In the Bleak Midwinter

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  Harlene peered at the cardboard. “You want him to send it on to the state if nothing pans out?”

  “No. No need to spend the money. This is that abandoned baby Mark called in. More likely than not the mother’ll surface within a week or so. You know how these things run.”

  Harlene nodded. The teenager wound up in the hospital with post-partum complications. Or she broke down and told a friend, who told another, until there wasn’t any secret anymore.

  “Okay, Chief, you got it.” She pointed to the coffeemaker. “Just brewed a fresh pot,” she said.

  “Gotta haul it,” Russ said, stuffing the ends of his scarf back into his jacket. “I’m giving the priest who found the baby a ride back to St. Alban’s rectory.”

  “You and a priest.” Harlene snorted. “I’d give good money to hear how that conversation goes.”

  “Actually,” Russ said, enjoying his moment as much as Mark had his, “She’s very easy to talk to. She’s old army, too.”

  Harlene was gratifyingly surprised. “Well! Didn’t know they could have women priests.” She looked into the middle distance for a moment. “Ask her what she thinks of my sexual harassment suit,” she said.

  Russ bit back a laugh and grabbed the locker key off the hook on the wall. He clattered downstairs and unlocked the evidence cage, tagging the box and scribbling his entry information in the dog-eared logbook. Within two minutes he was running back upstairs, shouting a good-night to Harlene, and out the front door again.

  When he got into the cruiser, Reverend Fergusson jerked her hand away from the radio. “Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist. I wanted to see if it sounded like it does on all those television shows.”

  “And?” Russ said, backing the car out of his parking spot.

  “And it sounds like the state police have wa-a-a-ay too much time on their hands,” she said. “One guy was going on and on about some fishing tournament he’d gone to. It sounded more like Bassmasters than Dragnet.”

  They both laughed. “Yeah, well . . .” Russ said. “Mondays are the quietest night of the week. You come cruising with me on Friday, then you’ll really hear something.”

  She pinned him with those clear hazel eyes. “Could I?”

  Startled, he almost ran a red light. He looked at her. “Reverend, why on earth would you want to do something like that?” he said.

  “Because I want to get a feel for the problems of Millers Kill that I won’t get in a vestry reception,” she said. “Because I need to figure out what kind of outreach ministry my church ought to be doing, instead of just what my parishioners feel comfortable doing right now. And because,” she grinned, a reckless, one-sided grin that made him think she must be mistaken about a priestly calling, “I’m a recovering adrenaline addict. Who hasn’t had a fix in a while. Green light.”

  “Huh.” He drove on. “Doesn’t your church have a mass or whatever it is on Fridays? I recall seeing cars there in the evening. And besides, I’m out pretty late. Don’t you, I dunno, get up early to pray or something?”

  She made an amused sound in the back of her throat. “Saturday’s a day off for me. At least, it’s supposed to be. So I can sleep in. If worse comes to worse, I can double up. Praise God while I’m making pancakes, thank the Lord while I’m doing the week’s shopping.” She began to sing almost inaudibly, “And He walks with me, and He talks with me . . .”

  “Uh-huh. I may not know much about religion, but I can tell when I’m being sold a bill of goods.”

  “So can I come?”

  How do I get myself into these situations? he thought. “Okay, yeah,” he said finally. “But you do what I say, when I say it, and if I decide for whatever reason that it’s not safe, you get left behind. No arguments.”

  “Do I strike you as the argumentative type?” she asked. He snorted. Along Church Street, the municipal Christmas decorations had been hung on the lampposts. Same fuzzy plastic candy canes and reindeer that had been there when he was a kid. Same fake greenery around the poles, same fat outdoor bulbs. He wondered where they got replacements from. No way anyone was still making lights like that. He turned onto Elm. The rectory was a pretty Dutch Colonial from the turn of the century.

  “Here it is, on the left.”

  “Nice,” Russ said, parking in the drive. “Bet you’ve got great woodwork in there.”

