"Merlot," Karen said.
"For me, too." Clare glanced at the bid sheet for a weekend of sailing and catered meals at Robert Corlew's summer home on Lake George. Her eyes bugged out. "I knew we had some reasonably affluent folks here, but I didn't expect this." She kept her voice low.
"They're not all ours. Elizabeth has a ton of contacts in Saratoga, and she got the word out." Karen also spoke under her breath. An older gentleman Clare had seen at the dinner approached the table, and Clare and Karen drifted out of his way. "I was afraid with this serial killer scare on, people would be reluctant to come out at night," Karen went on. "Thank heavens it's not holding anyone back."
"Maybe folks feel there's safety in numbers," Clare said.
Hugh appeared again, brimming plastic cups in hand. "Maybe they feel there's safety in being white. I read the murders may be race-related." He handed one cup to Clare
"Read?" Karen accepted a glass. "Where?"
"Oh, there were several news sources with stories. I get Google alerts for anything containing the phrase 'Millers Kill,' did I tell you? That, and 'hot-n-sexy Episcopal priests.' "
Karen coughed out half a mouthful of wine.
"Ignore him," Clare said. "He's only a few Internet sites away from complete deviancy."
"You can leave your collar on," Hugh sang.
"Remind me to take you to the church's next General Convention. There are a number of my sister priests I'd love to introduce you to."
He sighed. "You see what I have to fight against?" he asked Karen. "I travel up here from New York, I wine her and dine her, and she's still trying to foist other women on me. I may as well wander out into the night and let myself fall victim to the Cossayuharie Killer."
"You travel to Saratoga from New York," Clare pointed out. "I'm just conveniently located. And you might have trouble locating the alleged serial killer, since the town's promised us a police presence at the dance."
"Oh, goody." She could have dehumidified the undercroft with that tone.
Karen, no slouch when it came to managing awkward social moments, smiled brightly and handed Hugh her plastic cup.
He stared at it for a half second before his usual good manners reasserted themselves. "May I freshen you up?" he asked.
"And get some for yourself," she encouraged.
"Alas, I'm not indulging. I have to drive to the Stuyvesant Inn, and"-his mouth twisted-"I have no wish to attract the attention of local law enforcement."
There was a moment of silence as Clare examined the nearby air molecules and Karen did not look at Clare.
"Of course," Hugh said, "if I could stay at the vicarage…" It was almost, but not quite, a joke. Karen, thank God, looked more amused than scandalized.
"Hugh."
He raised his hands. "Sorry, sorry." He assumed a pained expression. "She is an unassailable tower of virtue," he told Karen.
"I've been assailed once or twice in the past," Clare said.
"Yet you never sail with me."
"You're a venture capitalist. Go venture," Clare said. "Talk up the auction. Run up the bids. Loosen some purse strings."
"Sadly, the only strings I'll be loosening tonight." He took Karen's hand and squeezed it before pointing a finger at Clare. "Don't forget, I have the first dance, Vicar."
They watched him cross the floor, working the crowd.
"He's awfully nice," Karen said.
"Yes, he is," Clare said. They had met at a party three summers ago and had managed a weekend together every couple of months since then.
"He seems pretty fond of you."
"Yes, he is." He'd been pushing to move their relationship up a notch since the past fall. Nothing obnoxious, nothing that backed her into a corner. Reasonable, considering the dinners in Saratoga, the phone calls, the trips she had made to New York.
"It's so pleasant being around someone happy and uncomplicated, isn't it?"
Clare's mouth quirked. "You mean like Geoff?"
Karen sighed. "I know. I could never fall for the easy guys either." She looked at Clare. "It's always the difficult ones that get under your skin, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is." The two women looked at each other in perfect understanding.
Clare didn't know if it was Hugh's influence or not, but they topped out the silent auction almost 20 percent above projections, according to financial officer Terry McKellan's calculations. The live auction following went faster than Clare had expected, much faster, and an hour after it had started, St. Alban's was close to four thousand dollars richer and Terry and his volunteers were shooing her out of the sanctuary. "Go," Terry said. "Dance."
"I should help with the checks," Clare said, almost convincingly.
The finance officer grinned, his luxurious mustache spreading like two glossy brown wings. "Think of it as an act of mercy, then. Logging in these checks is going to be the highlight of my week. Dancing? Not so much."
She decided not to push her luck by arguing further. She slipped into her office, locked the door, and shucked off her clericals in favor of a poppy-red dress whose skinny-strapped top was balanced by yards and yards of skirt that made her look like Ginger Rogers whenever she twirled.
There was already a modest crowd across the street, diners who had skipped the auctions and dancers drawn by the free music. The sky over the mountains glowed with sunset's red and orange and pink, but the fairy lights twining the gazebo and hanging over the park were lit, twinkling like a thousand lightning bugs against the green leaves and the violet shadows. Clare stopped on the church steps, listening to the laughter and the chatter and the squeals and squonks of Curtis Maurand and his Little Big Band tuning up.
Impossible, for a moment, to believe anything bad could ever happen here.
Then a flash of tan beneath one of the cast-iron street lamps caught her eye. Their police presence. Officer Flynn, pressed and shined and looking ready to help little old ladies across the street. And the chief himself, solid, steady, every line of his body a reassurance that they were safe. Protected. Because bad things could happen here. She smiled a little. But not if Russ Van Alstyne had anything to say about it.
He turned. Saw her watching him. Her thread of wistful amusement tightened into a prickly awareness. She hadn't seen him since she'd kicked her way out of his office more than three weeks ago, swallowing bile and several bad words. For which, yes, she needed to apologize. She moved down the steps and across the walkway, conscious in every step of her skirt sliding around her legs, the warm, humid air stroking her bare shoulders, the smell of St. Alban's roses, and the heat from the street's asphalt beneath her flat-soled shoes.