A Fountain Filled With Blood (2 page)

A woman in her early seventies stood, sturdy as a fireplug and so short, her tightly permed white hair barely cleared the heads of the people sitting around her. Clare tried to see around the people sitting near the woman. She couldn’t see anyone who could be Linda Van Alstyne.

“I was saying it back in seventy and I’ll say it now: Allowing that PCB dump was a big mistake. They said it was airtight and leakproof and they waved a chunk of money in front of the town council until the aldermen rolled over and said yes. Then they put the blasted thing in the old shale quarry, even though a high school geology teacher, which you were at the time, Jim Cameron, could have told them shale was a highly permeable rock!” She turned her head to address her neighbors. “That means it leaks!”

“I protested against it, too, Mrs. Van Alstyne,” the mayor said.

Clare’s mental fog cleared away. That wasn’t Russ’s wife. “It’s his mother,” she said under her breath. Paul Foubert looked at her curiously. She felt her cheeks grow warmer.

“The state cleaned up that site in ’79,” Mayor Cameron continued. “Last tests show traces of PCB in the quarry, but they’re at acceptable levels.”

“Of course they are! The blasted stuff leaked away into the bedrock. Now along comes BWI Development and gives us the same song and dance, this time promising lots of money from the tourists and lots of jobs, and what does the Planning Board do? Roll over and hand ’em a permit to start plowing and blasting over fifty acres of Landry property. It’s been three months they’ve been working, and suddenly we find PCBs in the Dewitt Elementary playground. This stuff causes cancer, and it’s in our playground!”

“Can we just stop the hysterics and stick to the facts!” An angular blond woman stood near the front row. In contrast to the Wednesday-night casual dress of the rest of the crowd, her suit was so sharply cut, it looked bulletproof. “Before we ever started construction, we had to get a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection. It took them two years to grant it. Two years! They tested the quarry. They tested the water. They tested the damn trees, for all I know. The PCBs are at acceptable levels at the resort site.
Acceptable. Levels.
There may be more of the stuff in the river, but there’s no reason to act as if my property is some sort of Love Canal!”

“Damn it, Peggy, will you just wait your turn!”

She rounded on the mayor. “I came here tonight because I was told there was a motion to suspend construction due to the so-called PCB crisis.” She pointed toward the aldermen’s table. “My property was certified by the DEP. I have provided you with their environmental impact statements, which, if you bother to read them, clearly say the development is within parameters approved by New York State. I have also provided you with copies of our zoning approval and our construction permits. Which documents you, gentlemen, issued only six months ago!”

The mayor turned away from the microphone and leaned over the wide wooden table. The four aldermen shoved in close to hear whatever it was he was saying. They were shuffling papers like blackjack dealers. Clare nudged Paul. “Who’s the woman?” she whispered.

“Peggy Landry. She owns a huge chunk of land northwest of the town. She’s been trying to develop it for years, but she never had the wherewithal to do anything more than plow a few roads in. The only money she made off it came from paint ball groups and back-to-nature nuts. You know, people who scoff at amenities like toilets, showers, or cleared land for pitching tents.” He rolled his eyes. “She got a group out of Baltimore interested in the parcel a year or so ago. Before you came. They do spas, luxury resorts, that sort of thing. It was big news at the time because of the prospect of jobs for the town, of course. I didn’t realize they had already—”

Jim Cameron straightened up. “Application papers of Landry Properties, Inc., and BWI Development, a limited partnership,” he read from a sheaf of papers in his hand. “Okay, Peggy, the town isn’t going to suspend your construction permits.” Several in the crowd yelled angrily at this. Several others cheered. The mayor frowned. “Keep it down! Look, our lawyer tells us we don’t have the authority to stop properly permitted projects unless the state rules they are, in fact, violating DEP standards.”

“What about the possible release of more contaminants by the development?” Mrs. Van Alstyne asked. “How much of that poison is stored in the rock, waiting to be let out when they start blasting? Anything they let loose is going to wash straight down the mountain and into the town and the river!”

“Who’s going to pay for the cleanup?” someone asked from the crowd. “Seems like the Landrys will be making a pretty penny and we’ll be left holding the bill.”

Jim Cameron held up his hands. “People, if we can’t stick to the rule of order, I’m calling this whole meeting off!”