  The priest groaned. “I can’t tell,” she said. “The place is all over boxes, most of ’em completely unlabeled, so I have no idea what’s in there. I have some I filled before my last posting to Fort Rucker and haven’t unpacked in seven years. They could contain anything from ’eighties-style miniskirts to relics of the True Cross for all I can remember. Somehow, there always seems to be something more interesting to do than unpacking and housecleaning . . .”

  He slung his arm over the seat and turned toward her. “You gotta get one of those ladies’ committees over to do their thing. Have you set up and sparkling in no time.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “And they’d do a great job, too. But you know, you get the place clean and organized at the start and forever after, whenever one of my parishioners came over for a visit, they’d be thinking, My! She certainly didn’t keep this up very well!” She looked up the drive to her house, smiling a little. “Ah, it’s just the new-posting blues. A new town, all new faces. It can get . . .”

  “Lonely.”

  “Yeah.”

  They sat in companionable silence, not in any hurry to end the ride.

  The radio squawked. “Ten-fifty-seven, this is Ten-fifty. I’ve got an accident reported out on Route Thirty-Five, at mile fifteen.”

  Russ clicked in the mike. “Ten-fifty, this is Ten-fifty-seven. Acknowledged. I’m rolling to Route Thirty-Five, mile fifteen.” He spread his hands apologetically. “Duty calls. Good-night, Reverend Fergusson.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, call me Clare.” She opened her door and slid out, leaning down to keep him in view.

  “Clare,” he said. “And you can call me Chief.” She laughed loudly. “No, no, call me Russ. After all, if we’re going to be partners next Friday . . .”

  She nodded. “I’ll be there. Russ. Good night, now.” She slammed the door. He waited until she had reached her front door and let herself in. Without keys. He made a mental note to get on her about that come Friday. He backed out of her drive and hit his lights, unaccountably smiling all the way to Route Thirty-Five.

  The girl unlocked the deadbolt and turned the latch. It was cold in the kitchen, but then again, she had been desperately cold all night long. A light had been left on for her in the hall. She walked to the stairs and tried to remember what she was supposed to be doing. Concentrate. Upstairs. She hefted her overnight bag and gasped as a cramping pain shot through her abdomen. She stopped, pressed her fist against her belly. Nothing to worry about. It was normal. The book had said it was normal to have cramps for several days afterwards.

  She picked up her bag again and trudged up the bare wooden stairway. In the upstairs hall, she stared stupidly at the closed doors. Everything was totally foreign to her. Her breasts were aching and damp. She shut her eyes and breathed in deeply, and when she looked again, she saw her own bedroom door in front of her.

  Inside, she dropped her luggage and sagged onto the bed. The springs creaked loudly. “Mmmm,” came a voice from the other side of the room. “Katie, is that you? Geez, it’s late.”

  “Yeah, Emily,” she whispered. “It’s me.” From across the street, she heard a dog barking and barking. It would go on for an hour or more some nights, a frustrated sheepdog chained to a barren circle of dirt.

  “That damn dog,” groaned Emily. “Why don’t they do it a favor and take it out to the country and let it go?”

  “It’s not that . . . it’s not that . . .” Katie gulped loudly and began to cry.

  “Katie, honey, what’s wrong?” Emily snapped on a tiny bedside lamp. “Oh sweetie, tell me what’s wrong.”

  Katie shook her head,
crying harder. Emily crossed to her bed and sat beside her, hugging her tight. Katie leaned on her shoulder, sobbing open-mouthed, while outside the dog barked and howled into the freezing air.

  CHAPTER 3

  The case clock in St. Alban’s meeting room rang twelve slow, ceremonious hours. The donation of a grateful parishioner who had made a fortune carpetbagging in the post–Civil War South and returned to retire in his native eastern New York, it had a place of honor between two enormous diamond-paned windows. Where, Clare reflected, it had undoubtedly sat unmoved since 1882. She was beginning to suspect the congregation of St. Alban’s didn’t exactly embrace novelty and innovation. Hiring the first female head of a parish in this area may have exhausted their reserves of daring for the next ten years.

