A Fountain Filled With Blood (13 page)

“You mean it’s unheard of for someone intending murder to follow his victim around? Keep an eye on him? Scout out the best place to do it?”

Lyle looked at Russ and shrugged. “She’s got a point.”

Russ pinched the bridge of his nose. “She always has a point, trust me. Maybe we are looking at a premeditated murder.”

“Which would mean it’s tied in with the two other assaults,” Clare interjected.

“Which would mean no such thing,” Russ said, speaking more loudly. “We don’t have any indication the attacks on Emil Dvorak and Todd MacPherson were planned. In fact, they seem to be pretty clearly crimes of opportunity. Which would argue that
if
this murder is connected to the previous assaults, it’s more likely to have happened spontaneously as part of a pickup.”

“Why would Bill Ingraham come to a cold, wet park for sex?” she asked. “He’s staying in a comfortable inn run by hosts who wouldn’t blink no matter what guy he brought home with him.”

“Why do guys get trussed up in leather and let someone walk all over them with spike heels? I don’t know! That’s how they get their jollies!”

Lyle broke in: “This is getting real interesting, but if you want to see what Doc Scheeler finds, we’d better get over there now. I get a feeling the body could be bagged and slabbed before you two finish up.”

Russ sighed. He grasped Clare’s upper arms and gave her an imperceptible shake. “I don’t want you walking back to the rectory alone,” he said. “You understand? Stay here and I’ll get someone to take you home.”

“Yes, I understand,” she said, a tinge of exasperation coloring her voice: “Believe me, I don’t have any desire to go wandering off by my lonesome in the dark. Even with these two tagging along.” She glanced down at the Berns, who had risen when Clare had and now stood leaning their broad heads against her blotchy sweatpants.

“Okay.” He released her and strode toward the center of activity, Lyle matching his steps.

“You really think this might be unrelated to the previous assaults?” Lyle asked, pausing before the bushes to put his latex gloves back on.

“No.” Russ tried to tug his gloves on too quickly and got his fingers stuck. He wiggled them partway off and eased them on more carefully. “I don’t believe in coincidences. I think he was targeted. What I want to know is how.” He held an armful of wet spiny-leafed branches out of the way. He and Lyle stepped into the now partially cleared opening where Sergeant Morin and Dr. Scheeler crouched over the body in the trough.

Scheeler glanced up and nodded at Lyle. “Deputy MacAuley. And you must be…”

“Russ Van Alstyne. Chief of police. Whaddya have there?”

The medical examiner gestured with a long probe. “By the temperature, I’m going to say he died within the last two hours. There’s not enough water in here to change his lividity much. You don’t see this very often.” He delicately traced along what used to be Bill Ingraham’s neck. “Cut right through almost to the spine. He must have bled out almost instantly.”

“We were thinking a garrote.”

“Yes, I think you may be right. I’ll need to examine the edges under the microscope, of course, but it doesn’t have the shape characteristic of a knife cut.” The dead man’s hands were already encased in opaque Baggies to preserve possible unseen skin samples trapped under the fingernails. Scheeler slid a probe under one of the plastic-wrapped hands and lifted it slightly. “He had no lacerations or defensive marks here. You’d expect to see those if someone had been coming at him with a knife.” He removed the probe and lightly touched several places on the face. “And see here, and here, where the bruises are? I can’t be sure until I can examine the bone underneath, but I think he was beaten after he was dead.”

“After?” Lyle said.

“The bruises are flat, hardly diffuse at all. There’s been no swelling. Swelling happens fairly quickly to tissue while it’s alive, but it slows down markedly postmortem. I suspect he was killed quickly and then beaten.”

“Uncontrolled rage?” Lyle asked, raising his thick eyebrows at Russ.

“Or he wanted it to look like the other beatings,” Russ said. “It was a he, wasn’t it? It takes a hell of a lot of upper-body strength to pull a wire through someone’s throat.”

“Absolutely. I suppose a particularly muscular woman might have been able to accomplish the feat, but I’d lay my money on an adult male. And the wire or fishing line he used must have either been wrapped around something sturdy he could hold on to or—”

“He wore gloves,” Lyle said, completing the thought. “That’s something I’d like to find.”

“If the glove fits, you must convict,” Russ misquoted. “Can you confirm it was done here, Doc?”

