A Fountain Filled With Blood

Spencer-Fleming’s second cozy-cum-thriller to feature the Reverend Clare Fergusson, an ex-army helicopter pilot turned Anglican priest, is every bit as riveting as her first,
In the Bleak Midwinter
(2002).
A series of gay bashings, the discovery of PCBs in a local elementary school playground and a brutal murder heat up the Adirondack town of Millers Kill, N.Y., hotter than the July weather.
Clare, rector of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, and the very much married police chief Russ Van Alstyne, who have spent the last six months avoiding each other in hopes of dispelling their mutual attraction, find themselves working together on a perilous murder investigation.
With eloquent exposition and natural dialogue, the precisely constructed plot moves effortlessly to its dramatic conclusion. The poignant reflections of Clare and Russ as they examine their own hearts and struggle with their feelings never detract from the crime solving. Amid a host of memorable characters, Clare stands out, whether daring to drive a sports car instead of a safer four-wheel-vehicle or donning her vestments to perform the evening service of Compline in an empty church lit with candles. Not just fans of ecclesiastical mysteries will have reason to rejoice.

I would like to first thank my husband, Ross Hugo-Vidal, without whom, literally, this book could not have been written. Thanks to my thoughtful readers, Roxanne Eflin, Mary Weyer, and my mother, Lois Fleming. Thanks to my perspicacious editor, Ruth Cavin, and my inestimable agent, Jimmy Vines. Thanks to everyone who helped me with the details, especially my father, John Fleming, who let me fly his helicopter; Rachael Burns Hunsinger, for information on PCBs in the Hudson River Valley; Lt. Col. Les Smith (USA, Ret.), who taught me about falling; and the staff and clergy of St. Luke’s Cathedral, Portland, Maine, who continue to inspire me.

Finally, thanks to all the readers I met through e-mail or signings or at book group conference calls. This book exists because of you.

The yahoos came by just after the dinner party broke up. A few young punks—three or four, picked out as streaks of white in the cab and bed of an unremarkable-looking pickup. Emil Dvorak was tucking a bottle of wine under his arm and reaching to shake his hosts’ hands when he heard the horn haloowing down the Five Mile Road like a redneck hunting cry, and the truck flashed into view of the inn’s floodlights.

“Faggots!” several voices screamed. “Burn in hell!” More obscene slurs were swallowed up in the night as the truck continued past. From their run in the back, the inn’s dogs began barking in response, high-pitched and excited.

“Goddamn it,” Ron Handler said.

“Did you see the license plate this time?” Stephen Obrowski asked.

His partner shook his head. “Too fast. Too dark.”

“Has this happened before?” Emil shifted the bottle under his other arm. The inn’s outdoor spotlight left him feeling suddenly exposed, his car brilliantly illuminated, his hosts’ faces clearly visible, as his must have been. His hand, he noticed, was damp. “Have you reported it?”

“It started a couple of weeks ago,” Steve said. “Probably kids let out of high school.”

“Released from county jail, more likely,” Ron said.

“We’ve told the police. The inn’s on the random-patrol list now.”

“Not that that helps,” Ron said. “The cops have better things to do than catch gay-bashers out cruising for a good time. The only reason we got a few drive-bys in a patrol car is that the inn is bringing in the precious
turista
dollar.”

“Tourism keeps Millers Kill afloat,” Emil said, “but Chief Van Alstyne’s a good man. He wouldn’t tolerate that trash, no matter what business they were targeting.”

“I better call the station and let them know we’ve been harassed again. Thank God our guests have already retired.” Ron squeezed Emil’s upper arm. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry the evening had to end on such a sour note.” He disappeared behind the inn’s ornate double door.

Steve peered up the road. “Are you going to be okay getting back home? I don’t like the idea of you all alone on the road with those thugs out there.”

Emil spread his arms. “Look at me. I’m a middle-aged guy driving a Chrysler with M.D. plates. What could be more mainstream?” He dropped his hand on Steve’s shoulder and shook him slightly. “I’ll be fine. Anyone comes after me, I’ll break his head open with this fine Chardonnay.”

“Don’t you dare. That bottle’s worth more than you on the open market.”

Emil laughed as they made their goodnights. Tucking the bottle under the passenger seat of his Le Baron convertible, he considered putting the top back up. He sighed. He knew he was getting old when a couple of drunken kids yelling out of the darkness could make him this nervous. To hell with them. It wasn’t worth a twenty-minute struggle with the roof or missing fresh air blowing around him on a hot June night.

The high-Victorian architecture of the inn dwindled behind him as he drove east on Five Mile Road. He turned right onto Route 121, two country lanes bordered on one side by Millers Kill, the river that gave the town its name, and by dairy farms and cornfields on the other. In the dark of the new moon, the maples and sycamores lining the sides of the road were simply shades of gray on black, so the round outline of his headlights, picking out the violent green of the summer leaves, made him think of scuba diving in the Caribbean, black blinkers around his peripheral vision, gloom and color ahead.