  Norm Madsen, a basset-faced gentleman in his seventies, tapped the sheet of paper before him reproachfully. “This isn’t an agenda, Reverend Fergusson. We always have an agenda for the vestry meetings.”

  “And the Wednesday lunch meeting is always financials, to get anything ready to pass on to the stewardship committee Thursday night.” Terence McKellan, the head of commercial loans at AllBanc—until recently The First Alleghany Farmers and Merchants Bank, he had taken pains to tell her—laced his hands across his commodious middle. “No offense, but articles about unwed mothers ought to go before the activities committee.”

  “What sort of activity do you want them to take up, Terry?” Robert Corlew snorted with laughter. The wide-shouldered, bull-necked developer had an improbable mass of hair that Clare was sure must be a toupee.

  Mrs. Henry Marshall, the only woman on the vestry board, looked quellingly at Corlew. “Since most of the ladies on activities are my age, Bob,” she poked a pencil at her silver waves, “I expect they won’t be adding to the unwed mother population any time soon. Though most of them are unwed by now,” she said thoughtfully.

  Clare breathed slowly and deeply. In. Out. “I’m sorry I didn’t compile an agenda. I’ll be sure to do that next meeting. As for the newspaper article and the figures sheet in front of you,” she leaned forward, resting her arms on the massive black oak table that dominated the room, “you all know about the baby found abandoned here Monday night. That inspired me to do some research into what facilites are available to help single teen mothers.”

  “There’s plenty of aid in Millers Kill,” Vaughn Fowler said, popping an antacid tablet into his mouth. “Welfare and low-income housing and a Goodwill store. We even support a soup kitchen with the other churches in town.” The retired colonel rapped the table with his chunky West Point ring as he enumerated each item.

  “That’s true, Mr. Fowler. No teenager with a baby is going to starve here. But did you know seventy percent of the girls who get pregnant in their teens drop out of Millers Kill High?”

  “Not to sound unsympathetic,” Fowler said, “but what makes you think these girls would have finished high school in the first place?”

  Clare had seen that question coming since yesterday, when she had woken up with her inspired idea. “If you look to page four, you’ll see an article I copied from The Washington Post, about a Junior League program I helped with when I was a seminarian.”

  “Junior League?” Mrs. Marshall adjusted her reading glasses and bent to the paper. “That’s always a good recommendation.”

  “In their area, the League had found that one of two things tended to happen when a girl had a baby. Either she dropped out of high school to care for the child or her mother stopped working, and often went on welfare, to care for the child.” Terry McKellan read along, his plump cheeks quivering as he nodded. “Drop-outs were at very high risk for further pregnancies, drug abuse, and domestic abuse. Girls whose mothers gave up work to stay at home with the baby finished high school in higher numbers, but few of them found work afterwards, leading to the same sort of dependencies as their sisters with no diploma.”

  Corlew frowned. “Couldn’t find work? Or didn’t look for it?”

  “Most of these girls had no experience with or example of combining motherhood and work. That’s what the Junior League program did. It partnered girls with mentors, who tutored them in everything from parenting skills to how to interview for a job. It provided free day care for the girls during the school day and a quiet space for them to do homework after school. Girls who went through the program not only had a ninety percent graduation rate, but most of them then went on to either community college or to work.”

  Fowler rapped the table with his ring. “Funding?”

  Clare quelled the urge to respond, “Yes, sir.” Colonel Fowler was the double of several commanding officers she had served under, complete with graying brush cut and age-defying figure. He expected her to assess problems, devise solutions, and act. Or at least, that’s what he had told her during the interview process for this parish. She flipped open to the last page. “Initial funding came from the League, who paid for the day-care workers, some equipment and baby supplies, and a part-time grant writer to raise money independently. Area churches donated the space. Girls who used the facilities after they had started working paid an hourly fee, adjusted to their income.” She looked around the table, meeting the eyes of every man and woman, gathering each vestry member in. “I propose St. Alban’s start a similar project here. To be funded out of the general funds, using either the parish hall or the old nursery room for the day care. We could have a powerful effect on the lives of young women and children who otherwise don’t have much of a future.”