“Oh, yes.” Dr. Scheeler pointed to the edge of the trough, where blood was congealing to the consistency of skim on a pudding. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he was alive when he walked in here. Once he’s in the lab, I may be able to see some markings that will tell me if he was coerced or not,” he added, forestalling Russ’s next question. The doctor unfolded himself from his crouch and stood, snapping his gloves off and pocketing them. “I’m done with the in situ examination. I should have the preliminary report to you within twenty-four hours. Toxicology will take longer—the state lab has been backed up.”

Russ peeled his gloves off and shook the medical examiner’s hand. “Thanks for getting out here so promptly.”

“It’s good to work with you. I’m just sorry it had to be under these circumstances. I know Emil Dvorak well. He’s a fine pathologist. Damned shame.”

They exited the small copse, and Russ waved the mortuary boys over to do their job. “We need to extend the tape all along here,” he said to Lyle, his arm swinging wide. “I want this line of brush gone over from the little gate down to the riverbank as soon as it’s daylight. He left one way or the other, dipping blood, maybe shucking gloves. There’s got to be something.” He caught sight of Clare, still sitting beneath a tree with the dogs. “And I need to figure out how to get Reverend Fergusson home.”

“What’s going on with you two?” Lyle asked, his voice neutral.

“Whaddya mean ‘what’s going on’? Nothing. I’m a happily married man.”

“So was I,” Lyle said. “Until I wasn’t anymore.”

Russ’s reply was cut off by a gleeful crow from Sergeant Morin, who emerged from the thicket ahead of the two mortuary attendants. “Take a look at what was under the body,” he said loudly. A damp and bloodstained piece of paper dangled between Morin’s latex-covered fingers. The tungsten lights seared the paper, popping the black lettering off the page so that even from several feet away, Russ could see the boldfaced heading: STOP BWI DEVELOPMENT NOW!

Russ closed his eyes for a moment, but the overly illuminated image of the bloody paper was there, too. “Okay,” he said, “bag it. Maybe we’ll luck out and there will be usable prints.”

Lyle sidled closer. “Your mom
is
still in the county lockup, right?” When Russ rounded on him, teeth bared, the deputy chief held up both hands in mock surrender. “Just kidding! Just kidding!”

Russ grunted. “
You
are. Whoever thinks it next won’t be. Christ, this is all I need—someone thinking I have a personal stake in the outcome of a murder investigation.”

“Oh, come on. In the first place, who’s gonna believe one of your mom’s tree-hugging friends slit Ingraham’s throat? And it’s not as if you’ve coddled them. Trust me, slinging your own mother’s butt in jail showed the world you are an incorruptible cop.”

Russ looked at him. “Thank you, Officer Friday. Now, let’s wrap up this scene and get the gawkers out of here.” He shaded his eyes against the glare of the lights and squinted toward the dwindling crowd. “Looks like Durkee has finished taking names. Get him to run the tape down to the water.” He looked at his watch. “Glens Falls Dispatch is taking our calls right now. I’m going to get them to buzz Davies and McCrea at home to let them know to come straight here when their shifts start tomorrow morning. I want you here, too.”

“That’ll put me on—”

“Overtime. I know, I know. Be here anyway.”

The slither of tires on grass and the bounce of a new set of lights made him look away. The Channel 6 news van was pulling up, just in time to get the story taped for the eleven o’clock broadcast. He shook his head. Dealing with the press was his second-least-favorite part of the job, surpassed only by presenting the department’s budget to the Board of Aldermen.

A pretty young blonde who looked more like a kindergarten teacher than a reporter slipped out of the van, followed by a gorilla of a cameraman loaded down with what must have been sixty pounds of equipment. They conferred for a minute. From the way their arms were moving, they were figuring out what he was going to shoot. Then the gorilla caught sight of Russ and Lyle and pointed at them. The reporter ducked under the tape and advanced on their position, trailed by her cameraman.

“You want me to deal with ‘em?” Lyle asked. There were only two types of cops who liked talking to the press: ambitious politicians or frustrated performers. Lyle, who once told Russ he had wanted to be Buffalo Bob when he grew up, fell in the latter group. He could spin out a “No comment” into a twenty-minute story without ever letting on it was all puffed air.