Twin blurs of red and white darted into view, and for a second his mind saw coral fish. He blinked, and they resolved themselves into rear lights. Backing into the road, slewing sidewise. Christ! He slammed on his brakes and instinctively jerked the wheel to the right, knowing a heartbeat too late that was wrong, wrong, wrong as the car sawed around in a swooping tail-forward circle and crunched to a stop with a jolt that whipsawed Dvorak’s head from the steering wheel to his seat.

The smell of the Chardonnay was everywhere, sickening in its excess. Steve would kill him for breaking that bottle. His ears rang. He drew a deep breath and caught it, stopped by the ache in his chest. Contusion from the shoulder restraint. He touched the back of his neck. Probably cervical strain, as well. Behind him, some awful hip-hop nonsong thumped over a gaggle of voices. He turned off the engine. Better go see if anyone needed any medical attention before he took down the driver’s insurance and sued him into next week. The idiot.

A door thumped shut at the same time he heard the hard flat
thwack
of shoes or boots hitting the macadam. Glass crunched. “Look what we got!” A young man’s voice, taut with excitement. “We caught us a faggot!” Another thump, more crunching, several whoops almost drowning out the stifling beat of the bass. Dvorak’s hand froze on the door handle. The idiot. He was the idiot. He lunged for his cell phone, had the power on, and actually hit a nine and a one before the blow hit across his forearm, tumbling the phone from his grasp and making him gasp from the flaring pain. A long arm reached down to scoop the phone off the passenger seat.

There were hands on his jacket, tugging him sideways, and he watched as the cell phone arced through the edge of his headlights into the thick young corn. “Queerbait! You like to suck dick? You like little boys?” He twisted against the hands, groping for his car keys, his heart beating twice as fast as the sullen song, thinking he could still get out of this, still get away, until one of them hit him in the temple hard,
supraorbital fracture,
the part of him that could never stop being a doctor thought as his vision grayed and the key ring jingled out of reach.

In front of him, the headlights illuminated a swath of achingly green corn, cut off from the shoulder of the road by a sagging fence of barbed wire twisted around rough posts. His door was yanked open, and he wanted to think of Paul, to think of his children, but the only thing in his head was how the fence looked like the one on the cover of
Time,
like the one Matthew Shepard died on, and he was going to die now, too, and it was going to hurt more than anything.

“C’mere, faggot,” one of them said as he was dragged from his seat. And the pain began.

“This stuff is going to kill us all!”

“Why are we having this meeting? This problem was supposed to have been resolved back in ’77.”

“I want to know if my grandchildren are safe!”

The mayor of Millers Kill squeezed the microphone base as if he could choke off the rising babel with one hand. “People, please. Please! Let’s try to keep some sense of order here! I know it’s hot and I know you’re worried. Skiff and I will answer your questions the best we can. Meanwhile, sit down, raise your hand, and wait your turn.” Jim Cameron glared at his constituents until the more excitable ones grudgingly lowered themselves back into their overly warm metal folding chairs.

The Reverend Clare Fergusson, priest of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, slid sideways an inch in her own chair. She had come to her first aldermen’s meeting with the nursing director of the Millers Kill Infirmary, and though she was glad for the expert commentary, Paul Foubert was a good six four and close to three hundred pounds. Not only did he spread across his undersized chair onto hers but he also radiated heat. She pulled at her clerical collar in a useless attempt to loosen it. She was sitting next to a giant hot-water bottle on the last and stickiest night of June. In a meeting that had already gone on an hour longer than planned.

“Yes. The chair recognizes Everett Daniels.”

A gangly, balding man stood up. “Back in ’seventy six when they started making such a flap about PCBs, we were told we didn’t have anything to worry about because we were upstream from the factories in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls where they used the stuff. Are you telling us it’s now migrating up the Hudson and into Millers Kill?”

“They did find elevated levels of PCBs in our river, Everett. Obviously, water doesn’t flow backward. But we are awful close to the core contamination sites, and our river joins up with the Hudson just a couple miles from where we’re sitting. The DEP folks don’t know yet if the stuff is coming into the Kill from the wetlands or groundwater or what.”

A woman’s voice cracked through the air. “Why don’t you tell the truth? The stuff is coming from that damn storage dump we allowed in the quarry back in 1970! And that new resort development is bringing up the chemical and letting it run straight downhill into town land!”

“Mrs. Van Alstyne, I asked that everyone raise a hand to be recognized!”

Clare jerked in her seat. The only Van Alstyne she knew in town was Russ Van Alstyne, the chief of police. His wife, Linda, was supposed to be gorgeous. Clare made a futile swipe at the damp pieces of hair that had fallen out of her twist and craned her neck for a better view.