A man stood up next to Peggy Landry, who was glaring at Mrs. Van Alstyne with enough venom to have caused a lesser woman to collapse back into her seat. “Mr. Mayor? May I say a few words?”

The mayor looked pathetically grateful that someone was recognizing
Robert’s Rules.
“Yes. The chair recognizes…”

“Bill Ingraham. BWI Development.” Cameron gestured to him to continue. Ingraham was thickly set, of middle height and middle years, with the sunburnt skin of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. He looked more like a plumbing contractor than the developer of a luxury spa to Clare’s eye, but then, she had never really met any luxury spa developers. “My partner and I—stand up, John, and let the folks here get a look at you.” A smartly dressed corporate type stood, waved unenthusiastically, and vanished back into his seat. “John and I are here to create a new resort, the best cross between the old Adirondack mountain retreats and an up-to-the-minute health spa. We want to build this because we think it’ll make us a whole lot of money.” There was a snort of laughter, quickly stifled, from the crowd. “I also think it’ll make your town a whole lot of money, because we see this as a destination resort, not a place to stay overnight while your visitor heads over to Saratoga during the day. This is gonna mean money spent in your town and jobs for people who live here, year-round jobs, because this is gonna be a year-round resort.” There was a scattering of applause across the town hall. “John and I are putting our money where our mouth is in more ways than one. We’re sponsoring the Fourth of July road race this year, and we’ve got plans for a ski meet at one of the local mountains this winter. Eventually, we want to support a special event in each of the four seasons.” He rubbed his hands together theatrically. “Give those tourists a little incentive to get into town and loosen their purse strings.”

There was even more laughter than there had been applause. Ingraham paused for a moment, then went on. “I like this area. Don’t want to see it polluted any more than you do. And I’ll be frank with you. Our budget for the Algonquin Waters Resort and Spa does not include the costs of coming into compliance with the DEP. We had a run in with them once before, when we were cocontractors on a Georgia project that had PCB contamination. We’re still paying folks to dig sludge down there. It was a total loss. Now, we bought into this project based on the work Peggy had already done with the permits. So here’s how we’re gonna handle it. If you all want to call in the state to retest our site because PCB levels have been rising several miles away, go ahead. But if the ruling goes against us, we’re shutting down. In my experience, once the government gets its teeth into things, it doesn’t let go until you’ve gotten a spot cleaner than it ever was originally. We don’t have the time or money to spend the next ten years chasing down stray leaks.”

“What?” Peggy Landry turned to Ingraham, clutching his arm. “You can’t—” The rest of what she had to say was lost as she sat down, hauling him down with her.

“Huh. It’ll certainly spoil her plans if the deal falls through,” Paul said. He shook his head. “Being an Adirondack land baron just isn’t what it used to be.” Throughout the room, rule-abiding citizen waved their hands in the air and rule-ignoring ones called out questions.

Out of the corner of her eye, Clare caught the movement of the big double door swinging open. A tall man in a brown-and-tan uniform slipped through. He paused by the door, unobtrusive despite his size, and scanned the crowd. Clare quickly looked back at the front of the room, where a redhead in a nurse’s jacket was talking about the health effects of PCBs. Clare had seen Russ Van Alstyne rarely, and mostly from a distance, since last December, when they had first struck up a friendship while unraveling the mystery surrounding an infant abandoned on the steps of St. Alban’s. It had been so easy to talk and laugh and just be herself with him, without worrying about that man-woman thing, because, after all, he was married. Very married, as she had told her church secretary. It still smarted that she had been so completely unaware of her own emotions all the while. She had been Saul on the road to Damascus, oblivious until a moment’s revelation struck her and she realized she had fallen for him but good. It was embarrassing, that’s what it was. It was embarrassing and something she was going to
Get Over.

When Clare glanced back at him, he was looking straight at her. Even from across the room, she could see the summer-sky blue of his eyes glinting beneath his glasses. Her face heated up as he continued to look at her, his thin lips quirking into something like a smile. She pasted a pleasant expression on her face and gave him a small wave. He glanced next to her, frowned, and then looked back at her. He pointed and mouthed something. What? She shrugged. He pointed again, more emphatically. She raised her eyebrows and jerked a thumb toward Paul Foubert, who was absorbed in whatever the nurse was saying. Russ nodded.

“I think Russ Van Alstyne wants to speak with you,” she said.

“Hmm? The chief? Where? I didn’t know he was at this meeting.”

