She retraced her steps to the main office and pressed the messages button on Lois’s phone. The first message was from Russ. “Just calling to see how everything’s going. Give me a call when you get in.” The second was someone asking about early-morning services, the third was from the Cutlers, wanting to know their pledge balance. The forth and fifth were also from Russ. “I’ve tried calling your home. Are you out, or what? Give me a call when you get this, will you?” The last message was from Edith Fowler. “Reverend Clare? Vaughn and I spoke briefly with Wes this morning. I don’t want to go into it over the machine, I’m sure you’ll understand. Vaughn called the Commandant and has permission to pick up Wes for the rest of the weekend. If the driving’s not too bad, they’ll be back late tonight, otherwise he’ll stay over and they’ll return tomorrow. Can we all meet tomorrow afternoon? Let me know. 555-1903.”
Six or seven pink memo slips poked out of her mail cubbie on the wall. She squinted against the growing dimness in the hall, reading them on the way back to her room. Inquiry about a christening. Possible new members. Sterling Sumner wants another meeting about the boiler. Chief Van Alstyne called, no message.
Kristen McWhorter called, left no return number. Most urgent, underscored by Lois’s confident pen. Has info re: who killed her father. She and mother are hiding out—here Lois had made a big, black question mark and exclamation—at cousin’s hunting cabin. Please come at once. Mother does not trust police. The detailed directions to the cabin covered the rest of the pink slip and continued onto another.
“Lois!” Clare said to her fireplace. “Couldn’t you put the ‘most urgent’ one on top? Holy cow.” Too many years as a church secretary undoubtedly gave a person a jaundiced view of others’ emergencies. She took a quick gulp of coffee and donned the police parka. She really did need to get her own someday soon. She stuffed the directions into her pocket and pulled on her gloves. Kristen’s call had come in just at noon, three and a half hours ago. She must be frantic by now.
Outside, snow was showering down in tiny, dry flakes, freckling her cheeks and nose as she brushed off her windshield. There wasn’t that much accumulation yet. If it took her less than an hour to reach the cabin, she shouldn’t have too much difficulty with the roads. The MG’s engine roared to life reassuringly. Of course, she might not be able to get back out until the storm finished up. She used the last napkin to wipe the melted snow off her face. When she had been young and romantic, she had fantasized about being snowbound in a rustic cabin. But she had for sure never pictured Brenda McWhorter in there with her.
Route 9 North was well-trafficked and easy to drive, even though the plows hadn’t been out yet. She exited near Lake Lucerne and took River Road south. To her left, the Hudson River ran high and fast, carrying away clots of snow and ice in its gray waters. Far fewer cars kept her company here. Snakes of snow slithered across the road, obscuring the macadam. She glanced at her directions. The right onto Tenant Mountain Road turned her due west, but there was no sign of impending sunset behind the hills ascending in front of her, only an iron shell of sky and the snow, falling faster and harder against her windshield. Infrequently, she passed houses, their lights glowing through the swirling flakes like figures inside glass snow globes. Beautiful and unreachable. The sense of isolation pricked at her. Skittered. She turned the radio up for its illusion of company.
She spotted Alan’s Gas and Grocery, the landmark mentioned in her directions. From here it was two miles to the road leading directly up into the mountains. It was a small general store with lighted signs blazing cheerfully if commercially through the storm. COCA COLA! BUDWEISER! DIESEL, $1.00! She almost pulled over. It would be dry and safe, there would be a phone, she could admit she was too inexperienced to be driving in this weather and call—who? One of the congregation? A taxi?
She gritted her teeth. Russ was the only person she considered enough of a friend to ask for a favor like that. She drove past the entrance to the grocery’s tiny parking lot. How could she come begging for a ride like a stranded teenager after yesterday? She blew out a gusty breath. Her inexperience at winter driving, and the unfamiliar landscape, were making her jittery. If she calmed down, drove carefully, and didn’t run scared to the nearest big, strong man to save her, she’d be fine. Alan’s Gas and Grocery disappeared from her rearview mirror. Two miles to the turnoff. Six miles to the camp road. Less than a mile to the cabin. Even if she had to drop down from her current speed of thirty miles an hour, it shouldn’t take her more than twenty minutes. Then she would whap Kristen upside the head for not leaving a phone number where she could be reached.
She slowed as she hit the two-mile mark. Her headlights shone blurrily through the gathering dark, their edges softened by the snowfall, their light swallowed up in the storm. Two large stone cairns marked the otherwise signless road. Hidden under white, they looked like lean and misshapen snowmen, and she was suddenly sorry she had thought Mrs. McDonald’s plastic snowmen were tacky. On a night like this, they would be beacons of hospitality, marking the boundary between safety and the storm.
She set the trip odometer to zero, turned, fishtailed, over-compensated, then recovered. The MG pulled steadily along the line of ascent. The trees closed in heavily, shrouding the road, giving some protection against the full force of the snowfall. The twilight turned the sky, the air, the snow shades of underwater blue, as if she were piloting through a drowned world. She downshifted, and the engine growled as her tires churned through the light, dry snow. The headlights picked out a few well-covered tracks, but no one had driven through recently enough to compact the snow, which made it easier for her front wheels to get the traction she needed.
The road wound its way up the mountain, never stretching more than a few car-lengths before disappearing around another bend. There was still light enough to clearly see the outlines of the culverts on either side and Clare kept her speed to a steady twenty-five miles an hour, grateful she wasn’t trying to navigate the twisty turns in total darkness. She passed an opening in the trees and realized it must be another camp road. She bit her lip. Kristen had better have been dead-on accurate about the miles to the turnoff, or she was going to be lost but good on this God-forsaken road.
Rounding the next bend, she saw twin lights, small and bright as halogen bulbs, windshield-high in the middle of the road. She slammed on the brakes at the same moment the lights resolved themselves into eyes and her car skidded past harmlessly as a buck bounded off the road into the cover of the brush. She swore out loud for the first time in three weeks and it felt so good she continued to rain down curses on every deer in New York State as she coaxed her car into a straight line and slowly, slowly accelerated.
A mile up the mountain, there was another narrow, unmarked road, barely visible through the encroaching trees. Unplowed, of course. She was beginning to worry about getting through the camp road to Kristen’s cousin’s cabin. The snow was piling higher with every minute, deep enough to seriously impede her car, deep enough to make the mile walk an unthinkable misery in her lightweight boots. She turned off the radio, the better to hear the sound of her tires slurring through snow. She would just have to chance making it as far as she could toward the cabin, and if she got stuck, she would lay on the horn until Kristen came. Let her bear the burden of finding some decent footwear for slogging through the rest of the way.
The trip odometer crawled toward the six-mile mark. She speeded up the wipers, peering through the curtain of snow for the entrance to the camp road. The light had leached almost entirely away by now. She tried switching her high-beams on, but the dizzying flurry of snowflakes through the field of light and the reflected glare from the snow on the road was disorienting.