One of the dogs whined and butted her with its head. She clutched at its hair, scrubbing her eyes with her other hand. “It used to scare me when I was a little kid.”
“I don’t blame you.” His hand twitched toward her, then stopped.
“It was that developer, Bill Ingraham, you know. I could tell, even with…”
“Yeah. I saw. Tell me about the gate. It was open?”
She took another deep breath. “Yes. It surprised me at the time, because it obviously isn’t used regularly. There wasn’t any path leading from it into the park.”
He glanced in the direction she had indicated. “Did you see anything as you came through the bushes there?”
“No. But I was mostly just trying to keep the branches from smacking me in the face. There wasn’t anyone there, if that’s what you mean.” She frowned, and he relaxed somewhat, seeing reason replace her sheer emotional reaction. “The dogs would have reacted if whoever did that had gone the way we came in. The smell of blood made them very nervous, and he must have been—” her face wavered for a moment, but she went on: “He must have had a lot of blood on his clothing.”
“That’s what we think, yeah. Did you see anything around the body? Anything that looked disturbed, out of place?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know. There could have been signs hanging in the trees and I wouldn’t have seen them.” She turned her face into one of the dog’s necks for a moment. “I probably messed up the area some. I remember thinking not to touch anything, but I kind of fell backward and…I was in a hurry to get away.” Her expression changed again, and he realized she was ashamed. “I didn’t even think of saying a prayer. All I thought of was getting my sorry self out of there. I didn’t stop running until I found someone with a phone, and even after she called it in, I didn’t want to go anywhere near…him.”
“Good,” he said firmly. “We don’t want you standing around praying at a crime scene. You did exactly the right thing. You got out, you reported it, and you helped us get here fast so we have a better chance of finding the bad guy.”
“Oh.” She looked down.
“When you were walking over here, did you pass anyone on the street? Anyone who seemed out of the ordinary maybe?”
“Anyone dripping gore like Banquo’s ghost? No.” She immediately waved her hand. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be flip. I passed a few people on Church and Main, but after I turned onto Mill Street, I didn’t see anything, not a person, not a car.”
“Okay, thanks.” He stood up, his knees complaining mightily. “You stay right here. I need to talk with Lyle and the crime-scene tech, and then we’ll see about getting you home.”
“How’s your mother?” she asked suddenly. “Did you ever get her out?”
“Safe and sound in the woman’s wing of the Washington County jail,” he said, “so I can rule her out as a suspect.”
“Russ! That’s a terrible thing to say about your own—” She let go of the dogs and stood abruptly, glancing around. “At the protest this afternoon. I heard something.” She looked up at him. “It was right after you had ordered the demonstrators to disperse. I was trying to leave, and as I was making my way through the crowd, I heard someone say, ‘He’s not gonna be a problem after tonight, is he?’ ”
“Uh-huh. Look, it’s common to put all sorts of ominous meanings into ordinary things when a murder—”
“Don’t make me sound like I’m a few chimes short of a clock. This voice was creepy. Threatening. It made me stop where I stood to try to see who had said it.”
He held up his hands. “Okay. I’m not saying you didn’t hear something. But even if you did, it’s not going to be of any use to us.” Lyle was walking toward them, gesturing questioningly with his arms. “There must have been two hundred people in the park at that time. Maybe more. Whoever did this could have walked right past you, me, the mayor, and Officer Entwhistle, and there wouldn’t be any way of knowing it.”
Lyle ambled up between them. “What’s up?” He bent over and scratched Bob’s head and was rewarded by a tail thump. “Doc Scheeler’s here, and Morin’s waiting with his Baggies to catch anything good. Thought you might like to sit in.”
“Yeah, I do. Reverend Fergusson didn’t see anything.”
“But I heard something,” she said.
Lyle raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “You did? Great.”
Russ shook his head. “Don’t get all excited. She heard someone with a threatening voice say, ‘He’s not gonna be a problem after tonight’ at the demonstration this afternoon. After the race.”
“Oh.” Lyle turned to Clare. “I’m sure it sounded scary, but it really doesn’t tell us anything.”
“If it
Lyle and Russ looked at each other. “Ingraham was gay?” Lyle asked. Russ nodded. “Well, that puts a different spin on things.”
“A bad pickup was the first thing that popped into my head,” Russ said to him. “Although I think Payson’s Park and out by the old cemetery are the only places we’ve chased off guys cruising before.” He frowned and swung back to Clare. “How do you know about cruising?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Russ, I didn’t spend my entire adult life locked in a seminary. When I was teaching at Fort Rucker, there was a strip where men would cruise for anonymous sex. With other men. There was a murder there, too—a young man from town. Two privates on leave picked him up and then beat him to death.” She looked from him to Lyle and back again. “But if I heard someone talking about murdering Ingraham this afternoon—”