“Naw, I’ll handle it. Just button this place up fast, okay? I want to be out of here before Channel Thirteen decides this is newsworthy enough to send over a van, too.” If it were a single news outfit here tonight, he would only have to appear on TV once. After the initial photo op at the crime scene, he could usually get away with commenting to reporters over the phone.

Lyle waved an acknowledgment as he headed off to collect Durkee. The reporter pulled up in front of him and stuck out her hand. “Sheena Bevin, WTYY News. You’re Chief Van Alstyne?” Her voice was that peculiar combination of melodious and strident that all television reporters seemed to have.

He started back toward the police line. “Yep.”

She smoothed her white shirt and tugged on something clipped under her navy windbreaker. It was a microphone in a holster, which she unspooled and extended toward him. Behind and to the left of her shoulder, the camera light blazed on. “Chief, the report we got was that there was a possible homicide here tonight. What can you tell us? Who’s the victim?”

He stopped next to the yellow tape, which was shivering in a barely perceptible wind. He hoped to hell the rain would hold off. Trying to search the stretch of brush in the dark was going to be impossible; finding anything in a downpour in the morning would only be marginally less so. “We’re not releasing the name of the victim until we’ve been able to notify any relatives.”

“So it was a homicide?” Her shining blond hair seemed to gleam in interest.

He held up his hands. “Let me put what information I can give you in the proper order. At approximately nine-thirty tonight, we received a call that one of the spectators at the fireworks here had found a body. Deputy Chief MacAuley and Officer Durkee responded. Upon arriving at the scene, they secured the area and sent for Sergeant Morin, a state police forensics technician, and Dr. Scheeler, our temporary medical examiner. The victim was a middle-aged white male who was killed within an hour or so of the start of the fireworks. We are actively pursuing leads, and if anyone in the vicinity saw anything suspicious, we ask that they report it to the Millers Kill Police Department.”

“How was the victim killed?”

“I can’t release that at this time.”

“Do you have any significant evidence? Any suspects?”

“Dr. Scheeler believes there may be some excellent forensic evidence once he’s had a chance to examine the body.” The doctor hadn’t actually said that, but in Russ’s experience, all pathologists were sure they’d find something if they looked hard enough. “We have no suspects at the moment.”

“Thank you, Chief.” The camera light went out and she said, “Thanks a lot” in a more natural voice. “We want to get some establishing shots and some reactions from the witnesses. Do you mind?”

It was a pro forma question, since he didn’t have the authority to stop the press, but he appreciated the courtesy. “Just make sure you don’t cross the line. We’re still securing the scene.”

“Will do. Matt, let’s go.” There was a clunk of metal hitting metal as the gorilla shouldered his camera and followed her.

Russ ducked under the tape and jogged to his cruiser, popping open the door to reach the radio. He watched the mortuary assistants leaving the thicket. The bag boys—Lyle’s name for them—picked their way through the brush, careful not to dislodge the contents of their pallet. The mound of shiny black plastic suddenly made Russ think of the fat blood sausages his grandmother Campbell used to urge on him. The image made his stomach churn. The Channel 6 cameraman was following the body’s progress from the brush to the back of the van.

Russ gave his instructions to one of the Glens Falls dispatchers who handled Millers Kill 911 calls between 10:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. Sheena Bevin was working her way through the remaining spectators, asking questions, occasionally pulling out the little microphone. He finished up with the Glens Falls dispatcher and headed over to help Lyle and Durkee finish up.

He was a good fifteen yards away from the scene, twist-tying tape to a flexible plastic pole, when a flash of light in the corner of his eye made him look up, just in time to see the camera trained on Clare. Even from that distance, he could see her body language had changed from shocked and horrified to…well, righteous indignation was probably the right description, seeing as she was a priest. Their conversation in the hospital corridor outside the waiting room resurrected itself: Clare, arms akimbo, swearing to march on the police station if there was one more attack. “Oh,” he said. “Oh no. No, no, no.” The Reverend Clare Fergusson on a crusade was likely to say anything.

He dropped the tape and strode toward the small cluster of trees where Clare, now gesturing widely, was making her point. God, why hadn’t he put duct tape over her mouth and locked her in the squad car when he’d had the chance? He kept himself from breaking into a jog, but double-timed his steps until he was close enough to hear “lack of respect for common humanity and basic civil rights—”