I’ve heard of Wes Fowler, he’s the same type, a golden boy who’s never had anything bad happen to him.”
“So what do you think? Did Alyson know Wes was seeing Katie on the side? Maybe she wouldn’t put out and Katie would? So she let Katie keep Wesley-boy happy?”
“There’s no doubt that Katie did, as you oh-so-tastefully phrased it, ‘put out.’ But honestly, I can’t see Alyson
