In the Bleak Midwinter

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  Just past the turnoff from old Route 100, she went over the ridge and around the corner way too fast, overcorrected, and would have hit an Explorer heading up the hill if it hadn’t slid into the shoulder. Its horn blared as she went past, her heart beating out of her chest. The next corner she took slow and safe, cresting the top carefully until the valley stretched out before her like a Christmas card. Everything looked peaceful in the McDonalds’ yard as she pulled in.

  As she jumped down from the truck, the front door flew open to reveal Deborah McDonald. Today’s sweatshirt pictured two kittens playing with mistletoe. “Oh, my goodness,” Deborah said, “you’re that lady priest. Are you with the family? Do you know where he’s gone?”

  Clare’s skin prickled. “What’s happened, Mrs. McDonald?”

  “I just had a visit from Cody’s grandfather. At least, he said he was Cody’s grandfather. He knew who Angela Dunkling was—”

  “What happened?”

  “He was with the baby in the living room while I went to get some pictures, and when I came back, they were gone! I wasn’t sure what to do. I was about to call the folks at DHS . . .”

  Clare took the front steps two at a time. “You need to call the police. Tell them Vaughn Fowler has the baby. What was he driving?”

  “A big, blue sport-utility truck.”

  The Explorer! “Tell them he’s in a dark blue Ford Explorer. I passed him on the curve before this. I didn’t notice the driver.” God had better forgive her for being such an idiot, because she wasn’t about to. She swung around to dash down the steps again.

  “Wait! Where are you going? Where did he take Cody?”

  Clare closed her eyes. Where. “Let me use your phone for one moment before you call the police,” she said.

  Deborah McDonald pointed through the door. Clare strode through the living room, snatched up the receiver and dialed Information for the Fowler’s number, which she punched in before the electronic voice was finished with the last digit.

  The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Clare thought she might scream.

  “Hello?” It was Edith Fowler.

  “Mrs. Fowler, this is Clare Fergusson. Do you know where your husband is?”

  “He’s not here, Reverend. He asked me to call our lawyer and left right after you did. Why? Nothing’s happened to Wes, has it?”

  “No, no. Did Vaughn have his gun with him?”

  “His gun?”

  “Is there any way to check? Please, it’s important.”

  “Why on earth—”

  “Please! It’s important.”

  “Let me look in the gun case . . .” over the phone, Clare could hear the sounds of a door opening and shutting. “I’m right here in his study. His rifles are all here, but his Colt is missing.”

  Clare would have bet a year’s salary the Colt was buried in a snowdrift somewhere on Tenant Mountain. “Listen, Mrs. Fowler. I’m calling from Cody’s foster mother’s house. Your husband has taken the baby. If he comes back home or contacts you, try to keep him calm and get the baby away from him. Let the police know right away.”

  It was so silent Clare thought for a moment the line had gone dead. “I understand,” Edith Fowler said finally. “I will.”

  Clare rang off and headed back outside. Vaughn Fowler was unarmed. But she couldn’t shake the conviction that he meant to dispose of Cody once and for all.

  “Did she know where he went?” Deborah McDonald asked as Clare hauled herself into the truck’s cab.

  Where would he go? Where, when it was so easy to kill an infant? Clare pressed her fingers to her forehead. When you are threatened and on the run, you will tend to return to the same base of operations, “Hardball” Wright drawled. If not to the same spot, then to the same sort of terrain. Remember that. The enemy will. She opened her eyes. “I think he’s headed for the river. The trail from Payson’s Park or the old railroad bridge. I’m going to head there. Let the police know.” If Russ had any better ideas, he could chase after them without her. She ground the gears and backed out of the driveway, catching the McDonald’s mailbox with the rear bumper and setting it swinging wildly.

  Traffic through the north end of town was agonizingly slow, but she didn’t know any other way toward where she and Russ had discovered Katie’s body. She swung onto the Cossayaharie road, Route 137, driving carefully, tamping down the urge to go faster and faster, afraid she might miss the turnoff to the park.

