A Fountain Filled With Blood

comfortable around gay guys.”

She let her knees drop back down and crisscrossed her legs again. “But Dr. Dvorak was—is—a friend of yours. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“We were friends at work. I knew who he was and what he was, but it never impinged on our relationship. He never talked about Paul, just like I never talked about my wife. The fact that he was gay was like having a friend at work who’s Jewish, or vegetarian. You know about it, but you don’t have to think about it, because what you do together never intersects with that other part of the person’s life.” He looked away, focusing on the framed and matted aeronautical sectional charts covering the wall next to Clare’s desk. “But then all of a sudden, there’s this reality—that my friend sleeps with a big bearded guy. And hangs out with the prissy innkeeper and his limp-wristed boyfriend.”

“Ron Handler is not limp-wristed.”

“He’s very obviously gay. Which made me uncomfortable. Then I meet Bill Ingraham, who I knew was gay but who never gave off a single clue, which made me even more uncomfortable.”

“Why do you think that is?”

His mouth quirked in a half smile. Her voice had the tone of a professional counselor now. He glanced back at her. He didn’t know how she managed to concentrate, listening until it seemed as active as speaking, but her focus on his words made him feel as if he could say anything and it would be okay.

“I’m a straight guy? Someone who spent twenty-five years in the army? As you yourself said, it’s not exactly a hotbed of tolerance for sexual diversity.” He snorted. “Furthermore, I was military police. And with cops, God forbid you ever touch another guy in any way except a slug in the arm.”

“You don’t strike me as someone who indulges in groupthink.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You don’t base your decisions about what you’ll believe and who you’ll be on what the people around you think.”

“No, no, I’m not saying the army made me prejudiced against gays. But I don’t feel comfortable when some guy is rubbing my nose in it.”

“Bill Ingraham didn’t rub anyone’s nose in it.”

He twitched in his seat. “I know. Which makes me worry that maybe I am prejudiced against gays. Maybe Emil Dvorak is like my trophy friend, somebody I can point to in order to prove what a cool, open-minded guy I am. And maybe somewhere inside me this…dislike, distrust, distaste of homosexuality influenced my decisions about notifying the press and warning the town.” He looked down at his hands. “Maybe all that stuff I thought I believed about businesses and outing people and copycat hate crimes was just a smoke screen, hiding what was really inside me.”

“Russ.”

He looked up at her.

“If you have enough self-awareness and insight to ask yourself these questions, I believe you’ve already proven that you didn’t act out of some deeply buried homophobia.” She opened her hands. “I’ve never known you not to confront your thoughts and feelings head-on.” Her cheeks flushed again, and he wondered if she was thinking about last Christmas Eve, the two of them in this office, him holding her tightly in his arms. He felt the tips of his ears getting hot. She smiled a little. “You are a very congruent personality, to throw out some jargon. Who you are on the outside is the same as who you are on the inside.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I thought you were wrong when you decided not to notify the press about the pattern of gay-bashing. I still think you were wrong.”

He opened his mouth. She held up one hand. “But despite my disagreement with your decision, I believe—I absolutely believe—that your motives and reasons were exactly as you stated them and that you were acting in the best interest of everyone involved.” She grinned suddenly. “And you can bet if I thought you were snarking around, I would have called you on it then and there.”

“Huh. You didn’t know how I felt about gays then.”

“Oh please. I was there at the Stuyvesant Inn, remember? I saw you with Stephen and Ron. You were like a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, as my grandmother Fergusson would have said.”

“I was?”

“Yes.” She twirled the single strand of hair around her finger and attempted to poke it into her twist. “In all honesty, I have to say there was a lot right with your decision, too. Especially if McKinley and whoever else were working their way up to attacking Bill Ingraham. You very well may have prevented those other things you were worried about—having a sort of witch-hunt for suspected homosexuals going on in the name of protecting them. You put a lot more thought into your approach than I did when I spoke with whats-her-name, that reporter—”

“Sheena.”

“Was that her name? Good Lord. What were her parents thinking of?” She paused for a moment before getting back on track. “My point is, you think about things before acting. And the way you think is well reasoned, informed by your experience and your morals. So stop worrying that you’re subconsciously in cahoots with creeps like McKinley.”

He crossed his hands behind his head and worked his shoulders into a more comfortable position against the love seat’s uneven back. “You know, it’s true. Confession really is good for the soul.” At that moment, his stomach rumbled loudly.

“Hungry?” she asked, pinching back a grin.

“Starved. You don’t—” He stopped himself before asking her if she had something to eat at home. He could barely justify being here with her in her office after hours. He’d come here on police business. He had found out what he needed to know. He had no call to invite himself into this woman’s house for a meal. Better his own abandoned kitchen and an intact marriage than a three-course dinner followed by divorce. He heaved himself out of the love seat. “You don’t have a bathroom around here, do you?”

“Down the hallway, right before you get to the parish hall.”

After he had used the facilities and washed up, he wandered back down the narrow hallway that ran from the