  The room was silent for a moment. “You want us to be a home for unwed mothers?” Sterling Sumner raised his bushy eyebrows in disbelief. “Outrageous.” He flipped the ends of one of the English-school scarves he always affected.

  “How much would this cost us?” Terry McKellan asked, scribbling some notes on the margin.

  “What about insurance? State licensing requirements for running a day-care facility? Transportation to and from the school and the girls’ homes?” Fowler rapped his ring on every point. “This isn’t like opening our nursery for members’ children during the Sunday services.”

  “No, si—no, it’s not. All of those are issues that will have to be researched. I don’t have a whole, detailed proposal to present yet. But I would like the approval and support of the vestry before I call up a committee or start running down licensing requirements. I’d like to know this project has your support so long as the general fund isn’t unduly strained by it.” Nervous energy forced her out of her seat to stride around the table. “It’s innovative, it’s meeting an unmet need in the community, it will open St. Alban’s doors to new faces, young faces. It exemplifies Christ’s charge to us to be his disciples by serving others.” She reached her chair and leaned against the worn green velvet back. “I believe those were some of the things you said you wanted me to accomplish as your priest.”

  Vaughn Fowler’s bright blue eyes seemed to be assessing her for leadership potential. “One of the most important goals we set for you was to grow St. Alban’s. Bring in new families. Kids.”

  “More pledges,” Corlew muttered.

  Fowler shot him a curt glance. “This . . . unwed mother outreach sounds commendable. But will it attract more of the kind of members we want? Or will it scare some families away?”

  Clare went blank. “What?”

  “In other words,” Sterling Sumner said, “will the quality families we want to attract stay away because we’ve filled our landmark Eighteen-fifty Gothic Revival sanctuary with Daisy Mae and Queen Latisha!” He swiped at the table with one end of his scarf, as if wiping away contamination.

  “My grandfather would have been more blunt,” Clare said, crossing her arms. “He would have come right out and said ‘poor white trash’ and ‘uppity coloreds.’ ”

  Fowler held up one hand. “No name calling. Reverend Clare, please.” He gestured, flat-handed, for her to resume her seat. She did so, ungraciously. “Sterling was being melodramatic, as usual. But the core of the thi
ng is a matter of concern. St. Alban’s was one of the first Episcopal churches in this area. We’ve been able to draw members from even beyond the Millers Kill-Cossayaharie-Fort Henry townships because we have traditional worship with wonderful music in a beautiful setting. Many of us,” his gesture encompassed the rest of the vestry, “are from families that have been congregants for generations.” Clare opened her mouth. “Let me finish. The parish needs to grow. It needs new blood and, realistically, new money. Before you plunge ahead with your teen-mother project, I’d like to see you do something to encourage families in. Something to draw favorable attention to St. Alban’s.”

  Around the table the other vestry members were nodding. Clare folded her hands. “I can handle two assignments simultaneously, si—Mr. Fowler.”

  His mouth tilted in the suggestion of a smile. “I’m sure you can.”

  “Perhaps organizing some meet-the-parishioners teas?” Mrs. Marshall said.

  “No, no, no.” Robert Corlew shook his head. His hair did not move. “We need something that’ll get us in the papers. Free advertising.”

  “Tours of the church? An evening organ concert series!” Sterling Sumner brightened.

  “You were inspired, you said, by the baby abandoned at our back door. I suggest you help the Burnses to foster him. That’s—” Fowler’s ring rapped for emphasis, “the kind of image and publicity that says we’re a family-friendly place. Helping a couple become a family by supporting their efforts to adopt.”

  “But—not that I wouldn’t want to focus my time and effort on the Burnses, but isn’t that up to the Department of Social Services? And the legal system? And as much as I’m sure we’d all like to see them become parents, I don’t see how that will help us attract new members.”

  “You don’t know what this town is like.” Terry McKellan laughed. “Word of mouth is a way of life here. Plus, the news about the baby is already in the paper. Why the heck not make sure they say a few nice things about us, huh?”