A Fountain Filled With Blood

“Okay,” Russ said. “That’s fine by me.” He had originally planned to question Landry and Opperman while he was going through the files, but one look at the office had told him he would need several hours just to get a grasp on what he was reading. “I understand you frequently travel back and forth for your business, Mr. Opperman.”

“That’s correct.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d stay in the tricounty area for the immediate future. I want to be sure I can reach you if anything comes up.”

Opperman didn’t even blink. “Of course.” He thrust his hand at Russ, who shook it perfunctorily. “I’ll leave you to your investigative chore, then. Contact me as soon as you have any questions.” Then he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him with a dull aluminum clank.

Three hours later, Opperman still hadn’t come back. Which probably wasn’t a loss, as Russ had been wading through the history of the project and still didn’t have any information he could use to hook a line of questioning to. If there was a money trail leading to something that stank, he sure as hell couldn’t find it. He could stand in line for one of the state’s forensic accountants—a description that conjured up an image of a guy with a scalpel and eyeshades—but their backlog of work was so huge, he’d probably be retired before they could fit this case in.

He stood and stretched, cracking his back. God, that felt good. People thought you were getting old when you couldn’t run around the way you used to. But the really depressing thing about middle age was not being able to sit as long as you used to. He checked his watch. Seven o’clock. He had called Linda an hour ago to tell her not to hold dinner, and she had gotten ticked off and told him if he couldn’t manage to get home to spend some time with her, she might as well eat out with her friend Meg. Now his stomach growled. He needed to eat something, even if only leftovers. And his brain was fried. No matter what else he read tonight, he wasn’t going to absorb it. He turned off the computer and the desk lamp, walked to the door, stumbling slightly as he shook feeling back into his legs, and let himself out.

The long shadows cast by the setting sun softened the hard angles of the construction site and turned the tangled northwoods pines into a hazy dark cloud. He cracked his back again and strode down to his cruiser, the sole remaining occupant of the parking lot. There was something tan beneath his windshield wiper. He sighed and slid it free.

It was a program, one of those things they handed out in churches. Beneath an etching of St. Alban’s Church, it read “Holy Eucharist—the Sixteenth Sunday of Pentecost.” There was a list beneath the heading, presumably stuff they did during the sixteenth Sunday of whatever: the greeting, Sanctus Spiritus, a Bible reading. He flipped it over.

The message was in bold black letters, written with a felt-tip pen in the wide margin of the program. “Please call me. It’s urgent. Clare.” She had drawn a long scraggly arrow, which pointed to an underlined sentence from one of the Bible readings: “He is near that justifieth me, who will contend with me? Let us stand together; who is mine adversary? Let him come near to me.”

“Gosh, Marty, it’s a secret code,” he said. “Let’s go to the old abandoned mine and see what’s up!” He stuffed the program into his pocket and got into the car. He felt like the Pillsbury doughboy being slid into the oven. He turned the cruiser on and cranked the air conditioning, sticking his face in front of the blast from the vent. She had some nerve, he’d grant her that. It wouldn’t get him to make a side trip out to her place, but he had to admire her willingness to come right back to him, even after last night. The car interior had cooled enough for him to sit back in his seat without sticking to it. He shifted into gear and headed down the shadow-dark road through the forest. Unless, of course, it wasn’t bravery, and she was just oblivious to what she had said. No, she knew. She had probably been wallowing in it all day, dying to make an apology. The dirt road turned onto pavement in a crunch of gravel. Sooner or later, he would get in touch with her. Let her say she was sorry, accept it in good grace. But he sure didn’t need any distractions while he was working a homicide, not to mention the two assaults. He swung onto River Road, heading into town. Besides, he didn’t want to give the impression that he put too much weight in what she said. He knew damn well he wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass if any other person in that park had accused him of lying down on the job. In fact, the only opinions that mattered to him were those of the men on his force. And his wife, of course, who cheerfully acknowledged she knew next to nothing about police work and therefore kept out of it.