  She nearly did miss it, mistaking the newly plowed entrance for a driveway. At the last moment, she turned the truck into a frame-shuddering turn and rolled down the lane toward the parking area. The county plow had cleared a large U out of the fresh snow before heading back to the main road. She couldn’t tell from where she sat if there were tracks heading down the trail. Leaving the truck running, she jumped from the cab and ran to the edge of the parking lot. Behind the ridge of snow thrown up by the plow, the trail leading down to the kill was unbroken by footprints or tire tracks. “Vaughn Fowler,” she hissed from between clenched teeth, “where are you?”

  CHAPTER 30

  Clare ranged up and down the edge of the parking lot to make sure Fowler hadn’t cut through the woods to join the trail further down. Her rubber boots weren’t meant for snow, and the treads slipped and slid as she searched for any sign of the man. Nothing. She muttered obscenities she hadn’t allowed herself to use in several years and climbed back into the truck. The engine on, she rested her head against the steering wheel and breathed deeply to calm herself. Could she be wrong about where Fowler was headed? After all, it would be easy to kill a baby anywhere—a story where ancient Romans had disposed of infants by smacking them into walls thrust itself into her consciousness. She wrenched her mind away from the horrific image and concentrated on Vaughn Fowler.

  The riverside bank, the rest stop on a remote stretch of highway, an abandoned camp road high on a mountain. Every place he had killed or tried to kill had been isolated, a place where a body could disappear for hours. Or years. She sat up, rubbing at the crease in her forehead left by the wheel. Her instructor from Survival School had been right. Fowler was returning to the same sort of terrain. She had to try the abandoned railroad bridge.

  She swung the pickup through the plowed area, turning left when she reached the road. Where was she going to find the thing? Russ had told her it was a half-mile upstream from the trail, but that didn’t necessarily translate into a half-mile drive up the road. There must have been train tracks leading straight toward the river, but where were they?

  Ahead of her, high-voltage lines crossed Route 137, sparking memories of the times she had navigated small planes by following the clearly visible paths maintained by electric companies. She slowed the truck, then pulled over onto the shoulder. Metal transmission towers marched in a receding line down a wide right-of-way through the forest. It vanished over a gentle rise that led, if she wasn’t mistaken, toward the river. The kill. She couldn’t see any train tracks under the snow, but there were clear marks of snowmobiles crisscrossing beneath the towers and there, ahead of her and to the right, tire tracks along what must be the electric company’s access road.

  She fumbled with a dial on the steering column, engaging the four-wheel-drive. She downshifted and rolled onto the snow, following the other tracks as closely as possible, praying hard that she wasn’t chasing after some die-hard fisherman or snowmobiling enthusiast.

  The truck growled up the access road, crunching snow beneath its big tires, carrying her forward surely and steadily. As she crested the rise, it struck her that none of the squad cars would be able to follow her. Hot prickles ran up the insides of her arms and she bit her lip. Some of the officers had better have four-wheel-drive vehicles or she was going to be in a world of trouble. She refused to think about the possibility that the police might not be following her at all.

  The right-of-way, and the tire tracks, curved gently to the left, disappearing from view in the thick stand of trees. She accelerated sl
ightly, the rear tires whining a complaint. As she rounded the bend, the landscape opened startlingly before her: blue sky, white snow, black water. Dark green bridge. Dark blue Ford Explorer.

  She slammed on the brakes, sending the truck into a skid that ended with a jarringly abrupt stop. She almost fell from the cab in her frantic need to get out. She could see him, perhaps halfway along the span of the bridge, silhouetted against the sky. Well-bundled up against the cold, carrying something.

  “Mr. Fowler!” she screamed. Running through the snow to the bridge was like running in a nightmare, slipping and dragging and making almost no headway despite the efforts that left sweat running down her spine. “Stop!”

  He did. She thrashed through the remaining few feet to the bridge and staggered onto the rails. She saw why he had been walking so slowly: the train track was supported on a huge trestle but open to the air. On either side of the railbed was a riveted steel walkway and parapet, something the rail workers must have crossed on decades ago. Between the scanty patches of snow that hadn’t been scoured off by the wind, she could see patches of rust eating away the green-painted metal. She decided to stay right where she was, on the half-foot-wide wooden ties.

