A Fountain Filled With Blood

The road to the inn ran along the river—what the early Dutch settlers had called a “kill”—through green shade and sunlight. Falling away from the water, it climbed westward through lush fields of tender-leaved corn and grazing pastures landscaped by Holsteins and Herefords, grass as trim and tight as a broadloom carpet, set off by lichen-mottled rocks and bouquets of thistles and wildflowers. The road rose and dipped, rose and dipped, until it came to a high spot and Clare saw the exuberantly painted inn, a well-maintained fantasy of Carpenter Gothic, with mauve and coral and aqua trimmings. Behind the inn, perennial beds and ornamental trees gave way to a meadow that rolled over the top of a hill and was surmounted by the first in a series of mountains, sea green and smoky in the morning sun. She pulled into the semicircular drive and was not surprised to see a Millers Kill police car already parked in the shade of one of the massive maples sheltering the dooryard.

She had barely pulled the key from the ignition when the dogs bounded out, Gal squashing Clare’s shoulder as she squeezed herself from the narrow backseat and over the door. They snuffled around the cars, the trees, and the neatly edged bed of annuals before relieving themselves against an iron hitching post and the rear tire of the squad car. “Gal! Bob! Come!” They fell in behind her as she climbed up to the wide porch and rang the doorbell.

The mahogany door opened a moment later, revealing a gray-haired man with a face as pleasantly rumpled as an unmade bed. “Hello, can I—Why, Bob! And Gal! Hi there!” The dogs abandoned Clare to butt their heads against the man’s knees. “Come in, come in,” he said, trying to scratch the dogs’ heads and offer his hand to Clare at the same time. “I’m Stephen Obrowski.” He swung the door wider and stepped back into a wide hallway papered in velvet flock and furnished with chairs and tables that were so ugly, she knew they must be authentic Victoriana.

The dogs pushed past Obrowski, their toenails clicking on the polished wooden floor. “Thank you. I’m Clare Fergusson, the rector at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church.” She reflexively fingered the clerical collar attached to the neckline of her shift, then noticed that the linen dress now resembled mohair, with great quantities of white dog hair sticking out every which way.

“Please, come on back to the kitchen. We were just talking with Chief Van Alstyne about last night. Poor Emil. It’s unbelievable. You read about these things, but when it’s someone you know…”

Clare followed him down the long hallway, through an alcove formed by a spindle-banistered stairway, and into a kitchen that was mercifully not true to the period. Russ was standing next to a stainless-steel cooking island, polishing his glasses with a tissue. He looked up as they came in, eyes vague and out of focus. An attractive man in his mid-thirties was pouring coffee into chunky ceramic mugs. He had the look of a German skier—lean, tan, blond. She wouldn’t be surprised if his name was Hans or Ulf. “This is Ronald Handler, chef extraordinaire. Ron, this is the Reverend Clare Fergusson. And I take it you two know each other?” he said, looking at Russ.

Russ replaced his glasses and tucked the tissue in his pocket. “Yup. What brings you out here, Reverend?”

Before she could open her mouth, the dogs muscled open the door and swarmed into the kitchen, tails whipping like rubber hoses, tongues hanging, mouths drooling. Ron Handler stepped to a curtained door tucked away to the left of a large commercial range. “Gal! Bob! Out!” He opened the door and the Berns galloped out into the sunshine.

“Bob?” Russ said.

“Coffee?” Handler offered, tilting the pot toward Clare.

“Please. So have you found anything new? Do you know what happened last night?”

Obrowski picked up his mug and blew across the steaming surface. “We were just telling the chief. We had a small dinner party last night—just us, Emil, Samuel Marx, and Rick Profitt. Samuel and Rick are staying with us. They’re up from New York City.”

Handler handed Clare a mug. “They own a travel agency. They send us a ton of business.”

“We put it together very spontaneously, because it was a free night in what’s otherwise a pretty busy season for us. I don’t see how anyone who might have been intending to hurt Emil could have known about it.”

Russ shifted his weight. “Your other guests, Marx and Profitt. Did they know Emil beforehand?”

“No,” Obrowski said. “And they both retired before Emil left. They didn’t even realize we had had a drive-by.”

“Maybe Chief Van Alstyne thinks they shimmied down the drainpipe in the rear and went after Emil while we were distracted washing up,” Ron said. “Like in one of those British murder mysteries on PBS.”

Russ ignored this and continued looking at Obrowski. “Anyone else invited who didn’t show? Did you tell any vendors, any delivery people?”