A Fountain Filled With Blood

Clare got the distinct feeling Ms. Landry wouldn’t mind trying, though. “The inn’s lovely,” she said. “How nice for you that it’s available for a family celebration.”

“Well, it’s been a pain to try and handle the latest owners, I can tell you.” Landry sat down in a pew, tipped the kneeler into position with one sandal-shod foot, and propped her feet up on the red velvet surface. “Fussy little pair. All these rules we have to work around. ‘No drinks in the parlor. No high heels in the music room.’ They’re trying to make it a historically correct tomb. They’ve been running it as an inn for a year, and I can’t imagine how they’re managing to stay in business.”

Clare sat down sideways in the pew in front of Landry’s, crossing her arms over the smooth, age-darkened wood. Ron Handler’s unflattering description of Peggy Landry suddenly made sense. Why hadn’t he and Stephen mentioned that Landry’s niece was one of their clients?

“It’s a shame you couldn’t have seen it in its heyday, when my grandfather was alive. It had real elegance then, and comfort, and dash. I still have quite a few family pieces at my own house.” She stretched a well-toned arm along the back of the pew. “If I ever manage to get the place back in the family, I’ll have a head start on furnishing it properly.”

Clare, who had been trying to fit Emil Dvorak, the Stuyvesant Inn, Peggy Landry, and Bill Ingraham into some sort of logical picture, snapped back to attentiveness. “You’re hoping to own the inn someday? But the new innkeepers just bought it a year or so ago, from what I understand.”

Landry snorted. “That pair are the third owners in the last decade. So far, the Landry house has proved too expensive for a summer home and too distant to be a retreat from New York City. I’m not particularly confident that it’ll be any more manageable as an inn.” She snorted. “I suppose the fact that I still refer to it as ‘the Landry house’ gives my feelings away. Up till now, I’ve never had the wherewithal to make it more than a pipe dream.”

“You must be delighted about the new spa being built,” Clare said, keeping her voice as casual as possible.

“Delighted? Yes, I suppose you could say that. It makes it sound as if it’s a piece of good fortune that happened by chance, though.” She crossed her arms over her chest, crinkling the smooth white cotton of her blouse. “I’ve worked like a dog for three years putting this thing together. Not to mention all the time before, keeping my ear to the ground, building up my capital, forgoing the income I could have made if I had done what everyone said and put a campground or a couple of rustic cabins at the site.” She smiled in a satisfied way. “I knew the potential that was there. I knew that land could be used for something much, much bigger. I played my hand out, and now I’ve got the pot, metaphorically speaking.”

“You must be worried about the protests and all. I mean, if the resort doesn’t go forward…”

“Won’t happen. I guarantee it. The protesters are just a bunch of tree-huggers blowing smoke. They have no real political clout.”

What if the head of the development company is dead? Clare thought. She absolutely did not want to be the one to break that piece of news to Peggy Landry. She cast about for an innocuous response. “Um…I confess I don’t know how it works, but what if the state looks at the site again because of this new pollution problem?”

“We’ve gotten an absolutely clean bill of health in all the site surveys up to now. I don’t expect that will change.”

Landry sounded utterly sure of her statement. Clare raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you worried that an inquiry, or recertification or whatever, would bring the development to a halt for however long the DEP was poking around? I thought Mr. Ingraham”—the name recalled the image of what she had seen in the scrub at Riverside Park, and her breath caught for a moment before she could go on—“said he would withdraw from the project if they even got involved.”

“John Opperman and I agree that’s unnecessary. We have a perfectly legal right to proceed full speed with the development, which means the bulk of the work would be done before the DEP finished with its initial evaluations here in Millers Kill. The workers are supposed to be on site today. We need to pick up the pace in order to get all the outside work done before winter.” She looked distracted for a moment and reached for her purse. “In fact, I need to speak with John.” She retrieved a cell phone. “If you don’t mind, Reverend Fergusson?”