  Vaughn Fowler was facing her now, cradling a blanket-wrapped bundle with one arm. “I can’t say I’m surprised to see you, Reverend,” he said, his voice carrying clearly through the cold air. “As president of the vestry, I’m disappointed in your performance so far. Way too much time spent on a situation that is out of your area of concern.”

  She heard nothing from inside the blanket. Shouldn’t the baby be crying after all this? She pressed her lips tightly together. Dear God, don’t let him be already dead. “My area of concern? It’s the people around me. The McWhorters. The Burnses.” She picked her way along another few crossbars, moving closer. “Your son. Your grandson. You.” She looked steadily at Fowler, searching his face for something she could reach with her words. “Let me help you.”

  “Very comforting, coming from a woman who tried to kill me last night.” He held out a hand. “Stop there, Reverend.”

  She stopped, her arms spread for balance. Beneath her feet, she could see the kill, black and glittering in the pale sunlight. Chunks of ice bobbed lazily in the slow current. “Are you going to try to shoot me again?” she asked.

  Fowler laughed, a short, coughing sound. “Hardly. I lost my side arm when you ambushed me. Carried that Colt for twenty years, and lost it to a damn woman. A priest to boot. Damn, I liked that piece.” He narrowed his eyes. “You were good out there. I’m lucky to have survived with my feet and my balls intact.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you—”

  “Bullshit. You meant to hurt me, and you did. I underestimated you, and I paid the price. Don’t apologize for being successful.”

  “No, sir.” The acknowledgment was an automatic response to his tone of voice. She sure wasn’t going to reach him by appealing to him as a priest, but maybe she could engage him officer to officer. The longer they kept talking, the more likely it was Russ and his men could find them. “I thought taking your boots and flashlight to keep you from reaching your vehicle was good strategy, but obviously, it didn’t work.”

  “I had a penlight in my snowmobile suit. Always carry backup equipment when you’re in the woods. As soon as I’d assessed the situation, I stopped chasing after you and headed straight for my snowmobile.”

  “But . . . your feet . . .”

  “Were damn cold by the time I reached my friend’s cabin. However, I was wearing insulated hunting socks. Next time you try to cripple someone, make sure you leave him with bare feet. Better still, just split his head open.”

  “Sir, my objective was to slow you down, not to kill you.”

  “Stupid objective. The only way to deal with an enemy is to take him out. Period. Otherwise, you’ll never know when he’ll jump back up and bite you in the ass.”

  “Like Darrell McWhorter?”

  His face crinkled in disgust. “Slimy bastard. Called me up and said he’d tell the cops about Wesley and his daughter if I didn’t pay him off. Ten thousand dollars. He thought Wes had killed her and he was still willing to overlook it for money. What a scumbag.”

  A raven flew past the bridge, cawing loudly. She took another step along the railroad ties. “How did you persuade him to come with you to Albany, sir?”

  “I told him I’d pay if he’d collect any telltale evidence from the girl’s apartment and hand it over. I knew he’d jump at the chance to find something more substantial to hold over my head.” He gave her a look that invited her to agree that the late Darrell McWhorter was an idiot. “I planned on getting rid of him in Albany; as it happened, a better opportunity presented itself.”

  “So that was you who rifled through Katie’s things.”

  He tucked his head in assent. “With some of last year’s Halloween costume stuck to my face. Crude, but effective.”

  From below, Clare could hear the flat lapping of the river against its rock-and-snow-covered banks. Would dropping Cody in also qualify as crude, but effective? She glanced at the bundle in Fowler’s arm.

  “Oh, he’s alive. The little bastard fell sound asleep in my truck, can you believe it?”

  “What is it you’re looking for here, Colonel? What outcome are you after?” She let a note of challenge creep into her voice. “Wesley’s already off the hook for the murders. What do you hope to accomplish out here?”

  “I’m trying to save my son from himself. He’s already fumbled badly, getting that girl pregnant in the first place and then not insisting she have an abortion. He was going to walk away from everything, just because she decided at the last minute she didn’t want to give it up. Can you believe that?”

  Clare bit her lip. “There’s no chance of that now, though, is there? You took care of that.”

