A Fountain Filled With Blood

He waited until Bevin and the gorilla had decamped before taking Clare’s elbow. “You,” he said, his voice barely audible. “In the car. Now.”

“What about the dogs?”

“In the back.” He steered her toward the squad car. “I’m going to sign out with MacAuley and Durkee.” He reached through the window on the driver’s side to unlock the back doors. “Then you and I are going to have a little talk.”

Things were winding down. Dr. Scheeler was gone, the mortuary van was pulling out, and the Channel 6 news team was loading their equipment. Durkee was bent over the electrical cords running from his car to the lamps. All but a few hard-core spectators had drifted away.

“Make sure you clear out the last of those,” he said to Lyle, jerking his thumb at the remaining handful of gawkers. One of the tungsten lights blinked out, and the thicket was suddenly half-dark, heavy with mist and shadows. The pole clattered as Durkee telescoped it down. “I’m taking Reverend Fergusson home.”

“Hey, you’ve had a long day,” Lyle said, folding his arms across his chest. “Why don’t you head on home and let me take care of her? I want to go back to the station anyway, to get my report down.”

“Do you know what she did? She told that reporter it was Ingraham. And she told her he was gay. And that the other guys were gay. It’s gonna be all over the news that Millers Kill is running rampant with hate crimes. God! I could…” He wasn’t sure what he could do.

“Let me handle it, then. Give yourself a chance to calm down.”

“Oh no. I want to tell her exactly how bad she’s screwed us. When I get done, she’s not going to pick up her newspaper at the front door without running it past me first.” He exhaled.

Lyle opened his mouth and then shut it again. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah. G’night.” He stalked back to his squad car, got in, buckled up, turned on the ignition, and threw the car into reverse without saying a word. He looked over his shoulder, ignoring the woman in the passenger seat, and discovered two hairy heads blocking his rear view. “Down!” he said. The dogs whined briefly and then lowered themselves, paws pitter-pattering on the cruiser’s vinyl upholstery as they arranged themselves on the backseat. He rolled backward between two trees, turned around, and drove slowly over the grass to the park entrance. He nosed through the gates, looked both ways, then bumped the car over the curb onto Mill Street.

“Well?” Clare said. “Say something!”

“You broke your promise to me.”

“I did not!”

“Yes, you did. You stood right in front of me and promised you wouldn’t talk to the press about this.”

“That was when there were only two attacks. For God’s sake, Russ, a man has been murdered! That’s more important than some exercise in spin control.”

He turned on her at that. “Damn it! Do you really think that’s what I’m worried about? Bad press?” He snapped his attention back to the road. “You insult me.” She glanced at him and then looked down. “You think my job is about solving crimes?” he continued. “It isn’t. Solving a crime means I’ve already failed. My job is preventing crimes. And you and Sheena, Queen of the Reporters, have just made that more difficult.”

“By telling the truth?”

“Your version of the truth.”

“Oh, come off it. If you mean to tell me you still don’t think these attacks are connected, I will laugh in your face. I swear I will. It’s time to speak out, Russ. It’s past time.”

He swung the cruiser onto Main Street. “Fine! Preach against prejudice. Start a voter initiative to change the state’s constitution. Get up a gay-pride parade and march it down Main Street. I don’t care so long as you have a permit. But don’t compromise my investigation and start a panic because you’ve decided the three cases are connected!”

“I don’t need your permission to help people! And I don’t need your permission to speak out against hatefulness! If you had warned the press Saturday that someone was going around beating up gay men, maybe Bill Ingraham wouldn’t have been caught in the bushes with his pants down!”

The light at Main and Church turned red and he slammed on his brakes, throwing them both against their shoulder harnesses. The dogs barked and scrabbled against the seat for purchase. He twisted so he could look at her head-on. Her hazel eyes were glittering in the light from the dashboard and he could see patchy red spots high on her cheeks.

“Is that what you think? Is that what you really think?” His rage, which had been feeding on each exchange like a fire consuming logs, died out. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and compressed her lips. Her eyes shifted away from his. “It is,” he said, a part of him surprised at how much the realization hurt. “You think I’m responsible for Ingraham’s death.”

“No. I said he might have acted differently if…if he had been aware…” She sounded strange as she tried to backpedal. It wasn’t like her.