“He wasn’t. Wednesday’s his regular patrol night. He’s just come in.”

“You know his schedule?” Paul looked at her, bemused.

“I’m good with schedules. Natural gift. Go on.”

Paul rose with a groan. “Probably one of the Alzheimer’s patients wandered off again.”

Clare resisted the urge to follow the nursing home director, although she was unable to keep herself from swiveling around to see what was happening. Russ looked serious. Grim. Washed-out beneath the fluorescent lights, despite his tan. He removed his steel-rimmed glasses when Paul reached him, then took hold of the larger man’s shoulder, drawing him close. A thread of unease coiled through Clare’s stomach, then tightened sickeningly as Paul abruptly twisted away from Russ and sagged against the wall.

By the time Russ caught her eye again, she was out of her chair and excusing herself as she made her way down the crowded aisle. He urgently jerked his head in a summons. Paul was leaning on the town hall bulletin board, his face turned toward a pink paper announcing summer dump hours, his huge fists clenched and shaking.

“What is it?” she said quietly. “What’s wrong?”

“Emil,” Paul said. “Attacked.”

She looked up at Russ. “I don’t think I’ve met Emil before.”

He put his glasses on. “Emil Dvorak. Our medical examiner.” His thin lips flattened. “A friend of mine. He was found a while ago on Route One twenty-one. Looks like his car hit something and went off the road.” Russ pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “He was attacked. Beaten bad. He’s in the Glens Falls Hospital right now.” He tilted his head toward Paul. “Emil is Paul’s, um, friend.”

“Dear God.” Clare pressed her hand against Paul’s shoulder, then moved closer, draping her other arm across his back. “Oh, Paul, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” She had known Paul lived with someone, but he had never mentioned anyone by name in their conversations at the nursing home. She looked at Russ. “We came to the meeting together. I’ll take him to the hospital.”

“I can get there. I’m okay,” Paul said in a reedy voice, an oddly small sound coming from such a big man. Clare’s heart ached. He straightened up and looked around as if he had never seen Town Hall before.

“No. Clare’s right. You shouldn’t try to drive, Paul.” Russ ran his hand through his shaggy brown hair. “I have to stop at the station.” He looked down at Clare. “Can you find the Glens Falls Hospital?” She nodded. “Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

Russ held the door open for them as Clare steered Paul out of the meeting room. Despite the hot air rolling off the street below, she shivered as she caught Russ’s last, whispered direction: “Hurry.”

The whirling red lights of Russ’s squad car made a strobe effect with the blazing blue ambulance lights as he pulled into the emergency bay at the Glens Falls Hospital. He parked in the spot marked RESERVED FOR POLICE and left the relative cool of his cruiser for the oppressive weight of an impending thunderstorm. He strode across the blacktop and was almost to the ER’s doors when they hissed open and Clare tumbled out, hair flying away from her knot, her face drawn so that her high cheekbones and sharp nose stood out in stark relief. Her mouth opened when she saw him.

“It’s you. Thank heavens.” She grabbed the sleeve of his uniform and dragged him away from the doors. “It’s bad. They’re prepping Dr. Dvorak for a life flight to Albany.”

“Jesum. They couldn’t transfer him by ambulance?”

“No. Brain trauma. I couldn’t understand half of what the doctor was saying to Paul, but from what I gathered, every minute counts. It was awful in there, Russ. They weren’t going to let Paul go in the helicopter because he wasn’t a spouse or a blood relative. What a stupid, bureaucratic waste of time….” She pulled a hank of hair off her neck, twisted it viciously, and shoved it back into her knot. “Paul is just…well, you can imagine. Oh, I got so mad. I told them if he couldn’t go in their helicopter I would rent one and fly him myself. Jackasses.”

Russ grinned in spite of himself. “Can you afford to rent a helicopter?”

“No.” She looked up at him and grinned back. “But I think they were so taken aback at the idea of the flying priest that it inspired them to come up with another solution. Turns out Paul and Emil have medical power of attorney for each other, and we got a copy faxed over from the Washington County Hospital.” She glanced back at the ER’s doors. “I’ve got to go get the car. He’s going to be ready to transport in just a minute, and I’m driving Paul. They land the helo at the West Glens Falls fire station’s parking lot, and I haven’t the faintest idea where that is. If I don’t follow the ambulance, I’ll get lost for sure.” She laid her hand on his forearm. “You will come, won’t you?”