  “You mean the girl? I didn’t set out to eliminate her. If she had just taken the money I’d offered—Christ, she could have paid her way through the state school and had a nest egg left over! She was too stupid to do what was best for her.”

  “Some people might say she was too principled to trade money for her child.”

  “Bullshit. She saw an opportunity to trap a boy from a decent family who could be counted on to earn a good paycheck.” He glared at her. “If Wes had quit school to marry her, if he takes on her—” he glanced at the blankets in his arm, “—kid, he’d regret it for the rest of his life. I’m not going to let that happen.” His face tightened. “Wes is still too soft, yet. It’s up to me to protect him.”

  “By killing his son and sending his father to death row? Do you really think that’s going to protect him? That he won’t regret it for the rest of his life?” She stepped toward Fowler, never taking her eyes off him, feeling out the ties through her boots. “Wesley’s ready to sign the boy over to the Burnses. He told me so himself.” She balanced on one leg, bumping her other boot against a wooden tie until she had a foothold. “He’s a good kid. Sensitive, responsible, caring. You can stop this right here without damaging him any further.” She stretched out her arms. “Give me the baby. The other two you . . . eliminated, those were on the spur of the moment, unplanned, right? That’s manslaughter. You can plead to diminished capacity or temporary insanity or . . . or . . . something.”

  She kept her arms open. Her chest and throat ached. From a distance, she could hear the sound of a motor. A snowmobile, maybe. She wanted it to be help. She wasn’t up to this. She couldn’t do this all by herself.

  You aren’t all by yourself, the thought came, from inside and outside all at once. She breathed in sharply. “Give me the baby, Colonel. Don’t burden the rest of Wesley’s life with the knowledge that he was the reason you did this terrible thing.”

  He frowned, pressing his lips together. Considering. Poised between two ties, she held herself absolutely still, arms burning, reaching.

  Behind them, the sound of an engine cut through the air. Fowler
looked past her. “Ah. Reinforcements,” he said. He hefted the blanket-wrapped parcel higher.

  Clare couldn’t look back. She heard thudding doors and the faint squawk of a walkie-talkie. “They don’t change anything,” she said. “This is still your call.”

  “Vaughn.” Russ’s voice was measured, temperate. The sound of it was like seeing the landing lights at the end of a long night’s flight. “How ’bout I walk onto this bridge and we all try to resolve this situation?”

  Fowler raised his bundle higher. From within the blanket, the baby began to cry, short, sharp squalls demanding attention. “Stay where you are, Chief, or I toss this into the kill.”

  “No!” Clare’s hands clutched around empty air. Beneath them, she heard the motor coming closer, a spluttering roar.

  “You’re not going to walk away from this, Vaughn. That’s a police boat covering the water. The state troopers will be moving men in on the other side of the kill, and they’re going to be bringing a sharpshooter with them. Give the baby to Clare, and let’s all get out of the cold. Your son is waiting to see you. He’s worried sick about you.”

  Fowler shook his head. “I didn’t plan to walk away from this, Chief. I knew when I moved decisively to save my son from dropping out and marrying that trailer trash that I would have to be an acceptable loss.”

  “No. Colonel.” Clare moved forward another shaky step. “Think what you’ll be doing to your family.”

  “I have. I’m saving them the embarrassment of a trial and incarceration. Don’t you think I considered how this would look? No one understands sacrifice these days. No one appreciates what it is to put your duty to your family or your service first.”

  In her peripheral vision, Clare caught a glimpse of the boat, motoring slowly upstream toward the bridge. She took another step. Fowler began to unwind the blanket from the wailing infant. She knew, at that moment, he would toss Cody into the kill, no matter what they said or did. She unzipped her parka and peeled it off. “Give me the baby, Colonel,” she said, holding out her coat. “You can put him right in here.” She balanced on a single tie, feet together, pressing down on the back of one rubber boot. “I promise you, I’ll see that the Burnses get him. He won’t interfere with Wesley’s schooling ever again.” Her stockinged foot slid free. She wavered, one-legged, almost losing her balance. She didn’t take her eyes off Vaughn Fowler’s face.